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lihikainanea · 7 months

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I know you have had a little writers block and not much time to write but in case this can inspire more tiger and Bill hear goes. So Bill is working on a movie that is a mess. He took the job because because he really loved the director, but lets so with rewrites and other politics that director quit. Bill was still in a contracted he could not easily get out out and he did not want to quit something he had already put work into.

Filming finally started back up with a new script and he was doing his best to make his character believable. But his neppo-baby co-star was not helping. Of course he was also considered a neppo-baby by the US press but he did not think he was not a brat like this woman. She wanted to change things in the script. She wanted special foods and no one could talk to her unless she was officially on set. He could not even get her to go over lines or how he could respectfully touch her during scenes since they were playing a couple.

He of course talked though things with Tiger as much as he thought he could but this was a very tough shoot. He would come home late and only get about 6 hours before having to be back on set.

His mind is wheeling one night when he has to do a love scene with this awful girl the next day. Tiger calms him enough for him to fall asleep. His brain has other ideas to fix the thoughts he has about the next day. He dreams of actually having an affair with awful girl. And the sex is just....he wakes in cold sweat. He was moaning in his sleep and he can not even look at Tiger. And boy does he not want to go to work that day either.

Ohhhhh I like this.

Look, I mean, with how many films actors do--every once in awhile, they must work with fellow castmates that they just hate. Abhor. Their hatred is so thinly veiled that it's incredibly palpable to the crew onset, but thankfully things rarely ever make it to the press because of NDAs and big ass scary lawyers and the like. But every once in awhile--we, the ever little-seeing public--we get wind of it. Think Don't Worry Darling. The drama surrounding that production, for the so many reasons it seems to entail, was just--unf, chef kiss to those of us that still love the thrill of a little celebrity drama.

And I'm sure Bill, in all of his perfectionist nature, was also hated on a few sets. His perfectionist nature. His insistence on trying the scene 100 different ways, for 100 different takes, until he was satisfied. Not everyone performs to that calibre nor do they hold themselves accountable to such lofty expectations as that big swedish talking tree, but that's just who he is. That's how he works.

But y'know, I'd even venture to say that it's quite rare that Bill actually likes his castmates and fellows actors he works with. That's not to say that he hates their guts--not at all. But rather he's just pretty...ambivalent about the whole thing. Neutral. He's the Switzerland of film sets. He's a pretty private person in general, a pretty guarded individual, and for him this is a job. Onscreen chemistry is far more important than actual chemistry in this line of work, and he's able to separate the two. He can have great onscreen chemistry with someone that he's not super friendly with, and he doesn't feel any inclination to add the to the inner workings of his closest social circle. Beers after a long day on set is one thing, the occasional celebratory dinner, gifts for the make up and costume crew. Getting to know everyone on a first name basis. But beyond that, Bill is more than happy to go back to his trailer between takes, or go back to his apartment at the end of the day, and cook dinner with tiger or have drinks with some of his friends who flew out to spend a few days with him.

And on that note, he's probably had to work with a lot of actors that he really doesn't like. People who either take themselves way too seriously (Bill thinks method acting is the most ridiculous fucking thing anyone could ever do), or the opposite--people who don't take this seriously at all. And if you call Bill a nepo baby to his face you'll likely be tackled violently from stage left by tiger--but it's also why he's ultra sensitive about those nepo baby actors who don't have any talent, and don't even have the work ethic to build it up.

It's still like pulling teeth to get Bill to admit that his laast name opened up a few doors for him, but he'll also be the first to admit that his initial acting jobs weren't....uh, they weren't great. But he worked at it, he honed his craft, he worked his ass off, and now nobody can say the opportunities he's gotten have been handed to him.

But y'know, the thought of nepotism--well, it doesn't really bother some people.

And maybe on a recent film set, Bill is living in his version of hell. His love interest in the film is a girl in her young to mid-twenties, the type who grew up with two famous parents and all of a sudden decided she wanted to act--so roles were handed to her. Bill's not quite sure how she even got the job given how their chemistry read went, with Bill nearly glaring daggers at her the whole time. She's just the type of person he can't stand. She's loud about everything. She comes with an entourage to everything. It's always over the top, all the time. She never learns her lines. She doesn't give him anything to work with in a scene, reciting her lines like a robot and not leaving anything to improv, natural reactions. She needs a million takes for one scene--not because she's a perfectionist--but because she forgot her lines, or didn't listen to the notes the director gave her. Bill is pretty convinced this entire film could have shot in half the time if she'd just be a little bit of a fucking professional about it.

The whole thing irks him at first, then just pisses him right the hell off shortly after. She's late for the call time, when the other actors are sitting in the transport car well before the ass crack of dawn waiting for her to come out her house. She comes into the makeup trailer blasting her music and yelling along with her entourage, while Bill is reviewing his scene changes and trying to get his head into his character for the day--they knock over his coffee, get in everyone's way, and just never shut the fuck up. Her friends--and her--are all filming all the time, and Bill spends most of his time between takes trying to dodge ending up on someone's instagram or tiktok.

But y'know, it's just so pitifully ironic that the only scene this girl is keen to rehearse--a little too keen, actually--are any of the kissing scenes, or the sex scenes. And with one scheduled in just a few days time, this little nepo baby has been all over Bill trying to find proper times--evenings, of course, with a little wine to loosen up--for them to uh, practice. Bill's gag reflex has been barely contained.

And like, tiger bears the brunt of his rants at the end of every filming day. Whether it's 2AM or 2AM or anywhere in between, he always FaceTimes her when he wraps the day and tiger always thinks that vein in his neck is real damn close to bursting.

"She just...she doesn't get it tiger," he rants, pausing to take a drag of his cigarette, "This is a fucking joke to her. This is my job, my profession, and it's a fucking joke to her."

"Has anyone told her?" she asks, "Maybe she needs to be called out on it."

"Her dad's studio is partially funding this one," Bill exhales, the camera shaking as he continues to walk.

"You're fucked then," tiger smiles sadly. Bill just makes a frustrated noise before continuing to rant for the next hour.

And like, maybe tiger goes to visit him on set right? And she's not it before, the whole rehearsing an upcoming steamy scene with him--but wait wait, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

So, tiger visits him on set and sees firsthand what a fucking nightmare this girl is. Tiger spends most of her time in his trailer but somehow, she still has to dodge what feels like a million cameras all linked to a hundred different kinds of social media, all from her entourage. They ain't shy about questions that are none of their damn business either--shit like who she is, how she knows Bill, what she's doing there.

"I'm his bodyguard," she cracks, except tiger is kind of scary when she's pissed off and she's not really blinking so suddenly the gaggle of girls don't really know what to think.

In any case, tiger can definitely see why Bill has been so pissed off lately. Everything is a joke to this girl, she doesn't take anything seriously, and suddenly she's just real excited about the scenes coming up in a few days.

"We should practice tonight!" she says gleefully, as both her and Bill are sitting in the makeup trailer getting all un-done after the day. Tiger quirks a brow from the back of the room where she's playing with one of the other actor's dogs.

"No thanks," Bill says immediately.

"You can come by, I'll get some wine, we can loosen up."

"No," he says again.

"We need to rehearse," she continues, "We need to practice."

"I've had enough practice."

And thankfully one of the make up artists--tiger makes a note to give her a big hug after--one of the make up artists sees every single hair on Bill's neck stand up.

"Bill, sorry--can you stop talking? It's getting the make up caught in the creases and making it hard to remove," she says kindly. Bill gives her a wide smile.

"Sure, sorry," he says softly.

And that's the end of that.

But like, look. It's plain as day. Bill is chainsmoking. He didn't sleep that night, he just rants and rants at how repulsed he is, and how much he's dreading the next 1.5 weeks worth of scenes. Tiger does her best to distract him--keeps his whisky glass full, hell she even gets him in the sauna and sucks his soul out from his dick just to try and get his mind off it. But the sun rises the next morning as much as we sometimes wish it wouldn't, and Bill has to go to work.

I'll be waiting for you in your trailer bud," tiger says reassuringly, "Remember, you can take as many breaks as you need."

But y'know, here's the thing. Bill is getting through it, because he's a goddamned professional. Is he having fun? No. Does he hate every second of it? Yes. But it's not that. It doesn't take him long to figure out that this girl...she's purposely fucking up the scenes, just so they have to do them again. And again. And again. The scene where he has to push her up again a wall, rip her shirt open, and kiss the hell out of her? Somehow, that scene took the entire day to shoot. 57 takes.

The actual sex scene, him on top of her, both of them wearing nothing but tiny little pasties? Somehow, that took two entire days to shoot. More than 100 takes.

On any set that Bill has been on, things like that could usually be shot in anywhere from 4-6 takes--maybe half a day, depending on lighting and equipment needs.

Bill was livid. He drew the line initially and demanded a closed set, after she brought her entire entourage to watch that day. It took a lot of negotiating, but Bill wasn't budging on it.

And every single day that Bill went to set and have to film that, when he'd get home--man, he took it out on tiger. The poor girl was ravaged. Bill just needed her, needed to completely wreck her, just to get the taste and feel and everything of that other pain in the ass as far away from him as possible.

But y'know, Bill's mind is a cruel place.

And maybe its triggered by something small. He has a long day on set so tiger goes shopping, and when he comes back to his rented apartment she has some stuff strewn everywhere and Bill spots a shirt on the bed. His blood boils.

"What the fuck is this?" he marches over to it, holding it up.

"It's....my new shirt?" tiger says cautiously, "I thought it was cute."

"Get rid of it tiger," he snaps. He grabs his lighter from his pocket, flicking it open and holding it to the shirt.

"Okay whoa," tiger jumps, grabbing the shirt from him, "Easy bud. What's going on."

"She has this shirt," he seethes, "I don't ever want to see it on you."

"Ah," tiger says, "Right. You won't see it again bud."

"Promise?" he puts the lighter away.

"Promise.

But it's enough to just...kickstart some part of Bill's brain that should have stayed dormant. And that night, he drifts off to sleep with tiger in his arms and his thumb in her mouth--except he dreams of her. And it's ~spicy~. A stupid ass, unreasonable sex dream that felt really good. Amazing sex, actually, and from the noises he was making tiger wasn't sure if he was in pain or having the time of his life but the piece of plywood digging in to her back gave her a small inclination.

That is, until he woke up and all but shoved her away with enough force that she almost went tumbling off the bed.

"Bill!" she shrieked, but he was already scratching at his skin and lightly smacking his own face.

"No no no no no," he muttered, "No no no god fuck no."

"Bud?"

His eyes snap to hers and they're wild, pupils huge, his hair sticking up all over the place and his chest heaving.

"You," he says, out of breath, "Here. Now."

"What--"

"Now."

And tiger doesn't have time to do anything before two long arms wrap around her waist and haul her up with force, slamming her into his chest.

"Fuck me," he growls into her neck.

"What?" tiger's still trying to get her wits about her because a second ago she was asleep and comfy and now this wild ass enraged beast has his hands all over her and she can't quite keep up.

A hard spank lands on her ass and she squeals a little, but then he has his fist balled in her hair and his teeth biting at her neck.

"Fuck me," he growls again, "Fuck me into next fucking week."

"Bill, what the hell is going--"

But then suddenly she's in the air, and then she's pinned under his body as he looms--big and scary and totally wild--above her.

"Tiger, I just had a dream about her," he snaps, "And now you need to get it the fuck out of my head so that I never have to see it again. So I'm only going to ask you one more time."

He yanks her head back, licking up her neck before biting down hard on her earlobe. His other hand cups her harshly through her panties and she gasps.

"Fuck me," he growls.

Tiger is all too happy to oblige.

#bill skarsgard #bff!bill #bill skarsgard drabble #bill skarsgard fanfic #bill skarsgard fic #bill skarsgard fanfiction #bill skarsgard fiction

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chamomileteainabuttercup · 2 years

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I find it a little bit odd when people write Steddie posts as if the way Steve and Eddie interact onscreen is something the actors made up and pulled off without the Duffers’ knowledge or against their wishes, because that’s not really how making a TV show works. I don’t know if it’s just a humorous exaggeration because it’s fun to feel like it’s all subversive and stuff, but like, when people talk about how much of Eddie’s characterisation comes from Joseph Quinn’s choices about body language and facial expressions and tone of voice and touches of improvisation (“big boy”), how little of that is in the bare bones of the episode scripts that have been released, I mean, that’s what actors are hired to do. They help bring the character to life in those ways and unless the production is going really badly they’re doing it in collaboration with the writers, directors and so on (the same thing in the case of the Duffers), rather than working against them.

There are limits to how much they can work against them, anyway; the main example that comes to mind from my own fandoms is from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine when Alexander Siddig hated the choice to make his character Julian Bashir secretly genetically augmented, because he felt it drastically retconned what had already been established about the character, and that it was an attempt to make Julian more popular by giving him traits of a much-loved character, Data, as if he wasn’t good enough as he was, and it just pissed him off a lot, but the most he was able to do about it was to try to say Julian’s lines about it in a rather flat and uninteresting way.

