THE WAY THAT IT ALL SHAKES OUT (FOR 2010)

It is with a grand amount of reluctance that I watch 2010 evaporate into the wide open spaces. It has been – without question – the most rewarding exciting memorable year of my adult life.

But, as they say, I’m thirsty for more…

As we count the minutes down to a brand new year, I must take the time to thank a number of people.

First of all, I couldn’t neglect my magnificently cool never to be forgotten readership. It’s particularly thrilling to realize that there are individuals out there that enjoy the site. But it wasn’t until 2010 dawned that I came to a startling realization: there are many spectacular people that I have long admired that are regular visitors at CP.

I am (and always will be) exceptionally grateful for all of that. It means an incredible amount to me personally. When I started out, I didn’t know if anyone would be coming here besides the people that I’m close to. The fact that a great number of my readers are legendary and well known individuals that have inspired me is well beyond my wildest dreams.

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to everybody that reads and supports this site. You are the ones that make it all worthwhile.

It is extraordinarily important that I acknowledge my Aunt Meg on the east coast for her graciousness, generosity and good will. It’s been a gorgeously blissful time. But there were a few days (earlier this year) when I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening.

Aunt Meg held my hand through all of that, ran interference for me and let me know – in unequivocal terms – who had my best interests at heart. She does all of that to this very day.

I don’t have to say anything specific. She’s entirely aware of everything that transpires.

I do have a thoroughly awesome group of amazing people looking out for me. They take very good care of this wild untamed Irish lass.

But Aunt Meg goes above and beyond the call of duty.

I’m confident that she’s a long way from being old enough to be my mother. But it feels very much like that kind of relationship – especially since my darling mama has gone now.

I may be a tough take no prisoners chick blessed with good sense and strong intuition that rarely lets me down. But I’d be lost without her. She means the world to me. I’m going to make her proud some day.

I can’t get the hell out of Dodge without recognizing everyone that’s precious to me: all of the people on the net and off who make my life exactly what it is. You know who you are and how much you mean to me.

And last (but very very far from least)…

I’d like to express profound and exquisite appreciation to the love of my life. He is the sweetest, smartest, funniest, most adorable man that ever lived…and he has changed my existence in ways so magical and esoteric that I could never explain it here.

He’s the only blue eyed boy that matters. I shall be completely devoted to him until the end of time.

Here’s to another rapturous 365 day rush. Enjoy your New Year’s celebrations.

For your listening pleasure, I present THE CARS.

See you round the mulberry bush…

COLIN FIRTH REFINES THE KING’S SPEECH

This article is written by BRAD BALFOUR at THE HUFFINGTON POST

To hardcore Jane Austen fans, English actor COLIN FIRTH will always be the quintessential Mr. Darcy after his appearance in the BBC miniseries PRIDE & PREJUDICE.

But he really landed at the top of the hot lists with his 2009 BEST ACTOR OSCAR nomination for playing George in TOM FORD’S A SINGLE MAN. Now the handsome performer has hit the heights again with THE KING’S SPEECH.

The film has already been pulling in nominations or awards from all over the place, including seven GOLDEN GLOBE nods.

This feature provides perfect grist for Mr. Firth’s mill since he has become an expert at portraying a particular kind of masculine archetype: a man who overcomes self doubt and rises to the occasion.

In THE KING’S SPEECH, COLIN FIRTH plays BERTIE, a life long stutterer on a quest to find his voice, especially since he suddenly becomes KING GEORGE VI of England in 1936. GEORGE VI faced having to be a public personality and lead a nation on the brink of World War II, after years of shunning the spotlight because of his stammer. Once his father KING GEORGE V (MICHAEL GAMBON) dies, his scandalous brother PRINCE EDWARD VII (GUY PEARCE) – who was the ruler to be – abdicates the throne in order to marry WALLIS SIMPSON, an American divorcee.

England is in desperate need of a leader.

BERTIE’S wife ELIZABETH (HELENA BONHAM CARTER) – the future QUEEN MOTHER – finds him an eccentric speech therapist, LIONEL LOGUE (GEOFFREY RUSH), who provides an unorthodox treatment. The two men eventually form an unbreakable bond.

At a recent roundtable discussion, COLIN FIRTH talked about his recent successes, his past career and what makes him such an evocative actor.

Q: Do we have to bow, Sir Colin?

COLIN FIRTH: Get used to it. Don’t bow for me necessarily.

Q: Is that disrespectful to you [chuckles]?

CF: No, no. We do get used to genuflection.

Q: I swear every time we see you, you get younger.

CF: I can give you a phone number.

Q: Growing up British, what was your attitude about the monarchy before making this movie?

CF: Oh, I don’t think my attitude to the monarchy comes into this, really.

Q: At some point every British child has to have some attitude about it.

CF: I had attitude generally. Anything that felt like the establishment or authority was not my friend as a kid. I didn’t [have much interest] about the monarchy. It’s just that some people are royal watchers. Some people love it. Some people feel it’s very very important to their identity and to what it means to their sense of nationhood and all that. I’m not one of those people. I’m not that kind of patriot at all.

Q: Did your attitude change after making this movie?

CF: I don’t think so. This film didn’t alter any of my political or social views or anything. I just didn’t see it that way.

It’s about a man caught in the crossfire of the history of circumstances with pretty high stakes. I think that the reason why royalty is used for drama is because of those stakes. If King Lear only had one acre of land to chop up, you could tell that story. But [if you] just double the temperature of everything then…you’d probably have a Pinter play. It heightens things.

