The_Hollywood_Reporter__February_07_2018

February 7, 2018 

Oscars 

IN THE HOMESTRETCH 

● WILLEM DAFOE Triumph 

of a Hollywood nomad 

● High stakes for the studios 

● From Mary J. to Chalamet: 

The nominee class photo 

#METOO HITS 

MOVIE DEALS 

Battle over morality clauses 

R.I.P. OFFICE 

ROMANCE 

Dating post-Harvey 

SONY SHAKE-UP 

New CEO, new sale buzz 

HOLLYWOOD’S 

MOST TOXIC 

BROMANCE

EMBRACE LIFE

EMBRACE STRENGTH

EMBRACE EA

CH OTHER 

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION 

THESHAPEOFWATERFYC.COM

Issue No. 6, February 7, 2018 

FEATURES 

54 Willem Dafoe: Triumph 

of a Hollywood Nomad 

Despite a hundred credits 

and three Oscar nominations 

— the most recent for The 

Florida Project — the actor 

remains a shape-shifting 

enigma who eschews fame 

and comfort: “I remember 

my life by my movies.” 

60 Back to Basics in Berlin 

With Netflix and Amazon 

lying low in Sundance, this 

year’s European Film 

Market may continue a return 

to more traditional sales 

models — and dealmakers 

couldn’t be happier. 

64 The Doomed Bromance 

of Lenny and Charlie 

He’s a burnout major 

leaguer and an ex-con, but 

that didn’t prepare Lenny 

Dykstra for his friendship 

with Charlie Sheen, a man 

he alleges is a dangerous 

criminal about to be taken 

down by the Feds. 

70 ‘Simplistic but 

Complicated’ 

Animated feature Oscar 

contenders introduced 

audiences to female characters 

who could tame a 

bull and handle a bossy, 

suit-wearing infant. 

54 

“I never thought acting 

could be a profession,” 

says Dafoe, photographed 

Feb. 2 at Siren 

Studios Orange in Los 

Angeles. He looks back at 

some of his iconic roles 

(and the time he played 

Marilyn Monroe in a 

Super Bowl commercial) 

at THR.com/video. 

Ralph Lauren sweater, 

Dolce & Gabbana pants, 

Jimmy Choo sneakers. 

Photographed here and for the cover by Martha Galvan 

2

CONGRATULATIONS TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET 

WINNER 

BEST ACTOR 

LONDON FILM CRITICS’ CIRCLE

Issue No. 6, February 7, 2018 

THE REPORT 

11 The Morality Dilemma 

In a post-Weinstein landscape, 

studios are adding 

language to talent contracts 

to protect themselves 

if claims hit the media. 

ABOUT TOWN 

23 Who Does Whitney 

Cummings Think She Is? 

The prolific TV star/creator 

helms her first feature, The 

Female Brain. 

THE BUSINESS 

38 Executive Suite: 

Steve Bersch 

The acquisitions executive on 

the state of indie filmmaking 

THIS WEEK ON THR VIDEO 

Watch Cummings rave about 

her comedic hero, Paul Reiser. 

and the surprisingly 

most profitable division 

at Sony. 

STYLE 

49 That Touch of Pink 

Just in time for Valentine’s 

Day, new blush-hued 

scents hit all the right notes 

— from seductive woods 

to feminine florals. 

REVIEWS 

74 Black Panther 

Ryan Coogler’s Marvel 

entry dazzles with smartly 

staged action, magnetic 

performances and a bracing 

sense of novelty. 

BACKLOT 

77 How Canada Became 

a Springboard 

for Female Directors 

Multiple government 

initiatives are pushing for 

gender parity in the 

film business by 2020. 

CORRECTION Sufjan Stevens received 

a best song Oscar nomination for “Mystery 

of Love” (THR 1/31). 

23 

“I still have a bit of shame around being 

the boss,” says Cummings, photographed 

Jan. 26 at Harlowe in West Hollywood. 

49 

Chloe Nomade 

with plum, 

freesia and oak 

moss notes; 

$132, at Sephora 

Cummings photographed by Coral von Zumwalt 

“I am not a saint,” 

says Lenny Dykstra, 

photographed Nov. 8 

in New York City. 

64 

DYKSTRA: WESLEY MANN. FRAGRANCE: WILL DELEON.

Matthew Belloni 

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR 

Alison Brower 

DEPUTY EDITORIAL DIRECTOR 

Shanti Marlar 

CREATIVE DIRECTOR 

Tom Seeley 

DEPUTY EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, 

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EXECUTIVE MANAGING EDITOR 

Stephen Galloway 

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, FEATURES 

Jennifer Laski 

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EXECUTIVE EDITOR, TELEVISION 

David Katz 

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ARTICLES 

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FILM 

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TELEVISION 

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REBECCA SUN 

moderated a Feb. 3 

Q&A at Netflix’s 

L.A. headquarters 

with Altered Carbon 

showrunner Laeta 

Kalogridis and actors 

Will Yun Lee, Byron 

Mann and Dichen 

Lachman following a 

screening co-hosted 

by the Coalition 

of Asian Pacifics in 

Entertainment. 

COPY 

ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR Jennifer H. Levin 

DEPUTY COPY CHIEF Darah Head • SENIOR COPY EDITOR Lisa de los Reyes 

ART 

DESIGN DIRECTOR Peter B. Cury 

ART DIRECTOR Kelsey Stefanson • ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTORS Nicholas Brawley, 

Christopher Hawkins, Fah Sakharet • SENIOR DESIGNER Jen Cienfuegos 

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LEAD VIDEO EDITOR Victor Klaus • VIDEO EDITOR/MOTION GRAPHICS ARTIST Darin Eaton 

JUNIOR VIDEO EDITOR Nebiyu Dingetu • VIDEO PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Dustin Hattier 

THR.COM 

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INTERNATIONAL EDITOR Abid Rahman • STAFF EDITOR, NEWSLETTERS Ray Rahman 

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Lauren Huff, Meena Jang, Katherine Kilkenny 

ASSOCIATE STYLE EDITOR Samantha Reed • COPY CHIEF Pete Keeley 

SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR, DIGITAL Christina Pompa-Kwok • PHOTO EDITORS Mike Jianu, Ben Park 

DIGITAL CONTENT EDITOR, VIDEO Annie Howard • SENIOR MANAGER, SOCIAL MEDIA Jennifer Liles 

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CORRESPONDENTS Agustin Mango ARGENTINA • Pip Bulbeck AUSTRALIA • Rhonda Richford FRANCE 

Karen Chu HONG KONG • Ariston Anderson ITALY • Nyay Bhushan INDIA • Gavin J. Blair JAPAN • Lee Hyo-won KOREA 

John Hecht MEXICO • Nick Holdsworth, Vladimir Koslov RUSSIA • Pamela Rolfe SPAIN • Alex Ritman U.K. 

SCOTT FEINBERG 

will moderate a 

conversation between 

I, Tonya’s Margot 

Robbie and Allison 

Janney — recipients of 

the Santa Barbara Film 

Festival’s performer 

of the year award — at 

the fest Feb. 8. 

VICTORIA MCKILLOP 

and THR’s video team 

kicked off the Where 

Hollywood Eats video 

series, which has 

expanded to include 

industry hotspots in 

Atlanta, New Orleans 

and New York along 

with Los Angeles, for 

ReachMe TV. 

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar • Jonathan Handel • Austin Hargrave • Bill Higgins • Wesley Mann 

Miller Mobley • Gavin Polone • Joe Pugliese • Ramona Rosales • Michael Wolff 

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 

6 

FEBRUARY 7, 2018

“TRIUMPHANT, AUDACIOUS AND 

IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET.” 

— Justin Chang, LOS ANGELES TIMES 

“ONE OF THE BEST 

PICTURES OF THE YEAR” 

ON OVER 60 TOP 10 LISTS INCLUDING 

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F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O N 

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8 


BAFTA 

NOMINEE 

DOCUMENTARY 

WINNER 

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE 

(THE ORWELL AWARD) 

WINNER 

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 

LONDON 

AUDIENCE AWARD 

WINNER 

CRITICS’ CHOICE DOCUMENTARY AWARDS 

BEST SPORTS 

DOCUMENTARY 

DGA 

NOMINEE 

BEST DIRECTOR 

BRYAN FOGEL 

“ 

THERE WERE INSTANCES 

OF DOPING USE, TRUE. 

BUT NO ONE IS MAKING 

A BIG SHOW OF IT. ” 

– VLADIMIR PUTIN 

JANUARY 30, 2018 

“A TRULY ABSORBING PIECE OF FILMMAKING. 

COULDN’T BE MORE TIMELY.” 

INDIEWIRE 

CONSIDER T UTH 

THE THRILLER THAT TOOK DOWN AN EMPIRE

↑ Moguls 

Sony Shake-Up 

Does the new CEO care 

about Hollywood? p. 12 

Film 

Clint’s Casting 

Eastwood on why he hired 

non-actors for 15:17 p. 14 

The Re 

Behind the Headlines 

ort 

Heat Index 

David Benioff & D.B. Weiss 

The Game of Thrones creators 

jump to light speed with 

Lucasfilm to write and produce 

new Star Wars films (separate 

from the Rian Johnson trilogy). 

Charles Harder 

The litigator for Donald 

Trump, Harvey Weinstein and 

Hulk Hogan sees partner 

Douglas Mirell quit, saying 

he was “uncomfortable” with 

the firm’s client list. 

YOSHIDA: KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES. BENIOFF: JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC FOR HBO. HARDER: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. WALDEN: GREG DOHERTY/GETTY IMAGES. CIRRINCIONE: JOHNNY NUNEZ/WIREIMAGE. 

Dana Walden & 

Gary Newman 

The Fox TV co-CEOs 

preside over a robust launch 

for Ryan Murphy’s 911 and 

see the broadcaster hit No. 1 

for the first month of 2018 

— before the Super Bowl put 

NBC back on top. 

Vincent Cirrincione 

The producer and manager 

of Halle Berry and Taraji P. 

Henson shutters his company 

after nine claims of sexual 

harassment are reported by 

The Washington Post. 

Showbiz Stocks 

$220.88 (+2.9%) 

THE MADISON SQUARE 

GARDEN CO. (MSG) 

The venue owner posts strong 

quarterly earnings thanks to 

robust ticket sales. 

$1,005.80 (-10.2%) 

ALPHABET (GOOG) 

Google’s parent loses 

$3 billion in the latest quarter 

after taking a one-time 

tax charge of $9.9 billion to 

account for recent changes 

in the U.S. tax code. 

Jan. 29-Feb. 5 

‘Everyone Is Trying to Cover 

Their Asses as Much as Possible’ 

Sex abuse insurance? It could happen, as studios race to include broad morality clauses in contracts 

and dealmakers now must protect against unearthed misconduct claims BY TATIANA SIEGEL 

Moral turpitude? It’s a 

concept that showbiz 

talent soon will be wellacquainted 

with. The term, which 

means “an act or behavior that 

gravely violates the sentiment or 

accepted standard of the community,” 

is popping up in contracts of 

actors and filmmakers in the 

wake of the #MeToo movement 

that has rocked Hollywood. 

Fox is just one of the studios 

that is trying to insert broad 

morality clauses into its talent 

deals, giving it the ability to 

terminate any contract “if the 

talent engages in conduct that 

results in adverse publicity or 

notoriety or risks bringing the 

talent into public disrepute, 

contempt, scandal or ridicule.” 

A Paramount source says it long 

has had standards of conduct 

that it asks employees and talent 

to adhere to and that it’s reviewing 

its approach in the new 

era. At the same time, several 

smaller distributors have begun 

to add a clause in their longform 

contracts that gives them 

an out if a key individual in a 

film — whether during or before 

the term of the contract — committed 

or is charged with an act 

considered under state or federal 

laws to be a felony or crime of 

moral turpitude. 