We already know that the Duffers originally wrote Steve as a true asshole who was going to sexually assault Nancy and die. Based almost entirely on Joe Keery’s vibes they took him in a completely different direction. I obviously don’t think every writing decision they make is right (they killed off Eddie for goodness’ sake, and what the heck is up with the pacing of the last two episodes and that two day time lapse, and what are they trying to do with poor little Will, and where is Dr Owens supposed to be now?), but that was an outstandingly good choice that led to one of the most popular and lovable characters they’ve got. They let actors do this stuff. I suspect they encourage it. Robin’s lesbianism pretty much came from Maya Hawke’s suggestions! She was originally supposed to have a genuine crush on Steve! Presumably making Eddie all sweet and goofy and flirtatious came from Joseph Quinn in a similar way and he was permitted to do it. If “big boy” wasn’t okay with them they wouldn’t have used that take. If it was a problem that the actors kept staring at each other’s lips while talking, they’d have been told “his eyes are up here.”

I’m not attempting to argue that the romantic/sexual subtext between Steve and Eddie was an intentional choice by the Duffers for which they should be given credit, because I don’t think it rises to that level, but I do think it’s clearly not something they minded or that the actors somehow snuck in. That’s all.

#steddie

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mytly4 · 2 years

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After the crapfest that was Game of Thrones seasons 5–8, I initially had no intention of watching House of the Dragon. I took no interest in all the hype leading up to its release and had only the vaguest idea about the casting and other such behind-the-scenes stuff, and that too, I learnt only passively, i.e. because I followed people on tumblr who posted about such stuff. But once the show started airing, I found myself flooded with a whole bunch of discussions, gifs, and metas on social media, and most of what I saw seemed overwhelmingly positive. So I decided to check it out … and was pleasantly surprised. Like, really surprised! It’s not just ‘not bad’, it’s actually good!!

HotD is one of those extremely rare beasts: a book-to-screen adaptation that actually improves on the source material! Ok, so some of that is because the source material is sort of lacking. One of GRRM’s main strengths as a writer in ASOIAF is his command over the limited-third-person-POV style that allows him to get into the heads of such a vastly different range of characters. But the story of the Dance of the Dragons (in all its iterations, i.e. in The Princess and the Queen + The Rogue Prince, The World of Ice and Fire, and Fire and Blood) is not in this style. It’s in the pseudo-historical style, written by biased masters writing centuries after the fact – a style that does no favours to the characters (even when the fictional authors try to paint certain characters in a good light). So it was really great to see HotD giving considerable depth to characters like Alicent, Rhaenyra, Viserys I, etc. who are mainly two-dimensional in the source, despite being some of the main characters. It’s also nice to see relationships being given more depth, such as Rhaenyra and Alicent starting off as friends and then slowly becoming enemies as their personal lives and political alliances pull them apart. Changes such as this – or another of my favourites, the depth given to Rhaenyra and Laenor’s relationship and the much better ending Laenor gets – are excellent examples of how a screen adaptation can improve the source material enormously with just a few tweaks.

Apart from the improvements to the source material, it’s great to see just how much better this show is even than GoT seasons 1–4*, in terms of visual worldbuilding. Sure, some of this is undeniably because HotD is working with a much larger budget than at least the first couple of seasons of GoT (i.e. before it became a media juggernaut). But a lot of it is just because the people working on HotD – from writers and directors to set and costume designers – seem to be much more interested in portraying how the people and places in a medievalesque court would look and how the people would spend their time. The beautifully embroidered clothes, the rich brocades (in a variety of colours! – something that GoT somehow never managed to depict), the gorgeous wall paintings and tapestries, the unusual objects in Corlys Velaryon’s hall… visually, this show is a delight. (The lighting still leaves a lot to be desired, though… *sigh*.) People actually do ordinary, daily stuff, like read in their bedroom (or in the godswood), hang out with their kids, indulge in their own hobbies, entertain guests, dance at a party, and so on. It’s such simple stuff, but it makes the characters seem like actual human beings, who have lives beyond what we see of them onscreen.

*(I refuse to consider GoT seasons 5–8 as serious attempts at making a TV show. The last season, in particular, was literally just a naked attempt at raking in as much money as possible while getting away with as little work as possible on the part of the showrunners/writers. Even the people with actual talent, i.e. the actors, the set and costume designers, etc. were just phoning it in by that point.)

Of course, all of this praise doesn’t mean that HotD is above criticism. In one way, it seems to have doubled down on GoT’s flaws, with every episode so far showing people being injured and/or killed in horribly gruesome ways (IMO, Vaemond Velaryon and Joffrey Lonmouth’s deaths are tied for the prize of ‘most horrifying onscreen death ever’). At least GoT managed to space out its gore a bit. And unfortunately, HotD is going to only get worse, once the actual war starts.

Then there are the deaths in childbirth, GRRM’s favourite misogynistic trope, dialled up to eleven, with Aemma Arryn’s horrifying C-section in the first episode, to Laena Velaryon’s death by dragonfire during childbirth (something that I wouldn’t have even thought possible). I get that these deaths were necessary plotwise, but couldn’t they have been done less viscerally? While Aemma’s death in childbirth makes sense in terms of the overarching themes of the show, there was no reason for Laena to die in childbirth. Why not change her death to something else entirely? If she needed a ‘dragon rider’s death’, why not have her die fighting on dragonback?

Oh well, despite these issues, I am cautiously optimistic about this show. It’s excellent so far in terms of characterization and visual storytelling, and the casting seems to be pretty good. I assume by now (i.e. season 1, episode 8) we’ve met all the actors who’ll be playing the final version of the main characters (except presumably Aegon III and Viserys II – they seem to be too young so far to play any role, so presumably they, or at least Aegon III, will be played by older kids later on).

A few random thoughts:

I guess Daeron the Daring has been left out of the show? I’m not particularly bothered – there are already a lot of characters, and he’s the most expendable one from among the younger generation.

How many seasons is this show going to be anyway? I assume around 3–4 seasons, going by the speed of the narrative so far. But that depends on what endpoint they choose. I guess the Hour of the Wolf is the most logical endpoint, though it’s possible they may stretch out the story (or change the order of the events) all the way till the end of Aegon III’s regency, or at least till Alicent’s death.

Ramin Djawadi’s music is always a delight, but I do wish the theme song had been changed at least slightly, instead of being the exact same as GoT’s theme song. It’s not the same show – why use the same theme song?

#house of the dragon #anti game of thrones #fire & blood spoilers #hotd #hotd review

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roberttchase · 2 years

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The Brettsey breakup, which happened over the phone, pisses me off more as a Matt fan than a Brettsey fan right now because it feels like they just haven't given Matt and the fans any closure.

10x05 was a shitty goodbye for the longest OC character at that point and the person who started CF and One Chicago; they used long distance to keep and bait the fans (also used it for Kara because they eventually knew she would need a few episodes off), they brought Jesse/Matt back for the Stellaride wedding, and they didn't have an onscreen breakup. Finally, they had the audacity to have Sylvie break up with him over the phone. I am just annoyed.

I think all of us our pretty annoyed and disappointed. Jesse was the reason I started the show. Thanks to him, I realized I wanted to be an EMT. I went and got certified. The show means a LOT to me.

While I don't agree with the writers, season 10 was hard. Not a year prior Jesse said he would never leave the show. Flash forward to the filming break between s9 and s10. Jesse decides he wants to leave so he can (assumedly) be with his wife and newborn child. I get it. He's been on some kind of television program for almost half his life, 18 years. Consecutively. That's a hard thing to deal with. He's never really had a chance to just relax and be a husband. It's absolutely justified, and I'd never disagree with his decision.

But the writers were put in a tough spot. They had just gotten Brettsey together, a ship that I personally thing EVERYONE agreed would last, they wrote it as such. But then Jesse said he was leaving, so they had to scramble to figure out what to do in only six episodes. Could they have gone with a slightly more believable story line? Of course. But they also had presumably written some of the first few s10 episodes, and any kind of change would affect the entire cast and script, not just Matt and Sylvie. Making him move is probably the most logical way to not have to rewrite every single thing. Any kind of injury/death would have had a huge impact.

I think once they realized Brettsey wasn't going to be able to be a thing anymore, they were at a loss. Because let's be realistic. As a fan of the show (avid or just a regular viewer) watching a ship you've been invested in become one sided completely, that's not entertaining anymore. From the writers and creators view, that ultimately means losing viewers and ratings going down. Because Brettsey was 1 of 2 major ships, and Matt was one of four major people in the show. That loss is significant.

Any chance of re-boosting ratings would have to come from the breakup so they can make Sylvie get another love interest. Do I agree with it? No. But love interests are something regular viewers enjoy. The reason they didn't have Matt and Sylvie break up in the last episode of season 10 was simply that. Boosting viewers. If we all knew for sure Brettsey wasn't going to happen, how many of us would have actually tuned into the new season? I'm not saying I wouldn't completely, because Stellaride will always be top tier too, but again. I'm a Matt fan. So knowing Jesse wouldn't be there, and knowing they broke up?

Ultimately, the decisions made were purely for profit and viewership. It does suck. But I get it.

Did they do Brettsey wrong? Yes. Did they do Matt wrong? Yes. Did they throw away characterization? Absolutely. Am I angry? Of course. But it's just a show, and when it comes down to it, writes, directors and creators will do whatever it takes with what they have to work with, to keep viewers, even if it means sacrificing characterization.

I hope this all makes sense. It's so thrown together and probably super confusing. Ooops.

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hmpolar · 2 years

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Never back down

While Sony Pictures Home Entertainment are releasing the film on home video, they didn’t go for the Blu-ray format here. This is a bare bones release all the way. And the fact that White himself is a total package of on screen charisma, incredible martial arts talent, and a competent and capable director and writer, make him an indispensable presence in the modern action movie landscape. This kind of talent and ethic should be rewarded on any budget scale. What White is able to do is take all those limits and restrictions into account and then cast them aside and make the best and most entertaining movie possible with the resources he has. But if you’re a fan of fight films and low budget action movies, these are elements you’ve learned to live with and may even have come to expect. There’s some janky editing going on here, plenty of flat performances, and lots of the shortcomings that mini-budget films frequently suffer from. This is a hard working Hollywood talent whose budgets may be low, but who gives this film everything he’s got and succeeds on every level. The fact that White himself has proven to be much like his on screen character is equally potent. When living by his code backs Walker into a corner, watching him fight his way out provides an enormously satisfying conclusion. Helping train James for a title fight with Caesar Braga (fight film giant Nathan Jones aka Mad Max: Fury Road’s Rictus Erectus) brings them around the globe to Thailand, which adds a production value to the film and also likely helped keep the budget low as well. A good and loyal friend to his co-lead Brody James (Josh Barnett), a famous fighter who is in the Rocky IV excess stage of his fighting career, Case brings the discipline and loyalty James desperately needs. Walker is the kind of hero Bruce Lee would have been proud to see on screen. He’s the archetypal wandering hero brought to life by a proudly Black man, which is not something to take lightly in today’s cinematic landscape where talent of color work so hard to get the roles they so rightly deserve and which so often go to white males.

While I’m at it, I’d just like to add that it’s wonderful to see an onscreen hero like Case Walker, an African American man who is the best at what he does, who teaches others, who is humble and honest. The film follows all the conventions of a typical fight film, but those very elements become convention because of how satisfying they can be when done right. A cinematic fantasy that is equal parts wholesome and brutal, captured on a minimal budget, but with the eye of a talented fight choreographer and cinematographer. By abandoning a lot of the structure of the previous films and simply tacking on the Never Back Down franchise name, White is given an opportunity to display some of the themes and philosophies that really make him tick as a person. That may sound like hyperbole when talking about a DTV martial arts film, but I’m prone to shining a light on this underappreciated niche of cinema. As writer/director/star/unbelievable physical specimen, Michael Jai White further cements his bona fides and really treads a path very few get to walk. With Never Back Down 3, White not only returns to the director’s chair, but also serves as a writer alongside Chris Hauty, who also penned the previous two. There also seems to have been an adherence to the structure of the original film which held it back quite a bit. I don’t remember a lot of the specifics of that film, but the addition of real world MMA fighters to the cast was probably the sales pitch for the film, and it hamstrung the acting. He’s a noble warrior type who trains and coaches another cast beefy whiper snappers to victory. Miyagi, and the legal troubles are not his fault. Even so, his Case Walker character took a bit of a backseat as a trainer with a troubled legal history. With the second film, White took over directing duties and starred in the film. The mall metal accompanying the trailer kind of says it all.

Sold as an EXTREME version of The Karate Kid set in some kind of high school underground MMA ring, Djimon Honsou and Amber Heard support a cast of douchey looking white kids duking it out. White’s presence was my inroad to the franchise, and based on the trailer for the first film I stand by my disinterest in it. Never Back Down: No Surrender: Never Stop Never Stoppingīut in all seriousness, I love Michael Jai White and this third entry in the redundantly titled fight film franchise is the best that I’ve seen (meaning the better of the two White entries).

