The original The Toxic Avenger (1984), about a “meek mop boy” named Melvin who falls into a vat of toxic waste and becomes the titular mutant superhero, has been reimagined by the talented actor/director Macon Blair. And Blair did something very wise—he enlisted Peter Dinklage to play the Toxic Avenger, and now we’ve got our first look at him. Legendary Entertainment has revealed this glimpse of Dinklage’s hazardous hero ahead of the film’s world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2023 in Austin, Texas, which runs from September 21 to 28 at the Alamo Drafthouse.
Sure, we don’t see that much of Dinklage’s Winston Gooze, but we’re pretty sure that glowing weapon in his hand was once a mop. Winston starts the film as a depressed janitor at a health club whose life takes a turn for the worse when he’s diagnosed with a terminal illness. Winston hatches a plan to rob his employer to pay for treatment, but the poor sap tumbles into a vat of toxic waste instead. A new kind of hero is born from that radioactive sludge, as the Toxic Avenger (aka Toxie) emerges from the vat, and he’s not messing around.
Joining Dinklage are Jacob Tremblay as his son, Wade, Kevin Bacon as Bob Garbinger, Elijah Wood as Fritz Garbinger, Taylour Paige as J.J. Doherty, Julia Davis as Kissy Sturnevan, and Macon Blair as Dennis.
The original 1984 film generated three sequels and became an iconic franchise in the splatter film genre. An initial reboot was announced way back in 2010, but it wasn’t until Legendary won the rights for the franchise in 2019 and Blair was named director in 2020 that things began really moving. Now, The Toxic Avenger is finally ready to mark his radioactive return. The wider release date for the film hasn’t been announced yet.
A new teaser for Ahsoka has landed a week ahead of the series premiere. This latest Star Wars show is led by Rosario Dawson as the titular Jedi rebel, and it’s Dawson who leads us through this new teaser, which takes us on a brief tour of the iconic franchise—from the very first time Luke Skywalker wielded a lightsaber all the way to the moment Dawson’s Ahsoka steps into the action in The Mandalorian, the very first live-action Star Wars series, on her own hero’s journey.
Dawson describes what it means to her to be a part of this iconic, decades-spanning franchise, yet she’s not only just a part—she’s actually making history in her own way. Ahsoka marks the first time the animated portion of the Star Wars galaxy is getting the live-action treatment. Led by writer/director Dave Filoni, Ahsoka will, at least in part, continue a story he began telling during his 2014 animated series Star Wars: Rebels, in which Ahsoka (voiced by Ashley Eckstein) and the rebel Mandalorian Sabine Wren (voiced by Tina Sircar) were searching for the missing Jedi Ezra Bridger (voiced by Taylor Gray) and the villainous Grand Admiral Thrawn (voiced by Lars Mikkelsen). In the new live-action series,Dawson’s rebel Jedi will once again be teaming up with Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), and both Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) and Grand Admiral Thrawn (once again played by Lars Mikkelsen) have crucial roles to play.
Also playing a part in the series is Hayden Christensen’s Darth Vader—yet it’s important to note that Ahsoka is set after Vader’s death in The Return of the Jedi. Ahsoka has a very deep connection to Darth Vader, at least to the man who became him. She was once a protégé of Anakin Skywalker. Ahsoka also features the droid Huyang (voiced by David Tennant), Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson), and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). They’re all making their live-action debuts after first coming into the Star Wars galaxy as animated characters.
Check out the new Ahsoka teaser below. The series debuts on Disney+ on August 23:
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The first teaser for Bradley Cooper’s Maestro has arrived with a swell of beautiful music. This epic love story, Cooper’s first directorial effort since A Star is Born, is based on a script he co-wrote with Josh Singer and is centered on the legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and his lifelong relationship with actress and activist Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan).
The teaser is focused squarely on the love between the two in a beautiful, brief, pared-down glimpse. We open on our young lovers sitting, back-to-back, in a park, as Felicia instructs Leonard on the game they’re playing where she thinks of a number, and he has to intuit what it is. The object of the game is for them to become so close they can share their thoughts in a kind of romantic telepathy. Backed by some of the beautiful music that Bernstein created during his long, momentous career, the teaser ends with the same pair playing the same game, only older now. Yet, they seem no less in love.
Maestro is one of the most eagerly-anticipated films of the fall, arriving in theaters on November 22 before it streams on Netflix on December 20. Joining Cooper and Mulligan are Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Michael Urie, Josh Hamilton, Scott Ellis, Gideon Glick, Sam Nivola, Alexa Swinton, and Miriam Shor. Produces include none other than Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, of course, directed the recent film adaptation of Bernstein’s deathless West Side Story.
The teaser is a sumptuous peek at what will be a must-see film. Check it out below:
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Barbie is currently dominating the cineplex. Co-writer/director Greta Gerwig‘s film, based on the iconic Mattel doll, has become a runaway success, earning over a billion dollars at the box office and garnering an outpouring of love and passion from audiences across the globe. It’s a story of self-discovery that strikes some serious chords with viewers, and it’s also often very funny, relentlessly inventive, and so clearly a work of passion from the folks on the screen and behind the camera that you leave the theater a little lighter than you went in. It’s a special movie.
In this fairy tale of sorts, one of the film’s many Barbies (Margot Robbie) starts to question her mortality and the meaning of life itself. What is her place in the world? What does she signify for women in 2023? Robbie’s “Stereotypical Barbie” discovers the answers the hard way when she and one of the many insecure Kens (Ryan Gosling) leave their dream homes to experience the real world. Along the journey, there are musical numbers, foot chases, car chases, and even an encounter with a deity.
It’s a lot of movie—in a great way—but it meant a lot of hard work for editor Nick Houy to craft a singular film that marshals significant swings in tone, from goofy to heartbreaking. Recently, Houy took The Credits behind the scenes of Barbie, delving into the process of editing some of the film’s most memorable moments.
These are the first musical numbers you’ve edited in your career, right? How was your experience?
It was great. The Dua Lipa song at the beginning with the Barbies, we shot it with a backing track, and then Dua Lipa came in later while we were cutting and added all the lyrics, so that was unique. We had to recut it a few times with different versions of the song, so to speak. Then, the other ones were pretty much fully written when we started recording. Obviously, Matchbox Twenty was all done and recorded with Ryan’s voice, as was the “I’m Just Ken” song. That sequence was Saving Private Ryan but on Malibu Beach. So, it was pretty straightforward. I don’t know why it didn’t seem strange to do music numbers. It felt natural to me.
Did you and Greta Gerwig talk a lot about the pace of filmmaker Jacques Demy’s musical numbers?
Of course. When I first saw the dream ballet set, I was immediately like, “Oh, it’s exactly like in Singin’ in the Rain when they have that dream ballet with a long dress and everything.” On one side, it’s blue, and on the other side, it’s pink. Then, when it cuts to the beach when they’re all done dancing, and then suddenly, they’re back in reality when they’re on the beach, it’s the same color palette, like the blue of the ocean and the pink of the beach. It was just beautifully designed. People that hadn’t picked up that it was Singin’ in the Rain, it made me wonder how they were watching it. It must’ve been a strange watch for them because, to me, it was such a direct reference. Then, of course, “Greased Lightnin'” as well. It’s just got it all going on.
It’s a lot of movie in the best sense possible, but was it a case of too much of a good thing for you?
Totally. I would say just the musical number itself, “I’m Just a Ken,” was just finding the best moments of choreography and visible performance because we knew that we had the track, so you’re not finding the vocal performance. They only shot it in a day, so there wasn’t a ton to choose from. Within the context of the story, we did get some people who thought it was too long, and we agree with that, but that’s the point of it, is that the Kens take it all over, and they’re way over the top with it all. So, is it worth some people feeling that it’s too long for the ultimate payoff of what it is to ring true? I think you should always go with what feels the most emotionally true for your story. In this case, it happened to be a long version of the scene.
There are many scenes in this movie, especially when Barbie talks to her creator in the end, that really take their time. Most movies would’ve cut or fast-forwarded through those scenes, right?
I would say it was more what felt emotionally correct in just a cinematic way and not thinking about it as a modern movie or a summer movie, or like when we watch a movie, where would we want to feel the slowdown? We got a fair amount of notes saying that those were the two places that were a bit slow. As long as you know that you’re making that conscious decision, then you’ll be okay. Even if not everyone agrees with you, at least you go with the knowledge.
Caption: (L-r) RYAN GOSLING, KATE MCKINNON and Director/Writer GRETA GERWIG on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk
The race at Mattel is like a Marx Brothers movie. How was it nailing the pacing in that chase sequence?
That was all Will Ferrell, really, and Margot was amazing as well. She suddenly clicked into this, as you said, like it was a Marx Brothers-type chase. We always talk about it like it was a [director] Jacques Tati set, which it very much was, and I always think of it as a Mel Brooks thing, too. Again, it was more like, “Which pieces do we use?” because they’re all funny, and there was a lot of funny stuff in that chase that didn’t make it in.
Only go with the best?
You just had to say, “What are the A-plus jokes?” and you weren’t allowed to do the A or A-minus jokes. At a certain point, you have to be hard on it because that was another area. Then, it’s followed by a car chase. We had versions of that [foot and car chase] where everyone was tired at a certain point, so we had to trim them way down, even though they were great. The whole thing, if you watch them on their own, was fantastic. In the context of the movie, they were too long.
Ten minutes later, you can really feel something shift after all that wonderful silliness. How delicate was editing the tone of Barbie?
You have to create those without too much whiplash, hopefully. You’ve got the whole chase through the cubicles in the office and everything, and then it slows down. She basically meets God, her mother, Ruth Handler, in the office out of nowhere. Suddenly, it’s from a thousand miles an hour to zero, and then you suddenly have to kick it up again when she runs down the stairs, out the door, and gets into the car chase. So, another tricky thing that makes it feel longer is that it’s broken up by a long dialogue scene in the middle. We spent a lot of time massaging that. As long as you’re creating it in a way that the audience can follow the emotion and is invested in that emotion, then you don’t feel the length as much.