It’s interesting that this seems to be drawing such universal appeal. All kinds of people are responding. A king that isn’t even that well known in history, with a particular disability which most people don’t understand, in 1937, which most people weren’t around for. Why? How does he reach people?

I actually think that [it appeals] on some [primal] level – I’m trying to figure it out too. I think that you take normal human obstacles and heighten them. We all have trouble communicating. We’re not perfect communicators. We don’t always have the eloquence we want. We don’t always have the language we want.

Sometimes it’s much worse than that. If you’re intimidated by somebody, you see that completely. If you’re in love with somebody, you probably see that completely.

There are all kinds of circumstances in which you can’t summon the powers to communicate. We have fears of fulfilling ambitions. We have people who always feel there’s somebody else who throws us into the shadows or whatever. Whatever those things are, [it is] heightened here.

This is a man whose problems with communication are so very very extreme that he’s written himself off. Another thing is that it is not uncommon for people in midlife to think, “Well, I just never amounted to enough. I reached this age and if it’s not fixed by now, it never will be.”

[There are] problems between men and intimacy. Notorious, you know. Between anybody, actually. But this happens to be men and the way they don’t want to be revealed as vulnerable. It’s a story about one man trying to reach another through those barriers we put up. So let’s exaggerate those. Make him royal. He literally lives behind high walls; he has to be [protected]. In order to be greeted, you have to get through a whole bunch of titles and about five names before you’re even allowed to talk to the guy. He has to hold his hand out first before you get to shake his hand.

So you’re building up all these protocols that we hide behind on a daily basis, but it’s heightened by this situation. So I guess my theory is these are all universal things which have been beefed up. And being royal is part of that, you know. It’s a human story.

Q: Did you know anything about this story beforehand? How did you prepare for it?

CF: I knew that he existed. I knew about the abdication crisis, but I knew nothing about it. I hadn’t even watched any of the dramas about it. I wasn’t even quite sure whether he was GEORGE V or GEORGE VI. I remember my mother telling me that she had great sympathy for him because of the stammer, so I knew about that. I knew he died relatively young and that the queen came to the throne very young. We all know that because that was 1952…and she’s still here.

I always understood that she was very close to her father and it must have been very tough to take that job on while you were still grieving. I had a picture of that as a kid. But that really was it. I couldn’t have told you the date that it all happened. I never heard when it was broadcast. I don’t think I even knew that our QUEEN MOTHER was his wife. It made sense. But I’m not a royal watcher. So I was starting from scratch.

Q: Were you surprised to find out about this extraordinary story?

CF: It’s interesting to follow what history might pronounce as the minor characters off stage and see where they go. It reminds me of ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD. TOM HOOPER (the director)would call the WALLIS SIMPSON and EDWARD VIII story a plot of history.

So it interested me to turn an ostensibly minor character into a protagonist, realizing they’re not that minor at all. Also, I think [it reflects] different versions of heroism. I like stories that reflect on human virtues, not in the superhero realm. It’s where we have to look for qualities that come, perhaps, in a quieter form.

Q: You’ve taken on difficult roles before and brought life to them in a way that didn’t seem possible.

CF: Thank you for saying that. But I think what is so painful about this particular character – and, in fact, a lot of characters I’ve taken on who find communication difficult – is that they are people with a kind of lucidity inside. That’s the problem.

It wouldn’t be a tragic case if GEORGE VI really was dimwitted. I’m not commenting on the stammer. I’m commenting on the fact that he’s been misjudged. If you read his letters or read his quotes or hear anything he has to say, this man had an elegance of thought and wit and language. There’s no question about it.

He had [a sense of] irony. He was fiercely intelligent. He did not speak banalities. He had a sense of paradox. I mean, there’s a really fine and subtle mind at work there. And for that not to come out is immensely painful; to be misjudged as stupid, which he was, when you have those faculties…I think that’s almost entirely what it’s about. And this guy, his mind was on fire.

Q: This role gets assigned to actors where people think of them as just playing these characters but they’re not as smart as the director or the screenwriter. But yet there are definitely actors…

CF: Oh, yes, there are some supremely intelligent actors. And I’ve worked with a lot of [them], you know. And it’s a pity GEOFFREY RUSH isn’t here to bear that out.

Q: Or HELENA BONHAM CARTER.

CF: Or TIM SPALL. I mean any of the people in our movie. I find it actually extremely common to meet highly articulate actors. Let’s take a completely different area of public entertainment: talk about MAMMA MIA. It’s not highbrow work. But if you’ve ever interviewed MERYL STREEP or STELLAN SKARSGARD, you won’t hear two more eloquent people.

I think we have to deal with language. We don’t write it. But I think that to grasp it and to own it, you don’t have to be equal to it in the sense that you could have written it. But you certainly have to have enough gray matter to navigate it. You can usually tell an actor who’s trying to catch up with words where they’re totally out of their depth.

You have to be able to find your way around it – whether it’s SHAKESPEARE or the incredibly long sentences that Jane Austen wrote with endless clauses in the middle…and then trying to find your way halfway down that paragraph and have it still make sense and find out where you took a breath on the way. That’s a mental exercise.

Q: Speaking of articulate actors, what was it like working with HELENA?

CF: I’ve known HELENA a tiny bit for years and we’ve actually seen each other far more recently. But like JENNIFER EHLE {who plays MYRTLE LOGUE}, I love her dearly. She’s got a fantastic sense of humour. She’s got the filthiest laugh of anybody that I’ve ever met. You would hire her for a table read, I’m telling you.

