Interview

Screenwriter

“The Adam Project” Screenwriter Jonathan Tropper on Teaming With Ryan Reynolds & Shawn Levy

The development of The Adam Project has its own time-traveling origin story, one that dates back roughly ten years. Screenwriter Jonathan Tropper says the production took flight, in part, because of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) which stars Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, and Dwayne Johnson in a reboot of the beloved Robin Williams’ film that sucks them into a video game in an adventurous fight for survival. 

“Before Jumanji came out,

By Daron James  |  March 21, 2022

Interview

Cinematographer

Cinematographer Jon Furmanski Reunites With Amy Schumer in “Life & Beth”

When she co-hosts ABC’s Oscar telecast on March 27, Amy Schumer will likely deliver the kind of withering punch lines that forged her reputation as one of America’s most daring comedians. But in her new Hulu series Life & Beth (which debuted on March 18) Schumer brings unexpected angst to her title character, an unhappy wine salesperson trying to make a fresh start in the face of death, disapproval, and dysfunctional family ties.

By Hugh Hart  |  March 21, 2022

Interview

Director

“The Outfit” Director Graham Moore on His Meticulous, Mobbed-Up Debut

Graham Moore, who won both an Oscar and a Writers Guild of America award for his adaptation of The Imitation Game, has joined a growing list of scribes going behind the camera to helm a production. The Outfit, his feature film directorial debut, has arrived, which the longtime scribe co-wrote with Jonathan McClain. 

The movie follows a highly skilled English tailor, played by Academy Award winner Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies),

By Julie Jacobs  |  March 18, 2022

Interview

Costume Designer

How “The Batman” Batsuit Designers Went Lean & Mean

Outside of The Batman writer/director Matt Reeves (who co-wrote the script with Peter Craig), Glyn Dillon and David Crossman probably have The Batman‘s coolest credits attached to their names. Both share the title of Batsuit costume designers, with Dillon serving as chief concept artist and Crossman the costume supervisor. In terms of superhero icons, it doesn’t get much better than designing the Caped Crusader, and the tandem created a unique silhouette for a younger Bruce Wayne,

By Daron James  |  March 17, 2022

Interview

Costume Designer

“Winning Time” Costume Designer Emma Potter on Making Magic With the Lakers

Working on Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty didn’t require an advanced degree in NBA fandom in general and Lakes lore specifically, yet a lot of the folks involved had both. Hecht himself is a lifelong Lakers fan, and writer Rodney Barnes has loved basketball his whole life, and everyone likes Magic Johnson. Yet, one of the key people who helped give Winning Time its period-perfect look admits she was neither a massive b-ball fan or a follower of the NBA.

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 16, 2022

Interview

Cinematographer

“The Batman” Cinematographer Greig Fraser on Finding Light in the Darkness

At a gripping three hours, The Batman isn’t so much an endurance test as it is a lengthy visual puzzle, one that takes place primarily after hours. Director Matt Reeves’s take on Batman (Robert Pattinson) may be the franchise’s most disaffected nocturnal not-so-superhero yet. Working, brooding, and convening with Alfred (Andy Serkis) from dusk ’til dawn, this Bruce Wayne is consumed by trying to undo a complex web of official corruption hidden by Gotham City’s entrenched crop of violent mafiosos.

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  March 16, 2022

Interview

Cinematographer

“After Yang” Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb on the Spare Sci-Fi Beauty of Kogonada’s Latest

After Yang cinematographer Benjamin Loeb knew the minute he met South Korean-born director Kogonada that theirs would not be a standard show biz collaboration. When Loeb called from his native Oslo to Zoom interview for the DP job, he and Kogonada barely mentioned the project at hand. Instead, they talked about ramen. “We spent hours talking about the complexion of broth and what makes the broth look good and feel good,” Loeb recalls.

By Hugh Hart  |  March 15, 2022

Interview

Screenwriter

“Turning Red” Co-Writer Julia Cho on Writing Pixar’s Tender New Film

Pixar’s new movie Turning Red follows straight-A student Meilin, whose perfect 13-year-old life implodes when she starts turning into a giant panda every time her emotions get out of control. Heir to a fierce ancestral spirit that’s affected women in her family for generations, Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) defies her domineering mother Ming (Sandra Oh) and joins her friends to see Four Town, a boyband that sounds very much like NSYNC thanks to the period-perfect pop songs crafted by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell. 

By Hugh Hart  |  March 15, 2022

Interview

Director, Screenwriter

MPA Creator Award Recipient Writer/Director Nikyatu Jusu on her Stunning Debut Feature “Nanny”

Deploying West African folklore to interrogate the myth of the American dream, writer/director Nikyatu Jusu‘s debut feature Nanny is a remarkably assured genre-melding experience. Nanny also gives viewers something that’s sadly still quite rare—it evocatively places us inside the head, heart, and aching soul of Aisha (Anna Diop), an undocumented Senegalese immigrant trying to navigate the mystifying codes of the United States to create a stable place to bring her son,

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 14, 2022

Interview

Costume Designer

“Inventing Anna” Costume Designer Lyn Paolo on Dressing a Cunning Chameleon

When Anna Sorokin, a Russian woman in her early twenties, landed in New York, she had little in the way of entry to the glitzy social world she hoped to break into — no wealth, few friends, and a single stint as an intern at Purple, a raunchy Paris fashion magazine. 