-Caption: (L-r) MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie and RYAN GOSLING as Ken and in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Dale Robinette
Audiences definitely invest in the emotion behind the speech America Ferrera’s character gives. How’d you want to preserve or enhance what Greta shot there?
That one was to find the best performances, and it’s amazing because I have a general rule I learned from a great editor mentor of mine that generally, you should not cut from one person to the same person in a cut, which is a cool rule for any editors out there who are reading this. It seems obvious, I guess, but you’d be surprised how often you are tempted to do it if you don’t have a good cutaway shot. America just performed that scene beautifully. It was finding your favorite pieces and then finding the right cutaways at the right moments.
aption: (L-r) MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie, ALEXANDRA SHIPP as Barbie, MICHAEL CERA as Allan, ARIANA GREENBLATT as Sasha and AMERICA FERRERA as Gloria in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Did you have much coverage there or reaction shots to cut to?
We had a lot of great cutaways to Margot and Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and a lot of the other characters, including Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who has a great moment there where she realizes how serious it is. It was a cool moment, letting the audience also realize how serious it is. It helps you change the tone. Having weird Barbie being like, “Oh shit, she’s right,” that’s very helpful for the audience also to change gears and listen to what she’s saying. It was finding those moments and utilizing them properly so that you are let into them in a comfortable, interesting way. Hopefully, it hits you hard, and then you can get back to the fun.
Featured image: (L-r) Director/Writer GRETA GERWIG, MARGOT ROBBIE and RYAN GOSLING on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Dale Robinette
Oppenheimer marks the fourth collaboration between director Christopher Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema. And like their past efforts, the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the theoretical physicistwho spearheaded the effort to create the atomic bomb and then came under attack when he warned the world of its dangers, is anything but routine. It’s a three-hour epic that has mesmerized audiences around the globe, a masterclass in storytelling, and a visual feast that manages to blow your mind without deploying a single visual effect. In short, Oppenheimer is a masterpiece.
In a conversation with The Credits, Nolan’s longtime collaborator discusses the surprising things about working with the director, bespoke lenses, and recreating the Trinity Test by eschewing spectacle for something more intimate and far more harrowing.
L-r: Christopher Nolan and Hoyte van Hoytema on set of “Oppenheimer.” Courtesy Universal Pictures.
In what ways does Oppenheimer differ from your past collaborations?
Obviously, every film is different with Chris. He is definitely challenging himself. He doesn’t want the next film to be similar to the previous one. How did this film differ? This was a biopic. He’s never done anything like that before. Also, this was one of the first films where he wanted to turn inward. This is essentially a film about faces and thoughts. There was a different way of thinking about that.
L to R: Cillian Murphy (as J. Robert Oppenheimer) and writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan on the set of OPPENHEIMER.
Oppenheimer features vivid scenes of color and segments in black and white. Can you talk about creating those various looks?
Well, I’m a little allergic to the word. “Looks” hints at a surface patina. Film, for me, is a visceral medium. I’m more concerned about organic flow. I love the idea that you can take it in and have an emotional reaction to it. I never build an entity with looks. I always hope that it becomes an organic soup that somehow makes sense.
OPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
How do you achieve this organic soup?
We wanted to create a feeling of living in Oppenheimer’s head…to touch on the way he changed traditional physics into the new abstract world of quantum physics. It’s a time in which people started thinking conceptually differently about music, the arts. And also physics — that the fabric of our world is not built from molecules, but waves and their energies. That was our color world.
L to R: Florence Pugh is Jean Tatlock and Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
(Lewis) Strauss (the government official, played by Robert Downey Jr., who instigated a campaign to discredit Oppenheimer in the 1950s), on the other hand, is Oppenheimer’s nemesis. And in order to distinguish between those two storylines, the choice was made to go black and white so we could maneuver within those two worlds.
L to R: Robert Downey Jr is Lewis Strauss and Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
And then you ask why black and white? It was something Chris and I grew up watching. Chris shot his first film in black and white. I went to a Polish film school and saw films that I adored in black and white. We had an intuitive connection to that medium. Above that, we love to do things in-camera. We love to work on real negatives with as little digital interference as possible. For us, it was an obvious method.
OPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
You mentioned Oppenheimer’s close-ups. What were the challenges of creating such personal images for large-scale viewing?
I think the fact that the scope has to be about big subjects is a misconception. I had to learn that myself. Can you find the scope in the face of a person? I posed that question early on and started working with that concept. I firmly believe that if you make a good close-up and people look into the eyes of the players and feel the peripheral vision, you see a wide, expansive world through that face. Faces become your landscape. You have to be able to look into Oppenheimer’s world through his eyes.
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
What do you remember most about recreating the atomic blast?
I remember reading this segment in the script and thinking, “Okay, let’s not read this thoroughly yet because how are we ever gonna do this?” Chris is extremely pragmatic, and his guidance is always important. He has already envisioned a lot of the storytelling obstacles in his head. He’s a master of the timeline and how consecutive images can paint one image. So when you’re thinking about the Trinity test, you don’t think about one single image; you think about the collection of images that tell that story. And you start to dissect. You break it down into smaller pieces. Some of those pieces bring the size and the scope. And along the way, you find ways to communicate that feeling of seeing it for the first time.
Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
What images did you decide on to help re-create what that experience must have been like?
We read a lot of witness accounts of the scientists that were there. They’re very emotional. Everything else was physics, but they were overwhelmed the moment they saw that thing. They had a poetic way of describing what they were seeing — the colors, the brightness of light, for instance. That’s something I can translate into photography. I wanted to avoid trying to photograph this big thing that would blow everybody away. We wanted to stay close to the way people experienced it. Strangely enough, it is about restraint. Let go of the Hollywood inside you. Just be truthful to the experience. Trust that that experience is actually something that people haven’t seen in a film and deserve to witness.
A little of “less is more”?
“Less is more” is something that always sings in my head. I think that a lot of my best choices come from restraint. Film is a collection of thousands of “less is more” choices. You’re always struggling between what your Hollywood devil on your shoulder tells you to do and what purity on the other shoulder tells you. On one hand, it’s what you think the audience wants to see. On the other, it’s trying to distill things, be simpler and more truthful. I think that people recognize honesty.
Can you give us a peek into your toolbox?
We always use custom lenses. They’re not off-the-shelf. For this one, we wanted to be part of the game, the epicenter where stuff was happening. We didn’t want to peek from the outside. And in order to feel that proximity, we needed to tweak the lenses to focus closer on the faces.
L to R: Emily Blunt is Kitty Oppenheimer and Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
We shot a lot of close-ups on slightly wider lenses than we usually do. Our IMAX workhorse lens is a 40-millimeter. Traditionally, we would never shoot close-ups on that. When you get close to an actor, you have to reduce the distortion on the face. So we needed to rebuild that lens to get closer while reducing the distortion. There was a balancing act, but we were fanatic about creating a language in which we feel we were participating and not just observing.
OPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher Nolan
For the technical stuff — the atoms colliding with each other, the stars, the black hole — we built a super macro lens that didn’t exist before. It enabled us to actually put a wide lens in between two small entities and gaze through it as if it was a landscape. [He holds up a lens with the wording “HVH IMAX Oppenheimer Probe Prototype 2022.”] We were building and engineering those kinds of things all the time. But this lens became pivotal to a lot of that microworld.
A special lens was created specifically for “Oppenheimer.” Courtesy Hoyte van Hoytema.
Is there anything you’d like to say about Oppenheimer that no one has asked you yet?
You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve been talking about this film. I just returned from Holland, where I talked on live television for literally three hours straight. What I always love to say is something people don’t realize about working with Chris. People think that he’s all about precision and planning…being extremely meticulous. And in many ways, he is. But what I think people sometimes forget is how intuitive he is. He understands his audience on a visceral level. And that’s what I love about working with Chris. He’s a technical master but also allows himself to step away from that and feel. I can’t say that enough. It’s not only technical perfection; he infuses heart into it.
Since its release last month, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie has been hailed as a marvel of a balancing act between sincerity and hilarity. On top of the nuanced script, Barbieland is populated by a Barbie and Ken of every stripe, for every type, despite dozens of characters who share a mere two first names (plus the singular Allan). Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) and her dependent Ken (Ryan Gosling) were early commitments to the Warner Bros. project, but for co-casting directors Allison Jones (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lady Bird) and Lucy Bevan (The Batman, Belfast), casting the wild melange of supporting doll roles meant combing through audition tapes of a who’s-who roster of actors thrilled at the chance to be immortalized as two of pop culture’s most iconic plastic figures.
aption: (L-r) MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie, ALEXANDRA SHIPP as Barbie, MICHAEL CERA as Allan, ARIANA GREENBLATT as Sasha and AMERICA FERRERA as Gloria in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
The actors needed to be funny, of course. But what set apart the audition tapes (more on that anachronism in a moment) was a pure and well-rounded earnestness. “The thing that Greta did always stress was that none of these people were sarcastic or winking at the camera. They were really Kens and Barbies,” Jones explained. In addition to being able to land a comedy beat, the actors needed to be sincere, truthful, and guileless. “There were certain scenes we used to audition, and the fine line between the comedy and sincerity of those characters is a difficult balance,” Bevan said.
Because casting took place during Covid, Jones and Bevan reverted back to the use of taped auditions. “Huge actors went on tape with only seeing a few pages of dialogue,” Jones said, and since “everybody was Barbie in the script,” the pair wound up working in reverse, sending the tapes they liked on to Gerwig, who then identified particular talent for different Barbies and Kens. “She really made the characters for who she liked best in different auditions,” Jones said, designating Issa Rae as President Barbie, for example, and looking for Ken’s arch-rival Ken by seeking out the actor who would be best to “beach off” with Gosling’s character.