We sat there not knowing if this film really had any humour in it that was going to work in the context. I felt there was when I read the script. You never really know until you put it to the test and you only need her there because she just cackled through it all. She has a great sense of mischief. She’s very committed to the job. But she also has a way of not taking it too seriously, which is a joy to have around.

Q: Most of your scenes with the rest of the cast, including GEOFFREY RUSH, are in a stage like setting. What did you do to get that chemistry going? Much of it depends on how well you guys act opposite each other.

CF: We just really started to get to know each other. I mean, I didn’t know him well. We had met 15 years – well, not quite – [when we did] SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. We didn’t really work much together on it, but we did the promotional stuff together – the party part of that. And you know, you do get to know somebody when you’re on junkets and unwinding.

GEOFF’S a lot of fun. I found him such easy company. He loves ideas. He loves to talk. He loves to go to find the humour in things. He loves to turn things around in ways that are interesting. Like TOM HOOPER, he’s never banal. There’s nothing obvious in his thinking. There’s always a fascinating twist. I found him stimulating company and exhilarating. We spent a lot of time in each other’s company and because TOM, as I said, worked every last hour he possibly could every day of the week, there wasn’t a lot of down time.

Sometimes you’d end the day in a state of complete and utter – almost debilitating – exhaustion. Nobody weeps for the trials of an actor. But we did feel drained. But we wouldn’t go home because TOM, GEOFFREY and I would just talk. We’d go and start to get our costumes off, begin chatting and we’d be there until midnight talking about tomorrow’s scene or laughing…and I think that became an intimacy that helped. We enjoyed the days on set. We laughed a lot between takes and played with it, you know.

Q: One of the most brilliant scenes in the film was where you cursed a lot. How did TOM help you to prepare for that scene and how did it feel to curse so much?

CF: I don’t remember what the preparation felt like or what we did. We did work pretty hard on it. We had to work from how you go from that because TOM was brilliant at scoring and what’s going to have to happen before this to make it work really in this scene? What does DAVID SEIDLER (the screenwriter) do to you that compresses you so much that this becomes the only way back out again? And how far can you go? And how many words is it? And what are those words? And how playful is it? And how do you get from sitting on a sofa to that? And so that was one of the few scenes where there had to be a bit of improv.

Q: Are you aware that is the scene that got the film its (R) rating?

CF: Oh, yes.

Q: You said you’ve been surprised about the public response to this film. At any point during the shooting did you feel that this was going to be a remarkable film?

CF: You never know anything. What made me very optimistic that it would be like this was the rigour and TOM HOOPER’S sheer uncompromising commitment. In that respect, he reminded me of TOM FORD – you know, that this a person who will not tolerate mediocrity. There’s nothing that’s going to get through, not get [scrutinized], for perfection. I think some people almost wishful think themselves into a result and that’s where you get mediocrity. They get tired, so they say it’s fine. But TOM will not stop. He resents the fact that human beings have to sleep, you know. He wishes we could all…

Q: TOM HOOPER, TOM FORD or both?

CF: I’m talking about TOM HOOPER – but I don’t know, maybe TOM FORD’S like that too. And I think TOM HOOPER wishes Sunday didn’t have to happen, that we didn’t have to have families or anything other than what happens on the set. So a man like that’s not going to let a second rate thing go. I also saw great things happening just watching GEOFFREY RUSH, by itself, which made me think we had something special.

Q: At this moment, there has to be a part of you that says, “I don’t want to jinx what’s going on. What am I exactly doing?” Perhaps employing people who have taken actors that are hot on to that next level.

CF: Right now I’m not doing anything different at all. I mean, obviously I would love to find another role that I could just eat up. I’m not finding it right now. I think I’m doing the best film that’s being made at the moment, which is TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY {based on JOHN LeCARRE’S book}. I’m loving being on that set. I couldn’t be in anything better. It’s a wonderful role. It’s an ensemble thing. I don’t really want to be carrying a film right now. I think it’s nice to leave that to someone else for a moment. It’s Tomas Alfredson {best known for the Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In}. It’s exhilarating to see what he’s doing.

Q: Another Tom?

CF: Another Tom.

Q: Have you hit your stride in your career arc? Last year you had A SINGLE MAN and now THE KING’S SPEECH is being considered one of the top 10 films of the year.

CF: It’s a great moment, but it’s too random to call it a stride. If I keep getting roles as good as this, I would like to think it could be a stride. But I mean, this is a profession which notoriously trips you up, you know. And I felt there were moments when I had my mojo. I just didn’t have the scripts. And, you know, I may have dropped the ball a few times along the way. I’m mixing my metaphors. But no, this happened to be a time when I was really enjoying the work. I feel that I’m at an age which is making the stories interesting. You know, I don’t relish the deteriorization process. But I do find it interesting to play characters where the past counts, you know. And I’ve lived long enough to actually have one now.

Q: Though you’re a consummate communicator, it must have been hard to figure out how to take a person who has such difficulty with communicating and communicate it. Do you find in stepping back and seeing that?

CF: No, I’m not going to take for granted your premise about my ability to….

Q: In meeting you years ago – the days of the Falklands’ war film TUMBLEDOWN – you were a very serious guy and never seemed that ambitious. VALMONT got lost in the shuffle in the wake of the higher profile DANGEROUS LIAISONS. You never seemed to be somebody who really wanted to make it…and now here you are. Is it a matter of luck when you get there? How did that happen?