#Never back down

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filmsrus · 2 years

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FILM NARRATIVE CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

PROCRASTINATION - C3

DIRECTOR: Oliwia (me)

DOP + PRODUCER: Saskia

WRITER + 1st AD: Joe

1st AC + COWRITER: Niahm

SOUND RECORDIST, EDITOR, SOUND DESIGNER: Jack

Procrastination is a film about the reality of grief, or rather how grief causes a loss of reality. Aurelia is still grieving her late boyfriend, Bradley, when a co-worker, Dominic, asks her on a date. The conflict of the film takes place between Aurelia and Bradley in Aurelia's mind, represented by a dark hallway with doors bursting open with memories as she struggles to leave the comfort of Bradley. Bradley tells her to go, and as he is merely a manifestation of her mind, she comes to terms with the fact that she wants to move on.

Our tutors did wonder whether our location was right but like in this post, we explained how the hallway represented her mind and the doors were memories.

The most interesting part of our feedback for me was the suggestion of making Dominic the onscreen presence instead of Bradley, which was our original plan as explained in this post. However, we chose to reverse the power dynamic, as stated in this post, as Aurelia is not present in reality in our film. She lives in her mind in the comfort of Bradley’s memory. She gives people like Dominic blunt responses and traps herself in her thoughts. Therefore, to her, Bradley is more real than Dominic.

The longshot in the hall with Aurelia’s hair in focus instead of Bradley was awkward and lingered for much too long. We did have more options but thought that this one built suspense, however, I don't think that it worked in our favour.

One of our tutors suggested we could’ve went bigger with Aurelia’s exit from the room to better explain that she was only imagining leaving by beginning the formalism with this scene. I had initially wanted to do something along the lines of this scene from Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, 1:00-1:10 but was stuck on the logistics of it and eventually gave up on it. I now wish I had asked for help in figuring it out as it would’ve added so much to the film.

Zoe’s feedback focused on our sound design. We had a strong beginning and it came off as unfinished or fearful, and she suggested that we should’ve had more ambitious sound such as the sound following Aurelia to the hallway or the one that came after her almost mentioning Bradley’s headstone. I think that our sound design ended up jarring at times due to the fact that there was little going on besides the big sound effects.

What really resonated with me was Paul’s comment at the end. As intense as crits can be, I would never miss one and it is exactly for the reason Paul gave us. Films made to a high standard merit feedback at the same level, and I believe me and my classmates are making films that deserve genuine constructive criticism.

My role in Procrastination was director. I submitted the 1st group update blogpost and made the storyboard then kept our group up to date on Tumblr by posting all of our progress regularly. I have pinned a contents page to the top of my blog for easy access. Jack did amazingly but he had a lot on his plate as the sound recordist, editor and sound designer. Therefore, I went into the Screen Academy after he made the first draft with notes and helped him. I then returned as he was finishing up sound design and we finished it together that day as mentioned in this post.

Something I really appreciated about our group was how strong everyone’s contribution was, however I do wish I had been more organised and confident during the first shoot. I really love directing and genuinely think I am a good director, however, me and the producer could have done more to ensure we were more organised the first day of the shoot as we shot for almost 10 hours and still did not have enough coverage, therefore meriting the second shoot a week later. I feel as though I was much more confident during the second shoot after spending a week working on a grad film and learning from them. I covered the shooting process in this post.

Next time, no matter my role, I will ensure that we have a schedule to keep to during the shoot to ensure efficiency and coverage. I have learned the importance of blocking as well, to see what works on camera and how to capture a scene well before shooting.

I always stay for the entire crit to both watch my classmates’ films and support them, as well as learn from their feedback. A lot of the notes I took during the crit revolved around other productions.

Focusing on a character instead of the overall action is more meaningful. It is often tempting, especially in such a short film to pack it with dialogue and information when allowing a close up reaction shot could add a lot more to a scene.

When introducing a character in a crowd of people, by showing them to the audience repeatedly before they are established as the protagonist with actions or dialogue, the audience will then speculate on their importance and will be much more enticed to keep watching.

Establishing shots are another undervalued means of exposition, which we entertained with the keybaord shot but could have taken further.

When filming comedies, which is something I would like to try, establish a sense of humour and stick to it and make it big. Establishing the humour is part of the world building, therefore all jokes must make sense in that world.

Use swearing sparingly in such short films, and check if it makes sense by imagining the scene without swearing then with.

I am very proud of our work. I do still have that nagging feeling when watching it that we could have done more, but I know that that feeling is often unavoidable. I appreciate our feedback and can't wait to use it all in the next production I work on.

#filmnarrative2

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transgenderteensurvivalguide · 3 years

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“Elliot Page doesn’t remember exactly how long he had been asking.

But he does remember the acute feeling of triumph when, around age 9, he was finally allowed to cut his hair short. “I felt like a boy,” Page says. “I wanted to be a boy. I would ask my mom if I could be someday.” Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page visualized himself as a boy in imaginary games, freed from the discomfort of how other people saw him: as a girl. After the haircut, strangers finally started perceiving him the way he saw himself, and it felt both right and exciting.

The joy was short-lived. Months later, Page got his first break, landing a part as a daughter in a Canadian mining family in the TV movie Pit Pony. He wore a wig for the film, and when Pit Pony became a TV show, he grew his hair out again. “I became a professional actor at the age of 10,” Page says. And pursuing that passion came with a difficult compromise. “Of course I had to look a certain way.”

We are speaking in late February. It is the first interview Page, 34, has given since disclosing in December that he is transgender, in a heartfelt letter posted to Instagram, and he is crying before I have even uttered a question. “Sorry, I’m going to be emotional, but that’s cool, right?” he says, smiling through his tears.

It’s hard for him to talk about the days that led up to that disclosure. When I ask how he was feeling, he looks away, his neck exposed by a new short haircut. After a pause, he presses his hand to his heart and closes his eyes. “This feeling of true excitement and deep gratitude to have made it to this point in my life,” he says, “mixed with a lot of fear and anxiety.”

It’s not hard to understand why a trans person would be dealing with conflicting feelings in this moment. Increased social acceptance has led to more young people describing themselves as trans—1.8% of Gen Z compared with 0.2% of boomers, according to a recent Gallup poll—yet this has fueled conservatives who are stoking fears about a “transgender craze.” President Joe Biden has restored the right of transgender military members to serve openly, and in Hollywood, trans people have never had more meaningful time onscreen. Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling is leveraging her cultural capital to oppose transgender equality in the name of feminism, and lawmakers are arguing in the halls of Congress over the validity of gender identities. “Sex has become a political football in the culture wars,” says Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU.

(Full article with photos continued under the “read more”)

And so Page—who charmed America as a precocious pregnant teenager in Juno, constructed dreamscapes in Inception and now stars in Netflix’s hit superhero show The Umbrella Academy, the third season of which he’s filming in Toronto—expected that his news would be met with both applause and vitriol. “What I was anticipating was a lot of support and love and a massive amount of hatred and transphobia,” says Page. “That’s essentially what happened.” What he did not anticipate was just how big this story would be. Page’s announcement, which made him one of the most famous out trans people in the world, started trending on Twitter in more than 20 countries. He gained more than 400,000 new followers on Instagram on that day alone. Thousands of articles were published. Likes and shares reached the millions. Right-wing podcasters readied their rhetoric about “women in men’s locker rooms.” Casting directors reached out to Page’s manager saying it would be an honor to cast Page in their next big movie.

So, it was a lot. Over the course of two conversations, Page will say that understanding himself in all the specifics remains a work in progress. Fathoming one’s gender, an identity innate and performed, personal and social, fixed and evolving, is complicated enough without being under a spotlight that never seems to turn off. But having arrived at a critical juncture, Page feels a deep sense of responsibility to share his truth. “Extremely influential people are spreading these myths and damaging rhetoric—every day you’re seeing our existence debated,” Page says. “Transgender people are so very real.”

That role in Pit Pony led to other productions and eventually, when Page was 16, to a film called Mouth to Mouth. Playing a young anarchist, Page had a chance to cut his hair again. This time, he shaved it off completely. The kids at his high school teased him, but in photos he has posted from that time on social media he looks at ease. Page’s head was still shaved when he mailed in an audition tape for the 2005 thriller Hard Candy. The people in charge of casting asked him to audition again in a wig. Soon, the hair was back.

Page’s tour de force performance in Hard Candy led, two years later, to Juno, a low-budget indie film that brought Page Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and sudden megafame. The actor, then 21, struggled with the stresses of that ascension. The endless primping, red carpets and magazine spreads were all agonizing reminders of the disconnect between how the world saw Page and who he knew himself to be. “I just never recognized myself,” Page says. “For a long time I could not even look at a photo of myself.” It was difficult to watch the movies too, especially ones in which he played more feminine roles.

Page loved making movies, but he also felt alienated by Hollywood and its standards. Alia Shawkat, a close friend and co-star in 2009’s Whip It,describes all the attention from Juno as scarring. “He had a really hard time with the press and expectations,” Shawkat says. “‘Put this on! And look this way! And this is sexy!’”

By the time he appeared in blockbusters like X-Men: The Last Stand and Inception, Page was suffering from depression, anxiety and panic attacks. He didn’t know, he says, “how to explain to people that even though [I was] an actor, just putting on a T-shirt cut for a woman would make me so unwell.” Shawkat recalls Page’s struggles with clothes. “I’d be like, ‘Hey, look at all these nice outfits you’re getting,’ and he would say, ‘It’s not me. It feels like a costume,’” she says. Page tried to convince himself that he was fine, that someone who was fortunate enough to have made it shouldn’t have complaints. But he felt exhausted by the work required to “just exist,” and thought more than once about quitting acting.

In 2014, Page came out as gay, despite feeling for years that “being out was impossible” given his career. (Gender identity and sexual orientation are, of course, distinct, but one queer identity can coexist with another.) In an emotional speech at a Human Rights Campaign conference, Page talked about being part of an industry “that places crushing standards” on actors and viewers alike. “There are pervasive stereotypes about masculinity and femininity that define how we’re all supposed to act, dress and speak,” Page went on. “And they serve no one.”

The actor started wearing suits on the red carpet. He found love, marrying choreographer Emma Portner in 2018. He asserted more agency in his career, producing his own films with LGBTQ leads like Freeheld and My Days of Mercy. And he made a masculine wardrobe a condition of taking roles. Yet the daily discord was becoming unbearable. “The difference in how I felt before coming out as gay to after was massive,” says Page. “But did the discomfort in my body ever go away? No, no, no, no.”

In part, it was the isolation forced by the pandemic that brought to a head Page’s wrestling with gender. (Page and Portner separated last summer, and the two divorced in early 2021. “We’ve remained close friends,” Page says.) “I had a lot of time on my own to really focus on things that I think, in so many ways, unconsciously, I was avoiding,” he says. He was inspired by trailblazing trans icons like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, who found success in Hollywood while living authentically. Trans writers helped him understand his feelings; Page saw himself reflected in P. Carl’s memoir Becoming a Man. Eventually “shame and discomfort” gave way to revelation. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” Page says, “and letting myself fully become who I am.”

This led to a series of decisions. One was asking the world to call him by a different name, Elliot, which he says he’s always liked. Page has a tattoo that says E.P. PHONE HOME, a reference to a movie about a young boy with that name. “I loved E.T. when I was a kid and always wanted to look like the boys in the movies, right?” he says. The other decision was to use different pronouns—for the record, both he/him and they/them are fine. (When I ask if he has a preference on pronouns for the purposes of this story, Page says, “He/him is great.”)

A day before we first speak, Page will talk to his mom about this interview and she will tell him, “I’m just so proud of my son.” He grows emotional relating this and tries to explain that his mom, the daughter of a minister, who was born in the 1950s, was always trying to do what she thought was best for her child, even if that meant encouraging young Page to act like a girl. “She wants me to be who I am and supports me fully,” Page says. “It is a testament to how people really change.”

Another decision was to get top surgery. Page volunteers this information early in our conversation; at the time he posted his disclosure on Instagram, he was recovering in Toronto. Like many trans people, Page emphasizes being trans isn’t all about surgery. For some people, it’s unnecessary. For others, it’s unaffordable. For the wider world, the media’s focus on it has sensationalized transgender bodies, inviting invasive and inappropriate questions. But Page describes surgery as something that, for him, has made it possible to finally recognize himself when he looks in the mirror, providing catharsis he’s been waiting for since the “total hell” of puberty. “It has completely transformed my life,” he says. So much of his energy was spent on being uncomfortable in his body, he says. Now he has that energy back.

For the transgender community at large, visibility does not automatically lead to acceptance. Around the globe, transgender people deal disproportionately with violence and discrimination. Anti-trans hate crimes are on the rise in the U.K. along with increasingly transphobic rhetoric in newspapers and tabloids. In the U.S., in addition to the perennial challenges trans people face with issues like poverty and homelessness, a flurry of bills in state legislatures would make it a crime to provide transition-related medical care to trans youth. And crass old jokes are still in circulation. When Biden lifted the ban on open service for transgender troops, Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che did a bit on Weekend Update about the policy being called “don’t ask, don’t tuck.”