Caption: (L-r) EMMA MACKEY as Barbie, NCUTI GATWA as Ken, SIMU LIU as Ken, MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie, RYAN GOSLING as Ken and KINGSLEY BEN-ADIR as Ken in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesCaption: ISSA RAE as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Before it became a go-to quote in the Barbie fandom lexicon, rival Ken’s challenge — “I’ll beach you off any day, Ken” — was one of the film’s audition lines. “Those scenes were fun to audition,” said Bevan. “Some of the Kens would take off their t-shirts, and we were like, no, no, you don’t need to take off your t-shirt. But Simu [Liu] just nailed that [line] in the film.” Allan required some demystifying. Jones used pictures of different Allan dolls owned by a Barbie collector friend, sending them out to agents to shed light on this previously unknown resident of Barbieland, now immortalized by Michael Cera. “I’m so happy that in perpetuity now he’s like an icon for being Allan,” Jones joked.
Caption: (L-r) ISSA RAE as Barbie, SCOTT EVANS as Ken, SIMU LIU as Ken, EMMA MACKEY as Barbie and NCUTI GATWA as Ken in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Since the film’s release, the internet has teemed with anecdotes of beloved comedic actors who wanted to be in Barbie butaren’t. It’s not because they aren’t funny enough. “It’s rather a boring reason, actually,” Bevan said. “On a movie like this, it was a hugely ambitious shoot and a complicated schedule, and you can have brilliant ideas, and people’s availability either does or doesn’t work.” Thanks to strict Covid rules in the UK, where most of the film was shot, and the scale of the project, even smaller roles required a three-month commitment. So, no gossip there.
Caption: (L-r) RYAN GOSLING, MARGOT ROBBIE and Director/Writer GRETA GERWIG on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk
Even auditioning was a commitment, given Barbie‘s closely-guarded script. Bevan and Jones got to read it in its entirety, of course, but were limited to sending the actors’ sides (short script excerpts). “And now you have to send things through websites where you have to go through layers of passwords to get to the sides,” said Jones, of the effort actors went through to tape themselves. “So it was very secretive. I don’t think anybody knew quite how good it was,” she added. But just as Gerwig has become a name who can draw in movie-goers no matter the project, so too is the director for the actors themselves.“We weren’t allowed to send the script to anybody. So people did a lot of it on faith,” Jones said. “Everybody wanted to work with Greta, for good reason.”
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) ANA CRUZ KAYNE as Barbie, SHARON ROONEY as Barbie, ALEXANDRA SHIPP as Barbie, MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie, HARI NEF as Barbie and EMMA MACKEY as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
A heartfelt story steeped in Latin culture with charismatic characters and a ripping plot—you couldn’t ask for better first reactions from Blue Beetle, the second-to-last DC Studios film to premiere during the new tenure of James Gunn and Peter Safran, who are taking DC Studios in a brand new direction. (Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which is due in theaters on December 20, is the last DC Studios film from the previous era.) From the tenor of these initial reactions to director Angel Manuel Soto‘s Blue Beetle, it sounds like there might be plenty of people hoping that star Xolo Maridueña’s Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle becomes a part of Gunn and Safran’s new-look DC Universe.
Maridueña stars as Jaime Reyes, a college graduate who inherits some spectacular (and unpredictable) powers when he comes into contact with an alien scarab. Jaime’s newfound abilities present some serious post-college challenges for a young man trying to find his way, one of those being unpuzzling why the alien scarab arrived on Earth in the first place and what he’s supposed to do with these spectacular abilities he now possesses.
The film comes from aforementioned Charm City Kings director Angel Manuel Soto, from a script by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, and is the first DC film to focus on a Latino superhero, centering Jaime’s family, which includes his mom, dad, sister, grandmother, and uncle.
Blue Beetle arrives on August 18. Let’s take a quick, spoiler-free tour of the first reactions:
Impressed by the pop culture details & historical references in BLUE BEETLE. From MACARIO, to CRONOS, and El CHAPULÍN COLORADO. But even more so that the infamous School of the Americas is integral to the story. This is the work of filmmakers who know & care about Latin America. pic.twitter.com/Li7ZTK629m
#BlueBeetle is a MASSIVE win for DC & an electric introduction to the first hero of the DCU. Xolo Maridueña’s charismatic star making performance confidently anchors this intimate synthwave journey of family, heritage, & purpose. A fresh and endearing spin on the origin story! pic.twitter.com/BlpXS2iKFl
#BlueBeetle is here & Latinos FINALLY have a superhero of their own reflected on the big screen. The film is so incredibly good, so unique & delivers on all fronts giving the superhero genre much needed sazón! The film ‘s Tangerine Dream inspired synthwave score also rocks! pic.twitter.com/C6QgvexlTx
— Umberto Gonzalez #BlueBeetleBattalion🪲💙 (@elmayimbe) August 11, 2023
Happy to report that @angelmanuelsoto’s #BlueBeetle is definitely a great time at the movies! Not only is it a fantastic introduction to Jaime Reyes as a character/hero, but also a love letter to the Latino culture, that focuses on family as its foundation. @bluebeetle 1/3 pic.twitter.com/ieVw0DSR2Z
The first buzz for #BlueBeetle, DC’s latest superhero action fantasy, is skewing positive in advance of its August 18 debut, with critics declaring that it’s a good time at the movies and a love letter to Latino culture https://t.co/lzL7ieICrg
#BlueBeetle is a heartfelt and enjoyable addition to the DC universe. A phenomenal cast with charismatic characters and an intriguing plot. The representativity means a lot and it’s great to see. Xolo as the lead is simply amazing and can’t wait for more of him.
#BlueBeetle stands out from previous DC entries & its mostly due to the Latin flavor, let’s be real. It’s funny, emotional & the action scenes w BB are amazing! The cast is beautiful, but Maridueña & López SHINE. Can’t wait to see more! Congrats al BORI @angelmanuelsoto LFG!! 💙 pic.twitter.com/Uh90ETdNXG
The Barbie phenomenon has proven to be the summer’s biggest storyline. Co-writer/director Greta Gerwig’s critically acclaimed imagining of the life and world of Mattel’s iconic doll has broken box office records and made history repeatedly since its July 21 premiere. Let’s break down the numbers.
Gerwig is now the highest-grossing female director domestically, with Barbie now surpassing Frozen II, which Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck directed. Barbie has made Gerwig the highest-grossing female director of a live-action movie, now that Barbie surpassed Captain Marvel, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, with a global total of $1.184 billion thus far.
Barbie has also entered the Warner Bros. pantheon, surpassing The Dark Knight Rises and three Harry Potter films in their top ten highest-grossing films of all time. Barbie‘s stunning opening weekend was the biggest domestic opener ever for a female director, solo or otherwise, and after a scant 17 days after its release, became the first live-action film in movie history directed by a woman to join the coveted billion-dollar club.
If Barbie can pass $1.43 billion, it will pass Frozen II and become the top-grossing movie of all time, whether live-action or animated, to be helmed by a female director. At the rate Barbie‘s breaking records, there are few people who would bet against this juggernaut.
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) MARGOT ROBBIE, ANA CRUZ KAYNE, Director/Writer GRETA GERWIG and HARI NEF on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk
How do you make a single location subliminally consume an entire story? That was the question Italian cinematographer Ludovica Isidori had to answer in director Zachary Wigon’s sophomore film Sanctuary.
Starring Christopher Abbott (Girls) as Hal, an heir to a luxury hotel empire, and Margaret Qualley (Maid), a dominatrix named Rebecca who is equal parts seductive, smart, and clever, Sanctuary is a slow-burn psychological thriller that reveals the intimacy of their unorthodox relationship with delicious restraint. It’s a relationship that has major business benefits for Hal—Rebecca has transformed Hal into someone capable of taking over the family business. His renewed vigor, however, is unpromising for Rebecca as he wants to end their arrangement. What ensues is a series of power plays that flash between reality and fantasy: Hal wanting to start a new life and Rebecca reminding him of her worth. All of it is confined to a single space – a hotel room.
“The biggest conversation Zach and I had was how to make a movie that belongs to cinema,” Isidori tells The Credits. “We wanted the audience to know they were in for a ride and be aware they’re watching a movie. So we thought the camera could sometimes call attention to itself without taking away from the performances. It gave us the freedom to make this a much bigger journey.”
The visual grammar was planned with storyboards – the first half of which was made using phone apps. Camera moves matched the emotional tenor and power dynamics of scenes, sometimes zooming, moving 180 degrees, or breaking the fourth wall for effect. Isidori considered specific camera language for when the two characters cohabit the same frame or when they were opposite poles. For moments when their “egos are maxed out” or “stakes are heightened,” the camera whip pans as if it’s grabbing for attention.
Framing was also based on the story’s timeline and who was moving it along. In the opening sequence, which sees Rebecca pull out papers and ask Hal about his ability to take over as CEO, the camera reveals the space through a series of connecting dolly shots. “The reason we chose dolly instead of Steadicam or handheld was dictated by the idea that it’s a first date,” says Isidori. “Your body language changes throughout the night. You’re first figuring it out. You’re a little more rigid, a little more uptight and staged. And then you loosen up.”
Rebecca (Margaret Qualley ) and Hal (Christopher Abbott) in Sanctuary. Courtesy Neon.
As the two sit at a table and Rebecca begins to ask him questions, shots were rhythmically edited to the score from composer Ariel Marx building to a climactic reveal. “We choreographed and rehearsed that scene the most,” notes Isidori. “The shots were meticulously planned, and the zooms built this pressure cooker, ticking bomb effect. Some of the shots were instinctual based on the performance that unfolds in front of your eyes. Having Zach’s trust for those moments was phenomenal. It was a combination of planning and letting your instincts take over when something works well. It adds that little sparkle.”
Margaret Qualley is Rebecca in Sanctuary. Courtesy Neon.
One captivating scene that shows the power dynamics between the couple is when Rebecca tells Hal to clean the bathroom. Here, Rebecca sits in a chair wearing a green velour business suit and a white puffy shirt ordering him around. The camera looks up at her in a display of dominance. “Margaret sat down like a boss, and it made us want to put the camera down and look up at her on a wider lens and under light the scene. It’s not a beauty choice, but it works,” she says. “On the reverse angle [showing Hal], it gives a sense of voyeurism. We embraced the nature of the role game.”