Studios and buyers are 

responding to the real financial 

losses incurred in the aftermath 

of a flurry of sexual harassment 

and assault accusations and 

admissions that have enveloped 

everyone from Kevin Spacey 

Illustration by Zohar Lazar 


11 

FEBRUARY 7, 2018 

to Brett Ratner to Jeremy Piven 

since October, when Harvey 

Weinstein first was outed as a 

predator. Netflix took a $39 million 

write-down following 

numerous assault accusations 

involving House of Cards’ Spacey, 

who also was poised to play 

Gore Vidal in a movie for the 

streamer. CFO David Wells didn’t 

name Spacey or The Ranch star 

Danny Masterson, who left the 

Netflix series following rape 

accusations, but said the writedown 

was “related to the societal 

reset around sexual harassment.” 

Similarly, All the Money in 

the World financier Imperative 

Entertainment had to pony 

up $10 million to replace Spacey 

with Christopher Plummer for 

eleventh-hour reshoots on the

MORALS; SEXUAL HARASSMENT; DISCRIMINATION. In the event 

Distributor becomes aware of a violation or alleged 

violation of Distributor’s policy by any key individual 

whether or not such violations occurred prior 

to, during or after such services were provided, or 

Distributor becomes aware that a Key Element has committed 

or has been charged with an act considered under 

state or federal laws to be a felony or crime of moral 

turpitude, then Distributor shall have the right to: 

(i) cease distribution of the Picture; (ii) delete any 

credit given to such Key Element in connection with 

the Picture and/or (iii) modify, edit and/or reshoot 

the Picture to the extent necessary to remove the Key 

Element from the Picture. 

One film distributor recently began adding this “morality clause” language to its contracts. 

Sony film. Spacey did not have a 

morality clause in his contracts, 

according to sources, and was 

paid for the entire final season 

of House of Cards — even though 

he won’t appear in any of the 

episodes — and for All the Money 

in the World. 

Lawyer Schuyler Moore has 

begun to add a morality clause to 

contracts in an effort to protect 

his distributor clients from being 

saddled with the next #MeTootainted 

film. “Any distributor 

can say, ‘I’m not picking up this 

film if somebody involved in the 

film has some charge like that.’ 

Absolutely. I’m doing it, and 

[these clauses] are enforceable,” 

says the Greenberg Glusker partner. 

“And it’s just a question of 

drafting it in a way that works.” 

As such, there’s a new version 

of liability affecting Hollywood, 

and studios and buyers are 

scrambling to figure out how to 

handle it. Naturally, talent reps 

are balking. 

“I’m all for [#MeToo]. I totally 

support it. But I think [broad 

morality clauses] create a bad 

precedent,” says attorney Linda 

Lichter. “It’s one thing to say 

someone is a criminal. It’s another 

thing to say someone has been 

accused by someone and you can 

fire them and not pay them.” 

Others claim studios and buyers 

are hypocritical if they are 

unwilling to include a morality 

clause covering their own executives. 

Directors and talent endure 

economic hardship when their 

films are bought by a company 

whose top execs, like Weinstein, 

become synonymous with sexual 

What Does Sony’s New CEO Have Planned? 

Spider-Man: Homecoming (left) and Jumanji 

ignominy. On the flip side, Fox 

Searchlight lost millions on the 

release of The Birth of a Nation 

after revelations that star-filmmaker 

Nate Parker had stood trial 

for rape when he was a college 

student (Parker was acquitted) 

and that his accuser later took 

her own life. 

In the post-Weinstein landscape, 

a number of distributors 

have been left in vulnerable 

positions. YouTube Red dropped 

Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size 

Me 2: Holy Chicken! following the 

filmmaker’s admission of sexual 

misconduct, but 

not before paying 

$3.5 million that 

sources say it likely 

Moore won’t get back. 

The Orchard dodged 

a bullet when its $5 million 

acquisition of Louis C.K.’s I Love 

You, Daddy became unreleasable 

after a wave of harassment 

accusations were leveled at the 

comedian. Though C.K. was not 

legally obliged to take back the 

film, he wrote The Orchard a 

check to reimburse the company 

for what it had paid toward the 

film’s release. 

Kenichiro Yoshida may not offload the film studio (just yet), say analysts BY GAVIN J. BLAIR 

Will Sony’s incoming CEO finally cut the cord Feb. 2, Yoshida identified movie production, 

on Hollywood? On Feb. 1, the conglomerate 

said top exec Kaz Hirai, 57, would hand over must be “very careful” with because of large 

along with semiconductors, as areas the company 

the reins to CFO Kenichiro Yoshida, 58, on April 1. investments required. (And on Feb. 6, worldwide 

The move ignited new speculation that Sony’s networks president Andy Kaplan, home entertainment 

chief Man Jit Singh and president/CMO 

entertainment assets could end up auctioned. 

Hirai has been a passionate advocate for Sony Sheraton Kalouria exited in a restructuring.) 

Pictures Entertainment, while Yoshida, a veteran Damian Thong, Sony analyst at Macquarie 

of corporate strategy who joined Sony in 1983, Capital in Tokyo, notes that “SPE is not a monolithic 

movie business” but includes a studio, 

not as much. But despite Yoshida’s reputation for 

paring underperforming units, many Sony watchers 

say he’s unlikely to unload SPE right away. “I 

postproduction facilities and cable channels. “One 

credit [Yoshida] with a big part of the turnaround 

of the past few years,” says Eric Jackson of EMJ 

Capital, which owns Sony stock. “He’s forced transparency 

on the different business units.” 

Yoshida and Hirai led Sony from huge losses to 

forecasting a record $6.6 billion profit for 2017 with 

such film hits as Jumanji ($857 million globally) 

and Spider-Man: Homecoming ($880 million). On 

The Report 


“Everyone is trying to cover 

their asses as much as possible,” 

says one distribution exec whose 

company recently began adding 

morality clauses to its contracts. 

One producer insists that 

restrictive clauses will spark an 

inability to finance movies. 

“If there is anything downstream 

that impedes the ability of a financier 

to recoup his investment, the 

financier will not invest,” says this 

producer, adding that bond companies 

do not currently address 

the potential of a key figure negatively 

impacting a film because 

of a sex scandal. Film Finances 

Inc., the top bond completion 

company working in Hollywood, 

declined to comment. 

“There’s definitely an opportunity 

for a company to come 

up with some sort of sex abuse 

insurance,” says the producer. 

That’s a point echoed by Lichter. 

“The studios should start thinking 

about whether there’s some 

kind of insurance for this type of 

thing,” she says. “This is a whole 

new territory.” 

Lacey Rose contributed to 

this report. 

Hirai (left), the president and CEO of Sony Corp. since 2012, 

will be succeeded in April by Yoshida, now the company’s CFO. 

reason Sony has remained relevant is an understanding 

that electronics is linked to content,” 

he adds. But in this era of M&A, Jackson thinks 

Sony should consider expanding its entertainment 

assets, perhaps by acquiring Lionsgate or MGM: “I 

would guess it’s more likely they sell their mobile 

phone and financial services units rather than their 

pictures unit.” But one Tokyo-based Sony analyst 

says a creative deal could lead to a sale: “If they can 

form some kind of alliance and sell maybe 30 to 

40 percent of SPE, then that is a possibility.” 

YOSHIDA: KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES. SPIDER-MAN: CHUCK ZLOTNICK/SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT. JUMANJI: FRANK MASI/SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT. MOORE: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. 


12 


ACADEMY AWARD ® 

INCLUDING 

NOMINATIONS 

BEST PICTURE 

OF THE YEAR 

6BEST ACTOR GARY OLDMAN



REAL 

LIFE 

MOVIE 

How Clint Handled Non-Actors: 

‘Massive Improvisation’ 

Eastwood says if Warner Bros. execs questioned his decision to cast real-life 

heroes in the terrorism thriller 15:17 to Paris, ‘nobody expressed it to me’ BY TATIANA SIEGEL 

This past spring, Clint Eastwood was 

grilling Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos 

and Anthony Sadler about their takedown 

of an armed Islamic State recruit on 

a train heading from Amsterdam to Paris. 

Eastwood was mulling actors to portray the 

real-life trio whose story informed his new 

film, The 15:17 to Paris, when it hit him: “I just 

thought, ‘I wonder if they could do it?’ ” says 

Eastwood, 87. “The faces just fit,” he added. 

The idea isn’t unprecedented, even if talent 

might not love being replaced by real people. 

Steven Soderbergh has done it more than once, 

with the indies The Girlfriend Experience (led 

by porn star Sasha Grey) and Haywire (toplined 

by MMA fighter Gina Carano). Gus Van Sant 

took a similar route with Elephant as well as 

with another angst pic, Paranoid Park, each 

costing $3 million. But with a $30 million 

budget, Warner Bros.’ 15:17, which 

opens Feb. 9, marks the first time 

in decades that a major studio has 

taken a risk on real-life protagonists 

leading a moderately 

Eastwood 

budgeted film. 

Eastwood has used nonprofessionals before, 

albeit in supporting roles (in Gran Torino). Given 

that film’s box-office performance ($270 million 

worldwide on a $33 million budget), 

Warners wasn’t about to raise any objections. 

“There might’ve been a little discussion as 

to whether they thought it was a good idea, but 

nobody expressed it to me,” says Eastwood. 

In earlier times, studios groomed reallife 

celebrities like figure skater Sonja Henie 

Howard Stern, Video Star? SiriusXM Hopes So 

The satellite service plans a new add-on in its latest subscriber search BY PAUL BOND AND GEORG SZALAI 

Video will embrace the radio star 

this summer as 64-year-old 

Howard Stern will become a multimedia 

play for SiriusXM. 

In plans outlined during a Jan. 30 

earnings call, CEO Jim Meyer cautioned 

that “we are not 

going into the Netflix 

business” but will be 

“wading into the video 

Meyer 

pool” before July. The 

satellite radio provider 

will draw on 30 years of Stern 

interviews as a blueprint to launch 

↑ From left: Skarlatos, Stone and Sadler were lauded for 

their bravery by President Obama in 2015. They play themselves 

in the action thriller The 15:17 to Paris. 

video of other talk hosts, comedians 

and musicians. The video product 

will be part of SiriusXM All Access, 

which at $20.99 a month is about a 

$5 premium to the regular service. 

“Management isn’t planning to 

launch the video product as a separate 

package but expects it to drive 

higher take rates of the All Access 

package,” says Evercore ISI analyst 

Vijay Jayant. 

SiriusXM isn’t the only subscription 

audio-based company to dabble 

in video. Spotify began streaming 

videos from such partners as 

Comedy Central and ESPN in early 

2016, paving the way for the music 

service to greenlight a batch of 

original shortform videos. That effort 

struggled to gain traction. Apple, 

of course, is launching a video service 

to complement Apple Music. 

SiriusXM has nearly 33 million U.S. 

subscribers. Stern, who hasn’t had 

a headlining video presence since 

pay channel Howard TV shuttered in 

late 2013, is signed through 2020. 

Says Steven Birenberg, founder 

— once the highest-paid actress in Hollywood 

— to essentially play themselves in movies 

like 20th Century Fox’s My Lucky Star. More 

recently, Paramount had mixed results when 

gambling on real-life characters, scoring 

a modest success with 1997’s Howard Stern 

comedy Private Parts and its $41 million 

haul. Six years later, it endured a bomb with 

The Real Cancun, which took in $5 million. 

And Relativity’s 2012 thriller Act of Valor, which 

earned $81 million worldwide off a $12 million 

budget, starred Navy SEALs whose last 

names did not appear in the credits and were 

not revealed in initial marketing of the film. 

In the case of 15:17, Eastwood made up for 

the lack of professional actors by doing “a massive 

amount of improvisation.” Now Stone, 25, 

is hanging on tight to his SAG-AFTRA card 

and has signed with UTA for all areas, with 

Jason Heyman representing him for acting. 

“I would love to make it a long career,” Stone 

says. For Eastwood’s next film, which he 

hasn’t yet determined, he likely will return to 

employing pros. “I’m not deserting my Screen 

Actors Guild,” he says. “The Screen Actors 

Guild just has three new members.” 

Stern’s SiriusXM show attracts an estimated 

9 million listeners each week. 

of Northlake Capital Management: 

“If they establish video within the 

current customer bases — and 

attract some new customers with 

it — eventually it could be a standalone 

product.” 