Page says coming out as trans was “selfish” on one level: “It’s for me. I want to live and be who I am.” But he also felt a moral imperative to do so, given the times. Human identity is complicated and mysterious, but politics insists on fitting everything into boxes. In today’s culture wars, simplistic beliefs about gender—e.g., chromosomes = destiny—are so widespread and so deep-seated that many people who hold those beliefs don’t feel compelled to consider whether they might be incomplete or prejudiced. On Feb. 24, after a passionate debate on legislation that would ban discrimination against LGBTQ people, Representative Marie Newman, an Illinois Democrat, proudly displayed the pride flag in support of her daughter, who is trans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, responded by hanging a poster outside her office that read: There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.

The next day Dr. Rachel Levine, who stands to become the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate, endured a tirade from Senator Rand Paul about “genital mutilation” during her confirmation hearing. My second conversation with Page happens shortly after this. He brings it up almost immediately, and seems both heartbroken and determined. He wants to emphasize that top surgery, for him, was “not only life-changing but lifesaving.” He implores people to educate themselves about trans lives, to learn how crucial medical care can be, to understand that lack of access to it is one of the many reasons that an estimated 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide, according to one survey.

Page has been in the political trenches for a while, having leaned into progressive activism after coming out as queer in 2014. For two seasons, he and best friend Ian Daniel filmed Gaycation, a Viceland series that explored LGBTQ culture around the world and, at one point, showed Page grilling Senator Ted Cruz at the Iowa State Fair about discrimination against queer people. In 2019, Page made a documentary called There’s Something in the Water, which explores environmental hardships experienced by communities of color in Nova Scotia, with $350,000 of his own money. That activism extends to his own industry: in 2017, he published a Facebook post that, among other things, accused director Brett Ratner of forcibly outing him as gay on the set of an X-Men movie. (A representative for Ratner did not respond to a request for comment.)

As a trans person who is white, wealthy and famous, Page has a unique kind of privilege, and with it an opportunity to advocate for those with less. According to the U.S. Trans Survey, a large-scale report from 2015, transgender people of color are more likely to experience unemployment, harassment by police and refusals of medical care. Nearly half of all Black respondents reported being denied equal treatment, verbally harassed and/or physically attacked in the past year. Trans people as a group fare much worse on such stats than the general population. “My privilege has allowed me to have resources to get through and to be where I am today,” Page says, “and of course I want to use that privilege and platform to help in the ways I can.”

Since his disclosure, Page has been mostly quiet on social media. One exception has been to tweet on behalf of the ACLU, which is in the midst of fighting anti-trans bills and laws around the country, including those that ban transgender girls and women from participating in sports. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says he will sign such a bill in the name of “protect[ing] young girls.” Page played competitive soccer and vividly recalls the agony of being told he would have to play on the girls’ team once he aged out of mixed-gender squads. After an appeal, Page was allowed to play with the boys for an additional year. Today, several bills list genitalia as a requirement for deciding who plays on which team. “I would have been in that position as a kid,” Page says. “It’s horrific.”

All this advocacy is unlikely to make life easier. “You can’t enter into certain spaces as a public trans person,” says the ACLU’s Strangio, “without being prepared to spend some percentage of your life being threatened and harassed.” Yet, while he seems overwhelmed at times, Page is also eager. Many of the political attacks on trans people—whether it is a mandate that bathroom use be determined by birth sex, a blanket ban on medical interventions for trans kids or the suggestion that trans men are simply wayward women beguiled by male privilege—carry the same subtext: that trans people are mistaken about who they are. “We know who we are,” Page says. “People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”

Even if Page weren’t vocal, his public presence would communicate something powerful. That is in part because of what Paisley Currah, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, calls “visibility gaps.” Historically, trans women have been more visible, in culture and in Hollywood, than trans men. There are many explanations: Our culture is obsessed with femininity. Men’s bodies are less policed and scrutinized. Patriarchal people tend to get more emotional about who is considered to be in the same category as their daughters. “And a lot of trans men don’t stand out as trans,” says Currah, who is a trans man himself. “I think we’ve taken up less of the public’s attention because masculinity is sort of the norm.”

During our interviews, Page will repeatedly refer to himself as a “transgender guy.” He also calls himself nonbinary and queer, but for him, transmasculinity is at the center of the conversation right now. “It’s a complicated journey,” he says, “and an ongoing process.”

While the visibility gap means that trans men have been spared some of the hate endured by trans women, it has also meant that people like Page have had fewer models. “There were no examples,” Page says of growing up in Halifax in the 1990s. There are many queer people who have felt “that how they feel deep inside isn’t a real thing because they never saw it reflected back to them,” says Tiq Milan, an activist, author and transgender man. Page offers a reflection: “They can see that and say, ‘You know what, that’s who I am too,’” Milan says. When there aren’t examples, he says, “people make monsters of us.”

For decades, that was something Hollywood did. As detailed in the 2020 Netflix documentary Disclosure, transgender people have been portrayed onscreen as villainous and deceitful, tragic subplots or the butt of jokes. In a sign of just how far the industry has come—spurred on by productions like Pose and trailblazers like Mock—Netflix offered to change the credits on The Umbrella Academy the same day that its star posted his statement on social media. Now when an episode ends, the first words viewers see are “Elliot Page.”

Today, there are many out trans and nonbinary actors, directors and producers. Storylines involving trans people are more common, more respectful. Sometimes that aspect of identity is even incidental, rather than the crux of a morality tale. And yet Hollywood can still seem a frightening place for LGBTQ people to come out. “It’s an industry that says, ‘Don’t do that,’” says director Silas Howard, who got his break on Amazon’s show Transparent, which made efforts to hire transgender crew members. “I wouldn’t have been hired if they didn’t have a trans initiative,” Howard says. “I’m always aware of that.”

So what will it mean for Page’s career? While Page has appeared in many projects, he also faced challenges landing female leads because he didn’t fit Hollywood’s narrow mold. Since Page’s Instagram post, his team is seeing more activity than they have in years. Many of the offers coming in—to direct, to produce, to act—are trans-related, but there are also some “dude roles.”

Downtime in quarantine helped Page accept his gender identity. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” he says.

Page was attracted to the role of Vanya in The Umbrella Academy because—in the first season, released in 2019—Vanya is crushed by self-loathing, believing herself to be the only ordinary sibling in an extraordinary family. The character can barely summon the courage to move through the world. “I related to how much Vanya was closed off,” Page says. Now on set filming the third season, co-workers have seen a change in the actor. “It seems like there’s a tremendous weight off his shoulders, a feeling of comfort,” says showrunner Steve Blackman. “There’s a lightness, a lot more smiling.” For Page, returning to set has been validating, if awkward at times. Yes, people accidentally use the wrong pronouns—“It’s going to be an adjustment,” Page says—but co-workers also see and acknowledge him.

The debate over whether cisgender people, who have repeatedly collected awards for playing trans characters, should continue to do so has largely been settled. However, trans actors have rarely been considered for cisgender parts. Whatever challenges might lie ahead, Page seems exuberant about playing a new spectrum of roles. “I’m really excited to act, now that I’m fully who I am, in this body,” Page says. “No matter the challenges and difficult moments of this, nothing amounts to getting to feel how I feel now.”

This includes having short hair again. During our interview, Page keeps rearranging strands on his forehead. It took a long time for him to return to the barber’s chair and ask to cut it short, but he got there. And how did that haircut feel?

Page tears up again, then smiles. “I just could not have enjoyed it more,” he says.”

#suicide m #transphobia m #Elliot Page #transgender #representation #celebrities #actors #tv #movies #rep #trans #transmasculine #nonbinary #queer #long post

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uomo-accattivante · 3 years

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Excellent article about bringing a re-make of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage to fruition, and the twenty-year friendship that Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain share:

There were days on the shoot for “Scenes From a Marriage,” a five-episode limited series that premieres Sept. 12 on HBO, when Oscar Isaac resented the crew.

The problem wasn’t the crew members themselves, he told me on a video call in March. But the work required of him and his co-star, Jessica Chastain, was so unsparingly intimate — “And difficult!” Chastain added from a neighboring Zoom window — that every time a camera operator or a makeup artist appeared, it felt like an intrusion.

On his other projects, Isaac had felt comfortably distant from the characters and their circumstances — interplanetary intrigue, rogue A.I. But “Scenes” surveys monogamy and parenthood, familiar territory. Sometimes Isaac would film a bedtime scene with his onscreen child (Lily Jane) and then go home and tuck his own child into the same model of bed as the one used onset, accessorized with the same bunny lamp, and not know exactly where art ended and life began.

“It was just a lot,” he said.

Chastain agreed, though she put it more strongly. “I mean, I cried every day for four months,” she said.

Isaac, 42, and Chastain, 44, have known each other since their days at the Juilliard School. And they have channeled two decades of friendship, admiration and a shared and obsessional devotion to craft into what Michael Ellenberg, one of the series’s executive producers, called “five hours of naked, raw performance.” (That nudity is metaphorical, mostly.)

“For me it definitely felt incredibly personal,” Chastain said on the call in the spring, about a month after filming had ended. “That’s why I don’t know if I have another one like this in me. Yeah, I can’t decide that. I can’t even talk about it without. …” She turned away from the screen. (It was one of several times during the call that I felt as if I were intruding, too.)

The original “Scenes From a Marriage,” created by Ingmar Bergman, debuted on Swedish television in 1973. Bergman’s first television series, its six episodes trace the dissolution of a middle-class marriage. Starring Liv Ullmann, Bergman’s ex, it drew on his own past relationships, though not always directly.

“When it comes to Bergman, the relationship between autobiography and fiction is extremely complicated,” said Jan Holmberg, the chief executive of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation.

A sensation in Sweden, it was seen by most of the adult population. And yes, sure, correlation does not imply causation, but after its debut, Swedish divorce were rumored to have doubled. Holmberg remembers watching a rerun as a 10-year-old.

“It was a rude awakening to adult life,” he said.

The writer and director Hagai Levi saw it as a teenager, on Israeli public television, during a stint on a kibbutz. “I was shocked,” he said. The series taught him that a television series could be radical, that it could be art. When he created “BeTipul,” the Israeli precursor to “In Treatment,” he used “Scenes” as proof of the concept “that two people can talk for an hour and it can work,” Levi said. (Strangely, “Scenes” also inspired the prime-time soap “Dallas.”)

So when Daniel Bergman, Ingmar Bergman’s youngest son, approached Levi about a remake, he was immediately interested.

But the project languished, in part because loving a show isn’t reason enough to adapt it. Divorce is common now — in Sweden, and elsewhere — and the relationship politics of the original series, in which the male character deserts his wife and young children for an academic post, haven’t aged particularly well.

Then about two years ago, Levi had a revelation. He would swap the gender roles. A woman who leaves her marriage and child in pursuit of freedom (with a very hot Israeli entrepreneur in place of a visiting professorship) might still provoke conversation and interest.

So the Marianne and Johan of the original became Mira and Jonathan, with a Boston suburb (re-created in a warehouse just north of New York City), stepping in for the Stockholm of the original. Jonathan remains an academic though Mira, a lawyer in the original, is now a businesswoman who out-earns him.

Casting began in early 2020. After Isaac met with Levi, he wrote to Chastain to tell her about the project. She wasn’t available. The producers cast Michelle Williams. But the pandemic reshuffled everyone’s schedules. When production was ready to resume, Williams was no longer free. Chastain was. “That was for me the most amazing miracle,” Levi said.

Isaac and Chastain met in the early 2000s at Juilliard. He was in his first year; she, in her third. He first saw her in a scene from a classical tragedy, slapping men in the face as Helen of Troy. He was friendly with her then-boyfriend, and they soon became friends themselves, bonding through the shared trauma of an acting curriculum designed to break its students down and then build them back up again. Isaac remembered her as “a real force of nature and solid, completely solid, with an incredible amount of integrity,” he said.

In the next window, Chastain blushed. “He was super talented,” she said. “But talented in a way that wasn’t expected, that’s challenging and pushing against constructs and ideas.” She introduced him to her manager, and they celebrated each other’s early successes and went to each other’s premieres. (A few of those photos are used in “Scenes From a Marriage” as set dressing.)

In 2013, Chastain was cast in J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year,”opposite Javier Bardem. When Bardem dropped out, Chastain campaigned for Isaac to have the role. Weeks before shooting, they began to meet, fleshing out the back story of their characters — a husband and wife trying to corner the heating oil market in 1981 New York — the details of the marriage, business, life.

It was their first time working together, and each felt a bond that went deeper than a parallel education and approach. “Something connects us that’s stronger than any ideas of character or story or any of that,” Isaac said. “There’s something else that’s more about like, a shared existence.”