But as creator Shonda Rhimes swiftly demonstrates in Inventing Anna, Netflix’s nine-hour recounting of the fake German heiress Anna Delvey (Julia Garner) and the reporter who broke her story,

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  March 8, 2022

Interview

Producer

Telling Stories With Singapore-Based Producer Si En Tan

Singapore-based producer Si En Tan already has an impressive resume in a relatively short career. After working as an assistant producer on Kirsten Tan’s Thai-Singapore co-production Pop Aye (2017), she went on to produce Anthony Chen’s Wet Season (2019), which won a string of awards at film festivals and the Golden Horse Awards held annually in Taiwan. Her producing credits also include Chen’s segment of the seven-part anthology film The Year Of The Everlasting Storm,

By Liz Shackleton  |  March 8, 2022

Interview

Producer

Smiely Khurana is Leading the Sustainability Charge in Canada With Reel Green

Smiely Khurana is the face of the sustainability movement in Hollywood North. As Creative BC’s in-house Sustainability Lead with Reel Green™, she’s cutting a singular path for the industry in Canada; one that is quickly being modeled in production hubs across the country. Through Reel Green™, Khurana is accelerating knowledge sharing and working to deepen local industry expertise. She’s leading the charge on training and developing new tools to help Canada’s film community green its story and transition to a circular economy. 

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 8, 2022

Interview

Screenwriter

“Winning Time” Writer Rodney Barnes on Scripting HBO’s Fast-Breaking Lakers Series

It’s pretty much a slam dunk that Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty will appeal to basketball fans. After all, it tells the story of one of the most pivotal moments in NBA history and features some of the game’s most notable figures — Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West, and Pat Riley. 

But Rodney Barnes, who shares scripting duties with Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht, and serves as an Executive Producer on the 10-episode HBO series that debuted March 6,

By Chris Koseluk  |  March 7, 2022

Interview

Director

Director Ben Proudfoot on his Oscar-Nominated Short “The Queen of Basketball”

Lusia “Lucy” Harris’s basketball resume includes leading Delta State University in Mississippi to three consecutive national titles and representing the US at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. She made history as the first woman to score a basket at the Olympics as she led the team to a silver medal and became one of the first two women inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Her trailblazing feats in the 1970s so impressed NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal that he signed on as executive producer of The Queen of Basketball,

By Loren King  |  March 3, 2022

Interview

Director

“Jockey” Director Clint Bentley on Finding the Right Narrative Track

Director Clint Bentley and his co-writer Greg Kwedar always wanted Jockey to sit in that sweet spot between gritty naturalism and emotional lyricism. Coming from a documentary background, the filmmakers worked hard to “get best of both worlds,” said Bentley. It began with the old-fashioned legwork of observing the rituals and characters at the track where they shot Jockey and earning the trust of the real-life trainers and riders whose stories and lives are the backbone of the film.

By Loren King  |  March 2, 2022

Interview

Actor, Director

How “The Dress” Went from a Short College Film to an Oscar Nominee

Writer/director Tadeusz Lysiak didn’t plan on being nominated for a Best Short Film Live Action Academy Award when he started developing the script for The Dress while attending Warsaw Film School. The indie film is rife with emotion and puts an authentic lens on loneliness and sexuality through the eyes of Julka (Anna Dzieduszycka), a hotel maid short in stature with a very large desire to find love.

The story allegorically mixes isolation and intimacy through a protagonist normally not seen as a sexual object.

By Daron James  |  March 1, 2022

Interview

Showrunner

“Vikings: Valhalla” Creator Jeb Stuart on Bringing a Little “Die Hard” Energy to the 11th-Century

Jeb Stuart’s Vikings: Valhalla, opens on a massacre in England. The victims, this time, are Vikings — a colony of Scandinavian descendants living on English soil since their raiding forebears put down unexpectedly peaceful roots. But a couple of generations down the line, King Aethelred (Bosco Hogan) is angrily denouncing an alleged Viking problem to his complicit nobles, and in what comes to be known as the St. Brice’s Day massacre, murders them all. 

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  March 1, 2022

Interview

Hair/Makeup

“Pam & Tommy” Makeup Effects Designer Jason Collins on Transforming Lily James & Sebastian Stan

Pam & Tommy makeup effects designer Jason Collins had his work cut out for him when he boarded creator Robert Siegel’s Hulu series. Collins was tasked with taking on two of the most iconic people of the 1990s and capturing them before, during, and after they were the most famous, and infamous, couple in the world.

“My first thought was sheer fear,” Collins says from the set of Creed III in Atlanta,

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 1, 2022

Interview

Composer

“Cyrano” Composer Aaron Dessner on Tuning Into Timeless Love

Director Joe Wright, known best for emotional period films like Atonement and Pride & Prejudice, has brought a new musical version of Cyrano to the screen, starring Peter Dinklage in the title role. Dinklage is receiving rave reviews for his part in the romantic classic, bringing a new depth to the brilliant wordsmith and swordsman who loves his best friend, the gorgeous Roxanne (Haley Bennett), from afar. The film is based on a theatrical version directed and written by Erica Schmidt,

By Leslie Combemale  |  February 25, 2022

Interview

Costume Designer

Oscar-Nominated “Cyrano” Costume Designer Massimo Cantini on a New Vision For a Timeless Tale

Cyrano (in theaters on February 25) boasts megawatt talent – notably, Peter Dinklage in the title role – but newly minted Oscar-nominee, costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini, may be the film’s secret weapon. Parrini has won a bundle of European awards, mostly for his work in his native Italy. He came to Hollywood’s attention in 2020 when he was nominated for an Oscar for his costumes for Pinocchio,

By David Thorpe  |  February 24, 2022