OBAMA: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES. 15:17: COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES. STERN: L. BUSACCA/WIREIMAGE FOR SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO. MEYER: KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES FOR SIRIUSXM. EASTWOOD: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE. 


14 




Box Office 

Domestic International 

Gross Cume % Chg Gross Cume 

Total 

1. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle SONY 

10.9 352.6 (7) -32 12.6 *94 503.1 856.7 

The pic made a surprise Super Bowl 

comeback, reclaiming the top spot in its seventh 

weekend, the first time since Titanic that a 

wide December release has won in February. 

2. Maze Runner: The Death Cure FOX 

10.5 40 (2) -57 35.5 *81 143.2 183.2 

3. Winchester CBS FILMS/LIONSGATE 

9.3 9.3 (1) - N/A N/A 9.3 

The supernatural thriller sports a dismal 

13 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the worst 

score on the site for a feature starring Helen 

Mirren after 2010’s Love Ranch (12 percent). 

4. The Greatest Showman FOX 

7.7 137.4 (7) -19 16.2 *62 153.1 290.5 

5. The Post FOX 

5.2 67.2 (7) -43 10.3 *29 37.2 104.4 

6. Hostiles ENTERTAINMENT STUDIOS 

5.1 20.8 (7) -50 N/A N/A 20.8 

7. 12 Strong WARNER BROS. 

4.7 37.3 (3) -46 2.9 *38 8.7 46 

8. Den of Thieves STX 

4.6 36.2 (3) -47 6.5 *32 9.1 45.3 

9. The Shape of Water FOX SEARCHLIGHT 

4.4 44.7 (10) -25 4.4 *23 19.5 64.2 

Director Guillermo del Toro continues to rack 

up wins on the awards circuit, but the film 

fell 25 percent domestically despite upping 

its theater count to 2,341. 

10. Paddington 2 WARNER BROS./STUDIOCANAL 

3.3 36.5 (4) -42 2 *31 155.8 192.3 

11. Three Billboards … FOX SEARCHLIGHT 

3 41.8 (13) -22 8.3 *41 46.3 88.1 

12. I, Tonya NEON/VARIOUS 

2.5 22.6 (9) -19 1.6 *7 4.5 27.1 

13. Padmaavat VIVA ENTERTAINMENT 

2.4 8.9 (2) -46 2.2 *11 8.7 17.6 

14. Darkest Hour FOCUS FEATURES 

2.36 48.8 (11) -18 7.1 *59 65.8 114.6 

15. Star Wars: The Last Jedi DISNEY 

2.34 614.5 (8) -45 2.8 *29 706 1.32B 

Broadcast TV 

18-49 Audience 

Live+3 

Live+3 

1. Grammy Awards CBS 

6.3 20.8M 

2. This Is Us NBC 

4.5 14.9M 

3. Grey’s Anatomy ABC 

3.3 11.3M 

4. The Good Doctor ABC 

3.1 14.99M 

5. 911 FOX 

2.7 10.1M 

6. The Bachelor ABC 

2.2 7.4M 

7. NCIS CBS 

2.1 17.1M 

8. Ellen’s Game of Games NBC 

2.1 8.4M 

9. The Goldbergs ABC 

2.1 7.1M 

Good news for Sony: When ABC aired 

its passed-over pilot for the proposed 

Goldbergs spinoff, the episode topped 

broadcast and was the No. 1 comedy of 

the week — reigniting interest. 

10. Chicago Med NBC 

2.0 10M 

11. Bull CBS 

1.9 14.3M 

12. Chicago Fire NBC 

1.9 9.4M 

13. Scandal ABC 

1.9 7.0M 

14. American Housewife (1/24) ABC 

1.8 6.6M 

15. How to … Murder ABC 

1.8 5.9M 

Closer 

Look 

Dunkirk nabbed 

eight nominations. 

Cable TV 

Viewership 

Live+3 

1. Vikings HISTORY 

3.7 

2. The Alienist TNT 

3.1 

Turner cites a whopping 13 million 

viewers (with linear encores and digital 

lifts) for its adaptation of the Caleb 

Carr best-seller. It’s cable’s No. 1 drama 

launch of the young year. 

3. ACS: Versace FX 

2.98 

4. Haves and the Have Nots OWN 

2.87 

5. Shameless SHOWTIME 

2.82 

6. The Librarians TNT 

2.2 

7. Knightfall HISTORY 

2.1 

8. If Loving You Is Wrong OWN 

2.0 

9. Waco PARAMOUNT 

1.9 

10. Nashville CMT 

1.6 

One to Watch 

Waco PARAMOUNT 

The miniseries’ Jan. 24 debut, which 

earned a solid 1.1 rating in the key 

demo, coincided with the launch of the 

Paramount Network. 

Oscar Best Picture Scorecard 

The nominees’ worldwide grosses so far 

1. Dunkirk WARNER BROS. $525.6M 

2. Get Out UNIVERSAL $255M 

3. Darkest Hour FOCUS $114.6M 

4. The Post FOX $104.4M 

5. Three Billboards … FOX S. $88.1M 

6. Shape of Water FOX S. $64.2M 

7. Lady Bird A24 $43.7M 

8. Call Me by … SONY CLASSICS $22M 

9. Phantom Thread FOCUS $17.4M 

Source: ComScore 

Alma Har’el 

on the set of 

Coca-Cola’s 

“The Wonder 

of Us” ad. 

TV Ads Enlist 

More Female 

Directors 

Advertising agencies, spurred 

by a pledge campaign, are 

picking more women for highly 

coveted (and paid) ‘feeder’ gigs 

BY MIA GALUPPO 

An ongoing effort to get advertising 

agencies to book more female 

directors for big-budget TV spots 

is starting to pay off thanks to 

Free the Bid, a campaign started in 

September 2016 by director Alma 

Har’el, who is responsible for this 

year’s Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad. 

Susan Credle, chief creative 

officer at FCB Global, whose clients 

include Clorox and Levi’s, says the 

proportion of FCB’s ads directed 

by women has risen from 10 percent 

to 30 percent since the agency 

took the pledge last year to consider 

hiring female directors. Ad giant 

BBDO has doubled the number of 

female directors hired on commercials, 

while CP+B has seen a fourfold 

increase. Airbnb, Visa and Twitter 

are among brands that have joined 

the campaign. 

“Advertising has always been a 

feeder to Hollywood,” Har’el says. 

She notes that commercial work for 

up-and-coming female directors — 

Reed Morano and Ava DuVernay 

have helmed TV ads — boosts their 

careers in two ways: They gain 

filmmaking experience (“They 

get to argue with ad agencies and 

brands [in ways] that are similar to 

working with studios and financiers”) 

and financial security (“Right now, 

[women] can’t sustain their careers 

long enough to be competitive”). 

The campaign hopes to spur 

similar action for moviemaking. “A lot 

of great directors spend time coming 

through advertising as their university 

before going on to conquer 

the film world,” says Credle, adding: 

“[Alma’s] theory is that if more 

women get into advertising, we can 

change the game in film.” 

Box-office source: comScore; estimates in $ millions; ( )Weekends in release; *Territories. Broadcast source: Nielsen, live-plus-3, week of Jan. 21. Cable TV source: Nielsen, live-plus-3 scripted series, week of Jan. 21. 

HAR’EL: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. JUMANJI: FRANK MASI/COLUMBIA PICTURES. WINCHESTER: BEN KING/CBS FILMS. SHAPE: KERRY HAYES/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. 

ALIENIST: KATA VERMES/TNT. GOLDBERGS: ABC/RON TOM. WACO: PARAMOUNT NETWORK/URSULA COYOTE. DUNKIRK: COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. 


16 


ARE OSCAR FRONTRUNNERS 

STARTING TO EMERGE? 

IS NOW 

The action isn’t slowing down yet: The Directors Guild has 

weighed in, and the writers are next up on Feb. 11 as the Academy’s 

day of judgment draws ever closer By Scott Feinberg 

DIRECTOR 

ONE OF THE WORLD’S 

PRE-EMINENT INTERNATIONAL 

CO-PRODUCTION MARKETS 

FOR FEATURE FILM, TV AND 

DIGITAL MEDIA. 

SEPTEMBER 13-15, 2018 

HALIFAX 

NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA 

FINPARTNERS.CA 

Guillermo del Toro, 

The Shape of Water 

The Golden Globe and Producers Guild 

of America winner added the DGA’s top 

award to his mantelpiece Feb. 3. Only 

seven times in 69 years has the top DGA 

Award winner not gone on to win the 

best director Oscar. 

ACTOR 

Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour 

The prohibitive frontrunner to win 

the Oscar — his portrayal of Winston 

Churchill has earned Globe and 

SAG awards — was feted at the Santa 

Barbara International Film Festival, 

where received the fest’s Maltin Master 

Award on Feb. 2. 

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE 

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail 

Acclaimed filmmaker Steve James 

(Hoop Dreams) got his first doc nomination 

for this look at a small bank that 

fell victim to the financial crisis. But at 

the DGA Awards, he lost the doc prize 

to Matthew Heineman’s City of Ghosts, 

which isn’t Oscar-nominated. 

Jordan Peele, Get Out 

He may have lost the DGA Award for 

film directing to Guillermo del Toro, but 

he remains in play after scoring the next 

best thing — the DGA’s prize for feature 

directorial debut — and earning a standing 

ovation at the ceremony as he headed 

to the stage. 

SUPPORTING ACTOR 

Christopher Plummer, 

All the Money in the World 

He was one of only five acting nominees 

who couldn’t make it to the Nominees 

Luncheon on Feb. 5 (along with Daniel 

Day-Lewis, Denzel Washington, Woody 

Harrelson and Lesley Manville), missing 

an opportunity for glad-handing voters. 

SONG 

“This Is Me” 

The Greatest Showman 

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s Golden 

Globe-winning tune, sung by Keala 

Settle, is getting lots of primetime exposure 

in NBC advertisements for the 

Winter Olympics, including one featured 

during the Super Bowl. 

DEL TORO: FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES. PEELE: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES FOR DGA. DARKEST: COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATURES. MONEY: FABIO LOVINO/FOCUS FEATURES. ABACUS: SEAN LYNESS/PBS. SHOWMAN: NIKO TAVERNISE/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. 

18

FOX SEARCHLIGHT WARMLY CONGRATULATES 

FRANCES McDORMAND 

WINNER OF THE 9 TH ANNUAL 

AFRICAN AMERICAN FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION’S 

AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS


7 Days of DEALS 

Who’s inking on the dotted line this week 

HOW PARAMOUNT AND NETFLIX PULLED 

OFF THAT CLOVERFIELD SUPER BOWL JUKE 

Deal 

of the 

Week 

Stuber 

Paradox is 

the third film 

in Abrams’ 

sci-fi horror 

anthology 

franchise 

Cloverfield. 

HGTV Lays New Foundation With Property Brothers 

Big 

Deal 

Super Bowl viewers were shocked when Netflix 

dropped an ad for The Cloverfield Paradox, revealing 

that the J.J. Abrams-produced movie heretofore 

known as God Particle would forgo a theatrical 

release and instead debut on the streaming service 

immediately following the big game Feb. 4. 

The marketing stunt capped a rescue plan 

hatched by Abrams, Paramount chairman-CEO Jim 

Gianopulos, Netflix chief Ted Sarandos and head 

of original films Scott Stuber, among others. Worried 

that Paradox would perish at the box office — it 

was set to hit theaters April 20 after several delays 

— Paramount and Abrams handed it to Netflix, 

which is willing to shell out big bucks for high-profile 

content. Sources say the deal, broached over the 

holidays and finalized in January, is worth north of 

Amid the looming departure 

of Fixer Upper stars 

Chip and Joanna Gaines, 

HGTV is not risking losing 

any more top-tier talent. 

Cable’s fifth-most-watched network has 

inked a multiyear extension with Property 

Brothers’ Drew and Jonathan Scott (CAA, 

Canada’s Stohn Hay), who first came 

to the Scripps Interactive-owned network in 

2011. The twins, 39, are responsible for an 

atypical share of HGTV output: the original 

Property Brothers, the spinoffs Buying 

& Selling and At Home and the competition 

series Brother vs. Brother — which, 

with a reach of 13 million cross-platform 

viewers per episode, is Scott Brothers 

Entertainment’s top series. “They can 

produce and star in an incredible amount 

of content in a very short period of time,” 

says Scripps U.S. programming GM Allison 

Page. “It’s a scale we haven’t achieved 

with anyone else.” 

