By Bennett Marcus
Posted 06/24/11 at 01:55 PM
It’s officially summer, and summer means movies. This week we hit a couple of premieres at the Sunshine Landmark Cinema on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
At Tuesday’s screening of the drama The Ledge, Patrick Wilson enticingly mentioned some on-set singing shenanigans with co-star Liv Tyler, and the actress filled us in when she arrived. “We had a whole funny thing going on with that SNL character who does doorbells, ‘Hi, I’m Tina Tina Cheneuse!’” Tyler explained, and she reinvented her character, Shayna, in that roll. “So we’d be in the middle of these really dramatic scenes and I would come to the door and go, ‘Ding dong. I’m Shayna Shayna Cheneuse.’ And we would laugh so hard, we would get in trouble with the director and the cinematographer.”
Wearing a formfitting dress by her pal Stella McCartney at the Cinema Society-Grey Goose hosted screening, Tyler revealed another way that she and Wilson lightened the mood on set. “We like to both sing ‘80s rock songs to each other. We’d be in the middle of these really dark scenes and we’d bust out, like, a Cinderella song or Whitesnake or something.”
The mood was still bubbly later on at the party with Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Olivia Palermo, Johan Lindeberg and Rupert Friend partying at the Dream Hotel Downtown penthouse. Twilight’s Kellan Lutz popped in late and told us he’s enjoying his stay in NYC while shooting the movie Syrup. “It’s great to work in a city. Unlike Twilight—I love Vancouver and I love Baton Rouge—but here in New York I actually have friends; like, friend friends, so it’s like a home to me,” the Calvin Klein underwear model said.
By Bettina Zilkha
Posted 06/21/11 at 03:25 PM
There is nothing so quintessentially New York as Shakespeare in the Park on a beautiful summer night, the kind of experience that makes one say, "This is why I live here." The Public Theater held its annual gala on June 20th, with cloudless sky, a light breeze, and more talent packed into the Delacorte Theater than I have seen in a long time—on-stage and off—for the performance of All's Well That Ends Well. The gala itself raises enough money each year so that New Yorkers can see the remaining performances free of charge. Brilliant.
What actor doesn't dream of performing Shakespeare on the stage of the Delacorte? The dream roles vary, although most of the female stars I interviewed would like to play Lady Macbeth, though none dared say her full name.
"I'm curious about Lady M. I don't want to say her full name or we'll get intro trouble, it's too close to the theater," said Audra McDonald, who is getting ready to do Porgy and Bess in Cambridge, and hoping it will move to New York.
Swoosie Kurtz's dream role is "Lady McB. I don't dare say the name in a New York theater, I wouldn't say it at Macy's," said the gorgeous star, looking incredible in black Alice & Olivia leather pants, a black Anne Fontaine blouse, and black Louboutins.
Naomi Watts, in Marc Jacobs, and Liev Schreiber, in Jay Kos, are also fans of you-know-what as their dream roles. "I don't want to say—it's the Scottish play," said Watts, "but it's such a big deal that by the time I get around to doing stage and feeling comfortable, I'll be too old to do it."
Schreiber concurred—about Naomi's choice of play, that is. "I like that one a lot, I think we'd both be great in it," Liev agreed.
By Bennett Marcus
Posted 06/17/11 at 01:55 PM
Persol unveiled its Magnificent Obsessions exhibition, a salute to craftsmanship in filmmaking consisting of rarely seen artifacts from iconic movies like Taxi Driver, La Dolce Vita, and Brazil. A standout is a display of designer Milena Canonero’s elaborate costumes for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.
At the opening party, director Terry Gilliam said he’s kept mementos from every movie he’s made. Next to his pool in Italy sits a gondola from the set of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Heath Ledger’s final film). “I’ve got carved tomb covers from The Brothers Grimm, and the flying man and many other things from Brazil, some of them are here tonight,” Gilliam said. “I’ve got something from everything. My wife hates it,” he added.
Sir Ben Kingsley has mixed feelings about movie-set souvenirs. “As soon as you take a piece of wardrobe or a prop home from a film set, from its living environment, it goes dead. It’s given life by the narrative and its place in the story; bring it home, it’s dead,” Kingsley told FashionEtc. Nevertheless, the actor found a new life for one of the white shawls he wore in Ghandi by giving it to his first grandchild Leo. “He was wrapped in it as a baby, which was rather nice.”
Vincent Piazza has kept items from low-budget indie films he’s done, but says HBO keeps a tight rein on their extravagant productions. “For Boardwalk Empire they’re tight about keeping the wardrobe and stuff like that. It’s like they want to save it for a rainy day, maybe, or an auction,” he said of the Prohibition-era drama. “I wish I could take the suits!” Piazza blurted.
By Bennett Marcus
Posted 06/10/11 at 01:30 PM
Musical theater fans will be able to get their fix for a fraction of the price of a Broadway ticket beginning on June 15 when a filmed version of Stephen Sondheim’s Company opens in movie theaters nationwide. This is the real thing, with Broadway veterans like Neil Patrick Harris, Anika Noni Rose, Martha Plimpton, and Katie Finneran delivering all the chills of a live production. Patti LuPone knocks your socks off with “The Ladies Who Lunch.”
But the producers made some, uh, unusual casting choices, too. Stephen Colbert? Jon Cryer? Christina Hendricks? In a Broadway musical? Singing and dancing? Huh?
“Exactly,” said Cryer at the movie’s premiere on Wednesday. “I don’t sing professionally, and I thought of it sort of as a lark.” Once he heard Harris and LuPone in rehearsals, however, “we all sort of looked around furtively, like, oh, okay, they just raised the bar quite a bit,” the Two and a Half Men star laughed. But he feels good about his performance: “Watching this, there’s Patti doing a performance of, perhaps, a lifetime, and then if you look, like three or four feet in back of her, there’s my ear. I’m doing some very good work with my ear.”
Hendricks, too, was stunned to be invited to join the production. “I couldn’t believe the cast, and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity, and I said, ‘If I have time to take some voice lessons, and do some dance rehearsals, and you still want me, then I’ll do it,’” she said.
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