Rebecca (Margaret Qualley ) and Hal (Christopher Abbott) in Sanctuary. Courtesy Neon.
In another scene where Hal loses control, the camera mimics his mindset with a spiraling frame. “It’s the idea that he’s losing his point of reference. He’s existing in a world of rule,s and now that the rules are gone, he doesn’t have an anchor point anymore,” explains Isidori.
For intimate moments, characters would gaze directly into the camera as a way to visualize emotions and control. “The questions we thought about is what creates intimacy and what is the closest proximity you can create through a lens,” says Isidori. “Our answer was them acting to the lens as if it was another person. At the same time, there is a play with the audience. Is Rebecca seducing him or us?”
Color and lighting highlighted the emotional space of each character. Practicals were supplemented with LEDs and tube lighting throughout the location, with decisions being made not simply based on the room alone but on how they played when the characters were next to each other. In scenes where practical lights were smashed by a character during a fit of rage allowed the cinematographer to change the mood organically. For instance, the hotel bedroom is lit with tungsten but changes halfway through to green. “It works because of where they are emotionally,” says Isidori. It’s a hint to the contaminating world of light outside affecting the narrative inside. Isidori also switched between anamorphic to spherical lenses for visual subtlety. The first and last acts use anamorphic for the theatrical feel, and the middle section uses spherical to let the characters take the lead.
“It’s a layered movie because there’s a play within them. A natural role play,” says Isidori. “Then there’s all these layers that keep shifting, and there is this play with the audience that happens as well. We tried to support all that so you, as an active viewer, are a participant.”
Sanctuary is available now to stream and/or rent on a number of platforms.
Featured image: Rebecca (Margaret Qualley ) and Hal (Christopher Abbott) in Sanctuary. Courtesy Neon.
There isn’t an Oscars category for casting directors (yet), but the Emmys have recognized the foundational importance of the people who find actors with the talent and the chemistry to create magic on screen. Without casting directors, a lot of your favorite moments onscreen would likely never have happened.
In an interview with The Credits, two-time Emmy winner and current nominee Theo Park, nominated for her stellar work on Ted Lasso, talked about how she became a casting director, her favorite scene from the hit Apple series (which garnered 21 Emmy nominations in total), which Ted Lasso actor made an immediate impression, which one had to be persuaded to take the job, and which one never had to audition at all, despite having no background in comedy.
I don’t think children grow up and say, “Someday, I want to be a casting director.” So, how did you find yourself in that job?
I think a lot of us casting directors are failed actors, some ex-actors, or at least people who have aspired to be an actor. And that’s what I did. I wanted very much when I was a child to be an actor. And then, when I got into my teens, I realized that it’s really hard to be an actor, but I still had a passion for performance.
So you kept performing?
I did film at university. And became an agent after working in television for a bit. But realized when I was an agent that it wasn’t quite creative enough. We were looking after fabulous actors but not really being involved in the creative process. So, I flipped it. Instead of selling actors, I decided to buy them. And I was really lucky. I just landed a really fabulous job helping out a casting director in London called Nina Gold. I was her assistant for a few years, and she taught me wonderfully. And I’ve been on my own for about eight years now.
Theo Park
What is the most important quality that a casting director has to have?
Probably an understanding of actors and their work and their craft and what they go through to create a performance. I think having had that background; it has definitely put me in good stead.
So, does it begin with you sitting down with the showrunner and talking about the characters and what they’re looking for?
Yes, absolutely. You’re normally sent a script. And in the case of Ted Lasso, I was sent the pilot script, so that gave me a good idea of the world. And then you talk to the creatives. In this instance, it was Jason Sudeikis, and he talked me through all of the characters, who was going to be a regular, and who were the important characters that we needed to focus on. And then we’d talk about their arcs because I’d only read one script and a lot of it hadn’t been written yet. And then I’d go away and come up with some ideas, and then we’d talk again.
Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikis and Nick Mohammed in “Ted Lasso” season two, now streaming on Apple TV+.
What about when you’re actually taping a performer?
When it’s a taping situation, as in the creatives are either out of the country or already shooting, and they can’t meet a whole load of actors in the flesh, we will get people to just audition with us. And then I might be a bit more selective and only send Jason half a dozen of the best people. And he and the creatives get to choose the pick of the bunch.
NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 10: (L-R) Phil Dunster, Stephen Manas, James Lance, Hannah Waddingham, Charlie Hiscock, Juno Temple, David Elsendoorn, Cristo Fernández, Kola Bokinni, Annette Badland, Jeremy Swift, Yvette Nicole Brown, Moe Jeudy-Lamour, Billy Harris, and Theo Park attend Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” Season Three FYC at Saban Media Center on June 10, 2023 in North Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
If you’ve read just the script for the first episode, do you have some idea about the arcs that some of these characters are going to have? Because even through the first season, I don’t think we would have guessed where the characters played by Toheeb Jimoh or Nick Mohammed were going.
No, we didn’t. For Toheeb’s character, Sam Obisanya, I didn’t know anything about what was going to happen; apart from that he needed to have this lovely warm glow, a lovely positive energy to him. And that matched Ted in a way. And Toheeb came in, and you look at him, and he’s just so beautiful. And the warmth just exudes from him, doesn’t it? So, he was easy. Everyone just said, “Well, he’s it.”
Jeremy Swift, Toheeb Jimoh and Hannah Waddingham in “Ted Lasso,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
But for Nick Mohammed and Nate, yes, Jason did talk me through the arc of his character, certainly for Season One. Because we actually had to persuade Nick Mohammed to come in for it. He didn’t want to come in for it originally because he felt it was too similar to a slightly downtrodden character that he’d played in his own show, Intelligence, a wonderful comedy show that he did with David Schwimmer. And so, we were able to tell Nick, “This is different; there is this character arc.” And he gave it a go and totally nailed the audition.
Nick Mohammed and Jason Sudeikis in “Ted Lasso,” coming soon to Apple TV+.
I have read that Juno Temple, who plays Keely, had not done comedy before. What brought her to the role?
I’m a massive fan of hers. I’ve seen all of her work. I think she’s exceptional. She was actually Jason’s idea. And we all thought behind the scenes, “Oh, gosh, would she ever do this? Would she ever sign up for further seasons on a TV show when she’s such an indie film darling?” But he persuaded her. She didn’t have to audition. He knew she had it in her. He’s very, very good at casting, I have to say, Jason is. He always makes the right choices.
Just as in real-life football, the team in the Ted Lasso cast had tremendous diversity.
Yes, this is set in the world of Premier League football. There are people from all over the world playing in Premier League football clubs. So, that was really important from the start. Is it a challenge? No. It’s just exciting. It’s exciting to be able to cast different people everywhere within the show.
Cristo Fernandez in “Ted Lasso,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
I’m fascinated by accents. Was everyone using pretty close to their own accents, or was there a lot of accent work?
What is quite funny is that one of the things that Jason said to me is, “I want people to be playing themselves. I don’t want any accents. I want to really believe these people. We should just be casting close to type.” But ultimately, nobody’s really using their own accent. Nick Mohammed is using an accent. Juno Temple is using an accent. Toheeb is using an accent. Billy Harris [Colin] is using an accent. Billy Harris is not from Wales. He is from Essex.
Did Jason realize this?
I wonder if a lot of it slipped under the radar slightly, and Jason didn’t really know that everyone was working so hard on their accents. Because it’s quite subtle, especially in the UK. A lot of the accents are very subtly different to maybe an American audience.
What about Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca?
Hannah Waddingham’s accent, what she’s doing for Rebecca, is very close to her. But she’s able to do anything. She’s a real chameleon. She can do any accent under the sun.
Tell me a movie that you think is especially well cast.
I absolutely love Bridesmaids. It’s my favorite movie. Well, after When Harry Met Sally. Both are cast exceptionally. But Bridesmaids, Oh, my gosh. Every single performer in that film is incredible and hysterical. It’s perfection. It really is.
What makes you laugh?
There’s a scene in Ted Lasso I rewatch quite a lot, Season Two, Episode Three when he turns into Led Tasso. The sequence is the funniest sequence in the whole of the three seasons, and I rewind it and watch it again and again. Just comedy genius. I loved him doing that because it was just a throwback to the absolute pure comedy bones that that man has. I just loved it.
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Oppenheimer is a colossal achievement. Christopher Nolan’s film is an exquisitely calibrated epic, brimming with ambition and ingenuity, appropriate for its titular protagonist, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the brilliant physicist who led America’s Manhattan Project during World War II. Nolan and his crew, including production designer Ruth De Jong (Nope), reached for the stars and succeeded in their quest for a pure, tangible vision in presenting one of the most important and dangerous minds of the 20th century – the father of the atomic bomb.
In the brisk and often unnerving three-hour epic, J. Robert Oppenheimer is in a race against the Nazis. The American government enlists him to help them build a weapon of mass destruction, despite his affiliations with communism, which will plague him years after the war. Oppenheimer, both careful and careless in his quest to prove his theory correct, becomes a celebrity when his team succeeds—at a remarkably swift pace— and their achievements a vision of unprecedented horror when America dropped two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. As Oppenheimer famously quoted from the Bhagavad-Gita after the successful testing of the bomb, “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”
In a narrative that spans decades, Nolan brings Oppenheimer’s inner life to the screen, revealing his thoughts, dreams, and nightmares. The critical and commercial success of Oppenheimer, now extending its run in IMAX theaters due to popular demand, is a credit not only to Nolan but to the incredible crew he assembled to achieve his masterpiece, including Ruth De Jong and her masterful design work.
For a movie that’s about obsession, it didn’t call for it in the process of making it. During a recent interview with The Credits, De Jong reveals the modern touches in the unconventional, idiosyncratic summer blockbuster and why working on Oppenheimer was likely not at all what you might have imagined it to be.
In the case of Oppenheimer, you have to capture both the period and the protagonist’s point of view in these environments. How’d you balance that?