The exclusive pact comes as the 

Canadian imports become an increasingly 

mainstream presence. Drew placed fourth 

on the most recent season of ABC’s Dancing 

With the Stars, and both frequently appear 

on NBC’s Today to promote their series and 

licensed products. 

HGTV is aggressively fortifying its slate 

amid Scripps’ pending $11.9 billion sale to 

Rights Available! Hot new books with Hollywood appeal BY ANDY LEWIS AND TATIANA SIEGEL 

Everything Happens for a Reason: 

And Other Lies I’ve Loved (RANDOM HOUSE, FEB. 6) 

BY Kate Bowler AGENCY Gotham Group 

The Duke Divinity School professor chronicles her stage 4 

colon cancer diagnosis at age 35 and how it upended her beliefs. 

Her Jan. 26 New York Times op-ed furthered the conversation. 

$50 million, with Paramount retaining rights for 

China and home entertainment. It makes the movie 

instantly profitable for the studio, which avoids a 

(likely) misfire and costly marketing campaign. 

And Netflix got what it was looking for, regardless 

of withering reviews (18 percent on Rotten Tomatoes 

at press time): buzz. “It gets them attention and 

captures some viewing right off the bat,” says 

eMarketer’s Paul Vern. And even if the streamer 

doesn’t ultimately get the viewership it hoped for 

Paradox, “they still got a brand jolt,” he adds. 

Paradox, which finished principal photography in 

September 2016, was part of the successful and popular 

Cloverfield series, but sources say Gianopulos, 

who joined the studio six months later, was worried. 

Despite additions to clarify character beats and 

tie the film to the franchise’s universe, it was ultimately 

deemed unsalvageable despite a cast led by 

Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Elizabeth Debicki, David Oyelowo 

and Daniel Bruhl. Netflix was an obvious destination, 

having already taken over international rights 

to the Natalie Portman starrer Annihilation, which 

Paramount will release domestically Feb. 23. 

Paramount retains rights to future Cloverfield 

films. Overlord, a World War II zombie pic from 

Abrams that has scored high in test screenings, could 

be a contender, although sources say that its fate is 

undetermined. — BORYS KIT AND PAMELA MCCLINTOCK 

Discovery Communications. New siblingcentric 

series Restored by the Fords is 

retaining 60 percent of its Fixer Upper leadin, 

and the network has another 50-odd 

pilots (some with the Scotts) in development. 

— MICHAEL O’CONNELL 

Jonathan 

(left) and 

Drew Scott 

have been 

spending 

more time 

in L.A. and 

onscreen. 

Lone Stars (PHILOMEL BOOKS, SEPT. 12, 2017) 

Lane 

FILM 

Suki Waterhouse (CAA, 

the U.K.’s Independent, 

Untitled, Jackoway 

Tyerman) has joined 

Legendary’s Detective 

Pikachu movie along 

with Bill Nighy and You’re 

the Worst’s Chris Geere. 

Jim Parsons (CAA, 

Gang Tyre) has joined Zac 

Efron in the Ted Bundy 

biopic Extremely Wicked, 

Shockingly Evil and Vile. 

Riverdale star Cole 

Sprouse (WME, Authentic, 

Greenberg Traurig) is 

in talks to topline the CBS 

Films romantic drama Five 

Feet Apart. 

Big Boi (UTA, Career 

Artists) has joined Sony’s 

Superfly remake. 

Michelle MacLaren (ICM, 

Stone Genow) will direct 

Chris Pratt in Universal’s 

Cowboy Ninja Viking. 

BY Mike Lupica AGENCY ICM Partners 

Shopped as Friday Night Lights meets Concussion, this YA 

novel from the best-selling sports columnist follows a middle 

schooler who suspects his beloved football coach, a former pro 

player, is suffering from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). 

CLOVERFIELD: SCOTT GARFIELD/NETFLIX. STUBER: ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/GETTY IMAGES. PROPERTY: GILLES MINGASSON/VERBATIM PHOTO AGENCY/HGTV. BOOK: COURTESY OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE. SPROUSE: MONICA SCHIPPER/WIREIMAGE. MACLAREN: FRAZER 

HARRISON/GETTY IMAGES FOR ELLE. GRAY: PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGES. SUTTER: TASIA WELLS/FILMMAGIC. IGER: COURTESY OF STRIBLING. DAVIS: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. WATERHOUSE: JIM SPELLMAN/WIREIMAGE. SMOLLETT: ARAYA DIAZ/GETTY IMAGES. 


20 


103.4M 

People who watched the Feb. 4 

Big 

Number 

Super Bowl on NBC (106 million with 

streaming), down 3 percent from 

last year and the fewest since 2009. 

Sutter 

Waterhouse 

Gray 

MacLaren 

Sprouse 

China’s CMC Capital 

Partners has taken 

full ownership of Oriental 

DreamWorks from 

NBCUniversal and will 

rename it Pearl Studio. 

F. Gary Gray (UTA, 

Principato Young, Del 

Shaw) is in talks to direct 

Sony’s Men in Black spinoff. 

Octavia Spencer (WME, 

Jackoway Tyerman) 

and The Help director 

Tate Taylor (CAA, Lichter 

Grossman) will reteam 

for Blumhouse horror thriller 

Ma, also starring Luke 

Evans and Juliette Lewis. 

Willem Dafoe (CAA, the 

U.K.’s Artists Partnership, 

Circle of Confusion) 

has joined Edward Norton’s 

adaptation of Jonathan 

Lethem’s detective novel 

Motherless Brooklyn 

along with Bruce Willis and 

Alec Baldwin. 

Lionsgate and Roadside 

Attractions have acquired 

U.S. rights to the Rose 

Byrne starrer Juliet, Naked. 

Iger and Bay’s Fifth Avenue co-op features Central Park views. 

IFC Films has picked 

up North American rights 

to the gender-identity 

drama A Kid Like Jake. 

James Mangold (WME, 

Management 360) 

will direct Fox’s untitled 

drama about the rivalry 

between automakers Ford 

and Ferrari. 

Adam Shankman (UTA, 

Bloom Hergott) will 

direct Taraji P. Henson in 

Paramount Players’ What 

Men Want. 

Jim Caviezel (ICM, Frank 

Stewart) is in talks to 

reprise his role as Jesus in 

Mel Gibson’s sequel to 

The Passion of the Christ. 

Spectre’s John 

Logan (CAA) will adapt 

Walter Isaacson’s 

Leonardo da Vinci biography 

for Paramount 

and Leonardo DiCaprio. 

TriStar Pictures has 

acquired the rights to 

Kristin Hannah’s upcoming 

novel The Great Alone. 

Drew Barrymore (CAA, 

Hansen Jacobson) will 

play two starring roles in 

Jamie Babbit’s romantic 

comedy The Stand-In. 

This Is Us’ Chrissy Metz 

(CAA, Luber Roklin, 

Meyers & Downs) will star 

in Fox 2000’s faith-based 

drama The Impossible. 

Riverdale’s K.J. Apa 

(UTA, Luber Roklin, 

Jackoway Tyerman) will 

topline Gulfstream Pictures’ 

ensemble romantic 

comedy The Last Summer. 

TELEVISION 

The NFL and Fox 

have reached a five-year, 

$3.3 billion deal for 

Thursday Night Football. 

Dwayne Johnson (WME, 

The Garcia Co., Gang Tyre) 

will host and executive 

produce NBC’s competition 

series The Titan Games. 

Leslie Jones (Integral, 

Hansen Jacobson) 

will join NBC’s coverage of 

the 2018 Winter Olympics. 

Hannibal’s Jesse 

Alexander (CAA, 

Kleinberg Lange) will 

showrun season two 

of Starz’s American Gods 

alongside Neil Gaiman. 

Katherine Heigl (Zero 

Gravity, Morris Yorn) 

will be a series regular on 

Suits, which USA has 

renewed for season eight. 

Kurt Sutter (WME, 

Gendler & Kelly) has 

renewed his overall 

deal with 20th Century 

Fox Television, Fox 21 

Television Studios and 

FX Productions. 

Zachary Quinto (CAA, 

Untitled, Jackoway 

Tyerman) will host History’s 

revival of In Search Of, 

whose original iteration was 

hosted by Leonard Nimoy. 

The Leftovers’ Nicole 

Kassell (WME, Washington 

Square, Frankfurt 

Kurnit) will direct HBO’s 

Watchmen pilot. 

HBO has ordered 

J.J. Abrams’ sci-fi drama 

Demimonde straight to 

series. … NBC has picked 

up Julian Fellowes’ 

The Gilded Age to series. 

DIGITAL 

Warner Bros. Digital 

Networks has ordered 

the drama Metropolis 

straight to series 

for the upcoming DC 

Digital Service. 

Rep 

Sheet 

Empire’s Jussie Smollett 

has signed with UTA. 

Billions’ David Costabile, 

who also is in The Post, 

has signed with ICM 

Partners, as has Politico. 

Rectify alum Aden 

Young has signed with 

Anonymous Content, 

as has The New York 

Times Co. 

This Is Us co-showrunners 

Isaac Aptaker 

and Elizabeth Berger 

have signed with CAA. 

Comedian Tony Rock has 

signed with E2W PR. 

Diane Lane (UTA, 

Weintraub Tobin) and 

Greg Kinnear (WME, 

Stone Genow) will play 

siblings on the final season 

of Netflix’s House of Cards. 

Tony winner Ben Platt 

(CAA, One Entertainment, 

Jackoway Tyerman) will 

topline Ryan Murphy’s musical 

series The Politician, 

which received a twoseason 

order from Netflix, 

with Barbra Streisand and 

Gwyneth Paltrow in talks to 

co-star. 

The Vampire Diaries’ 

Jaz Sinclair (UTA, 

Next 

Big 

Thing 

Ayanna Floyd Davis 

REP ICM Partners 

WHY SHE MATTERS 

Davis will replace 

Elwood Reid as showrunner 

of critically 

acclaimed new drama 

The Chi, which 

Showtime has renewed 

for a second season. 

Davis is a veteran 

television writer with 

credits on Private 

Practice, Hannibal and 

Empire, but the Lena 

Waithe-created series 

will mark her first turn 

as an executive producer 

and head of the 

writers room. 

Creative Partners, 

Hirsch Wallerstein) will 

co-star in Netflix’s 

untitled Riverdale spinoff 

about Sabrina the 

Teenage Witch. 

BOOKS 

Rogue One writer 

Gary Whitta (UTA, Circle 

of Confusion, Behr 

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About Town 

PERSON OF INTEREST 

Who Does 

Whitney 

Cummings 

Think She Is? 

The prolific TV star/creator helms 

her first feature, The Female Brain 

By Lacey Rose • Photographed by Coral von Zumwalt 

W 

hitney Cummings was right around 

30 when her mother and father suffered 

strokes within two years of 

each other. Desperate to understand 

what went wrong, she began devouring neurology 

books, which led her to Louann Brizendine’s 

The Female Brain. While it would do little to aid 

her parents, the book profoundly changed the 

comedian’s understanding of herself. “I remember 

feeling an overwhelming sense of relief,” she 

says, “and a lot less crazy.” Now Cummings, 35 

and a prolific TV creator (2 Broke Girls, Whitney), 

has spun the tome into a rom-com (out Feb. 9 via 

IFC Films), enlisting Neal Brennan (Chappelle’s 

Show) to co-write and lining up Sofia Vergara, 

James Marsden and the NBA’s Blake Griffin to join 

her onscreen. That her directorial debut, a film 

centering on empathy between the sexes, arrives 

in the heat of the Time’s Up moment isn’t lost on 

the D.C.-reared Ivy Leaguer, also a showrunner 

on ABC’s Roseanne revival. Though the movement 

has Cummings reconsidering some of her early 

experiences in comedy (“Because of the rejection 

you get and how tough you have to be … I 

didn’t realize some sexual harassment I had dealt 

with”), she says stand-up remains “the only place 

I’m comfortable. It’s where I oxygenate.” 