Chandor noticed how they would support each other on set, and challenge each other, too, giving each other the freedom to take the characters’ relationship to dark and dangerous places. “They have this innate trust with each other,” Chandor said.

That trust eliminated the need for actorly tricks or shortcuts, in part because they know each other’s tricks too well. Their motto, Isaac said, was, “Let’s figure this [expletive] out together and see what’s the most honest thing we can do.”

Moni Yakim, Juilliard’s celebrated movement instructor, has followed their careers closely and he noted what he called the “magnetism and spiritual connection” that they suggested onscreen in the film.

“It’s a kind of chemistry,” Yakim said. “They can read each other’s mind and you as an audience, you can sense it.”

Telepathy takes work. When they knew that shooting “Scenes From a Marriage” could begin, Chastain bought a copy of “All About Us,” a guided journal for couples, and filled in her sections in character as Mira. Isaac brought it home and showed it to his wife, the filmmaker Elvira Lind.

“She was like, ‘You finally found your match,’” Isaac recalled. “’Someone that is as big of a nerd as you are.’”

The actors rehearsed, with Levi and on their own, talking their way through each long scene, helping each other through the anguished parts. When production had to halt for two weeks, they rehearsed then, too.

Watching these actors work reminded Amy Herzog, a writer and executive producer on the series, of race horses in full gallop. “These are two people who have so much training and skill,” she said. “Because it’s an athletic feat, what they were being asked to do.”

But training and skill and the “All About Us” book hadn’t really prepared them for the emotional impact of actually shooting “Scenes From a Marriage.” Both actors normally compartmentalize when they work, putting up psychic partitions between their roles and themselves. But this time, the partitions weren’t up to code.

“I knew I was in trouble the very first week,” Chastain said.

She couldn’t hide how the scripts affected her, especially from someone who knows her as well as Isaac does. “I just felt so exposed,” she said. “This to me, more than anything I’ve ever worked on, was definitely the most open I’ve ever been.”

“It felt so dangerous,” she said.

I visited the set in February (after multiple Covid-19 tests and health screenings) during a final day of filming. It was the quietest set I had ever seen: The atmosphere was subdued, reverent almost, a crew and a studio space stripped down to only what two actors would need to do the most passionate and demanding work of their careers.

Isaac didn’t know if he would watch the completed series. “It really is the first time ever, where I’ve done something where I’m totally fine never seeing this thing,” he said. “Because I’ve really lived through it. And in some ways I don’t want whatever they decide to put together to change my experience of it, which was just so intense.”

The cameras captured that intensity. Though Chastain isn’t Mira and Isaac isn’t Jonathan, each drew on personal experience — their parents’ marriages, past relationships — in ways they never had. Sometimes work on the show felt like acting, and sometimes the work wasn’t even conscious. There’s a scene in the harrowing fourth episode in which they both lie crumpled on the floor, an identical stress vein bulging in each forehead.

“It’s my go-to move, the throbbing forehead vein,” Isaac said on a follow-up video call last month. Chastain riffed on the joke: “That was our third year at Juilliard, the throb.”

By then, it had been five months since the shoot wrapped. Life had returned to something like normal. Jokes were possible again. Both of them seemed looser, more relaxed. (Isaac had already poured himself one tequila shot and was ready for another.) No one cried.

Chastain had watched the show with her husband. And Isaac, despite his initial reluctance, had watched it, too. It didn’t seem to have changed his experience.

“I’ve never done anything like it,” he said. “And I can’t imagine doing anything like it again.”

###

#oscar isaac #jessica chastain #scenes from a marriage #hagai levi #michelle williams #elvira lind #behind the scenes #article

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lokiondisneyplus · 3 years

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Loki director Kate Herron’s heart was beating fast. She’d already had some surreal experiences during her short time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so a simple phone call shouldn’t make her nervous. But on the other end of the line was Owen Wilson, an actor and writer she admired and hoped would join her on a time-jumping journey through the MCU.

“It was the most detailed pitch I’ve ever done, to an actor, ever. I pretty much spoke through the entire first episode with him,” Herron recalls of wooing Wilson, who wasn’t too familiar with Marvel before being cast as Mobius, an agent for the mysterious Time Variance Authority central to the series.

Wilson instantly put Herron at ease with his laid-back charm as she walked the actor through 10 years of onscreen lore for Loki, the god of mischief played by Tom Hiddleston. She answered his questions about Avengers: Endgame, about time travel, about how this version of Loki was not the one fans knew from films like Thor: Ragnarok, but rather one plucked from an alternate timeline from 2012’s The Avengers.

It was all part of a whirlwind few years for Herron, who not that long ago was temping at a fire extinguisher company and struggling to land directing work even though she’d already helmed a BBC project with Idris Elba. Then Herron finally achieved breakthrough success directing episodes of the Netflix hit Sex Education and soon was hounding her agents for a Marvel meeting.

When Herron finally landed one, the Loki superfan cleared her schedule and spent two weeks putting together a 60-page document, even though her agents tempered her expectations by noting it was just a meet-and-greet.

“I knew I’d be up against some really big directors, and I knew I wouldn’t be the most experienced in the room, so I [said], ‘OK. I’ll just be the most passionate,'” recalls Herron.

Just a few days after officially landing the job, Herron found herself on a five-hour walk through New York with Hiddleston discussing Loki and flying to D23 in Anaheim to be greeted by thousands of screaming fans alongside Loki head writer Michael Waldron.

Herron is now working long days finishing up Loki in Marvel’s production hub in Atlanta, where the British filmmaker has largely lived since getting the job in 2019. Over Zoom from her freezing Atlanta apartment (she still hasn’t figured out the quirks of the air conditioner), Herron dives into Loki ahead of its June 9 debut on Disney+.

What was your process of sitting down with Marvel for this?

I was just so overexcited. [My agents] were like, “Look, it’s just a casual conversation, they just want to get a sense of you,” and basically I was like, “OK, I’m just going to pitch them.” Because I thought, they might not meet me again. So I got as much information as I could, and they sent me a little bit about the show. And I just prepared a massive pitch for it. I canceled everything for two weeks. I made a 60-page document full of references, story ideas, music. I knew I’d be up against some really big directors, and I knew I wouldn’t be the most experienced in the room, so I [said], “OK. I’ll just be the most passionate.”

Was that first meeting in Burbank?

That was in England, in southeast London on Zoom. I had a few stages where I did that. Then after a few interviews with Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard, two of the Marvel executives who got me ready for the big match, I went in to pitch to Kevin Feige, Victoria [Alonso], Lou [Louis D’Esposito], the whole team there. That was very surreal because they flew me to Burbank and I pitched at Marvel Studios. I didn’t have the job, but I found out they were interested and then I remember Kevin Feige called me, and when he was in London, we had coffee. He was like, “Look, we want you to direct it.” Oh my God. They flew me to D23 and that was crazy because I think I found out I got the job 48 hours before, and then I was onstage. The Lady and the Tramp dogs were in front of me and Michael [Waldron] on the red carpet. “What is going on?” (Laughs.) I met Tom that week as well, so it was a bit of a whirlwind kind of thing.

📷Herron, Waldron and Feige at D23 in 2019.

Where did you first meet Tom?

I had a two-stop trip. I flew first to New York to meet Tom. He was in Betrayal at the time, on Broadway, so we basically went on this amazing walk around New York. I’d never met him before. We just spoke about Loki and what was really important to us about the character and where we thought it would be fun to take him, as well. It was this intense, five-hour conversation with him basically. I met him and then flew straight from meeting him to D23. So it was a lot. (Laughs.)

When did you finally get the scripts? How did that change your thoughts on what you want to do?

They sent me the outline, so I knew the overall story. I also was pitching stuff. “Oh, we could do this with this character.” The pilot was really well written by Michael and I really liked what they were doing with the character and the story. Then it was building upon that and throwing in ideas for where he could go later in the show. It reminded me a bit of improv where you’re always building, always trying to push the story to the best place. So we were always adapting and shifting the story. Our lockdown, during COVID, was a chance for us to go back in. I was cutting what we’d done, so I was like, “OK, this is tonally what is really working for the story.” Then we went back into what we hadn’t filmed and started adapting that stuff to fit more where we were heading.

The Marvel movies have a writer on set to help tweak things. Was that the case with Loki?

Michael [Waldron] was with us at the start, and then he went on to Doctor Strange [in the Multiverse of Madness]. We had a really wonderful writer called Eric Martin from our writers room, and he was our production writer on set. It was between me, him and my creative producer Kevin Wright. We would kind of brainstorm and adapt. I’ve always loved talking to the cast. We had such a smart cast. Owen is a writer as well. If you have that amazing resource, why not talk to them? We were always adapting. Obviously paying respect to the story we wanted to tell from the start, but always trying to make it better.

📷Herron on the set of ‘Loki’ with Hiddleston and Wilson.

Kevin Feige has said Owen Wilson, like his character, is nonplussed by the MCU. Since Owen isn’t necessarily dazzled by Marvel, does that make him all the more perfect for this role?

He is playing a Loki expert, so at the beginning of production, Tom and I were talking. He devised this thing called Loki School. He did a big lecture to the cast and crew. I love the character. This is a decade of fans loving this character and where that character has been. It was talking everyone through that, but through Tom and his own experiences. Stunts that Tom liked or costumes. He ended up doing that same Loki school for Owen. Owen absolutely loved it. Owen has such a writer’s brain. I remember I had to pitch him down the phone. My heart rate [was up].

Was this the pitch to get him to get Owen on board?

Yeah. I love his work. “Oh my God, I’m going to talk to Owen Wilson.” He’s so laid back and nice, it immediately puts you at ease. It was the most detailed pitch I’ve ever done, to an actor, ever. I think I pretty much spoke through the entire first episode with him. You can tell he’s a writer, just by the way he attacks story. His questions about the world and the structure and the arc of the character. It was really fun to work with him.

Was it the most detailed pitch you’ve ever done because you really wanted Owen, or because you knew you needed to woo him a bit to get him to sign on?

It was the questions he asked, and the way he attacked story, in that sense. And also probably because he was newer to the Marvel world, he was like, “OK, how does this work?” I also pitched him Loki’s arc over the past 10 years, where that character has gone, but also explaining our Loki and what happened in Endgame and time travel. There’s a lot to unpack in that conversation.

Sometimes Marvel will give writers or directors a supercut of all the scenes of a specific character. Did you get one of those?

They didn’t actually give me a supercut, but I’m a big Loki nerd. I think his is one of the best [arcs] in the MCU. I really wanted to make sure we were paying respect to that. At the same time, something Tom spoke about a lot was you have to go back for a reason. Let’s be united on what that reason is and feel that it’s worth it.

The reason can’t be, “Well that’s what happened in Endgame,” so the question becomes, “What is the point of revisiting him at this era of his life?”

Yeah. He’s only had — I don’t want to get this wrong — I think 112 minutes of screen time in total if you cut all his scenes together. And he steals the show. We have six hours to really delve into this character and talk about him and go on this completely new story with him. For me, it was making sure that [we’re] paying respect to what has come before — I know as a fan if there is a character I really loved and I found out they are making a show about him, I obviously would be so excited and so happy. I felt lucky to have the responsibility, and I took it very seriously.

Those who have worked with Kevin Feige say he’s someone who can stress test an idea and push things in new directions. What have you found working with him?

Something I always found was we would sometimes pitch something, and it would be at a good place, but he’d always be like, “OK, that’s great, but push it further.” Sometimes I’d pitch stuff and be like, “This is too weird,” and he’d say, “No, go weirder.” He wants to tell the best story and I found it really helpful having his eye across everything and the fact that he does challenge everything. Tom as well, on set. He brings this amazing energy and this great A-game that causes everyone to rise to the occasion.

How do you know when you’ve got the perfect Hiddleston take? Is he asking you for one more, are you pushing him to do one more take?

By the end, it was almost telepathic. We would kind of know. We would look at each other. “We could go again,” or, “We’ve got it.” It’s different with every actor. There are some actors who will come in firing and they just want to go for it. But they don’t want to do a million takes. There are other actors I work with who are very meticulous and they want quite a few to warm up and get into it. It’s actor-dependent. The way me and Tom are similar is we are both very perfectionist. We are both very studious. (Laughs.) We definitely connected in that sense. He’s a very generous actor. I remember one day, we had quite a few of our actors coming in as day players. It was really important for him to be there for them, to read lines offscreen. He would have to be 50 places at once, because he is the lead actor. The most amazing thing about him was his generosity. Not just to the other actors, but also to the crew, to be filming in a time like COVID.

When you make an Avengers movie, you get a big board with every character that’s available, and whether the actor’s deals will allow them to appear or if that would need to be renegotiated. Loki is smaller, but was there any equivalent for you? Was everything on the table? Was only some stuff on the table? I imagine if Chris Hemsworth has his own new Thor movie coming up, he’s not going to be on the table, necessarily.

I felt like everything was on the table if it meant it was good for story, and Marvel would be like, “We’ll work it out.” Me and the writers, we never felt restrained in that sense. Honestly, it always comes back to story.