I think there was freedom. I mean, Chris and I wanted to be correct to the periods and bring people right there to that time, to that place. There was no obsession with that from Chris’ standpoint; he was always interested in pushing modernity in the sense that if it was the 1920s, but we were shooting a car that was built in 1931, he’d like the way the 1931 car looked. I’m paraphrasing, but he was like, “I almost find it too distracting because it’s almost like we’re in 1925, and here’s this very boxy, early Americana vehicle when I don’t want to be distracted by that. I wanna make this film timeless with the overarching period correctness, but not to the degree that it’s distracting the film.” I felt very much the same way.
L to R: Emily Blunt (as Kitty Oppenheimer) with writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy (as J. Robert Oppenheimer) on the set of OPPENHEIMER.
So you were encouraged to depart from the period?
I think a lot of period films can be so full of period objects screaming what moment in time it is. We tried to do the opposite and make it as timeless as possible and peel back and simplify—less is more. There was some specificity where we honed in on it was the creation of the atomic bomb that you see throughout the entire story. Recreating that to its exact specs, the Trinity Tower, everything else, of course, all the houses were in the ilk of the period, but there wasn’t an obsession. I mean, we got to shoot in Oppenheimer’s house, his actual house, but all of that, you take a little bit of creative freedom because you’re never gonna find the absolute exact chair Oppenheimer was sitting in.
L to R: Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer and David Krumholtz is Isidor Rabi in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
There’s not a single CGI shot in the film. How’d that impact your work? Was it kind of comforting knowing your work wouldn’t be altered in post-production?
It was great because I’m not a fan, either. It’s usually like, “Oh, all you need to do is build this, and don’t worry, we’ll extend this and do this and that.” How it affected our work was we had to be smart with the budget. We had to build enough, but not too much, but enough to make it feel like the town was growing and evolving. I just was smart about building every single building that we did 360 degrees, so you could shoot behind it, in front of it, on the side of it. Chris and [cinematographer] Hoyte [van Hoytema] took full advantage of that. I think it was liberating knowing there was no CGI because you had to do everything on camera, and it created an entirely immersive experience for the cast.
L to R: Benny Safdie is Edward Teller and Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
As you said, the job didn’t require obsessiveness, but were there any details you did obsess over?
Early on, I got too engrossed or ingrained in the actual research. We had an incredible researcher, Lauren Sandoval, who did a magnificent job and had so many inroads to the Library of Congress, and the US government, getting all declassified documents as well as all these archives across the country and the world. She was speaking to libraries in England and France and all over the place. We had just incredible photography that a lot of us had never seen before, Chris included. You’re going, “Well, look at the chalkboard behind Oppenheimer and look at this thing.” I remember at one point, Chris was just like, “Ruth, let it go. I’m selling popcorn; I’m not making a documentary.” [Laughs]
L to R: Cillian Murphy (as J. Robert Oppenheimer) and writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan on the set of OPPENHEIMER.
[Laughs] That’s a great way of putting it.So, you could be more interpretive of the time, if that makes sense?
It is almost a dream back to the past. There were certain things, like telephones and water fountains, that looked like they were from the 1800s. I would say, “It’s from 1935.” Chris would be like, “Get it out of here,” because it became too kitsch. We wanted almost to be utilitarian. There was a 1970s water fountain, and he was like, “No one will notice. No one.” The minute you start to draw attention and start to dress every corner, it becomes too obnoxious.
OPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
How’d you approach the bomb and its surroundings? Who were your closest collaborators for that section of the film?
We were all under such a crunch to do this epic movie for very little, you know, and everyone’s like, “Oh, you’re on a Nolan movie?” And I’m like, “No, I might as well be on an indie movie. This is not comfortable. We don’t have cash flowing to pay for things, and we have to be smart about our decisions.” And you know, Chris is like, I only really need to see a couple of bits. Like, when Ciillian’s up in the shed and looking at the atomic bomb, there were just some moments that were very important to Chris, but when I got together with Scott Fisher from special effects, and Guillaume [DeLouche], our prop master, it was like, we have to build this entire bomb.
Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
So, again, he could shoot it 360?
It doesn’t make any sense just to build a piece of it to save some money. This is the main character of the entire film. Chris told us no, but we did it anyway. I think he is forever grateful because then it changed; he ended up following the evolution of this thing getting created, and it became more integral. It was areas like that where we tried to be smart about what we wanted to feature and why, and that just felt so important. Chris didn’t say no because he didn’t want us to build it. He was just trying to help us with our budget. He’s like, “Look, I can be smart on my end and figure out ways to shoot around it.” But we knew at the core; we’re not gonna limit him in that way. That’s not fair.
Oppenheimer is in theaters now.
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Jo McLaren is a longtime stunt professional who has worked on a slew of hit films and TV series, lending her talents to hits as disparate as Titanic, Dr. Who, and the Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, and Avengers franchises. As an in-demand stunt coordinator, she has kept productions safe while creating some of the most inimitable action sequences in the business.
Her newest project is Netflix’s Heart of Stone, starring Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone, a brilliant intelligence operative working for a shadowy peacekeeping organization tracking and dismantling global threats. Stone is embedded in an MI6 unit led by agent Parker (Jamie Dornan), playing the role of a computer expert untrained in combat or armaments. When her unit gets targeted by assassins, she unleashes her many talents and skills to keep them safe while neutralizing a dangerous plot putting the whole world at risk.
McLaren partnered with Gadot, director Tom Harper, and a slew of stunt professionals from across the globe to make the action in Heart of Stone believable yet bold enough so that Rachel Stone is more than a match for other those legendary cinematic operatives, James Bond and Ethan Hunt.
McLaren spoke to The Credits about working with Wonder Woman herself, as well as collaborating with extreme sports stunt coordinator JT Holmes and stunt driving expert Rob Hunt.
Director Tom Harper wanted the action in Heart of Stone to feel exciting but also always within the realm of possibility. How’d you help him achieve that?
Tom and I spoke at length, not just the two of us, but with the second unit director, Rob Alonzo, and the other creatives. Tom was very keen on making the best action we could, really dynamic, fast, and exhilarating but believable. So everything we did, we questioned, “Do we believe it? Would this actually happen? How would somebody be able to survive this, really?” Gal was having to fight mainly bigger, stronger men, so we had to make sure that we believe that. We made all her fight styles technical, so she would have technical prowess over whoever she was fighting.
Part of making it believable is building the action around character and story development. What is an example of how that translates in the action sequences with Gal’s character?
When they’re in the safe house, and she has a great, gritty fight with The Blond [Jon Kortajarena], we wanted her to use the environment and be clever about it, and she really uses the space there to her advantage. It’s a bit of cat and mouse, and she uses the mirrors and reflections and things she can find within her environment. Not only does she have technical skills, but she’s a woman about to take on a guy twice her size. She has to use her brain, look around, and find what will give her the advantage and ways of protecting her colleagues.
All done in what is essentially a normal apartment.
We had a fantastic set, where we had all these wonderful separate rooms that interlinked, and you’d have different viewpoints from her and from The Blond, where you can see how she could outwit him by going out one window and coming in another door. She’d come up behind him, using everyday objects as weapons. We are very much with her emotionally and physically in the fight.
Frying pans!
And fridge doors! We had a lot of fun with that fight.
What was your role as stunt coordinator in terms of collaborating with the coordinators in different locations and withextreme sports stunt coordinator JT Holmes?
The coordinators in different locations were not so much part of the creative. That was down to myself, our director Tom, JT, and the second unit director Rob Alonzo. We had wonderful guys around the world that had the title of stunt coordinator, and they were there to help me by bringing fantastic local talent to set, as opposed to helping me create the action. JT and I worked very closely together because of what happens in some of the aerial stuff, and on the slopes, I had to recreate that on a blue screen for close-up wire stuff. My fight coordinator, choreographer, assistant stunt coordinator, and stunt doubles were a really close-knit team. We were at the action helm, but it was very much a team effort. Add to that all the fantastic folks all over the world; it was like a big, collaborative family.
What can you say about the scenes in the Italian Alps? It had to be freezing!
Right. In the Alps, we were working a lot on the slopes and up on the glacier, so we had many night shoots because the slopes are open during the day. We had a lot of small timeframes to get sequences done. It was a huge amount of planning before each day. We had a war room where we’d go and work out each shot for the day, so it would be super-efficient when we got onto the mountain. We had to allow for high winds and bad weather, which can change things on a dime when you’re dealing with freezing temperatures. That itself was a huge challenge, as was getting any kind of equipment up the mountains, but it was also very exciting. Creating action and working in a real environment is what we all love to do most, going to locations instead of working in CG. Everybody was just fantastic.
What was your role in terms of working with Gal and her stunt double?
Gal is brilliant. She’s done a lot of action movies, so she has this great muscle memory, and she’s also such a quick learner. She’d come to a stunt rehearsal and pick up the choreography really quickly, and she brings not just all that physical presence but also her fantastic performance and character to whatever action has been created.
We had a few because we have different units running. With the extreme sports stunts, JT worked with Gal and stunt double Karen Lewis. For the stunt work I did, all the fights and wire work, we had her normal stunt doubles, Stanni (Bettridge), and Eniko (Fulop). They were the two doubles that I worked with really closely. They did the majority of the stunt work that Gal didn’t do herself. She loves to do stunts, but there are some stunts insurance just won’t let her do.
What about the sequence in the van? Stunt driving is its own animal requiring specific expertise.
We had some of the best drivers in the world. Rob Alonzo designed a lot of the car sequences. He has fantastic creative ideas. Then I brought in the best car guy in the UK, if not the world, Rob Hunt. That whole sequence ran so smoothly because of the brilliance of both Rob Alonzo and Rob Hunt. I do a lot with the main unit on that particular sequence in Lisbon, then go over to the second unit because it’s so much fun being around all the car stuff. I got talent from all over the world, a lot of UK guys and girls, including the brilliant stunt driver Nellie Burroughes, who doubled Gal in the van and drove and jumped it. She’s a tough cookie because when you’re inside a van like that, it’s not designed for that kind of punishment. It’s reinforced, but you still get thrown around. Her execution of precision driving was brilliant.
It all starts with the director, but you’ve got to have the right stunt folks to keep it safe and as dramatic as it looks onscreen.