People, Places, Preoccupations 

HAIR BY DAVID STANWELL FOR DOVE HAIRCARE AT THE WALL GROUP, MAKEUP BY KATHLEEN KARRIDENE. 

Your financier, Black Bicycle’s Erika Olde, had to 

persuade you to direct The Female Brain. Why? 

There are tectonic plates moving in our business 

Hear about Cummings’ tsunami experience on set at THR.COM/VIDEO 

“One of the big conversations I’m trying 

to have onstage right now is that to be 

pro-woman, you don’t have to be anti-man. 

Saying all men suck makes you look like 

an idiot,” says Cummings, photographed 

Jan. 26 at Harlowe in West Hollywood. 

Styling by George Kotsiopoulos 

Wolk Morais jacket, vest, trousers, 

shirt and tie, Christian Louboutin shoes. 


23 


About Town 

People, Places, 

Preoccupations 

but — and this is my shit that 

I need to work on — I still have 

a bit of shame around raising 

my hand and being the boss. 

Our society has this way of going, 

“Don’t shine too bright, know 

your place.” So the idea of being 

in a position of domination made 

me [uncomfortable]. 

By 28, you had already created 

two TV shows. You didn’t get 

comfortable then? 

I definitely learned, but there 

was also a bit of, “She’s doing too 

much and we don’t like it.” 

Who’s the “we”? 

My @ replies on Twitter? (Laughs.) 

There was a bit of, “Who does she 

think she is?” And people get mad 

at you. I thought my dreams were 

coming true, then someone was 

like, “Don’t listen to them.” I’m all, 

“Who’s them?” I had no idea. I do 

think things have changed, even 

in the last six months, but there’s 

this idea of, you don’t get to 

achieve too much [as a woman] 

without losing friends and 

people not liking it. And I’ve definitely 

had male counterparts [for 

whom] people were like, “Fucking 

awesome, dude, that’s so cool. 

You’re killing it.” There’s not a lot 

of, “Who does he think he is?” 

You got your start writing for 

Comedy Central roasts. In 2011, 

you roasted Donald Trump. 

With every roast, it’s all fun and 

games until you’re up there, and 

then people’s feelings always end 

up getting hurt. But his feelings 

did not get hurt. I remember being 

like, “Wow, he’s loving this.” 

And net-worth jokes were off-limits? 

Oh yeah. At every roast, something’s 

off-limits. I love that it 

wasn’t his daughter or his wife, 

it was his money. 

Griffin 

with Cecily 

Strong in 

The Female 

Brain. 

I Was Wrongly Accused of 

Harassment. This Is What I Did 

I 

‘To have my workplace conduct questioned was gut-wrenching,’ writes 

the E! News star of allegations recently found to be unsubstantiated, 

as he pledges ‘to help voices be heard’ By Ryan Seacrest 

do not take things for granted. Every day I 

am living my childhood dream because of the 

efforts of so many other people. I do my best 

to show and express my gratitude to my co-hosts, 

producers, guests, audiences, executives, partners 

and fans for the privilege of their collaboration 

and participation, and for the unwavering support 

of my loved ones and team. 

In November, I received a letter from a lawyer 

representing a former show stylist. She claimed 

that I mistreated her more than a decade ago 

when we worked together. This arrived 

during an unprecedented public reckoning 

by women in our industry and beyond, 

courageously coming forward to share 

their stories, many of them heartbreaking. These 

women sought to bring attention to the systemic 

gender inequality that has occurred for decades. I 

was — and am — amazed at their bravery. 

To have my workplace conduct questioned 

was gut-wrenching. I’ve always aimed to treat all 

of my colleagues with honesty, respect, kindness 

and compassion. Yet I knew, regardless of the 

confidence I had that there was no merit to the 

allegations, my name would likely soon appear on 

the lists of those suspected of despicable words 

and deeds. The pressures of our overflowing newsfeeds 

would insist on it. 

I absolutely want to be part of the change, 

the progress, that is coming. I did not want to be 

a postscript of evidence of its cause. 

After sharing the letter with the network, I publicly 

denied the claims against me and agreed 

to participate in any inquiry the network deemed 

appropriate. On Feb. 1, I received notice that an 

Guest 

Column 

↑ Seacrest appeared on E!’s Live From the Red Carpet before the 

Grammy Awards on Jan. 28. 

independent third party found the claims to be 

unsubstantiated and that there was no evidence 

of wrongdoing on my part. 

Most of us agree that the presumption of innocence 

is an important standard. We are taught 

early on that it’s essential to see all sides, to give 

everyone a chance to explain and to check for 

exculpatory evidence that may have been missed. 

At a time when improper interactions between 

men and women, particularly in the workplace, 

are part of a national conversation, 

we must find a way to ensure that everyone 

— the public, private and public 

institutions, accusers and accused — is given the 

opportunity for a swift and fair review. 

My job is to listen. Beyond listening, which I will 

continue in earnest, I also will ask questions and 

try to help voices be heard. It isn’t lost on me that 

my platforms — radio, TV, social media — can be 

powerful conduits for change. 

We all have the right to be treated equally, 

regardless of our gender, race, faith, ethnicity, 

sexual orientation, gender identity or other 

status. We find ourselves in extraordinary times 

in American culture. We live with near-constant 

change, disruption and public discourse. I realize 

the morals and values, the decency, we’ve perhaps 

taken for granted, individually and as citizens of 

the world, are in question. Worse, at risk. I do not 

take these things for granted. 

Seacrest is an award-winning TV/radio host and 

producer and creative entrepreneur. 

FEMALE: COURTESY OF IFC FILMS. SEACREST: TIMOTHY KURATEK/CBS (2). 


24 


ACADEMY AWARD ® NOMINATIONS 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 

MARY J. BLIGE RACHEL MORRISON 

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY 

VIRGIL WILLIAMS AND DEE REES 

“HISTORY-MAKING.” 

THE FIRST PERSON NOMINATED FOR ACTING AND MUSIC IN THE SAME YEAR 

MARY J. BLIGE 

THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN NOMINATED FOR ADAPTED SCREENPLAY 

DEE REES 

THE FIRST WOMAN NOMINATED FOR CINEMATOGRAPHY 

RACHEL MORRISON 

TO EXPERIENCE MARY J. BLIGE'S SONG, “MIGHTY RIVER,” VISIT: 

GUILDS.NETFLIX.COM/MUDBOUND/MUSIC 

BEST ORIGINAL SONG 

“MIGHTY RIVER” 

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Yes, I Did Say That! 

A look at who’s saying what in entertainment 

Compiled by Brian Porreca 

About Town 

Quotes 

“ ‘Hit 40 miles per hour 

or your hair won’t 

blow the right way and I’ll 

make you do it again.’ ” 

UMA THURMAN 

The actress, revealing to The New York Times what 

Quentin Tarantino told her on the set of Kill Bill before 

a dangerous driving stunt led to a violent crash. 

“I was offered 

the role of Poop; 

I was like, 

‘That’s fucked up.’ ” 

JORDAN PEELE 

The Get Out director, revealing 

at the DGA Awards that 

The Emoji Movie helped convince 

him to retire from acting. 

“100% less Trump.” 

MACAULAY CULKIN 

The grown-up child star, revealing 

on Reddit why he preferred 

the first Home Alone movie 

over the sequel, which featured 

a cameo by the president. 

“Everybody, 

this is not the pilot 

speaking. This is 

Jennifer Lawrence.” 

JENNIFER LAWRENCE 

The actress, using an 

airplane intercom on her flight 

to celebrate the Philadelphia 

Eagles’ Super Bowl win. 

J.T.’S 

HALF- 

TIME 

SUPER 

FUMBLE 

“How you gonna call 

me, but Oprah 

ain’t called me? Isn’t 

Oprah your friend?” 

TIFFANY HADDISH 

The Girls Trip star, joking to Vanity 

Fair about begging Tyler Perry to 

introduce her to Oprah Winfrey. 

“Woefully out of 

touch with today’s 

music, the music 

business, and even 

more significantly, 

society.” 

MICHELE ANTHONY 

The Universal Music Group 

executive vp, co-signing a 

letter to the Recording Academy 

with five top female music 

execs in response to president 

Neil Portnow’s comments 

about women needing to “step up.” 

Twitter didn’t enjoy Justin Timberlake’s Super Bowl 

halftime performance. Kathy Griffin brought up 

Janet Jackson, Billy Eichner critiqued his wardrobe 

(“wow he’s wearing fringe”), while Anthony 

Bourdain snarked: “I find myself spiraling into 

a deep dark hole of rage and depression.” 

“I am canceling 

upcoming public 

appearances 

because I have 

given enough.” 

ROSE MCGOWAN 

The activist, tweeting at Barnes & 

Noble after she was “verbally 

assaulted” by a transgender woman 

during her Brave book tour. 

“No tripping.” 

PATTON OSWALT 

The comedian, speaking at 

the Oscar nominees lunch, 

offering advice to potential 

winners. “Jennifer [Lawrence] 

owns it. That’s her thing now.” 

LAWRENCE: JON KOPALOFF/FILMMAGIC. HADDISH: GABRIEL OLSEN/FILMMAGIC. THURMAN: WALTER MCBRIDE/WIREIMAGE. TIMBERLAKE: CHRISTOPHER POLK/GETTY IMAGES. OSWALT: MATT WINKELMEYER/WIREIMAGE. 


26 


ACADEMY AWARD ® 

NOMINATION 

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS 

“Shot for shot, line for line, it’s an 

extravagant and witty follow-up, made 

with the same friendly virtuosic dazzle.” 

VARIETY | OWEN GLEIBERMAN

Oscars: The 2018 Class Photo 

170 nominated filmmakers — and one 

cardboard cutout — gathered for lunch 

Feb. 5 at the Beverly Hilton By Gregg Kilday 

First Row 

1 Mike Meinardus 

Kong: Skull Island 

Visual Effects 

2 Evelyn O’Neill 

Lady Bird 

Best Picture 

3 Glen Gauthier 


Sound Mixing 

4 Ziad Doueiri 

The Insult 

Foreign-Language Film 

5 Katja Benrath 

Watu Wote/All of Us 

Live Action Short 

6 Lou Sheppard 

Victoria & Abdul 

Makeup and Hairstyling 

7 Marco Morabito 

Call Me by Your Name 

Best Picture 

8 Brad Zoern 


Sound Mixing 

When The Shape of Water’s 

Guillermo del Toro passed 

Steven Spielberg and Greta 

Gerwig’s table, he insisted 

on taking a selfie with them. 

139 

105 

140 

106 

141 

107 

142 

108 

109 

46 

73 

110 

143 

74 

47 

144 

111 

75 76 

145 

48 

112 

77 78 

113 

50 

49 

146 

79 

114 

51 

147 

80 

52 

26 27 

148 

115 

149 150 151 

81 

53 

28 

116 

29 

82 

117 

54 

83 

118 

55 

84 

30 

85 

152 153 

56 

31 

119 

86 

57 

154 

120 

32 

58 

87 

155 

121 

9 Scott Neustadter 

The Disaster Artist 

Adapted Screenplay 

10 Laura Checkoway 

Edith+Eddie 

Documentary Short 

11 Kobe Bryant 

Dear Basketball 

Animated Short 

12 Ildiko Enyedi 

On Body and Soul 


104 

45 

21 

22 

23 

24 25 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

13 Raphael Saadiq 

Mudbound 

Original Song 

1 

14 Paul Denham Austerberry 


Production Design 

15 Josh Lawson 

The Eleven O’Clock 


16 Michael Green 

Logan 


17 Vanessa Taylor 


Original Screenplay 

As supporting actress 

nominee Laurie Metcalf 

took her place beside 

Oscar, she got a big 

shoutout from nominated 

co-star Saoirse Ronan. 

