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theREPORT
Natalie Portman:
Busiest Woman
in Cannes
By Pamela McClintock
Is Natalie Portman the
new Nicolas Cage? In the
past week, four movies
have been announced with
the Oscar-winning actress
attached, all coming on the
eve of her directorial debut,
A Tale of Love and Darkness,
which makes its world premiere
May 16 at Cannes.
Or, put another way, the
actress wasn’t kidding when
she told THR in a recent
interview she’s eager to
return to acting. “I
don’t think I’ll stop
unless I’m made to
by lack of opportunity,”
she said.
As with Cage,
whose name tends
to pop up in connection
with multiple market titles,
lack of opportunity isn’t the
issue. The question is which of
the four projects actually will
get made, and in what order.
On May 14, word broke that
Portman will portray Jackie
Kennedy in Jackie, which Wild
Bunch is shopping at Cannes.
From Chilean director Pablo
Larrain (No), the film follows
the first four days after
the 1963 assassination of
President John. F. Kennedy.
Portman also is in talks
to star as U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg
in On the Basis of Sex. Focus
Features is in negotiations
to finance and distribute in
North America.
Then there’s Planetarium,
co-starring Lily Rose Depp,
daughter of Johnny Depp.
Portman and Depp would
play spiritualist sisters in the
drama, directed by French
filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski.
Finally, Portman is in
negotiations to star in
Annihilation, a postapocalyptic
horror adventure from
Alex Garland (Ex Machina),
which tells the story of a
biologist who’s embarking on
a four-person expedition
into Area X, a territory cut off
from civilization.
Portman
Weinstein Drops
Early Oscar Hınts
By Gregg Kilday
In what has become an annual
Cannes tradition, Harvey
Weinstein summoned press
and buyers to the Majestic on the
evening of May 14 for a preview
of The Weinstein Co.’s upcoming
movies, at which the mogul also
laid down a couple of markers for
2015 Oscar consideration. The
presentation included trailers
for 10 Weinstein Co. movies, two
From left: Ossard, Rossellini and THR’s Belloni.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 6
of them competition films, Carol
and Macbeth, and a brief glimpse
of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful
Eight. “We’ve been together 22
years,” Weinstein said of his
relationship with the filmmaker.
“It’s the best marriage I’ve had.
Don’t tell [my wife] Georgina.”
Weinstein hailed Jake
Gyllenhaal, a member of this
year’s jury, for his performance
in Antoine Fuqua’s boxing movie
Southpaw, saying “his transformation
is physically stunning.”
Before inviting the actor to the
stage, he added, “I thought he
should have got nominated last
year” for Nightcrawler, vowing,
“We’ll get revenge.”
Noting that Hands of Stone, the
boxing movie about Roberto Duran
that TWC just acquired, will be
released in the spring, he boasted,
“it’s a lot better than that Pacquiao
fight we saw, way better.”
The mogul also introduced jury
member Sienna Miller, who stars
opposite Bradley Cooper in the
culinary drama Adam Jones, and
current “It” girl Alicia Vikander,
who stars in the period drama
Tulip Fever and makes a cameo in
Adam Jones. Weinstein promised,
“These are three people you are
going to be hearing extraordinary
things about.”
Director Defends Controversial Winehouse Doc
Amy has been condemned by the singer’s father, who ‘felt sick when I watched it’ By Rebecca Ford
Asif Kapadia did more than 100 interviews with
80 people — friends, family and colleagues
of the late singer Amy Winehouse — for his documentary
Amy, about the iconic singer-songwriter.
But it wasn’t easy.
“The biggest challenge initially was getting people
to talk,” he tells THR of the film, which A24 will
release in the U.S. on July 10. “It was a painful,
recent memory. People hadn’t come to terms or dealt
with what happened.”
Kapadia, who had the support of Winehouse’s
music label Universal on the intimate film, would
usually bring the subject of his interview into a
recording studio, just the two of them, and speak to
him or her in a small room with a microphone and
the lights off. “We’d just talk in the dark,” he says.
“For many of them, it was a form of therapy to get
things off their chest.”
Kapadia says the interviews were tough, but no one
ever walked out and there were never any blowups
while they were talking about the life of the singer,
From left:
Harvey
Weinstein,
Gyllenhaal,
Miller and
Vikander at the
May 14 preview.
ROSSELLINI KICKS
OFF KERING TALKS
The inaugural “Women in Motion” talks got started Thursday with a
spirited discussion with Isabella Rossellini and French producer Claudie
Ossard (Amelie) about aging in Hollywood and why there’s a lack of
female representation behind the camera. “Is it so horrible to grow old?”
Rossellini asked when an audience member suggested that advances in
special effects technology could keep an actress forever young onscreen.
“I don’t know why there is this attention on youth,” added the former
face of Lancome cosmetics.
The series of talks, which mark a partnership between THR and luxury
goods giant Kering, will run throughout the 68th Cannes Film Festival.
Held in a penthouse suite of the Majestic Hotel, the conversation was
moderated by THR executive editor Matthew Belloni. — TATIANA SIEGEL
who died in 2011 at age 27 from alcohol
poisoning. Winehouse’s family,
including her father, Mitch Winehouse,
who was interviewed extensively,
first saw a cut of the film in late 2014.
Winehouse
But in April, just two weeks before
the film would premiere in Cannes in a midnight
screening May 16, the Winehouse family chose to
“disassociate” itself from the film.
“I felt sick when I watched it for the first time.
Amy would be furious,” said Mitch, who also accused
the filmmakers of not sampling enough people from
Winehouse’s life and blaming him for her addictions.
But Kapadia says he’s tried to keep the focus of the
film on Winehouse’s talent and passion for music.
“My angle was to make a film that was honest
and truthful to Amy,” he says. “There was a lot of
tension, a lot of voices around her that made it
difficult for her to deal with issues. I think that is
difficult for people to see because it’s turning the
mirror around.”
WEINSTEIN: ANDREAS PROST.