Absolutely. It’s all in the planning and preparation and getting the right people in under Tom’s guidance. I rate him as one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with. He believes in the power of collaboration. Also, Rob Alonzo is the best second-unit director because he was a fantastic stuntman and stunt coordinator, and he brings all that knowledge and experience to his action sequences. I’ve learned so much from him. I never stop learning, and the international talent made it such an amazing journey. I’m proud of them all, and I think you see all their work shine onscreen.
Heart of Stone premieres on Netflix in the US August 11th.
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First-time feature director Matthew López also co-wrote the script of Red, White, & Royal Blue, based on the popular novel by Casey McQuiston, which arrives just in time to add a dash of romance to the end of your summer. It’s a love story about Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the President of the United States Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman), and Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), the grandson of the British King (Stephen Fry), second in line for the throne.
In an interview with The Credits, López talked about some of the most challenging scenes, the one thing actor Clifton Collins, Jr. could not do, and the classic movie romances that inspired him.
You’ve got one of my very favorite actors and one of my favorite people I’ve ever interviewed in the film, Clifton Collins, Jr, who plays First Gentleman and Congressman Oscar Diaz, and father of one of the story’s main characters. I am such a fan.
He is just the loveliest human being on the planet. That’s what I can say about Cliff. He’s so kind. He’s so generous. He’s so desirous of a connection to the work that he’s doing and to the people that he’s working with. He makes you feel like this is the most important film he’s ever made. And I’m sure every director who has ever worked with him would tell you the same thing.
Clifton Collins Jr. as Congressman and First Gentleman, Oscar Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime
How did Taylor Zakhar Perez, who plays his son Alex, feel about working with him?
I know Taylor loved working with him. He really looked up to him. It’s really easy to love Cliff. And the best thing about it is, it’s one thing if Cliff was a nice guy and that the performance was just so-so, but then, he’s the loveliest man, and then his performance is just so effortless and natural and lived in. He wears the character like a loose garment. There’s something perfectly natural about this man.
You really feel a sense of the character’s history, particularly in that scene in the kitchen.
There was just one problem. Cliff does not know how to chop vegetables! The only thing I can say bad about Cliff Collins is that he does not know his way around a kitchen. So, the most unnatural bit of acting you could ever see in the film is Cliff Collins cutting a red pepper.
I was watching the scene with Henry and Alex in a literal closet, a very important scene, and yet I could not help thinking it must have been a nightmare to film in that cramped space.
I will be honest with you, for as lovely as that scene ended up, it was nobody’s favorite scene to film. Nobody looked back on that day and said, “That was a fun day.” It was a pain in the ass for my production designer, Miren Marañón, my DP, Stephen Goldblatt, my camera operator, and the two actors. We hated it!
What helped you all get through it?
It’s funny because there was so much joy and good humor and great, great chemistry between not just the actors but the actors and the crew throughout the whole shoot. So, the fact that the scene of maximum discomfort for our characters was one in which all of us were just mutually miserable for about five and a half hours was perfect for that scene. Nobody wants to spend five and a half hours locked in a closet shooting in a space where the camera and the lights can barely fit, let alone the actors. But I will say that it fed into what is going on in that scene, which is these two people stuck in a space that they don’t want to be in. So, for verisimilitude, I guess it was worth it.
I also was extremely impressed with the party scene. It was shot in such a dynamic way. And I love the little pause with the ladies looking at their phones.
It was a hard-won scene. We actually filmed it in two sections, six months apart. We got all of the scene work and the beats down, and we got what we thought was sufficient party atmosphere beats. And we started to cut the film together, and I realized we just didn’t have enough. And so, we went back in January for a few days of reshoots on a couple of other things, and I got them to rebuild part of the set for me. And we brought in just a bunch of people, and we just had a big party and shot it.
Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime
Reshoots are often the name of the game…
That was one of the great lessons for me as a first-time filmmaker, thinking I had enough and realizing that I didn’t, and then being given the opportunity to go back and get more of what I needed. But one of the blessings of that was because I had cut the scene already, then I got to plan the new shots very carefully. We got to invent moments and grab them.
Why was it important to you to have such explicit scenes of two men, one gay, and one bi, together?
First of all, it’s so specific in the book. And I knew that as someone who’s turning this particular book into a movie, to deny that Alex and Henry have some really energetic and connected sex would be to miss out on what makes the story special. You never see Harry and Sally have sex. This is a story about two people finding themselves in each other. And for queer people, because our sex has so often been outlawed, because we ourselves are against the law in some ways, I needed to make sure that the queer audiences who see this film understood that this was being made by a queer filmmaker who I think our sex and our love is beautiful.
Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime
It’s also such a big moment for Alex.
It is just insufficient for straight audiences to love and support us and not understand us holistically. I wanted to make sure that it was unambiguous to the audience what was happening to these characters. I think it’s a very specific scene of understanding between them. For Alex, it’s the first time he’s having sex with another man. For Henry, Nick and I decided together that it was the first time that Henry was having sex with someone he had feelings for. That scene is through the looking glass for the audience in some ways. I think you come out on the other side of that scene much more connected to those characters. And I think it’s because of the way we decided to do that scene. I don’t think the back half of the movie would resonate if we didn’t have that scene in it.
Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime
The wardrobe is very important in defining the characters in the film.
Costume designer Keith Madden did such gorgeous work on it. And again, specificity was just the key. There were a lot of things in the novel that helped us understand these characters. The decision to have double-breasted suits on the royals, on the royal men, on the princes, and the king — we used the same tailor that the actual royal family uses.
Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime
And for Alex?
We wanted to put Alex in a very well well-fitted Armani suit or a leather jacket. The biggest thing for us, the biggest conversation, was about dressing the female President, and we included Uma. We actually wanted the same thing. So often, American women in politics with power are asked to surrender their definition of their own femininity in order to hold on to power. And we wanted to create in Ellen someone who absolutely has command of her power in the world but has never let go of her own sense of individual femininity. And that was very strongly reflected in the costume choices that we made.
Uma Thurman as President Ellen Claremont and Sharon D. Clark as the British prime minister in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime
This is a movie that has a lot of the beats of the traditional romantic melodrama. What were some of the classic Hollywood romances that inspired you?
For me and for a lot of us, because I made sure that everybody watched this before we started, it was Bringing Up Baby. When you think about it, if you go back and you look at Bringing Up Baby with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, there are whispers of Alex and Henry there. You’ve got the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. And you’ve got this free spirit who upends the life of a stuffed shirt.
How did that classic inform your filmmaking choices?
What I was looking at with a lot of the screwball comedies from the 30s was how loose the actors were in the frame together, how much they were allowed to just play, and how much those directors allowed their master shots to really tell a lot of the story. I really chased after that. And I encouraged the actors to watch them, too.
Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime
Any other films inspire you?
The night before we shot that scene in Nora’s office, I rewatched Broadcast News, and I had Rachel Hilson [who plays Nora] watch that movie the night before we shot it. Moonstruck was a huge influence for me. And what I loved in these films was the specificity of the characterizations. My job was to make sure I captured that specificity and preserved it in the edit. Within specificity is where we find universality.
Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry, Malcolm Atobrah as Percy Okonjo, Rachel Hilson as Nora Holleran, and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Credit: Jonathan Prime
Red, White, & Royal Blue streams on Amazon Prime Video on August 11.
For more on Amazon Prime Video, check out these stories:
Featured image: Director Matthew López behind-the-scenes with Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo Credit: ROB YOUNGSON
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has had success both with critics and audiences and Barbie is breaking box office records. It makes good sense, then, that Skydance, the production company behind the M:I franchise, would want to partner with global superstar Gal Gadot to create a female-fronted action film. Enter Heart of Stone, the new Netflix release that puts Gadot front and center as intelligence operative Rachel Stone, a woman not only with computer savvy and a quick wit but the physical skills rivaling those of James Bond and Ethan Hunt. With a script co-written by The Old Guard’s Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder (Hidden Figures), Heart of Stone offers a great balance of character development and edge-of-your-seat action.
In it, Stone is posing as the computer tech in an MI6 unit led by agent Parker (Jamie Dornan). She’s actually a top undercover specialist for a secret organization called the Charter, a covert peacekeeping organization even spies believe is only a rumor. The Charter keeps the world safe by using cutting-edge technology to track and neutralize global threats. For MI6, Stone plays the role of a fragile, brainy computer tech until her colleagues are put at risk. She’ll need to deploy all her abilities to save them and the world from Armageddon.
At the helm of Heart of Stone is director Tom Harper, who responded to the script because it’s centered on a strong female lead and featured action scenes grounded in reality. The Credits spoke to Harper about all the challenges and the fun of working with Gadot and filming high-octane action set in exotic locations around the world.
Gal Gadot was attached to Heart of Stone from the beginning, and the film was developed as a potential female forward action franchise. What was your collaboration with her, and how did it shift and change as the film progressed?
Before I started working on the movie, I spoke with Gal, and we both believed the core tenet of what we wanted to achieve was an action thriller grounded in reality. As the character in the film grew, we grew together, which is always nice for a director/actor relationship because you start building trust. We knew the journey we were on, but filming is a delicate, fragile thing, and it takes time to trust each other properly.
There are so many strong female characters from different cultures and perspectives in Heart of Stone. It isn’t just Gal; she’s surrounded by other powerful women.
That really was just baked into the film’s DNA. It was always Gal at the center, and as we were developing and casting other roles, it happened organically.
You are known for being very prepared, but sometimes you have to work aroundthe unexpected. Were there discoveries that came through the challenges of shooting in so many exotic locations?
I do tend to be very prepared because that frees me up to be open to what happens on a film set. No matter how well you prepare, you never really know what’s coming. Some of the most interesting parts of making a film come from the unexpected or from places where you didn’t realize it was going to happen. As an example, we went all the way to Morocco to shoot some of the desert sequences. I had this idea that the moment we got there, it would be very hot, with gray vistas and blue skies. When we got there, there was a sandstorm, and the visibility was awful. It was all dusty and hazy. Initially, I was like, “Oh, this is this is a nightmare. We’ve come all this way, and it’s totally not what I imagined or thought it would be.” But actually, it was great. This is why we come here. It’s those surprises. It feels different and gives it an edgy quality. I’ve seen a million films in the desert with clear skies and beautiful vistas. Each location comes with its own things like that, and you have to have an open mind when filming because change is the only constant.