18 James Mangold 

Logan 


19 Richard King 

Dunkirk 

Sound Editing 

20 Reed Van Dyk 

DeKalb Elementary 


Second Row 

21 Thomas Lennon 

Knife Skills 


22 Peter Spears 


Best Picture 

23 Sidney Wolinsky 


Film Editing 

24 Jakob Schuh 

Revolting Rhymes 


25 Scott Frank 

Logan 


26 Jan Lachauer 

Revolting Rhymes 


27 Scott Benza 



28 Darla K. Anderson 

Coco 

Animated Feature 

29 Alex Gibson 

Dunkirk 

Sound Editing 

30 Gary A. Rizzo 

Dunkirk 

Sound Mixing 

31 Daniel Phillips 

Victoria & Abdul 


32 Laurie Metcalf 

Lady Bird 

Supporting Actress 

33 Nora Twomey 

The Breadwinner 


34 David Malinowski 

Darkest Hour 


35 Luis Sequeira 


Costume Design 

36 Christopher Townsend 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 


37 Daniel Barrett 

War for the Planet of the Apes 


38 Stephen Rosenbaum 



39 Jeff White 



40 Mark Bridges 

Phantom Thread 


41 Tobias Rosen 

Watu Wote/All of Us 


42 Joel Whist 



43 Emily V. Gordon 

The Big Sick 


44 Kumail Nanjiani 

The Big Sick 


Third Row 

45 Ru Kuwahata 

Negative Space 


46 Jonathan Amos 

Baby Driver 

Film Editing 

47 Douglas Urbanski 

Darkest Hour 

Best Picture 

48 Dana Murray 

LOU 


49 Justin Paul 


Original Song 

50 Richard R. Hoover 

Blade Runner 2049 


51 Carter Burwell 

Three Billboards Outside 

Ebbing, Missouri 

Original Score 

52 Matthew Wood 

Star Wars: The Last Jedi 

Sound Editing 

53 David Heilbroner 

Traffic Stop 


54 Feras Fayyad 

Last Men in Aleppo 

Documentary Feature 

55 Kate Davis 

Traffic Stop 


56 Eli Bush 

Lady Bird 

Best Picture 

57 Paul Machliss 

Baby Driver 

Film Editing 

58 Eric Fellner 

Darkest Hour 

Best Picture 

59 Megan Ellison 


Best Picture 

60 Richard Jenkins 


Supporting Actor 

61 Ren Klyce 


Sound Editing, Sound Mixing 

62 Timothee Chalamet 


Best Actor 

63 Ruben Ostlund 

The Square 


64 Shane Vieau 



65 Dan Laustsen 


Cinematography 

66 Elaine McMillion Sheldon 

Heroin(e) 


67 Kerrin James Sheldon 

Heroin(e) 


68 Dave Mullins 

LOU 


69 Rachel Shenton 

The Silent Child 


70 Mark Mangini 


Sound Editing 

71 Anthony Leo 



72 Mark Weingarten 

Dunkirk 

Sound Mixing 

Fourth Row 

73 Michael Semanick 


Sound Mixing 

74 Michael Mulholland 



75 Gabriel Grapperon 

Garden Party 


76 Lisa Bruce 

Darkest Hour 

Best Picture 

77 Kazuhiro Tsuji 

Darkest Hour 


78 Julie Goldman 



79 Nathan Robitaille 


Sound Editing 

80 Bruno Delbonnel 

Darkest Hour 


81 Victor Caire 

Garden Party 


82 Sally Hawkins 


Best Actress 

83 Diane Warren 

Marshall 

Original Song 

84 Bryan Fogel 

Icarus 


85 Lee Smith 

Dunkirk 

Film Editing 

86 Kevin Wilson Jr. 

My Nephew Emmett 


87 Arjen Tuiten 

Wonder 



28 


The French artist JR, nominated 

for the documentary Faces 

Places, brought a life-size 

cutout of his co-director, Agnes 

Varda, 89, planting it beside 

Greta Gerwig and Meryl Streep. 

Mudbound’s Rachel Morrison, 

the first woman nominated for 

cinematography, got one of the 

biggest rounds of applause. 

Best picture nominee Steven Spielberg 

brought as his guest Daniel Ellsberg, 

whose leaking of the Pentagon Papers is 

dramatized in The Post. Ellsberg chatted 

it up with writer-director Aaron Sorkin 

and his guest, poker queen Molly Bloom. 

Most in the crowd didn’t 

recognize the name when 

Lonnie Lynn, a best song 

nominee for Marshall, was 

asked to take his place — 

until they realized that, of 

course, that’s Common. 

About Town 

People, Places, 

Preoccupations 

88 

TODD WAWRYCHUK/©A.M.P.A.S. 

59 

156 

122 

33 

89 

60 

11 

157 

123 

34 

90 

158 

12 

124 

61 

159 

91 

35 36 

Most were starstruck around 

Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, 

nominated for the animated 

short Dear Basketball. Allison 

Janney approached him, saying, 

“I never ask for photos, but …” 

13 

62 

125 

88 Daniel Lupi 


Best Picture 

89 Saoirse Ronan 

Lady Bird 

Best Actress 

90 JoAnne Sellar 


Best Picture 

91 Nelson Ferreira 


Sound Editing 

92 Ivan Mactaggart 

Loving Vincent 


93 Emilie Georges 


Best Picture 

94 Doug Hemphill 


Sound Mixing 

95 Katie Spencer 

Beauty and the Beast, 

Darkest Hour 


96 Daniel Kaluuya 

Get Out 

Best Actor 

97 Dennis Gassner 



98 Lucy Sibbick 

Darkest Hour 


160 

92 

63 

14 

126 

37 

161 

127 128 

93 94 

15 

99 Gregg Landaker 

Dunkirk 

Sound Mixing 

100 Christian T. Cooke 


Sound Mixing 

101 Graham Broadbent 



Best Picture 

102 Max Porter 

Negative Space 


103 Stuart Wilson 


Sound Mixing 

Fifth Row 

64 

65 

38 39 

16 

162 

95 

104 Virgil Williams 

Mudbound 


105 Mark Mitten 



106 Frank Stiefel 

Heaven Is a Traffic Jam 

on the 405 


107 Lori Forte 

Ferdinand 


108 Chris Overton 

The Silent Child 


109 Tom McGrath 

The Boss Baby 


17 

163 164 165 

18 

40 

19 

129 

66 

96 

41 

20 

130 

67 

42 

97 

68 

131 

43 

98 

69 

110 Glen Keane 

Dear Basketball 


111 Chris Corbould 



112 John Nelson 



113 Dee Rees 

Mudbound 


114 Lee Unkrich 

Coco 


115 Margot Robbie 

I, Tonya 

Best Actress 

116 Dan Cogan 

Icarus 


99 

117 Paul Thomas Anderson 


Directing, Best Picture 

118 Hugh Welchman 

Loving Vincent 


119 Gary Oldman 

Darkest Hour 

Best Actor 

120 Dan Lemmon 



121 J. Miles Dale 


Best Picture 

166 167 168 

132 133 

100 

70 

44 

101 

134 

71 

169 

102 

135 

170 

136 

122 Taura Stinson 

Mudbound 

Original Song 

123 Jacqueline Durran 


Darkest Hour 


124 Yance Ford 

Strong Island 


125 Willem Dafoe 

The Florida Project 


126 Allison Janney 

I, Tonya 


127 Sebastian Lelio 

A Fantastic Woman 


128 Rachel Morrison 

Mudbound 


129 Jordan Peele 

Get Out 

Directing, 

Original Screenplay, 

Best Picture 

130 Kristen Anderson-Lopez 

Coco 

Original Song 

131 Robert Lopez 

Coco 

Original Song 

132 Michael H. Weber 

The Disaster Artist 


72 

103 

171 

137 

133 Joslyn Barnes 

Strong Island 


134 Sean McKittrick 

Get Out 

Best Picture 

135 Thomas Lee Wright 

Edith+Eddie 


136 Benj Pasek 


Original Song 

137 Dan Sudick 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 


138 David Parker 


Sound Mixing 

Sixth Row 

138 

Kumail Nanjiani, an original 

screenplay nominee with his 

wife, Emily V. Gordon, took a 

selfie of the group shot. 

139 Alexandre Desplat 


Original Score 

140 Mary J. Blige 

Mudbound 

Supporting Actress, 

Original Song 

141 Amy Pascal 

The Post 

Best Picture 

142 Gary Fettis 

Dunkirk 


143 Octavia Spencer 



144 Guillermo del Toro 


Directing, 

Original Screenplay, 

Best Picture 

145 Ben Morris 



146 Aaron Sorkin 

Molly’s Game 


147 Kristie Macosko Krieger 


Best Picture 

148 Jeffrey A. Melvin 



149 Hoyte van Hoytema 

Dunkirk 


150 Andrey Zvyagintsev 

Loveless 


151 Sarah Greenwood 


Darkest Hour 


152 Jason Blum 

Get Out 

Best Picture 

153 Christopher Nolan 

Dunkirk 

Directing, Best Picture 

154 Sam Rockwell 




155 Emma Thomas 

Dunkirk 

Best Picture 

156 Steve James 



157 Joe Letteri 



158 Carlos Saldanha 

Ferdinand 


159 Meryl Streep 


Best Actress 

160 Greta Gerwig 

Lady Bird 

Directing, 


161 Agnes Varda (cutout) 

Faces Places 


162 JR 

Faces Places 


163 Tatiana S. Riegel 

I, Tonya 

Film Editing 

164 Steven Spielberg 


Best Picture 

165 Luca Guadagnino 


Best Picture 

166 Ramsey Naito 

The Boss Baby 


167 Julian Slater 

Baby Driver 

Sound Editing, 

Sound Mixing 

168 Common 

Marshall 

Original Song 

169 Ron Bartlett 


Sound Mixing 

170 Pete Czernin 



Best Picture 

171 Theo Green 


Sound Editing 


29 


About Town 

The Red Carpet 

THR Nominees Night 

Beverly Hills, Feb. 5 

1 

From left: Bria Vinaite, 

Kumail Nanjiani 

and Emily V. Gordon 

7 

Gary Oldman with 

wife Gisele Schmidt 

2 

Allison Janney 

and Willem Dafoe 

5 

THR’s Matthew 

Belloni (left) 

and Jordan Peele 

6 

Greta Gerwig 

(left) and 

Laurie Metcalf 

12 

From left: Guillermo del 

Toro, Doug Jones, 

Agnes Varda’s cardboard 

cutout and J. Miles Dale 

13 

Luca Guadagnino 

(left) and 

Timothee Chalamet 

14 

From left: Michael Gracey, 

Keala Settle, Benj Pasek 

and Justin Paul 


30 


9 

Disney Studios’ Alan Horn 

(left) and Sony Pictures 

Classics’ Michael Barker 

3 

Bryan Fogel 

(left) and 

Frank Marshall 

8 

Common, Goldie 

and Kyle Townsend 

15 

10 

Betty 

Gabriel 

3 

Diane Warren (left) 

and Frances Fisher 

First LastName, First 

LastName, First LastName 

17 

Miguel 

4 

From left: 

Tim Zajaros, Dee Rees 

and Sarah M. Broom 

11 

David Bar Katz 

(left) and 

Sam Rockwell 

16 

From left: THR’s 

Lynne Segall, 

Aaron Sorkin and 

Molly Bloom 

18 

Adrian Molina 

GORDON, DAFOE, MOLINA, SORKIN, OLDMAN, ROCKWELL: ALEX J. BERLINER/ABIMAGES. BELLONI, GERWIG, CHALAMET, WARREN: EMMA MCINTYRE/GETTY IMAGES. SORKIN, DEL TORO, PAUL, COMMON, HORN, PIMENTAL: NEILSON BARNARD/GETTY IMAGES. 

Party 

Crawler 

Oscar Contenders 

Out in Force 

THR’s sixth annual 

Nominees Night got a jolt 

from two Oscar-contending 

songs when Miguel (17) 

and Common (8) 

took the stage for surprise 

sets. Miguel performed 

“Remember Me” from 

Coco. Common and singer 

Goldie (8) belted out 

“Stand Up for Something” 

from Marshall as songwriter 

Diane Warren (10) 

stood by the stage singing 

along at Wolfgang Puck’s 

Cut at the Beverly Wilshire. 