What is your relationship with your editor as you finish this up?

We have three editors, Paul Zucker, Emma McCleave and Calum Ross. My relationship with all three of them is very different. Emma and me are very close because she was also in Atlanta away from home. I got to know her very well. I love working with the editors because it’s a fresh pair of eyes. You get so deep into something when you are filming, it’s almost like writing it again when you are in the edit. Stuff does change. Even some episodes, we’ve reordered the structure. Or we moved scenes from one episode to another episode. I’ve always loved the editing process. The best thing is someone honest who can be like, “Hey, this doesn’t quite make sense to me,” or, “This isn’t working.”

What are you going to do on premiere day? Will you be on the internet at all to see the reaction?

I’m actually working. I’m still finishing the show. My last day is the day the second episode airs. I’m going to be working that day. Sadly, I’ll probably check in on the internet a little bit, but I’ll probably go to bed when I finish because I think I’ll do a 12- or 13-hour day or something. I can’t remember. I’m really excited for people to see it and just to bring it out in the world, really.

Everyone wants to know about spoilers, but what’s something you wish you were asked about more when it comes to Loki?

Kevin Feige said, “We make movies. We want to run it like a movie.” So unlike a lot of television shows that are showrunner-led, this was run like a six-hour film. As a director, you don’t often get to do that in a television-structure show. I really enjoyed it, having a hand in story and just how collaborative it was. Also, just beyond that, directing the equivalent of a six-hour Marvel movie was incredible for me. That’s something I found interesting about it. Making something the Marvel way.

In terms of the themes, I love gray areas. The show is really about what makes someone truly good or what makes someone truly bad, and are we either of those things? Loki is in that gray area. It’s exciting to be able to tell a story like that. As a director and a writer, you don’t necessarily understand why you are making these stories. Something I keep getting drawn back into is identity. Sex Education, we spoke a lot about identity and feeling like an outsider but actually finding your people. I feel the same with Loki. It’s a show about identity and self-acceptance and for me, that’s also what drew me in.

Gray is a good way to describe Loki. Your version of Loki just tried to take over the Earth not long ago.

Exactly. This isn’t the Loki we’ve seen. How do we take a character that people love, but from a lot earlier, and send him on a different path? That for me was interesting, getting to unpack that. Alongside that, getting to set up a whole new corner of the MCU with TVA. That to me was so exciting.

What about the Teletubbies? You referenced that recently and it made quite a splash. Are you going to leave people in suspense on that?

I referenced the Teletubbies once and people were like, “What, Teletubbies? What does this mean?” Maybe I should leave people in the air with it. One thing I would say is the show for me, stylistically — I wanted it to be a love letter to sci-fi because I love sci-fi. Brazil, Metropolis, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Alien. If people love sci-fi, they will definitely see the little nods we’ve got across the show. People will know what it was a reference for when they see the show. It was a visual reference to something in the show.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity. Loki debuts on Disney+ on June 9.

#Kate Herron #Loki #interview #loki series

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citrina-posts · 4 years

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Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

#this deleted idk why #so here is me reposting it #atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #cultural appropriation #meta #atla meta #racism

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Old (2021)

Oh you guys. You guyyyyyys. Buckle the fuck up, I am so pumped to tell you about this absolutely GONZO mummified deuce of a movie. Spoilers will be had in this one, because you need to know everything.

Old is the latest from M. Night Shyamalan and like....I think we all know M. Night’s track record. For every Sixth Sense, we also get a Happening or a Village. In some ways, he’s the most exciting director working today because every new film is a 50/50 coin toss, and mama loves living on the edge. The gist of this latest roll of the dice is that a group of different families who have all come to stay at a remote luxury beach resort get invited to go to a secluded private beach for the day, and after they arrive they discover they can’t leave. That’s not great, but the bigger problem is that they seem to be aging rapidly - like 2 years older every hour or so. That’s a solid “how are we gonna get outta this one” bottle episode premise, and in the hands of a better writer, it could be a fun sci-fi romp. M. is NOT that writer.

Some thoughts:

I should have known it would all go wrong from the terrible foreshadowing starting at the very beginning scene. The mom of our main family, Prisca (Vicky Krieps) says “You have such a beautiful voice, I can’t wait to hear it when you’re older.” The dad, Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) says, “Don’t rush this moment, enjoy the present while you can.” BECAUSE THE CHARACTERS WON’T BE ABLE TO LATER, DO YOU GET IT? dO yOU GEt iT? Wife leaned over and said “look at all the ferns - the oldest plants!” That last one was probably her projecting, but the point stands: there is nothing subtle about Old.

There’s a lot of just like, shouting out loud the things that are currently happening onscreen. “She’s having a seizure!” “People who go back the way we came black out!” “The rust has entered your bloodstream; it acts like poison!” That’s how you tell stories, right? Just having characters point out events that are occurring right in front of their stupid fucking faces with no other commentary or reflection?

An additional element that feels woefully ignorant at best and malicious at worst is the inclusion of a black male character (Aaron Pierre) who 1) is a rapper 2) is named Mid-Sized Sedan [I’ll give you a moment to deal with that detail emotionally] 3) says the single line of dialogue “Damn.” at least 4 times and 4) suffers the bloodiest, most violent onscreen death at the hands of a racist white man who is revealed to have paranoid schizophrenia. There are other gruesome deaths onscreen, to be sure, but the worst are body horror nightmares that could never occur in the real world - a woman whose bones are breaking and setting in the wrong position nearly instantaneously until she resembles a horrifying spider creature, and the aforementioned rust-in-the-bloodstream trick that leads to a Jeff-Goldblum-in-The Fly-bubbling-skin infection kinda deal. But Mid-Sized Sedan just gets stabbed in the chest repeatedly, brutally, a bunch of times by a white guy who pleads fear for his life even though MSS posed no danger to him, and it all happens onscreen when so many other characters are offered the mercy of offscreen deaths. I’m not sure if M. is trying to throw some real-world horror in and he’s just shit at it, or if it really didn’t occur to him how malicious this inclusion feels in a fantasy narrative, and I don’t really care. If you have a black character in your story and they die, you better think really long and hard about how it happens and what it means and it’s clear no one did that here.

Nothing to do with the film itself, but it did tickle me that someone brought a tiny infant to my pretty packed screening. The baby was very chill, thank goodness, and as far as I know did not age up to a kindergartner during the course of the film.

There is a Very Good Dog, a Yorkie, present for the first part of the film, but unfortunately the dog dies. It occurs offscreen, and given the premise of what’s going on on this beach, it’s not a shock when it happens BUT STILL.

The old age makeup, at least on Prisca is pretty great. Good job makeup department!

At one point, Guy gets attacked by another beachgoer, and his eyesight is failing so he has a hard time fighting back. But you are surrounded by sand, my dude, and you can still see blurry shapes. You’re not gonna throw some sand in the eyes until you’ve been stabbed like 10 times? Not gonna try to push him down, or sweep the fucking leg, or do anything but just keep raising your arms and getting stabbed while yelling “I’ll protect you!” I’ve seen stale tuna sandwiches with better defense mechanisms than you.

Like most fantastical premises, there are only a certain number of ways this narrative can end that really make any sense. It reminds me quite a bit of 2019’s Brightburn which was like “what if Superman but evil?” Either everyone is gonna die, or someone is going to improbably survive and you better have a real neat explanation for how that’s possible. Oh M. Night, when will you realize that your explanations are never as clever as you think they are? There’s no “twist” here really, simply a reveal, and it’s the equivalent of eating one of those sugar-free, gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free snack cakes I broke down and ate out of desperation when I was on Weight Watchers. That shit is “food” in the same way that the climax is a “logical explanation for all this.” Big Pharma is luring sick people to the resort through targeted ads, then arranging these excursions to the wacky time beach in order to test how medicine they secretly slipped into the guests’ drinks works over decades of life. These sneaky medical breakthroughs are saving hundreds of thousands of people’s lives, we’re told, and the scientists offer a moment of silence for each fallen group of unwitting human lab rats after they inevitably die. Because if there’s one thing the world needs right now, it’s more distrust of pharmaceutical companies and the ethics of modern science! I can’t think of one possible reason we’d want to portray molecular biologists, immunologists, and virologists in a positive light right now, can you? When will those assholes get off their high horses and stop being universally trusted and beloved by everyone, am I right??

My saddest takeaway, tbh, is that this is a stacked international cast, with at least half the roles going to POC - this is the future liberals want, etc etc - and the result is THIS.

Did I Cry? Of course not.

Not all is terrible! It’s a beautiful movie to look at, because M. Night’s direction is never the problem, but combined with the script, the acting, and the absurd narrative leaps needed to make this story make even a little bit of sense, the whole thing turns into a mess. Unfortunately, getting Old with M. Night is less “leisurely retirement at a plush resort in Florida” and more “rancid can of Ensure and a poop-choked pair of Depends.”

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#121in2021 #old #old movie #old 2021 #m. night shyamalan #old review #vicky krieps #gael garcia bernal #alex wolff #aaron pierre #movie reviews #film reviews

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laufire · 3 years

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(CW for mentions of csa)

A lot of Commonly Accepted (Often Through Uncritical Repetition) Wisdom in fandom leaves me baffled, when not straight up ticked off, but one that's been on my mind lately, that never fails to bring a scrunched up expression to my face, is the idea that Bela Talbot's backstory was some last minute add-on to her character.

You might argue that the reveal was rushed since the writers caved in and killed her off against their original plan (or at the very least, earlier than). Or that using abuse is a trite way to raise sympathy for an antagonistic character. You could even say that some of the finer details might’ve not been set in stone until they sat down to write her exist, although that one is dubious. But I’m never really going to buy that Bela’s backstory hadn’t been already planned, likely in big part.

The reason why is Season Three Episode Six, “Red Sky At Morning”, Bela’s second episode, co-written by Eric Kripke himself. As all episodes with Bela were, may I add; which means he had a hand in crafting her story from the beginning, as creator, director, and writer.

There Dean, a character that has been shown as sharp and intuitive (although his success rate ain’t that great when it comes to Bela, admittedly xD), immediately pegs her as someone with Issues TM, asking “how did she get like this”. He even taunts her by referencing her father, showing off his talent to hit where it hurts by asking if he “didn’t give her enough hugs”, ‘cause he’s classy like that. This visibly affects Bela, changing her demeanor in their conversation, from more playful to defensive. Hell, I remember during my first watch in real time this moment, especially paired with the rest of the episode, was when I first thought it was possible she came from an abusive family.

Because, c’mon. This whole episode is about parricide. The monster of the week is a ghost who haunts those that “spilled their own family’s blood”. We get two other examples: a woman whose accidental car crash killed her cousin, and two brothers who killed their father for the inheritance. Clearly, the ghost doesn’t have a narrow criteria when it comes to means or culpability -which makes sense given his particular story: he was tried for treason and his brother, the captain of the ship, issued the sentence.

And just as we find out this information... Bela sees the ghost ship that foretells her death. This, paired with the insinuations about an unsavvory past and her discomfort at the mention of her father, aren’t a wealth of information, but they start to paint a picture. We now know for a fact that Bela caused the death of at least one relative (mom and dad); that she wouldn’t have needed to do it directly (she made a crossroads deal); and that she might’ve had a sympathetic motive (her father sexually abused her and her mother turned a blind eye).

That scene offers some more tidbits of information about her past that seem too in tune with 3x15 to be coincidental, and that absolutely break my heart: Bela’s “You wouldn’t understand. No one did.“ and “I’ll just do what I’ve always done. I’ll deal with it myself”. See, I always thought Bela must’ve told people, when she was a kid. That she reached out for help not just to her mother, but to everyone around her that she thought could’ve help: teachers, maybe even law enforcement; adults that should’ve being worthy of that trust and protected her. Except no one did (and the fact that her family seemed to be not only very rich but influential paints a very bleak picture that surely contributed to her cynic view of the world). So she took matters in her own hands, and sold her soul for ten years of relative safety and freedom from her abusers.

To tie it all up, her final scene in that episode offers some more moments that again, are very in line with her backstory. We see how she treats relationships as transactionals: she pays ten grand to the Winchesters for saving her life, like she paid with her soul. Dean, again, draws attention to her likely messed up past by calling her damaged, and she replies that “takes one to know one”. Terrible childhood, ammirite. The show wasn’t been subtle here: it’s telling us Bela has a terrible past, like the Winchesters do, but of a different kind that has resulted in a different kind of person. So yeah, I think all the facts were hinted at back in 3x06.

We could go even futher back and point out 3x03, Bela’s introduction. One of the very first things she says in the show, during her first face to face with Dean (a character that just condemned his soul to Hell), is “We’re all going to Hell, Dean. Might as well enjoy the ride”. Sure, it could be an incredibly fortuitous coincidence; as a writer, I’ve had those and they’re damn great. But it seems VERY lucky, and more likely to be a case of the kind premeditated, well-placed foreshadowing that Kripke excels at.