Lisbon is a great example of finding ways of leveraging a city’s unique qualities, like the many very narrow streets.
Lisbon is a place I’ve been to previously on holiday, and I stood there and thought, “Oh my god, this would be a great place for a car chase.” It’s full of narrow cobbled streets, and it has incredible tiles and textures. Also, it’s built on these seven hills. There are lots of levels, so you get dynamics in that way as well. There are restrictions in some ways and opportunities in others. I’d much rather relish the opportunities than film in a big parking lot with visual effects. You get those happy accidents. The restriction leads to creativity and getting results you likely wouldn’t get any other way.
The car chase there definitely takes advantage of the many gorgeous locations in the city. Can you talk about that scene?
I’d credit the production team in Porto with a lot of the problem-solving in terms of getting permissions. Among our many plans, we hoped to smash cars up in the central square and into trams and throw them down steps in a major tourist spot within the city. That was a big deal to do safely for both people and the historic architecture. One of the highlights of the job was going to Lisbon, standing on a street corner, and going, “Okay, what can we do here? What can we move? Can we drive a car down these steep steps and throw it over this bridge? What about this tram? Can we swerve around it?” You can’t write things like that sitting at your desk. You have to be right there, in the street. The writers create the broad strokes brilliantly, but then as director, I can tailor it to the location. If this film feels so grounded, it’s because we tailored it to all these wonderful locations, so I hope that comes through.
You collaborated with extreme sports stunt coordinator JT Holmes on a sequence in the Italian Alps, which features a jump off a 3000-foot cliff.
Yes, that was JT working with our stunt coordinator, Jo McLaren. They must have gone out to do that jump every day of the four weeks we were there, constantly looking at when the weather was right. The prevailing wind they needed was actually in the opposite way, which was great for a lot of the other work we were doing, but one big jump off the mountain face was the one we needed. We got to the last day. It was a very small unit, with two people jumping, one cameraperson and Rachel Stone’s double with a parachute, who was going to be flying through the gulley, and I was on the mountain floor. I remember looking up and just praying they could and would make the jump that day. I don’t know what we would have done if they hadn’t done it. The wind was right, and the light was right, and I could see them up there, but almost immediately, they disappeared behind a rock face. I thought, “Oh my god, what’s happened? Was the pressure too much, and they just jumped when they shouldn’t have?” For minutes, which seemed like an eternity, we were all breathless. And then, whoosh, just out from the gulley, they shot. It was perfect. I hope people find it as exciting as we did filming it.
In case you missed the news, Arnold Schwarzenegger is Netflix’s Chief Action Officer, a role he’s been working toward, it seems, his entire life. Now, two months into the job and getting a feel for it, he’s part of a new promo for Gal Gadot’s upcoming Netflix spy thriller Heart of Stone.
Here you’ll find Gadot bellying up to Netflix’s coffee bar only to find Schwarzenegger himself there making the fuel. Why? Because since he’s taken over his new role, he wants to infuse action into every aspect of Netflix’s world; thus, nearby, a poor sap’s coffee explodes in his face. Exciting! Luckily for us, there’s also a peek at Gadot’s upcoming Heart of Stone, which she promises has “everything you want in a spy movie.”
Arnold goes on to tell her he’s an expert in espionage and lists off some of his key assignments—FUBAR, True Lies, Spy,… Jingle All The Way.
“You were a spy in Jingle All The Way?” Gadot asks.
“No,” Arnold admits, “but if I would have been one, you’d have never known.”
We’ll leave the tasty final turn to your viewing pleasure, but let’s just say that Gadot gets the last laugh.
Heart of Stone comes from director Tom Harper, with a script by Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder. Gadot stars as Rachel Stone, an intelligence operative for a global peacekeeping agency racing to stop a hacker from stealing its most dangerous weapon.
Check out the promo here. Heart of Stone arrives on Netflix on August 11.
And here’s the official trailer for Heart of Stone:
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Netflix made its play, and now one of this past Sundance’s buzziest films is coming to the streamer this fall.
The first trailer for Chloe Domont’s romantic thriller Fair Play has arrived, revealing a look at the story of a newly engaged couple who is forced to keep their relationship a secret in their financial cutthroat world. Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) work at the hedge fund Crest Capital in entry-level positions, and the policy at Crest is no intra-office relationships. At first, things seem to be going fine, although their worlds begin to get topsy-turvy when Emily gets promoted over Luke, shifting the power dynamic between them. What lengths will they go to advance at Crest, and what will they sacrifice to do so? Their relationship? Their lives?
When Fair Play premiered at Sundance, it was one of the most talked about movies at the fest, and Netflix eventually outbid competitors to the tune of $20 million for Domont’s feature directorial debut.
“I thought [finance] was a great backdrop because the high stakes are ripe for drama,” Domont told Variety after Fair Play‘s Sundance premiere. “It feeds into the toxicity of the relationship, and vice-versa.”
It’s an auspicious feature debut for Domont, who has directed television episodes of Ballers, Suits, and Billions. Fair Play had some big named executive producers, including Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman.
Check out the sizzling first trailer below. Fair Play hits Netflix on October 13.
Here’s the official synopsis for Fair Play:
When a coveted promotion at a cutthroat financial firm arises, once supportive exchanges between lovers Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) begin to sour into something more sinister. As the power dynamics irrevocably shift in their relationship, the couple must face the true price of success and the unnerving limits of ambition. In her feature debut, writer-director Chloe Domont weaves a taut relationship thriller, staring down the destructive gender dynamics that pit partners against each other in a world that is transforming faster than the rules can keep up. Also starring Eddie Marsan, Rich Sommer, and Sebastian De Souza, Fair Play unravels the uncomfortable collision of empowerment and ego.
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Featured image: Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich appear in Fair Play by Chloe Domont, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Danny and Michael Philippou do not pull their punches in their chilling feature film directorial debut Talk to Me. Having honed their craft over years making short films, the twins crafted a horror movie that screams with confidence and passion, where not a single scare seems to miss the mark. There’s a reason the powerhouse mini-major studio A24, behind some of the best horror films of the last decade, got behind these two.
Talk to Me is led by a young woman Mia (Sophie Wilde), grieving over the death of her mother, who is part of a group of friends who figure out how to commune with the dead. The recipe to conjure spirits is surprisingly straightforward—shake an embalmed hand, welcome a spirit inside, and experience the other side. What if once a spirit is conjured, it doesn’t leave? As Mia grieves the mysterious loss of her mother, she finds out the hard way what happens when you make contact with the spirit world.
Talk to Me is a delightfully sinister and visceral experience, arguably the year’s most unsettling, unstinting horror film. Danny and Michael Philippou talked to The Credits about crafting their unholy vision, a sensual feast of horrors that the late, great William Friedkin would have admired.
Often in film, it’s what you don’t show that’s scarier, but here, what you do show is scarier. Was that an intention?
Danny: For the most part, we knew we wanted to build up to those scenes of horror and not shy away from it while we’re doing it. And so, it’s not all the way through the film that we’re showing this really extreme imagery. But once things happened, we didn’t want to bat an eye.
Michael: Show the consequences of the actions that these kids are making.
Danny: On top of that, there was a sequence we shot that was initially two and a half minutes; we had to cut it down to 15 seconds because it was too much. That trip to hell never would’ve gotten past the sensors.
Michael: Even when we were watching it, we were like, ‘This looks like a different movie.’ We suddenly ventured into some interesting, very violent territory.
(L-R) Zoe Terakes Credit: Andre Castellucci
Even with all the intensity, there are horrors that are subtle, as well. For example, the sound design and the score work in a way that’s almost as ruthless as the visuals. How did you accomplish that?
Danny: Michael was so OCD with sound and music. He did a temp score for the entire movie. He was in every sound session giving brutal notes. It was like, “Oh, my God. Let the person work, Michael.”
Michael: When we’re mixing manually, when they bring things down, certain tracks, I can hear it. I’m like, ‘Can we not do it manually? Because I can hear that drop too quickly.’ So, I’m really annoying, I guess, but I have a certain vision in my head, especially with merging the sound and music. I wanted them both to be equal and not have music buried under sound or sound buried under music. We’re having them both work in sync with each other, which wasn’t easy to do.
Danny: The biggest shout-out to our sound designer, Emma Bortingnon. Every time that we’d give Emma a whole bunch of notes, she’d go away, do a pass and then bring it back. And it’d be like, “Whoa, listen to this.”
Michael: And a shoutout to our composer, Cornel [Wilczek]. We actually had to redo the music for a few different reasons, and Cornel came in last second and saved us. Man, I would send so many notes, and he’d get them all. It was amazing work.
(L-R) Sophie Wilde Credit: Matthew Thorne
What originally happened with the score?
Michael: The music didn’t work the first time around, so we were able to really focus on the sound design and really nail out the sound of the possessions and atmosphere. And then, the second mix was implementing the music cohesively. So, it was a blessing in disguise, but I can’t wait for the next movie to start music earlier in pre-production.
This movie doesn’t hit you over the head with rules, but did you both have rules for yourselves?
Danny: We had the thickest mythology that breaks down every single rule. All the backstories of the spirits the kids connected to and why those kids are connecting to them. We broke that all down, but we wanted the kids to be in over their heads. We didn’t want there to be some expert that can explain things and didn’t want there to be an easy out.
Any rules for yourselves for how you went about filming?
Michael: We wanted it all to be grounded in Mia’s point of view, so you never see a spirit outside of what Mia sees.
Danny: Another subtle, small thing that we did is remove every single lens flare from the film except for in the dream sequence that Mia has. That’s the only lens flare that we have in the film to help differentiate one world from the other. Just subtle things like that.