Hosted by THR editorial 

director Matthew 

Belloni (5), the starstudded 

event drew Oscar 

nominees Jordan Peele (5) 

(Get Out); Greta Gerwig 

and Laurie Metcalf (6) 

(Lady Bird); Timothee 

Chalamet and Luca 

Guadagnino (13) (Call 

Me by Your Name); Gary 

Oldman (7) (Darkest Hour); 

Guillermo del Toro (12) 

and Richard Jenkins (The 

Shape of Water); Willem 

Dafoe (2) (The Florida 

Project); Sam Rockwell (11) 

(Three Billboards Outside 

Ebbing, Missouri); Kumail 

Nanjiani and Emily V. 

Gordon (1) (The Big Sick); 

Aaron Sorkin (16) (Molly’s 

Game); Dee Rees (4) 

(Mudbound); and Allison 

Janney (2) (I, Tonya), 

among others. Inside, 

Guadagnino and Chalamet 

made a beeline for the raw 

bar, Star Wars’ Kelly Marie 

Tran chatted with Get Out’s 

Betty Gabriel (15), and 


breakout Keala Settle (14) 

joked of her upcoming 

Oscars performance: “I 

want to melt Meryl Streep’s 

face off.” While honorary 

Oscar winner and doc 

feature nominee Agnes 

Varda (Faces Places) was 

not in attendance, her 

co-nominee, JR, squired 

a cardboard cutout of the 

legendary director and her 

cat. The Shape of Water 

director del Toro posed 

with the Varda stand-in, 

while Doug Jones (12) 

pretended to eat the cat. 

“It’s just like the movie,” 

joked del Toro, referring 

to a scene from his film 

featuring Jones’ amphibian 

creature and an unlucky 

feline. — MIA GALUPPO 


31 


About Town 

The Red Carpet 

4 

Sally Hawkins 

70th DGA Awards 

Beverly Hills, Feb. 3 

Jordan Peele and 

Greta Gerwig 

Santa Barbara International Film Festival 

Santa Barbara, Jan. 31–Feb. 10 

7 

Gary Oldman 

5 

Kyra Sedgwick 

and Kevin Bacon 

8 

From left: Emilio Estevez, Alec Baldwin 

and Che “Rhymefest” Smith 

1 

3 

Judd Apatow and 

Angela Lansbury 

From left: Warner Bros. 

Entertainment’s Kevin Tsujihara, 

Christopher Nolan and Nolan’s 

wife, producer Emma Thomas 

9 

Saoirse 

Ronan 

6 

From left: Directors 

Guillermo del Toro, 

Norman Jewison 

and Jeremy Kagan 

2 

Helmers Honored 

With Guillermo del 

Toro’s (6) win for directorial 

achievement in 

feature film at the DGA’s 

annual ceremony, his 

sci-fi fantasy The Shape 

of Water — having also 

earned the Producers Guild 

of America’s top honor 

in January — has consolidated 

its status as Oscar 

frontrunner. Accepting 

his award at The Beverly 

Hilton, del Toro acknowledged 

that his film doesn’t 

fit the awards-season 

mold and thanked his fellow 

directors for “allowing 

us as a genre to come 

into the conversation.” 

Jordan Peele’s (1) Get Out, 

another genre entry, also 

was recognized when the 

guild honored its helmer for 

first-time feature film 

directing. “I truly believe 

these things we put out 

into the world, these stories 

of our love and passion, 

are the greatest weapons 

against the hate and the 

bigotry,” said Peele at the 

podium. The event, hosted 

by Judd Apatow (3), also 

saw such television winners 

as The Handmaid’s Tale’s 

Reed Morano, Veep’s Beth 

McCarthy-Miller and 

Big Little Lies’ Jean-Marc 

Vallee. — GREGG KILDAY 

The Santa Barbara 

Show Must Go On 

Following the deadly 

Montecito mudslides, 

the 33rd annual festival 

powered through with 

its opening-night gala 

Jan. 31 featuring Emilio 

Estevez’s (8) The Public. 

The first two days of 

the fest, which runs 

through Feb. 10, bestowed 

Willem Dafoe with the 

Cinema Vanguard Award 

and Gary Oldman (7) — 

who received a standing 

ovation — with the Maltin 

Modern Master Award 

on Feb. 1 at the Arlington 

Theatre. Other highlights 

included Saoirse 

Ronan’s (9) Santa Barbara 

Award win Feb. 4 and a 

THR-led Feb. 6 panel with 

Oscar-nominated helmers 

Greta Gerwig (1), Peele, 

del Toro, Christopher 

Nolan (2) and Paul Thomas 

Anderson. — SCOTT FEINBERG 

PEELE, TSUJIHARA, JUDD, DEL TORO: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES FOR DGA. HAWKINS: FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES. BACON: JB LACROIX/WIREIMAGE. OLDMAN, ESTEVEZ, RONAN: REBECCA SAPP/ SAPP/GETTY IMAGES FOR SBIFF. 


32 


About Town 

Heard Around Hollywood 

NBC’s Salke (inset) and her Eagles fan son Henry’s “favorite moment in his life.” 

Rambling Reporter 

By Chris Gardner 

How an NBC Exec’s Son Got Personal With the Lombardi Trophy 

A Super Bowl that saw the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England 

Patriots was a real family affair for the Salkes. Like the Eagles, Fox 21 TV 

Studios’ Bert Salke hails from Philly; the game aired on NBC, home to 

NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke; and the couple’s son Henry, 

now 18, “had an Eagles jersey on in diapers,” Jennifer tells THR. “Henry’s 

biggest dream was for the Eagles to win a championship, though prior to 

this it was never really close,” she says via email Feb. 5 while on a flight 

back to L.A. “When the impossible happened, [NBC Entertainment chair] 

Bob Greenblatt invited Henry as his guest.” How’d that Instagram post 

happen with Henry kissing the Vince Lombardi Trophy? “We were lucky 

enough to be invited to the postgame celebration, where Henry made 

a beeline for the trophy and asked if he could hold it,” she writes. “As of 

now, it is his favorite moment in his life.” 

Brian Grazer’s Headshots 

Habit Rides Again? 

Is Brian Grazer up to his old tricks? 

During a stop at power lunch 

hangout The Palm in Beverly Hills, 

THR clocked two heart-framed 

photographs of the uber-producer 

atop the host stand. The pics seem 

to be evidence of Grazer doing a 

cutesy variation on a prior hobby 

of dropping off headshots of 

himself all over town. THR first 

reported on his quirky custom 

of depositing photos at colleagues’ 

homes and in the lobby bathroom 

at Chateau Marmont in 2012, 

but sightings then tapered off. The 

Two photos of Grazer at The Palm. 

Palm and Grazer, who dined with 

outgoing Teen Vogue editor Elaine 

Welteroth the day his pictures were 

spotted, did not return requests 

for comment. 

PETA ‘Veg’-ucates Spielberg 

Not everyone is impressed 

with Steven Spielberg’s gracious 

Blair 

Got tips? Email rambling@thr.com 

gesture of sending all five 

Oscar-nominated best directors 

a gift basket of champagne and 

caviar. PETA’s Andrew Bernstein 

responded to the news in THR 

by sending Spielberg a note that 

opened with a compliment: PETA 

activists are “big fans of yours” — 

but not fans of real caviar. “Our 

favorite caviar is vegan — it’s 

sustainable and cruelty-free, and 

it’s the only one that we think 

E.T. and the BFG would approve 

of,” Bernstein wrote, citing 

Spielberg’s films. “We wanted to 

get you started with this awardwinning 

vegan Cavi-art that we 

hope you’ll sink your Jaws into.” 

PETA’s parting movie pun: “As 

more information about the food 

industry’s treatment of animals 

is revealed, consuming meat 

and dairy ‘products’ is becoming 

much like the Jurassic period — a 

thing of the past.” 

How Avengers Helmers Helped 

Selma Blair Come Forward 

When Selma Blair weighed the 

decision of whether to share 

her claims that filmmaker James 

Toback sexually assaulted her 

in 1999, she received support 

from Rachel McAdams, Jessica 

Chastain and two others. “Really, 

it was two men who were the 

most comforting to me in saying, 

‘You’ll be safe, you’ll be 

OK,’ ” Blair tells THR. “That was 

[Guardians of the Galaxy director] 

James Gunn and [Doctor Strange 

writer-helmer] Scott Derrickson. 

They reached out and said how 

important it was to be on this 

side of history.” (Gunn praised 

Blair on Facebook in October, 

calling her “a hero,” adding that 

he knew she in no way “WANTED 

to have to come forward with 

this story, but she still did it. 

Most of these women (and, yes, 

some men) have nothing to 

gain by telling their stories ... 

They do it for ... the sake of others, 

the future …”) Adds Blair: 

“The women have taken it so far, 

but it’s been men, too, who have 

been supportive, and I have felt 

that. I’m really in admiration of 

women and men.” 

Lansing 

Bale 

HOT NEW 

RESTAURANT 

Power 

Dining 

Sherry Lansing held 

court at Mr Chow. 

Ben Harper sat with 

WME agent Will Ward. 

… James Franco, 

Harry Styles, Jeremy 

Piven and Dev Patel 

were at Croft Alley. … 

Henry Winkler and 

wife Stacey had lunch 

with Terry Bradshaw 

at Farmshop. Director 

Bryan Gordon was 

nearby. … Ben Affleck 

lunched at Tavern. … 

Over at Bottega Louie, 

Helen Hunt broke 

bread with Jodi Foster. 

… Malcolm Gladwell 

sat at Brentwood 

Country Mart’s Caffe 

Luxxe. … Keanu Reeves 

stopped by Polo 

Lounge. … Christian 

Bale was at Tallula’s 

with Hostiles director 

Scott Cooper. Shawn 

Levy sat nearby. 

The NoMad 

Mezzanine 

The Quick Pitch 

Daniel Humm and 

Will Guidara (of NYC’s 

designated “World’s 

Best Restaurant” 

Eleven Madison Park) 

are responsible for 

the dining options at 

the new NoMad Hotel. 

Try the duo’s $98 

signature black truffle 

roast chicken for two 

with brioche stuffing. 

The Inside Dish 

Clearly intent on luring 

a certain clientele, 

the hotel poached 

Phil Pavel as its 

managing director 

after his two-decade 

stint as the wellconnected 

prince of 

the Chateau Marmont. 

649 S. Olive St. 

— GARY BAUM 

SALKE: DAVID LIVINGSTON/GETTY IMAGES. TROPHY: COURTESY OF JENNIFER SALKE. BLAIR: AXELLE/BAUER-GRIFFIN/FILMMAGIC. NOMAD: COURTESY OF BENOIT LINERO. LANSING: FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES. BALE: JON KOPALOFF/FILMMAGIC. 


34 


About Town 

Mileposts 

The Adventures of 

Tom Sawyer, died 

Jan. 31 in England. 

She was 90. 

2 

Ezra Swerdlow, the 

producer and production 

manager who 

worked on The King of 

Comedy, Zombieland 

and five Woody Allen 

films, died Jan. 23 in 

Boston of pancreatic 

cancer. He was 64. 

Weddings 

Jeffrey Kopp, supervising 

producer for 

The Late Late Show 

With James Corden, 

married Pamela 

Gibson on Dec. 23 in 

Kenilworth, Illinois. 

The couple first 

met while attending 

New Trier 

East High School 

in 1977 and found 

each other again 

while cheering for 

the Cubs in the 

2016 World Series. 

Births 

Yale Chasin, an agent 

in UTA’s Independent 

Film Group, and wife 

The Pargac family 

Hitched, Hatched, Hired 

Inside the industry’s celebrations and news 

Marissa Berman 

welcomed daughter 

Tovah Juliette Chasin 

on Jan. 6 at Cedars- 

Sinai Medical Center 

in Los Angeles. 

Farhana Pargac, head 

of strategy for UTA 

marketing, and husband 

Brian Pargac, 

co-executive producer 

on Bravo’s Flipping 

Out, welcomed son 

James August Pargac 

on Dec. 13 at Cedars. 

Congrats 

Tammy Golihew was 

named director of 

publicity at Amazon 

Studios on Feb. 5. 