So, okay. I’ve established why I think Bela’s backstory wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. But why is there a notable narrative in fandom that it IS?

First thing first, I want to get something out of the way: you don’t have to like it even if it was planned ahead. I understand it’s a very thorny subject, and to make matters worse, it’s inherently tied to her death. You might even be fine with the what, but not with how it was dealt with (although personally, I appreciate that neither the abuse nor her death were shown onscreen. In fact, the worse violence we see Bela on the receiving end of in her run is Dean’s threats and manhandling, which seems like a very purposeful choice ngl. Even Gordon freaking Walker was gentler lmao).

But I do disagree with some extended fandom opinions on the topic, and I guess that’s what the post is about. For one, I don’t see how the show “condemned” or morally judged Bela in this scenario. If anything, they clearly wanted to make her sympathetic, AND they showed Dean as being in the wrong by robbing him of information. Dean’s opinion on Bela couldn’t count for shit, for once, because he didn’t have the full picture; because Bela had deemed him UNWORTHY of the full picture, and thus anything he had to say on her couldn’t be taken at face value (except this is Supernatural, so I guess this was a little too much to ask of some people?). I think saying that just because Bela died and went to Hell as a consequence of her deal, IN THE SAME SEASON the same happened to our co-lead, because the writers deemed her evil and irredeemable is simplistic at best, and the audience projecting their own feelings (or being unable to see past Dean’s) onto the writing.

All that said, to go back to the initial point of all of this xD: WHY does fandom seem to insist on viewing this narrative choice as some cheap last minute addition?

There might not be one explanation that fits all, but I have a few ideas. One is that, if this wasn’t planned for and hinted at from early on, some people might feel as if this “absolves” them of their previous (and disgustingly hateful and misoginistic) reactions to Bela. Others will see this as absolving Dean, and maybe even Sam to a lesser extent, for not helping her and for being callous towards her; if her tragic backstory was this artificial, rushed choice made by Those Writers, then Dean wasn’t responsible for reprehensible attitudes towards someone who deserved his compassion (and it can’t be denied that this fandom loves absolving Dean of responsibility lmao). And a lot people are probably only repeating what they've heard from others as the accepted narrative, especially those that didn't even watch all of s3 if at all (Castiel is my fave too, but seriously, s1-3 are worth it).

It’s like they’re creating this imaginary separation between Bela pre-reveal, and Bela post-reveal, to make the situation easier to themselves. See, Bela pre-reveal was this annoying bitch who inconvenienced and embarrassed our leads (not to mention dared have chemistry with them), and thus deserved to be punished for it; or, if we’re going with more modern fandom sensibilities, she can be made to fit into the shallow #GirlBoss mold, with a side of “Secretly A Lesbian And Therefore Not A Romantic Threat” flavour -the current preferred method to make controversial female characters more palatable.

The reveal throws a wrench into this narrative. “Bitch who deserves her comeuppance” is a hard sell when you’re talking about a character who survived csa. And a shallow #GirlBoss reading doesn’t work if you have to acknowledge that Bela was one of, if not the most tragic characters in the entire run of Supernatural.

She spent over half her life at the mercy of her abuser(s), hurt by those who should’ve loved her and protected her most. The rest of her life was extremely lonely, with seemingly only a cat as company, and a surface-level freedom that hid under the sentence that loomed over her head. She died without a single friend, or a simple show of kindness and compassion, without anyone bothering to fight for her. And then she ended up tortured for who knows how long until she became one of her torturers.

All of that is extremely difficult to digest. And when things are hard to swallow, people do as people do, and they try to simplify them. So, sure. Bela’s reveal wasn’t ever hinted at, it’s completely removed from her character and the person we met, and is not even worth trying to fit into the narrative. Sounds easy.

#talking to the void #my thoughts #spn thoughts #supernatural #bela talbot #bitter lau tag #fandom nonsense #spn 3x15 #spn 3x06 #spn s3

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according-to-the-laura · 2 years

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StackedNatural Day 77: 10x09, 11x09

StackedNatural Masterpost: [x]

December 9, 2021

10x09: The Things We Left Behind

Written by: Andrew Dabb

Directed by: Guy Norman Bee

Original air date: December 9, 2014

Plot Synopsis:

When Castiel finds Jimmy's daughter in a group home, she persuades him to break her out; Crowley is faced with a big challenge.

Features:

Claire who is maybe my favourite character of all time, jailbreak with Claire, Cas is kind of a doof, Dean and Cas’ little date, Rowena was a horrible mother, Claire gets sold out, Dean slaughters.

My Thoughts:

I LOVE Claire and I love Kathryn Newton as Claire. She was a great casting choice. I love when Supernatural takes a moment to stop and look at the actual human cost of the characters’ choices and behaviours, even when they were the right thing to do. Like yeah, they would have lost the fight to stop the apocalypse without Cas, but Claire still lost her dad and that still matters. I find individual and personal consequences a lot more interesting than the global consequences because they’re so specific rather than generalized.

Bringing Claire back so many years later was such a great choice by the writers (Dabb can have some rights for writing this episode). Her and Cas’ relationship is so interesting, he’s so awkward but cares so much, and she’s so desperate for love but too afraid to trust any that’s offered to her.

The Crowley-Rowena dynamic rules as well. I love Mark Sheppard and Ruth Connell and they are so great onscreen together. Just really fun scenes.

This is also the episode with Dean and Cas’ little date! I don’t remember much from watching this episode live when it aired but I do remember a solid chunk of us losing our minds over that scene. They’re so comfortable with each other, and Cas can see through Dean’s front so easily, and they so obviously care about each other. I love it.

I know that the final scene is meant to show us Dean losing control of himself because of the Mark, and I know that makes sense to start with someone whose death can be justified in Dean’s mind so that the progression of the Mark makes sense, but it is awfully hard to feel bad for a bunch of dudes who were gonna rape Claire and then sell her into the sex trade. I mean obviously the ferocity of the killing and the insane amount of violence is crazy, but imo they deserved what they got.

Notable Lines:

“Now I realize that there is no righteous path. It’s just people trying to do their best in a world where it’s far too easy to do your worst.”

“So you’re having a midlife crisis.” “Well, I’m extremely old. I think I’m entitled.”

“Did I tell you the time she almost traded me for three pigs? THREE! I was an attractive child. I “You want to talk to me about wrong? You killed my dad. Is that wrong enough for you?”

“I used to pray to you, Castiel. Every night. I would beg you to bring him home safe.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating:9.7

IMdB Rating: 8.1

11x09: O Brother Where Art Thou?

Written by: Buckleming

Directed by: Robert Singer

Original air date: December 9, 2015

Plot Synopsis:

With Amara leaving a trail of bodies in her search for God, Sam enlists Crowley and Rowena to set up a meeting between him and Lucifer in the cage.

Features:

Amara is all grown up, watch a bitch call lightning, burning bushes, Amara’s search for God, Rowena reads the Book of the Damned, Sam talks to Lucifer, Dean talks to Amara, Sam gets trapped in the Cage.

My Thoughts:

I took a break between watching this ep and writing this blurb to eat dinner and when I got up to go back to the computer all I could think was “back to my grim work” so you could say that I didn’t care for this episode.

Listen, we all know I hate Buckleming as writers. We all know I hate Singer as a director. But I had never seen this episode before and somehow in my pea brain I convinced myself that this one might be good because it has a really high IMDb rating. And yet here we are.

Too many things that should be shrouded in mystery are made concrete. I hate that the cage is a literal fucking cage. Where are Michael and Adam? Why is hell just stone and torches and lightning?

Why is it that Sam has to talk to the devil right now immediately instead of waiting like an hour for Dean and then making literally any kind of plan for the encounter with his life’s biggest source of trauma? Why are we doing a Cage plot again when there’s already tons of lore in-show on how to open it? Why did we have to end the episode with a little rape threat?

The Amara-Dean “romance” is laughably unsexy to watch. The only cool thing in that scene was that Amara delivers a raw ass line and the knife shatters, and the knife shattering doesn’t even make sense because Dean isn’t an idiot and knows that it would never work so he shouldn’t have tried.

I look at the angels in this episode and just get really sad because they kind of gave up casting actors with any degree of gravitas. Remember Lazarus Rising? When angels caused earthquakes and burned the eyes out of demons and scared the shit out of everyone. And now they stand around in weird union meetings. Also, they’re supposed to be warriors and yet their combat strategy is “slowly advance one at a time so she has a lot of time to kill us”.

The one good thing about this episode was that I was watching with Lyall, by brother-in-law, who has seen a lot of Supernatural but not hyperfixated on it the way I have, and yet still gets worked up about bad writing. Some of his powerful takes:

“Daniel is a very powerful name and they gave it to THIS guy?”

“There’s a way to do this story that isn’t ‘everything we’ve already done but worse’, but it’s Buckleming so they can only regurgitate the work of better writers.”

“When Amara says she can’t be resisted that’s the metanarrative talking about heteronormativity.”

“Why did they try to cover three season’s worth of arcs in one episode?”

Wait, I lied, the best part of the episode is Amara talking about the bliss Dean feels when he’s near her and Jensen’s face is just completely blank.

Notable Lines:

“It’s incredible. How it endures, the propaganda. He was so threatened by me, fearful that I would make a more perfect creation than he.”

“I was the beginning and I will be the end. I will be all that there is.”

“It wasn’t God inside your head Sam. It was me.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 1.9

IMdB Rating: 9.2

In Conclusion: It’s been a while since I’ve felt justified in saying “the epic highs and lows of Stackednatural”.

<< Previous Day | Next Day >>

#Stackednatural #supernatural #spn #10x09 #The Things We Left Behind #11x09 #O Brother Where Art Thou?

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rocknvaughn · 4 years

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New Colin Morgan Interview with Edge Media Network about Benjamin - UPDATED

I am reblogging this because, after the author was made aware of an error in the posting of his article (if anyone clicked through to read it on the site, there was a whole question and answer that was repeated), the error was corrected and another three questions and answers were added! I am correcting it here, but they were very interesting, so I suggest you read the full article again!

I shall post the link at the bottom, but I wanted to type it out so that non-English speakers could more easily translate it. (This article was listed in their “Gay News” section of the site, hence the focus on the gay roles.)

British Actor Colin Morgan: How the Queerly Idiosyncratic ‘Benjamin’ Spoke to Him

by Frank J. Avelia

In writer-director Simon Amstell’s sweet, idiosyncratic, semi-autobiographical comedy, “Benjamin,” Colin Morgan plays the titular character, an insecure filmmaker trying to resuscitate his waning career (at least it’s waning in his mind) after one major cine-indie success. Benjamin is also doing his best to navigate a new relationship with a young French musician (Phenix Brossard of “Departures”).

Thanks to the truly endearing, multifaceted talents of Morgan, Benjamin feels like an authentic creation--one that most audiences can empathize with. Sure, he’s peculiar, has a legion of self-esteem issues and an almost exasperating need for acceptance as well as an inconvenient talent to self-sabotage the good in his life. But who can’t relate to some or all of that?

“Benjamin” is one of the better queer-themed films to come out in recent years, in large part because it eschews emphasis on the queer nature of the story. Instead, the film is a fascinating character study with Morgan slowly revealing layers and unpacking Benjamin’s emotional baggage.

Morgan is a major talent who has been appearing across mediums in Britain for many years. His London theatre debut was in DBC Pierre’s satire, “Vernon God Little” (2007), followed by the stage adaptation of Pedro Almodovar’s “All About My Mother” (2007), opposite Diana Rigg. Numerous and eclectic stage work followed (right up until the Corona shutdown) including Pedro Miguel Rozo’s “Our Private Life” (2011), where he played a bipolar gay, Jez Butterworth’s dark comedy, “Mojo” (2013), Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” opposite Sally Field (2019), and Caryl Churchill’s “A Number” (2020), to name a few.

His TV work includes, “Merlin” (playing the wizard himself), “Humans” and most recently, in a very memorable episode of “The Crown”. Onscreen he can be seen in “Testament of Youth”, “Legend” with Tom Hardy, “Snow White and the Huntsman” and Rupert Everett’s take on Oscar Wilde, “The Happy Prince.”

He’s played a host of gay roles in the past on stage, screen and TV.

EDGE recently interviewed the star of “Benjamin” about the new film and his career.

Why Benjamin?

EDGE: What drew you to this project and were you part of its development?

Colin Morgan: It’s always the strength of the script for me on any project and Simon’s script was just so well observed, he managed to combine humor and poignancy in delicate measure and when I first read it I found myself being both tickled and touched. Then reading it again and from “the actor” POV... I knew it would be a real challenge and uncharted territory for me to explore. I auditioned for Simon and we tried it in different ways and then when I was lucky enough for Simon to want me on board, we began to work through the script together, because it was clear that this was going to be a very close working relationship... it was important for the level of trust to be high.

EDGE: I appreciated that this was a queer love story where the character’s queerness wasn’t the main focus. Was that also part of the allure of the project?