Michael: Camera movements. The way things look in the possessions is different from how it looks standard. Finding that visual language was invaluable. And then also, through sound, you can communicate so much. You don’t need to do it visually. Different ways of saying things without saying them.
Danny: And then, there’s subtle sound design and music things that we had tied to each demon as well. Once this certain demon is connecting with Mia, there’s a certain sound that underlays that.
Michael: And even how they died, that’s incorporated all into the soundscape as well. Man, it was such an amazing experience, and we learned so much. Because usually, just trying to do it ourselves is one thing, but then, doing it with professionals and having those conversations, your mind blows over with all these ideas.
(L-R) Sophie Wilde Credit: Courtesy of A24
Did you both talk through how Talk to Me would be interpreted and what message people would take away from it?
Danny: I like leaving that stuff up to interpretation. I know what it means to me and what we’re saying, but I like hearing everyone’s take on it. So, I don’t want to explain too much, but I think you can interpret it anywhere that you want.
Michael: It was like witnessing a tragedy leading up to a car crash.
Danny: And I was a bit in a dark head space when I was writing some of this stuff, and that’s just expressing it and putting it on the page. And some of that sadness is in there.
Michael: You’re a sad man. Get this guy a therapist.
(L-R) Sophie Wilde Credit: Courtesy of A24
[Laughs] Well, the passion shows in the movie. Did you both have conversations about loss and how to express it best creatively?
Danny: We lost our grandfather, who helped raise us. Our parents weren’t home that much. And he passed away when we were thirteen, in our house on Christmas day. It’s pretty insane. It was a hole ripped out of your life a little bit, and you’re looking for something, anything to fill it with.
Michael: So much of the film is about connection. Mia is having every ounce of intimacy stripped away from her throughout the film. Some people say that she’s an unlikable character, but I really empathize with Mia.
(L-R) Sophie Wilde Credit: Courtesy of A24
She has PTSD, and sometimes, you make unreasonable choices when you’re experiencing it.
Michael: Especially without the right guidance as well. You can get into the wrong crowds when you’re trying to fill a certain hole. You can get led down a different path.
Directed by Justin Simien, Disney’s Haunted Mansion has an all-star cast, a funny, touching script, killer New Orleans scenery, and for a wellspring of inspiration, the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, which holds particular sway over the movie’s aesthetic. The original ride veers from comedic to creepy, which for cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron (Little Fires Everywhere, The Morning Show), worked well as a starting point for designing different aesthetics for Haunted Mansion’s various astral planes.
“I’ve watched documentaries about the making of the ride. There’s an amazing, really complete book about the making of it, with all the original artwork and visual ideas from the sixties,” Waldron says. “Since shooting, I’ve been [the ride] on another dozen times, and I’m happy to say I feel like we captured whatever that magic is.” That said, the movie’s ghosts bring their worst after midnight, and “doing a film that has a lot of moonlight, a lot of low light, and a lot of different skin tones is a real technical and creative puzzle,” Waldron explained. “I knew we could never go nearly as dark as this ride goes, which sometimes is almost pitch black.”
Instead, the cinematographer created a nighttime look utilizing a very soft, moonlit vibe with dim, subtle fill in the shadows. “You can really see everything, even though you feel like you’re looking into the dark,” he said. “To help that illusion, I desaturated a little bit because our rods and cones don’t work as well in the dark, and so we see things closer to black and white. And then, to create contrast, instead of having big, bright moonlight edges, I [used] color contrast. So if there’s a flashlight or headlights, I made sure those were very warm.”
There are plenty of both flashlights and headlights as Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son Travis (Chase Dillon) move into and then promptly try and fail to leave a historic mansion outside New Orleans populated by dozens of angry ghosts. They enlist the help of Ben (LaKeith Stanfield), a fallen academic and researcher hiding his own world of inner pain. Ben doesn’t believe in ghosts, at least at first, but he can’t resist the sales pitch from an irreverent priest, Father Kent (Owen Wilson), plus the promise of a couple thousand bucks. When the unusual situation at the mansion proves too much for everyone, Ben and Father Kent bring in a medium, Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), and a local historian with a heart condition, Bruce (Danny DeVito).
Once the film’s main cast is assembled in the cursed mansion, intentional communing with the ghosts begins. Waldron worked with Panavision’s “lens wizard,” Dan Sasaki, to create a unique lens for the waking realm “that didn’t bring a lot of weirdness to it, so we could save a lot of weirdness for the ghost realm,” where he then switched over to vintage series anamorphic lenses customized by Sasaki such that Waldron could fully give the film’s alternate realms their own sense of time and place. In one scene, for example, as the going gets tough, the tough get a better medium — one who just happens to be trapped in a crystal ball.
To tell Leota’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) story, “we used a very specific Panavision invention that’s an anamorphic portrait lens. Just the middle is in focus, and the rest is an oblong smear of glass. It’s all optical — it’s all in camera — but I liked the idea that when you’re looking through a glass ball to see this story, you actually feel the crystal ball elements of the glass there,” Waldron said.
Frequently, however, plenty really was there. “One of the things Justin really wanted to maintain was a sense that we were putting as much in front of the camera as we could, which is unusual for a modern ghost movie,” the cinematographer explained. “You could shoot 360 and see this fully designed, fully built house, whereas usually there’d be a lot of digital completion going on these days.” Ghosts who had speaking lines were also present. “Their faces are tracked and modified, but the bodies, in terms of wirework and flying, were done practically, so the actors could interact with them physically in space,” said Waldron. Similarly, lighting details typical of haunted mansions (candles, old lamps, candelabras) also tended to be genuine — production designer “Darren Gilford and his team were two steps ahead. Not only did they create this super brilliant set that takes the ride and just amplifies it into a real aged classic mansion built on all this iconography, they put lights where we needed them,” the cinematographer said.
And since this is Disney, the ghosts, sets, and trappings may be as real as can be, but the movie’s creepy mansion and various spectral planes remain spooky without becoming terrifying, with plenty of laughs from Haddish and Wilson playing two hacks in over their heads. “If you look at the history of the ride from 1969, there were a lot of conversations about how far they were going to go horror and how far they were going to go funny and fun, and we definitely went down the same road,” Waldron says. “A big part of that was not to embrace tropes of horror or comedy, but to create what felt like a timeless, painterly mansion film that felt rich and big and could easily lean into horror, but could also lean into funny.”
Haunted Mansion smoothly veers from eerie to droll, helped by the DP’s visual clarity, no matter the hour, and an aesthetic sense of place, whether that’s the house, the bayou, or the realm of the un-living.
Haunted Mansion is in theaters now.
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The Oppenheimer phenomenon continues on the biggest screens.
Due to popular demand, Christopher Nolan’s epic biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by a sensational Cillian Murphy) will stay in IMAX theaters nationwide through the end of August. Previously, Oppenheimer was scheduled to conclude its run on IMAX 70mm format on August 17, but now exhibitors will keep Nolan’s masterpiece on those colossal screens through August thanks to massive demand.
The love for Nolan’s film, one part of the Barbenheimer phenomenon that swept the nation on July 21 when Nolan’s film and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie opened simultaneously, is not surprising. Yet this extended run in IMAX theaters is especially poignant considering Nolan’s longstanding love of the format—he’s arguably its greatest champion, having used IMAX cameras on many of his films and tirelessly promoting the beauty and the spectacle it provides.
Nolan recently explained his love for the format in an Oppenheimer video: “Oppenheimer’s story is one of the biggest stories imaginable. Our film tries to take you into his experience, and IMAX, for me, is a portal into a level of immersion that you can’t get from other formats.” His longtime collaborator, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, explained how Oppenheimer used the format not only for the major spectacles (like the Trinity Test, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon) but the quieter moments, too. “IMAX is a format of spectacle, it’s made for vistas and the grandeur, but I got very curious to discover this as an intimate format,” Hoytema said. “The face is like a landscape; there’s a huge complexity and huge depth to it. How can we get this camera closer to people? How can we get this medium also as a very intimate medium.”
The 70mm film prints for Oppenheimer were roughly 11 miles long and weighed 600 pounds. The amount of time and effort it takes to process all that film is considerable, but the results speak for themselves. Oppenheimer has already exploded to $550 million at the global box office, a massive milestone for an R-rated drama that’s more than three hours long and tackles such a weighty subject. IMAX theaters have accounted for a massive $114.2 million of that, which is incredible when you consider that currently, there are only 19 theaters in the United States and 30 worldwide that have the capability to play films in 70mm, so those tickets are often the hardest to get. If you’re a Nolan fan and haven’t yet seen Oppenheimer in an IMAX theater, you’ve now got a much better chance at making that happen.
For those of you mourning the end of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, and thus, the end of watching everyone’s favorite alien tree person, Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), grow up, good news has arrived in a small package. The trailer for season two of I Am Groot has arrived, meaning that your time enjoying the company of one of Marvel’s most beloved characters is far from over.
In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Groot was a teenage jock, but he’s still at his most adorable age in I Am Groot, with the season two trailer revealing Baby Groot voyaging across the galaxy on many too-cute-for-words adventures. Five new shorts featuring the miniature alien tree person will find Groot in all sorts of sweet predicaments, all enlivened by his bottomless curiosity.
Baby Groot will use the Guardians’ spaceship to explore new regions of the galaxy in shorts from writer/director Kirsten Lepore, who returns to shepherd Groot through season two. The adventures begin when I Am Groot streams on Disney+ on September 6.
Check out the adorable trailer below:
Here’s the official synopsis from Disney+:
The troublemaking twig returns to mischief in the second season of I Am Groot. This time, Baby Groot finds himself exploring the universe and beyond aboard the Guardians’ spaceships, coming face-to-face—or nose-to-nose—with new and colorful creatures and environments. Vin Diesel is back as the voice of Groot in five all-new shorts. Kirsten Lepore, writer/director of season one, returns in the same capacity for season two. The supervising producer is Danielle Costa; producers are Craig Rittenbaum and Alex Scharf; executive producers are Brad Winderbaum, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso and Kirsten Lepore. Dana Vasquez-Eberhardt is co-executive producer.
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