CF: It feels like luck. I don’t think it can be. I mean I must be doing something and I don’t just mean acting. I don’t know. It’s hard to analyze.

Q: You make choices now, though, that seem to be the right choices.

CF: Oh, that’s the lottery. Do you think I didn’t always want to get masterpiece screenplays? If you can’t get the masterpiece then you do what you can to stay in the game. I love working, you know. I love the collaboration. I love telling stories.

There’s a lot of value in light entertainment as well. It can be a joy in being a part of that. Sometimes I’ve done movies I wouldn’t go and see. But, you know, I think there was a part of me…

Some of them I enjoyed immensely. And some of them were, “I hope this keeps me in the business long enough to get the one I really want to do.”

Q: There’s that humility about you. Do you understand the humility of a character because you understand it in yourself?

CF: You should meet the people I have around me. Meet my wife. You’d understand it if I’m humble. There’s no way to get too far above yourself with her around. I do admire the humility of GEORGE VI. There’s something heroic about it in his case. I don’t think there is in mine. There’s no chance of me getting above myself with the people I know.

I’ve tried. Believe me.

Q: You’re a family man. What do you think about your kids going into acting. Are they interested?

CF: I think every parent will say exactly the same thing. It’s precarious. It can be bruising. It’s a bit of a lottery. It’s painful not to make it. It can even be more troublesome if you do make it. And it’s not an easy choice. But no, I wouldn’t push it. Certainly not push them into it. I would want to expose them to as many options as possible. That’s pretty much what my parents said to me. But I wouldn’t stand in their way.

Q: You have one going in that direction.

CF: My oldest is in drama school now and I’m trying to encourage him.

Q: If KING GEORGE VI were alive today, what would you ask him?

CF: “What do you think of my chances in the awards season?” I have decided to be perverse here.

HELEN MIRREN: INSPIRED BY MARTHA STEWART

This article is written by BRAD BALFOUR at THE HUFFINGTON POST

It’s no surprise that British actor HELEN MIRREN has played royalty, especially queens. She’s portrayed monarchs six times (and is the only performer to have played both Elizabeths).

Born ILYENA LYDIA VASILIEVNA MIRONOV, the OSCAR winner can claim aristocratic roots – Russian aristocracy that is. Her grandfather was PIOTR VASILIEVICH MIRONOFF, a White Russian of noble birth (who was in London finessing an arms deal when the Russian Revolution broke out) who thus had his wife and son – HELEN’S father – join him there before it was too late.

But that doesn’t mean that this stage and screen doyen behaves in a haughty prima donna fashion. Besides her convivial ways, she exudes an aura (a blend of sex goddess and relentless warrior) that has been infused in her many roles since she played an authorative police captain in the BBC series PRIME SUSPECT.

When in NYC to promote RED – the sometimes absurd tongue in cheek thriller about retired ace CIA agents directed by ROBERT SCHWENTKE – she made her presence known here.

She was on view for the NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL premiere of JULIE TAYMOR’S reimagining of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S last play THE TEMPEST.

She was also seen at sundry locations shooting scenes from the upcoming remake of ARTHUR (starring RUSSELL BRAND, who also appears in THE TEMPEST). Though Ms. Mirren knows there’s more to life than being in the limelight, she is the hardest working female Brit of her vintage, gracing the screens with these three films in 2010 not to mention her OSCAR nominated turn as COUNTESS SOFYA ANDREEVNA in 2009′s THE LAST STATION.

And even though RED had a sterling cast – BRUCE WILLIS, JOHN MALKOVICH, MORGAN FREEMAN were among the boldface names – it was not a tough call as to whom to feature from among them; between HELEN’S charming demeanour and expansive presence, the petite performer made for an especially compelling conversation.

So after RED’S press conference, she lingered to answer some additional questions – setting the stage for this interview.

Q: THE TEMPEST recently opened. Before that RED came out and I saw SAVAGE MESSIAH as part of LINCOLN CENTER’S KEN RUSSELL retrospective. LOVE RANCH was out this past summer. What a long, strange journey you’ve been on throughout your career. You’ve played an amazingly diverse set of characters. How do you decide to do a movie like RED in the wake of THE TEMPEST and LOVE RANCH?

HELEN MIRREN: I did RED before I did THE TEMPEST. No, maybe it was the other way around. I can’t remember now. That’s terrible. The whole idea is to do something different from what you’ve just done.

THE QUEEN was an incredible experience for me in terms of the attention the film brought {she won an ACADEMY AWARD for BEST ACTRESS for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II}, but that sort of attention kind of sticks and I was getting a bit sick of people saying, “Oh, you’re so evil. You play all these queens.”

Actually, I don’t {usually} play queens; I play lots of different things. For a long time before that I was a police detective and then I transmogrified into the Queen. You just want to try and push the last thing out of people’s minds so they can look at you with an open mind, basically.

Q: How long ago was it since you saw SAVAGE MESSIAH – which came out in 1969?

HM: Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen SAVAGE MESSIAH. The day I had to do that nude scene…I have this nude scene and have to walk completely bollocks naked – as we say in England – down a flight of stairs. And it was early in the day and that sort of thing; I was so mortified and embarrassed.

I remember that morning looking out of my trailer, a funky little caravan thing and wondering if I threw myself off of the top step of the trailer if I could manage to break my leg and not have to shoot the scene. I was just so unhappy about it.

So I don’t think I ever saw it, actually. I can’t remember the name of the character now. I was a bra burning suffragette at the turn of the century. It’s about an artist {HENRI GAUDIER BRZESKA} and is directed by {the legendary transgressive} KEN RUSSELL.