CM: I think Benjamin’s sexuality is just quite naturally who he is and therefore that’s a given, we’re on his journey to find meaning and love and there’s certainly a freshness to what Simon has written in not making sexuality the main focus.

Great chemistry

EDGE: Can you speak a but about the process involved in working with Amstell on the character and his journey?

CM: Simon and me worked very closely over a period of weeks, at that time prior to shooting I was doing a theatre project not far from where he lived so I would go to him and rehearse and discuss through the whole script all afternoon before going to do the show that night, so that worked out well. It’s so personal to Simon, and to have had him as my guide and source throughout was fantastic because I could ask him all the questions and he could be the best barometer for the truth of the character; a rare opportunity for an actor and one that was so essential for building Benjamin. But ultimately Simon wanted Benjamin to emerge from somewhere inside me and he gave me so much freedom to do that also.

EDGE: You had great chemistry with Phenix Brossard. Did you get to rehearse?

CM: Phenix is fantastic, Simon and me did chemistry reads with a few different actors who were all very good but Phenix just had an extra something we felt Benjamin would be drawn to. We did a little bit of rehearsal together but because it was a relationship that was trying to find itself there was a lot of room for spontaneity and uncertainty between us, which is what the allure of a new relationship is all about, the excitement and fear.

Liberating process

EDGE: Did your process meld with Amstell’s?

CM: I’ve said this a lot before and it’s true, Simon is one of the best directors I’ve worked with. Everything he created before shooting and then maintained on set was special. We always did improvised versions of most scenes and always the scripted version too. It was such a creative and liberating process. That is exactly the way I love to work. And for a director to maintain that level of bravery, trust and experimental play throughout the whole shoot stands as one of the most rewarding shooting experiences I’ve had.

EDGE: When I spoke with Rupert Everett about “The Happy Prince,” he very proudly boasted about his ensemble. Can you speak about working with Rupert as he balanced wearing a number of creative hats?

CM: Again, this was an extremely rewarding project to work on and quite a similar relationship as with Simon in the respect that Rupert was the writer/director and Oscar Wilde is so personal to him. And then we also had many scenes together in front of the camera, so Rupert and me had a real 3D experience together. It was a long time in the making. I was on board, I think, two years before we actually got shooting so I had a lot of time to work with Rupert and rehearse. He really inspired me, watching him wear all the different creative hats, such a challenging and difficult job/jobs to achieve and he really excelled--plus we just got on very well.

Playing queer roles

EDGE: You haven’t shied away from playing queer roles. Do you think we’re moving closer to a time when a person’s sexual orientation is of little consequence to the stories being told, or should it always matter? Or perhaps we need to continue to evolve as a culture for it to matter less or not at all...

CM: That’s a hard question to answer, I think certainly the shift in people’s attitudes has changed considerably for the better compared to 40 years ago, but there will always be resistance to change and acceptance from individuals and groups whether it be sexuality, religion, race, gender--we’re seeing it every day.

Evolution is, of course, inevitable, but if we can learn from the past as we evolve that would be the ideal. Unfortunately, we rarely do learn, and history repeats itself.

EDGE: You were featured prominently in one of my favorite episodes of the “The Crown” (”Bubbikins”) as the fictional journo John Armstrong. Can you speak a bit about working on the show and with the great Jane Lapotaire?

CM: I had an exceptionally good time working on “The Crown.” Director Benjamin Caron, especially, was so prepared and creative, and made the whole experience so welcoming and inclusive. It was an incredibly happy set, with extremely talented people in every department, and I admired the ethos of the whole production and have no doubt that’s a huge ingredient to its success, along with Peter Morgan’s incredible writing.

I was also a fan of the show, and it was an honor to be part of the third season. And I can’t say enough amazing things about Jane Lapotaire. We talked a lot in between filming, and I relished every moment of that.

EDGE: You’ve done a ton of stage work. Do you have a favorite role you’ve played onstage?

CM: I’ve been so lucky with the theatre work I’ve done, to work with such special directors and work in wonderful theatres in London. I’ve worked at the Old Vic and The Young Vic twice each, and they’re always special to me. Ian Rickson is a liberating director, who I love. It’s hard to pick a favorite, because the roles have all been so different and presented different challenges, but, most recently, doing “A Number,” playing three different characters alongside Roger Allam and directed by Polly Findlay, was a really treasured experience, and I never tired of doing that show, every performance was challenging as it was.

Miss the rehearsal room

EDGE: You were doing “A Number” earlier this year. Did you finish your run before the lockdown/shutdown?

CM: Just about! We had our final performance, and then lockdown happened days later. I feel very sorry for the productions that didn’t get the sense of completion of finishing a run. I mean, finishing a full run leaves you in a kind of post-show void anyway, even though you know it’s coming, so to not know it’s coming and have it severed must be even more of a void.

Memories of performing just months ago seem like such an unattainable thing in this COVID world right now. I can’t tell you how much I’m hoping we get back to some semblance of live performance.

EDGE: What was it like to appear onstage opposite Dame Diana Rigg in “All About My Mother?”

CM: Well, I think “iconic” is an apt word for both the experience of working with Diana and the lady herself. In between scenes backstage we used to talk a lot and we got told off for talking too loudly, so Diana began to teach me sign language and we would spell out words to each other, maybe only getting a couple of sentences to each other before she was due on stage and I had to get into position for my next entrance-- we did a radio play together two years ago and she remembered, she said, “Do you remember A-E-I-O-U?” signing out the letters with her hands.

EDGE: None of us knows the future in terms of the pandemic and when we might return to making theatre. I’m a playwright myself and find it all supremely frustrating but I’m trying to remain hopeful! Where are you right now in terms of the standstill we are in and what the future might hold?

CM: Yes, I’m so worried for theatre. It’s a devastating blow. I’m sure as a playwright, you know that the creative spirit in individuals hasn’t been diminished by this virus. People are creating important art in this crisis but we need the platforms to present it and bring people to some light again out of this really scary period, but it needs to be safe and it’s a worrying time. The virtual theatre approach must be looked at I think. We need to experiment and find new paths at least for the time being. I’m involved in developing some things right now and how we can work on things in both an isolated and collaborative way. It’s entirely counterintuitive to what the family-feel and close bond of a group in a rehearsal room is like-- I miss the rehearsal room so much!-- but we can’t sit still, we must create and we must act.

What’s in a role?

EDGE: Looking back on the great success of “Merlin,” what are your takeaways from that experience?

CM: Some of the most treasured memories of my life will forever be connected to “Merlin,” the cast, crew, production, everyone! The invaluable training of being in front of a camera every day! The chance to inhabit a character and live with him for five seasons! There’s too much to list and words probably won’t do justice anyway, but I’m truly grateful for everything the show gave me.

EDGE: How do you select the roles you play?

CM: I guess they select me in a way. I can’t play a role unless it speaks to me and provokes me in some way, but ultimately it’s the characters that I have a fear about playing, not knowing how I’m going to enter into the process of living them, when I don’t have all the answers it’s a good indicator of a character I must play. If I have all the answers, there’s less scope for exploration and discovery which isn’t as interesting for me.

Link here

#colin morgan #interview #14 july 2020 #edgemedianetwork #benjamin #transcription

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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 3 years

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Press: WandaVision Was Elizabeth Olsen’s Exercise in Reclaiming Her—and Wanda’s—Power

On this week’s Little Gold Men, Olsen explains why she was “mortified” to share WandaVision with the world and teases her upcoming turn in Doctor Strange.

VANITY FAIR: Despite her onscreen superhero status, Elizabeth Olsen admits to Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson that she gets “panic dreams” before beginning a new project. That was never more so the case than with WandaVision, the genre-bending Disney+ series that imagined Wanda Maximoff and Vision’s (Paul Bettany) married adventures through a sitcom-style lens. But after the show premiered to rave reviews and an eager fanbase, Olsen’s nerves about launching the Marvel TV empire could melt away, right?

That is, until she suited up as the Scarlet Witch once more for Sam Raimi’s upcoming sequel, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Although writer Michael Waldron has compared the titular character to Indiana Jones, Olsen insists that the final product is edgier than that figure’s action epics. “I think it’s more than a glossy Indiana Jones movie, which I love Indiana Jones,” Olsen says on the latest Little Gold Men episode, adding, “But I feel like it has a darker thing going on.”

This week’s Little Gold Men podcast is a Disney+ double feature, featuring an interview with Sebastian Stan of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (also courtesy of Joanna). She joins Vanity Fair’s executive Hollywood editor, Jeff Giles, Richard Lawson, and Katey Rich in a conversation about Witness, which gave Harrison Ford his only Oscar nomination to date. Other top of mind topics include the lackluster box office performance of In the Heights, Emmy buzz for Bo Burnham’s Netflix special Inside, and Pixar’s newest release Luca, which arrives on Disney+ Friday.

This is a partial transcript:

You’ve talked about Wanda coming into her own power, discovering her power. Something that I think is so interesting is you were doing work as an executive producer on Sorry For Your Loss. And I was wondering what that experience taught you about your power, your ability to have input over your acting choices or your acting roles going forward?

It was incredible. It was truly one of the greatest learning experiences I could have had. I saw how everything can be done if I ever wanted to direct something, which I’m not sure yet. But I have seen how maybe the healthiest way to crew up a show is, to a writers room, to the whole journey in between and editing and color correction and sound mixing. All the things that I had wanted to experience, I got to do that on that show. And it created this neverending voice in my head that now just expresses all of her opinions when I’m on set. It’s great working with. Like, I’m starting to work with another director right now and it’s great just saying, when people sometimes would ask me, “How would you like to work?” I wouldn’t really know how to answer that because I’ve always been malleable to if other actors like working specific ways. I’m cool to kind of be fluid in that zone.

Now I can just say, “It’s really good for me to have all the information, just so I don’t have to ask questions in my head and think, why are they doing that instead of this?” But if I just have the information of “Oh, this is an issue, so we’re doing this instead” then I’m not going to try and make up what the issue is and spend weeks trying to figure out, “Why are we doing it this way?” S I know that that’s now something. I just like having information, even when I’m not a producer. It just helped. I’m sure other actors would be like, “How the fuck would you keep all that straight?” And it actually rests my brain. It rests my monkey brain, I think. to just have facts and information about how everything’s going, why schedules are changing. Yeah, I loved that experience.

I would say on every single ensemble job that I have done with Marvel, I try and take up the least space possible and let everyone else’s personalities fly. And that’s truly what I’m more comfortable with in that space. It’s kind of in the same way [that] it’s really nice to have one-on-one conversations, but if you put me in a theater with 50 people and having to address a TedTalk kind of thing, that’s my worst nightmare. So I just would rather be small and take up a little bit of space and do my part of the puzzle. I still think I’m going to be like that. And the other big ensemble ones, I didn’t feel that way with Dr. Strange because it wasn’t that kind of a thing. But yeah, between Age of Ultron and WandaVision it’s literally like someone who doesn’t want to peep up and who is so scared to do anything wrong, who just is going to defer to everyone else for information and just do it and just stay in my lane.

Now in WandaVision, it was like I wasn’t a producer on it but it felt like I wanted to be a leader. I wanted to take the opportunity to kind of set the tone of how we treated one another, how prepared we were, how collaborative we could be. And [director/producer] Matt Shakman was the ultimate, greatest leader. I think we didn’t come to work with our sides in our hands. We were giving notes to [creator] Jac [Schaeffer] at least a week before we…And obviously there are things that are always going to be coming up and changing but we didn’t want to do the whole thing where an actor has a brilliant idea at midnight and we have to kind of spend too much time that we do not have discussing that brilliant idea. Just look ahead and be prepared and then be really kind and treat everyone with respect. That just is how we worked and we had a joyful time doing it.

Wanda has always been a character embraced by the fandom, but what does it mean to you, given that you have this different approach this time, to see Wanda embraced by a much larger group of people and awards folks are knocking at your door and all this other stuff?

I feel really grateful. I was mortified when this show was coming out. I was having a lot of weird anxiety about it and felt pressure from the idea that Marvel hadn’t had something come out [like this] and it felt so different. And I was like, “They like the sitcom but they’re not going to like it when we get out of the sitcom.” I had strange, really strange experiences when I was working in England and it sounded like people were enjoying it and I just wasn’t believing it.

So it was really kind of when I wrapped Dr. Strange and came home and I now have this gratitude that I feel like Kathryn [Hahn] and Paul and Teyonah [Parris] had while we were doing press during it coming out. They had this nostalgia of the time we had. And I’m still playing the same frickin character, but like moved on. I just could not sit back and kind of have that gratitude. I do now. And it really feels good, even if nothing happens, to be continued to be a part of a conversation about people acknowledging work that was done. As much as I try not to have an attachment to it, it is a sense of gratitude and you just feel lucky.

Go here to listen to the podcast. Elizabeth is near the end after Sebastian Stan.

Press: WandaVision Was Elizabeth Olsen’s Exercise in Reclaiming Her—and Wanda’s—Power was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

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