Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I’ve gotten to see 4 movies at the Santa Barbara Film Festival so far… it’s a lame number after 2 days of watching movies, but I’ve been spending my nights watching the big celebrity studded awards ceremonies.
Last night was a tribute to Ryan Gosling, getting the Independent Award, and tonight was a fivefer called The Virtuosos, giving awards to young or relatively new stars. Featured were James McAvoy, Ellen Page, Casey Affleck, Amy Ryan and Marion Cotillard.
I don’t know exactly the best way to cover these events, but I can give you a general impression and supply you with a ton of photos. So, let’s do that, yeah?
I really like the set-up with these things. I’ve seen maybe a dozen of these over the last 4 or 5 years… everybody from Peter Jackson to Paul Giamatti to Philip Seymour Hoffman to Will Smith to George Clooney to Leonardo DiCaprio to Kate Winslet to Heath Ledger. I’m sure it’s hell for the actors, but I love going over someone’s work movie by movie with clips and a brief Q&A in-between.
Gosling was a little different than the others because he really didn’t have a ton of work to pull from, but there was plenty of his known work (THE NOTEBOOK, which got a ton of teenage girls, and more than a few middle-aged ones, screaming like the Beatles just took the stage, FRACTURE, HALF-NESLON and LARS AND THE REAL GIRL) and some of his lesser known stuff (like his smaller role in REMEMBER THE TITANS, THE BELIEVER, THE SLAUGHTER RULE and THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND).
Things I learned:
-Gosling moved to LA when he was a young actor… when asked why, he said it was the weather, that he knew he wanted to move to Southern California when he was walking to school one day and saw a frozen cat.
-The makers of the Real Dolls discontinued the type of doll Bianca was in LARS IN THE REAL GIRL, not because of it being in the movie, but because their costumers didn’t like the realistic eye-lids. Apparently that made the doll look bored. So now they’re all wide-eyed.
-Bianca, the Real Doll, was present at table reads.
-Gosling didn’t think he was going to make it on THE BELIEVER, where he plays a skinhead and totally blew the first big take, an energetic speech at a diner where he spews the reasons behind his hate. He could tell everybody on the crew thought he sucked, he thought he sucked and the director thought he sucked. He freaked out, went outside to think about it, and the director got him to do one more take and he suddenly got in the groove and everybody was happy ever after.
-He gives all the credit to THE NOTEBOOK’s success to Rachel McAdams. He says every single movie “Rach” is in makes money and the only movie he’s ever been in that has made money was the one she was in, so it’s all her.
-Surprise, surprise, he loved working with Hopkins in FRACTURE, stating that any actor would have paid good money to have the one scene where they’re playing back and forth in the interrogation room. Gosling said a lot of money could have gone to charity if they auctioned off that role.
-HALF-NELSON – He said his young costar, Shareeka Epps, was in high demand on set. Everybody wanted 5 minutes with her every day because she was one of those people that just make you happy about life.
That’s about all I can remember. LARS director Craig Gillespie gave Gosling his award, but not without cracking a few jokes my tired brain can’t remember at the moment. When he went to hug Ryan and give him the mic, Gillespie dropped his note cards and Gosling picked them up and pretended to read off stuff (like how Gillespie thinks Gosling is akin to Jesus Christ, etc). I have a pic:
And then the award was handed off, the photographers went nuts and we got ourselves our own picture.
Tonight we had Virtuosos with Ellen Page, Amy Ryan, Marion Cotillard, James McAvoy and Casey Affleck.
Fun facts: I want Ellen Page to be my girlfriend. Fun facts over.
Because there were 5 people they did a quick-fast version of the footage and Q&A scheme. They pretty much stuck to the movies each of the actors were nominated for and called them up one at a time and they got about 5-10 mins each with about a minute of clips from their nominated movies. Then they all came back at the end to sit together before getting their awards.
Affleck was up to talk about THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSIE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD, leaving GONE BABY GONE for Amy Ryan. The only thing I remember from Affleck’s time in the chair was when the Hollywood Reporter guy who was moderating asked him about working with Brad Pitt since he already worked with him on the OCEANS movies. Casey laughed it off saying he only kinda worked with Pitt on the OCEANS movies… that his average scene with Pitt in those movies involved Pitt right in front of the camera and Casey about 65 feet behind him pantomiming with Elliott Gould.
Cotillard was there, of course, for LA VIE EN ROSE. She spent most of her time talking about the language of lip synching (and how it was like acting in a foreign language) and talking about how frightened she was to play this character… but only because she had to age from late teens to elderly.
McAvoy seemed really fun and at ease. He let loose with some cursing and talked a bit about ATONEMENT. He mostly underlined the differences between a few scenes, going from the young Briony’s point of view and what really happened. In the big scene at the fountain with Kiera Knightley you first see it from young Briony’s POV and she sees things that didn’t happen in the real world version we see a little later, like McAvoy’s character pointing at the ground, looking like he’s demanding Knightley disrobe.
He also talked about the library sex scene and how uncomfortable sex scenes are to film, but how the best way for a director to make it happen right was for the director to get over the embarrassment him or herself and just tell the actor what to do, not leave it up to what happens. He essentially said it takes a lot of the awkwardness out if they have specific marks to hit, even if it’s as uncomfortable as sticking a tongue down a throat, groping a breast or getting his junk grabbed.
Page was there to talk JUNO and sounded like she was losing her voice. She said she didn’t get to meet Diablo Cody (JUNO’s screenwriter) until right before shooting started, but they’re good friends now. When she first met Jason Reitman, he drove down to the set of AN AMERICAN CRIME, when she was all dirty and emaciated and tortured… about as far from Juno as she could be. But it was okay, because they got along really well and both at the time didn’t know if they were going to be working on the movie, so they pretty much sat around saying, “Yeah, it’ll be great if we can make the movie together!” And she’s the one that suggested Juno would listen to the Moldy Peaches.
Ryan was there for GONE BABY GONE and talked about she got the role right at her audition. She also said that on top of her dialect coach (her Boston accent is a fakerooney) she also had the Affleck boys who grew up around there, so before a take she’d get a correction on the pronunciation of a certain word.
All the actors then rejoined the stage together and answered a few questions as a panel before getting their awards… by Ivan Reitman!
Reitman shared a story about watching basketball with William Goldman in 1980 where Goldman told Reitman to take in the moment, a moment in sports where Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and some other players I don’t recognize (being the lame sports follower that I am) all played for the Lakers. Reitman said looking over the panel it’s the same feeling looking at the sheer amount of great young actors on the rise. Then he thanked Page for being in his kid’s movie. Then they got their awards.
Yay! I went to the party afterwards and had my dreams crushed when Page didn’t go. My wooing plans went on the backburner, but I did get to shake hands with Ivan Reitman (who seemed very familiar with AICN) and talk a little with McAvoy (mostly told him I was a big fan of RORY O’SHEA WAS HERE back a few years ago and that I wished him and Soairse Ronan well at the Oscars).
On the whole it’s been a fun couple of days. I’ll get some movie reviews out to you (as well as my final batch of SUNDANCE reviews) and keep you updated on the goings on out here. Still have a director’s panel with Jason Reitman, Judd Apatow, Brad Bird and others on it, a Tommy Lee Jones tribute and an Angelina Jolie tribute.
Keep ‘em peeled.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