Q: As for THE TEMPEST, how did you like reimagining Prospero as a woman, Prospera, in this controversial take on SHAKESPEARE?

HM: It could so easily be a woman’s part. It’s not a man’s part in anything except that it’s a man. But everything about the play and about the part can be played by a woman without changing really anything except for a little bit of the back story.

Q: Is that the same as playing a butler in ARTHUR, which you’ve been shooting on the streets of New York?

HM: No, that was very different. It was written as a woman, as a nanny. I’m not playing a butler. I’m playing his nanny.

Q: Are you getting back on stage again?

HM: I hope so next year. That’s what I’d like to do.

Q: RED is a lot of fun. How did you approach playing this woman? Was it with a sense of comedy behind her wonderful hairdo and her glamour?

HM: No, I approached it very seriously, like I do everything really. It’s always great to find someone that you can pin your character on. Obviously in THE QUEEN it was very easy to find the person to pin the character on: she’s called Queen Elizabeth.

But here I was kind of looking for who this woman might be and then had this flash of inspiration – MARTHA STEWART came into my mind. I thought that’s who she is: MARTHA STEWART. So from that point on I based everything on MARTHA STEWART. The hair was MARTHA STEWART’S hair – even the colour and the cut. The clothes were MARTHA STEWART. I thought MARTHA STEWART combines this perfect combination of sweetness, kindness, gentleness and unbelievable efficiency with this kind of laser like ability to concentrate and get the job done.

That was a perfect thing for Victoria. So I had a picture of MARTHA up in my trailer in the makeup room, so every day I could look at her and be inspired. That was just my secret story; that’s who I got inspiration from. Obviously I didn’t try and imitate her or impersonate her. That wasn’t the point. It was getting inside of MARTHA.

Q: If you could be on MARTHA STEWART’S show, what would you like to talk about?

HM: I have been on her show, actually.

Q: What would you like to do on her show? Anything you could get from MARTHA STEWART in terms of advice?

HM: Oh, my God. Where do you start, really? The woman is amazing. I watch her shows and I’m always sitting there with notepaper. That’s how you clean windows. That’s what you should do with your washing up gloves after you’ve finished with them. You’ve got to dry them properly or turn them inside out or do something or other.

I mean, she’s absolutely amazing. Amazing fund of unbelievable, lovely, domestic information that I love. When I was on her show I think we repotted something. I do love gardening and I know quite a bit about gardening. So I think we were repotting or regenerating geraniums or something. I can’t remember.

Q: Are there similarities between this character and your TEACHING MRS. TINGLE character?

HM: No, no, no. (She) was an unhappy person. Victoria is not an unhappy person. I wanted her to be nice and MARTHA STEWARTish, but a charming character.

Q: What were some of your favourite costumes?

HM: Oh, I loved my white dress from RED. My white dress was great. That was made for me and I thought the costume designer did a beautiful job. It was a brilliant dress because it was so comfortable and yet it looked so chic and lovely…and it worked for the scenes and everything. It was just like the perfect dress.

And I did actually rather like my snow camouflage thing as well. That was kind of cool. I didn’t realize such a thing existed in the world – snow camouflage – but apparently it does.

Q: How was it doing action scenes?

HM: Oh, fun. It’s always great to do action scenes. They’re called action scenes because they do the acting for you. You don’t have to act in action scenes. I was very lucky. A lot of my action scenes were with JOHN MALKOVICH and he was just so good at that gun stuff. He was just brilliant. JOHN…you wouldn’t believe it, would you? But he was great. The difficult thing I found was not sticking my tongue out when I was shooting my gun.

Q: Which gun was the most fun to handle?

HM: I don’t like to ever say a gun is fun, but guns can be fun in the sense of target practice. Trying to hit a target carefully is interesting and I guess on that level I like the sniper gun the best. I hate to hear myself even saying that, but it’s true.

The guns I found the most horrifying are these small machine guns. They’re not funny; they’re terrible, because you can cause such havoc. I could literally wipe almost all of you out if I had one here. And I happen to have one here [laughs]!

That would be a headline, wouldn’t it? But anyway…awful, these little hand machine guns. As I understand it, you can buy them here in gun shows. It’s dreadful. But the whole idea of targeting – careful target practice – that is interesting to me.

Q: You seem to be a fearless person, despite what you say about walking naked down stairs. What scares you today?

HM: Oh, I wouldn’t like to do that today. I think it’s worse when you’re young, funnily enough, because you’re more of a sex object. No, it’s never comfortable. The best thing would be if all the crew took their clothes off too and then you’d feel fine. But it’s never comfortable to be the only one without clothes on – for men or women.

I’ll tell you what scares me is plastic: plastic bags and plastic bottles. Why does my water have to come in a bloody plastic bottle? The landfill and the ocean; I don’t know, I’m just terrified about the proliferation of plastic.

Q: What leads you to put yourself in these situations that you describe as uncomfortable or embarrassing?

HM: It’s to constantly conquer your own fear, isn’t it, that you put yourself in these ridiculous situations. To challenge your own feelings of fear or inadequacy or whatever you have to do that.

Q: Where does your passion for acting come from?

HM: I wonder. I don’t know. It started early in my life. Very early; I was about 13 or 14. Originally it came through SHAKESPEARE and I kind of discovered SHAKESPEARE when I was about [that age]. SHAKESPEARE was a channel, but the thing I still love about my job is to be able to find yourself in a different world, whether it’s in the theatre or on film.

In each thing it comes at you in a different way. In film it’s more visceral. You can literally be in Camelot. I can literally be a sniper outside of a house in the snow. I can literally be that person. And it’s just so exciting to find yourself in these wonderful, fantastical, sometimes funny, sometimes serious, but amazing worlds…and I love that side of my job.

I loved it in THE LAST STATION. I was suddenly in Russia, the Russia of my grandparents’ photographs. I literally was suddenly in that world and that’s fantastic. When it was SHAKESPEARE and I discovered the world of HAMLET, so different form my little postwar life in a dormant town in England, to go into these wonderful imaginary worlds was just so fantastic and that’s what I love the most still.

Q: Your background is Russian.

HM: Yes, well half Russian. My dad’s Russian. My mother’s English. I always say my bottom half is Russian.

Q: Often in films Russians are depicted as villains.

HM: Yes. And Brits. Usually Brits more than Russians actually. The Brits are the baddies in American movies mostly. It’s very nice that I’m not playing a baddie in this one. It’s very interesting the way film culture doesn’t lead the way the world thinks, it tends to follow the way the world thinks.

I did a film called 2010 in which I played a Russian. Actually, I wasn’t a baddie; I was a goodie. I remember having an argument with the costume designer because she was an American woman and she said, “She’s Russian. She would have horrible, big, ugly clothes.” No she wouldn’t. She’s a Russian astronaut; Russian astronauts have an incredibly high level. “Ah, but we can’t show that.”

Russians had to be shown to be sort of funky and behind the times – and in particular, fat and ugly. There were no beautiful Russians in the times of Communism as far as the Americans were concerned.

Of course now suddenly all of these unbelievably gorgeous models are coming out of Russia. Where were they? It’s interesting how without really realizing it we’re constantly being fed imagery. I think the Brits are a nice convenient target to make for baddies because you can’t be accused of racism or religious bigotry by making the Brits the baddies. America has a strange love/hate relationship with the Brits in general.

Q: As someone with a Russian background, how do you rate RED actor BRIAN COX (who’s English) as a faux Russian?

HM: BRIAN is an incredible actor and I’ve worked with him on a couple of occasions, actually, so we’ve known each other for a long time. He’s a fantastic actor and I’m very proud of him being British. It’s funny, isn’t it, how your features suddenly look as you play characters? I don’t think BRIAN is Russian at all, but goodness, he looks amazingly Russian in RED. He just looks the part so perfectly.

Q: I read that one of the reasons you wanted to do RED was that you had a chance to work with BRUCE WILLIS and actually had a bit of a crush on him. Could that be?

HM: Well, it doesn’t really need elaborating on it. It’s all true. I do have a crush on BRUCE. Don’t tell him, for God’s sake. Don’t let my husband know – oh, my husband knows. I have two kinds of crushes on him: I have the classic fan type crush and then I have a more aesthetic crush on him as an actress looking at an actor who I think is really a wonderful, wonderful actor.

There are two BRUCES: he’s brilliant in the action movies but he’s also this fantastic character actor and I’m hoping we’ll see more and more of that side of him. I think he’s really really good. So I have two kinds of admiration for him, the venal kind and the sort of respectful kind.

Q: Is there an action franchise, action film star or action director you’d like to work with in the future?

HM: Good question. I’m too ignorant to really answer it properly. I guess JOHN WOO. And QUENTIN TARANTINO is an incredible action director. It’s so sad that he lost his editor recently because his films are so brilliantly edited. Of course, a director is the person who edits as well as the editor, but obviously that was an incredible marriage of minds, those two people. Very, very sad that he’s lost her and the movie world has lost her. But anyway…I would say JOHN WOO or QUENTIN TARANTINO.

Q: Do you have an idea of yourself when you retire?

HM: I don’t know. You don’t know that until it happens, I guess. I mean, as night follows day, inevitably it will happen, but I have no idea. I think we all have a dream of what it would be like not to work and grow heirloom tomatoes and I do have that dream. It would be lovely. I do love gardening and all of that, but I do love my work. But mostly I love the people that I get to work with.

In my job and all the jobs related to my job, including yours, I get to constantly meet, work with and be involved with clever, imaginative people who constantly surprise you, push you forward and inspire you. I would miss that a lot if I didn’t work any more. I’d miss the people that I get to meet and work with, including the press – all the elements of it really.

MERRY MERRY…

On behalf of myself and Snagglepuss (the patron saint of this wild and woolly artistic enterprise), I would like to wish my wondrous treasured readers the most magnificent holiday season ever.

It’s a magical time of year. Make the most of it…

THE HOLIDAY SEASON HEATS UP…

It’s finally Christmas Eve.

To make the celebration a little sweeter, I’ve selected SNOOPY VS. THE RED BARON (AKA SNOOPY’S CHRISTMAS) by THE ROYAL GUARDSMEN as the Friday musical highlight.

Of all the PEANUTS characters, I was always most intrigued by that little dude that played the piano. (He also had a passion for Beethoven, as I recall.)

There’s something unbelievably sexy about a boy that plays the piano. I’m thinking about one gentleman in particular.

Anyway…

It’s time for me to exit. Stage left…

THE 200 MOST ICONIC LOOKS

In celebration of IN STYLE’S 200th issue, fashion director HAL RUBINSTEIN has selected 200 outstanding outfits worn by the most fashionable famous women in the spotlight.

They include:

MARION COTILLARD (JEAN PAUL GAULTIER) – 2008

NATALIE PORTMAN (RODARTE) – 2009

NICOLE KIDMAN (CHANEL) – 2002
NICOLE KIDMAN (AZZARO) – 2005
NICOLE KIDMAN (GUCCI) – 2005
NICOLE KIDMAN (BALENCIAGA) – 2006

EVA MENDES (CALVIN KLEIN) – 2007

JULIA ROBERTS (VALENTINO) – 2001
JULIA ROBERTS (ARMANI) – 2004

To get the gallery, go here

THE 30 SEXIEST STARS OF 2010

Our fabulous friends at EW have provided us with the ultimate gallery. it showcases the 30 sexiest stars of the past year.

It includes:

MILA KUNIS
EVA MENDES
EMMA STONE
CONNIE BRITTON
OLIVIA WILDE
MAGGIE Q

For the whole damn thing, please go here

THE MESMERIZING BEAUTY OF BLACK SWAN

I just wanted to showcase some unusual posters for BLACK SWAN that you may not have seen before.

They were created by LA BOCA DESIGN in London.

DIRECTOR (& FASHION ICON) SOFIA COPPOLA TALKS STYLE

FROM STYLELIST

Before SOFIA COPPOLA’S new film SOMEWHERE hits cinemas, the director sat down for an interview with StyleList.

SOFIA’S eye has been refined through a long association with the fashion industry, including launching her own label with a college friend (MILKFED, which the partners have since sold to their Japanese investor). She began as a 15 year old with a dream internship at CHANEL in Paris, working in close proximity to KARL LAGERFELD.

“He was very friendly and very nice,” Ms. Coppola recalled, looking relaxed in a gray CELINE sweater and brown corduroy pants by her friend MARC JACOBS.

“I thought it would be more intimidating, but he was very sweet with the interns and it was just interesting for me to watch someone so creative who does so many different things.”

SOFIA has gone on to many other fashion industry collaborations, including designing a handbag and shoe line with LOUIS VUITTON and an ongoing relationship shooting commercials for DIOR fragrances. (The next one comes out in 2011.)

SOMEWHERE is the story of a dissolute actor (JOHNNY MARCO, portrayed by STEPHEN DORFF) living at L.A.’s famous CHATEAU MARMONT, whose life begins to have meaning following a visit by his neglected daughter CLEO, played by ELLE FANNING.

The fashion in the film is subtle: STEPHEN spends most of his time in vintage 1940s Red Wing boots, beatup Levis and hip T shirts.

“California is much more casual,” said SOFIA. She considers herself a west coast woman at heart, despite living in Paris and having been born in New York City.

“New Yorkers are a little bit more dressed up – they’re closer to Europe maybe, the more east you go. But I feel like nowadays, with the internet, there is not as huge a difference as when I was a kid, when you would see a big difference between places, because everyone is looking at the same references.”

SOFIA brightened when asked about one striking fashion moment in the film, when ELLE FANNING (who was tall and athletically built at 11 when she made the film and is even bigger a year later) dons a beautiful pale pink gown to attend an awards show.

“I actually bought that dress. It was my dress but I’d never worn it. It’s Prada. I bought it at that store Corso Como when I was in Milan one time, but I never ended up wearing it. So I ended up giving it to Elle.”

SOFIA COPPOLA’S most treasured memory of THE CHATEAU MARMONT, a famous nexus of the Los Angeles film and creative communities, was of meeting legendary fashion photographer HELMUT NEWTON.

“He was a hero of mine. I met him in the elevator and I got to talk to him and tell him how much I admired him. He actually had sent me a photograph because I wrote an article about him, so I was really happy that I got to thank him in person. It was the day he died.”

In 2004, HELMUT NEWTON, who lived in the hotel, lost control of his car as he was leaving the garage – possibly as the result of a heart attack – and was killed when it struck a wall across the street.

“In the movie, there’s a crashed car that’s a reference to him.”

As for her own personal style, SOFIA said that she’s partial to CELINE, MARC JACOBS and LOUIS VUITTON shoes, which her friend designs.

“I’m not as sloppy as Johnny Marco, but even when I’m working, I like to have a uniform: I wear the same jeans and shirts. And I have a bunch of button down shirts made at Charvet in Paris so I don’t have to think about what to wear. For work, I wear sneakers because I’m on my feet all day, but in the evening, I like to wear a heel.”

Despite this laid back confession, the director also really likes dressing up: “It’s fun sometimes, especially at movie premieres – because in real life I don’t make that kind of effort.”

SOMEWHERE opens in theatres on DECEMBER 22.

BLACK SWAN: THE PERILS OF PERFECTION

This article is written by JORDAN ZAKARIN, ASSOCIATE ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR for THE HUFFINGTON POST

NATALIE PORTMAN’S and MILA KUNIS’ strong acting brought GOLDEN GLOBE nominations and OSCAR buzz to their new film BLACK SWAN, but more importantly, the pair’s grinding, slavish devotion to training for their roles as top ballerinas is bringing to light the pressure and constant paranoia that real life dancers so often face in pursuit of the art.

Ignore the chatter about their love scene and you’ll hear NATALIE and MILA discussing the gruelling work they put into both learning the required dance moves and getting into typical dancing shape. And on screen? You witness the dark passage in pursuit of perfection that Ms. Portman’s character travels down.

NATALIE said she trained for five to eight hours a day, every day, for an entire year. MILA got one day off – her birthday – during three nonstop months of training and filming. Each actor lost twenty pounds and the results were obvious: NATALIE at times appears skeletal in her leotard, while MILA has never looked thinner.

Think that’s extreme? Try being a real dancer.

Beginning in early childhood, ballet and contemporary dancers devote their lives to the art. But when they’re not performing, dance is less an art than extreme sport, with oftentimes unrealistic expectations, driving dancers to their physical and mental limits…and beyond. The result, far too often, is a loss of an inner self that few outsiders can see.

NATALIE is seen purging what little food she eats – salad she nibbles, her own birthday cake that she rejects – and it’s not an uncommon occurrence amongst dancers. In 2006, the International Journal of Eating Disorders found that 83% of ballet dancers have some sort of eating disorder. But even more prevalent is the mental impact on dancers.

At a young age, TAYLOR GORDON has seen it all. A freelance dancer, TAYLOR is a 22 year old pirouetting blaze of energy, accomplishment and aspiration. For the past two years, she featured in THE RADIO CITY CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR, logging 17 shows a week as a member of the constantly moving ensemble. All that in addition to working with other dance companies, taking several classes a day, running a prominent blog…oh, and earning both her undergrad and graduate degrees. Suffice to say, she’s known a lot of dancers in her life.

“I think overwork and depression have been issues I’ve noticed even more than eating disorders, including in myself. It’s like, I just can’t take enough classes, I just want to be so good and you get to a point that you’re taking 3 or 4 classes a day and you’re getting worse because you’re so tired.”

And, for them, getting worse is not an option.

“You’re never perfect. That’s the thing about Natalie Portman. She’s constantly searching for this perfection and there’s never perfection. And we’re constantly striving for that and that just keeps the work piling up.”

And just like NATALIE PORTMAN’S character NINA, she’s seen the work consume people.

“It’s really hard to have that perspective when it’s so much about you, it’s so much about your physicality and its a huge part of yourself,” TAYLOR admitted, not excluding herself from the discussion.

“Your whole self image is ballet. It’s a very narrow minded profession…Your whole world is about ballet and if you have a bad class or don’t get that part, your whole world comes crashing down.”

EVAN NAMEROW, a former dancer turned well known blogger (she writes DancingPerfectlyFree.com) and marketing director of GALLIM DANCE, echoed that problem of confused self image.

“I think Black Swan showed how the internal dance conversation that Natalie’s character had with herself literally bled into the rest of her life. There was no separation between personal and professional and her quest for artistic perfection crushed any other interests in her life. To a certain extent, professional dancers spend so much time on stage or in rehearsal – and so much time with other dancers – that the distinction between personal and professional is blurred.”

But while dancers often have type A personalities, the sheer lack of productions to dance in and companies to dance for make their fears very real. And overly strict coaches and directors don’t help.

In BLACK SWAN, VINCENT CASSEL plays a domineering director that squeezes the best – and the life – out of NATALIE. They’re ruthless, too, often treating dancers as expendable pawns.

“Nothing’s ever stable in ballet. Even if you have a job in a top company, it’s not guaranteed for next year,” TAYLOR lamented.

“Someone is coming up that is better than you and you’re over, you’re done…and because of that you’re fighting and fighting, no matter how good, how skinny you are, you’re constantly in a fight with yourself.”

While BLACK SWAN occurs on the professional stage, EVAN NAMEROW thinks the paranoia comes from a far deeper place.

“At any age, pressure in the dance world can come from teachers, directors, other dancers or parents, but ultimately I think the pressure is from oneself. The desire to be flawless might be rooted in a comment from a teacher or a casual remark from another dancer, but that can linger for so long that a dancer converts it to self criticism and then self pressure.”

Of course, it doesn’t just happen because of in studio stressors. It’s a lifestyle that dancers commit to and the outside world can have just as great an impact.

“Dancers make countless sacrifices from a very young age, whether it is moving away from home to study at a prestigious school and therefore giving up a real childhood,” EVAN told me, adding that other smaller yet still devastating sacrifices included “abandoning other interests in order to focus solely on dance, or putting friendships or relationships on the back burner during a busy performance season.”

TAYLOR GORDON confirmed this. She said she “knew [she] was going to be a professional at six years old.”

However, it’s that lifetime dedication and commitment that answers the question I’ve implicitly begged: Why pursue ballet, if it’s such a punishing, taxing and sometimes, in unhealthy environments, damaging pastime?

Like all art, it comes down to self expression – a way of communicating one’s self in such a restrictive world.

“For me, dancing was an incredibly unique form of self expression. Without speaking, the body becomes a focal point and its movement is entirely open to interpretation,” EVAN said.

“In a way it’s more subtle than singing or acting. Although it can be a collaborative effort or something shown to an audience, I often feel like dancing is an ongoing conversation with myself – both mind and body.”

So, how do we balance the sacrifices we see in BLACK SWAN and the very real and vital outlet for self expression that dance provides? Can we find a way to manage the universal giving of one’s self that all artists go through, without fostering crisis in those who so often give everything to the art?

To TAYLOR GORDON, it’s all about awareness, an understanding between the dance world and the greater audience.

“I think that from an outside perspective, people really think of ballet as pink tutus and sparkles and sugar plums and it really is not…I think it’s good for people to understand that we’re fighting so hard for what we love, because it makes it more relatable instead of being an elite art form that no one knows much about…and that’s how the art form dies. People don’t appreciate it or don’t relate to it.”

Let’s hope BLACK SWAN can start that conversation, for dancers and all the new ballet fans it creates.