Bunim/Murray 

Productions promoted 

Julie Pizzi 

to president of 

entertainment 

and development; 

Farnaz Farjam 

Chazan to senior vp 

entertainment and 

development; Sasha 

Alpert to executive vp 

entertainment and 

To submit, send email to hhh@thr.com 

development; Megan 

Sleeper to senior 

vp casting; and Ben 

Salter to senior 

vp development; and 

named Russell Jay 

vp entertainment and 

development Feb. 1. 

Nick Pepper will 

head Legendary TV 

when his contract 

with The Mark Gordon 

Co. ends May 31. 

1982-2018 

Mark Salling 

1 

The Glee actor, 35, facing 

years in jail for child pornography, 

hanged himself Jan. 30 

T 

he death of Glee star Mark 

Salling — which came ahead 

of a March 7 sentencing 

date for pleading guilty Sept. 29 to 

keeping a vast trove of child pornography 

— will go down as one of 

the darkest downfalls in Hollywood 

history. Salling, who for six seasons 

played the bully turned glee club 

member Puck on the Fox show, was 

expected to get between four and 

seven years for his crimes, discovered 

after a December 2015 raid on 

3 

Deaths 

John Mahoney, 

who played Kelsey 

Grammer and 

David Hyde Pierce’s 

irascible father on 

Frasier, died Feb. 4 in 

Chicago. He was 77. 

Louis Zorich, the 

husband of Olympia 

Dukakis who 

played Paul Reiser’s 

dad on Mad About 

1 Kopp 

and Gibson 

2 Tovah 

Juliette 

3 Swerdlow 

You, died Jan. 30 in 

New York. He was 93. 

Cyrus Yavneh, 

a producer on 24, 

Supernatural and 

It’s Pat: The Movie, 

died Jan. 25 of lung 

cancer in Santa 

Monica. He was 76. 

Ann Gillis, the former 

child star who starred 

in David O. Selznick’s 

his Sunland home recovered more 

than 50,000 digital photos and 

videos depicting child rape, some 

of the victims as young as 3. Salling 

also was to to pay $50,000 in 

restitution to any victim who came 

forward. (Now a lawsuit might be 

required to get a piece of Salling’s 

$1.91 million estate.) There are 

questions as to why the actor was 

left unattended — especially after 

he had attempted suicide Aug. 22, 

Jeff Hunter, the 

agent who discovered 

and then repped 

Morgan Freeman 

for more than four 

decades, died Jan. 27 in 

New York. He was 91. 

Jay Curtis, who 

produced promo campaigns 

and managed 

CBS’ brand for more 

than 20 years, died 

Jan. 25 in San Diego of 

ALS. He was 67. 

Marge Rowland, 

a longtime accountant 

at Paramount 

and Warner Bros., 

died Jan. 8 in Laguna 

Woods, California, 

of a heart attack. She 

was 68. 

cutting his wrists, according to 

TMZ, before being discovered by a 

roommate and rushed to a hospital. 

L.A.-based criminal attorney Mike 

Cavalluzzi, however, says “the court 

doesn’t have an affirmative duty” to 

safeguard a defendant from himself. 

Family members reported Salling 

missing the morning of Jan. 30 after 

they hadn’t heard from him since 

11:30 p.m. the previous day. Six 

hours later, after spotting his 2007 

Infiniti M35 parked on a roadside, 

police found his body hanging from 

a tree in Big Tujunga Creek, a 

remote riverbed in the San Gabriel 

Mountains. — SETH ABRAMOVITCH 

← Salling died of “asphyxia by hanging, 

suicide,” the L.A. coroner said Feb. 1. 

KOPP: ANGELA GARBOT PHOTOGRAPHY. CHASIN: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. SWERDLOW: COURTESY OF ICM PARTNERS. PARGAC: ANGELICA MARIE PHOTOGRAPHY. SALLING: C. FLANIGAN/GETTY IMAGES. 


36 


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The Business 

Executive Suite 

Steve Bersch 

The veteran film exec sounds off on the 

state of indie moviemaking, taking over 

Screen Gems and the surprising most 

profitable division at Sony By Tatiana Siegel 

It’s an impressive stat that 

comes with a small asterisk: 

Sony Pictures Worldwide 

Acquisitions president Steve 

Bersch, 61, runs the most profitable 

division within the studio. 

The caveat is that with just 20 

employees, SPWA doesn’t carry 

the same overhead as, say, 

Columbia Pictures, given that it is 

not a releasing entity. Still, during 

his 10-year stint, SPWA boasts 

films such as Arrival, the Insidious 

franchise, Spotlight, Whiplash, 

Foxcatcher, Don’t Breathe and the 

upcoming Tom Hanks-starring 

RÉSUMÉ 

CURRENT TITLE 

President of Screen 

Gems and president 

of Sony Pictures 

Worldwide Acquisitions 

PREVIOUS JOB 

COO, 20th Century Fox 

Home Entertainment 

BIG HIT 

The Insidious 

horror franchise’s four 

films have grossed 

$517 million worldwide 

Photographed by Michele Thomas 

Greyhound. On Jan. 19, Bersch’s 

purview expanded even further 

when he took the reins of Screen 

Gems following the announcement 

that Clint Culpepper was 

exiting after a 28-year run at the 

genre label. 

There was little time to 

celebrate considering that Bersch 

was busy negotiating a slew of 

deals on the ground at Sundance, 

where he acquired worldwide 

rights to the John Cho internet 

thriller Search for $5 million, and 

all international rights to Debra 

Granik’s drama Leave No Trace and 

↑ Bersch, photographed Feb. 1 at his 

Culver City office on the Sony lot, says, 

“The job of acquisitions when you’re 

buying at the script stage is twofold: to 

predict execution and marketability.” 

the Nick Offerman-led Hearts 

Beat Loud. The company had previously 

nabbed a wide swath 

of international territories for 

Paul Dano’s directorial debut, 

Wildlife, which was well reviewed 

after its Sundance premiere. 

Bersch, a Berkeley grad (“I’m a longsuffering 

Cal fan”) and father of 

two, talked to THR about his busy 

festival, the most profitable SPWA 

film and Screen Gems’ future. 

GROOMING BY SU HAN AT DEW BEAUTY 


38 


SPINVFX 

CREATING VISUAL EFFECTS 

AND ANIMATION FOR 

OVER 30 YEARS


Executive Suite 

Now that you are in charge of both 

Screen Gems and SPWA, will they 

remain autonomous? 

Yeah. They’ll remain autonomous 

divisions. I don’t look at SPWA 

as a releasing label. SPWA does 

operate under the Stage 6 label 

for our higher-profile stuff, only 

because we didn’t think “Sony 

Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions” 

was a very good label to put on a 

movie to consumers. Screen Gems 

obviously will be more focused 

on development and production 

— SPWA being more of an indiefocused 

label, working with 

independent producers on either 

productions or acquisitions. 

How will Screen Gems change 

under your leadership? 

I think that’s going to evolve, 

but I’m not sure it will change. 

Screen Gems will fill a valuable 

role as a lower- and modestly 

budgeted production division 

for targeted audiences. We’re 

not going to try to be Columbia, 

pursuing large tentpole movies 

for a wide, wide audience. 

TriStar is more of a dramatic, 

adult-oriented, literatureoriented 

division. There’s a great 

space for Screen Gems to operate, 

not only in the horror and 

urban spaces where it has been 

successful, but Clint had success 

in other modestly budgeted 

targeted movies, from Easy A 

to The Vow to other movies that 

might not feel like big Columbia/ 

TriStar movies. Certainly, 

I’m not looking to make $100 million 

movies. 

How will SPWA and Stage 6 be 

distinct from Screen Gems? 

Stage 6 operates within SPWA. 

I think SPWA’s going to continue 

doing what it’s doing, making 

and acquiring interesting and 

adventurous movies. There is 

some overlap with Screen Gems 

product, be it Insidious or Don’t 

Breathe or The Call — many of 

which could be released under 

the Screen Gems banner. But it’s 

a different group of executives 

who’ve had great success, and 

I think will continue to pursue 

1 

1 A scoresheet from Game 5 of the 1965 World Series, which Dodgers fan Bersch 

attended with his father. 2 Original Porky’s poster “given to me by writer-director 

Bob Clark after we discussed a potential sequel idea.” 3 Bobbleheads 

“representing a pet project I want to make about the 1948 [Harlem] Globetrotters.” 

4 A box-office chart from the weekend Insidious: Chapter 2 debuted at No. 1. 

what they’ve been doing. As an 

acquisition entity, SPWA has 

branched out to higher-budget 

[fare] by acquiring most of the 

international rights to Arrival, 

which is certainly not a genre 

movie, and we’ll continue to do 

things like that. 

Arrival made more money overseas 

than it did domestically. Why didn’t 

Paramount take that gamble? 

I have no idea. We were circling 

the movie at Cannes several years 

ago. We were looking to take the 

world on the movie, and then 

we heard Paramount had stepped 

up and bought U.S., Canada and 

China. By the time we moved, we 

took everything off the table that 

we could. 

What has been the most profitable 

SPWA film to date for you? 

Recently, Don’t Breathe [2016] was 

extremely profitable for us. It was 

a sub-$10 million movie, which 

did about $160 million at the box 

office. It also helped bring Fede 

2 

4 

3 

Alvarez to the studio. He’s now 

doing the Girl in the Spider’s Web 

movie [for Columbia]. That picture 

was a success all the way around. 

How would you characterize the 

state of indie filmmaking right now? 

It’s as robust as I’ve ever seen it. 

There has been a huge infusion 

of capital and high-net-worth individuals 

coming into the space. 

There’s some great independent 

pictures being made. It feels like 

it’s very healthy. We’re all challenged 

by the market economics, 

the streaming services and 

people not going to theaters as 

much, but the state of the industry 

from a production and a 

creative perspective is probably 

at an all-time high. 

Does the old adage that so-called 

“black” movies don’t play overseas 

still hold? 

I don’t think that’s consistently 

true. Movies that speak to a 

uniquely American experience 

don’t play overseas. Evangelical 

Christian movies, as opposed to 

biblical movies, might be more 

American. Sports movies don’t 

play, baseball movies especially. 

A lot of dialogue-driven comedies 

don’t play because it’s more 

American in the humor. So I 

think to the extent that African- 

American movies speak to a 

more Americanized experience, 

they won’t play. But I’m sure 

you can find numerous movies 

with largely African-American 

casts that have played big. Get Out 

played well overseas, because I 

don’t think it spoke to a uniquely 

American experience. 

Do you ever trade notes or wind up 

competing with Sony Pictures 

Classics’ Michael Barker and Tom 

Bernard at festivals? 

We wouldn’t compete, but we 

certainly talk to them and coordinate 

with them all the time. 

Whiplash was an example where 

[pre-Sundance] we had bought a 

significant percentage of international, 

and then they came in at 

the festival and bought domestic 

rights and most of the remaining 

international rights. They’ve 

released a number of movies 

that we’ve bought either at festivals 

or otherwise, like Austenland, 

which we bought at Sundance. 

Sometimes we buy pictures 

in concert with them, sometimes 

buying international where they 

then stepped up for domestic, 

and sometimes buying pictures 

that they then agreed to distribute 

for us. There’s a wide variety 

of ways we can work with our 

sister division. 

You are one of the only high-level 

executives to survive the Sony 

hack. What was the fallout for you? 

I don’t know how much of my 

personal information was out 

there because I didn’t want to 

know. I signed up for the Cadillac 

version of LifeLock for myself 

and my kids. I think everybody’s 

more careful with what they put 

in writing. Doing less by email 

and more by phone is far more 

efficient anyway. We have a great 

workspace here where we’re all 

contained on a floor, and I’m on my 

feet all the time in other people’s 

offices because I find face-to-face 

communication far more effective 

in getting things done. 


40 


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Legal 

Who Owns That Instagram Pic? 

As stars and web influencers use unlicensed paparazzi shots to monetize social media accounts, 

photographers now are filing six-figure lawsuits: ‘This is a form of trolling’ By Ashley Cullins 

Paparazzi long have 

built lucrative careers on 

capturing candids of 

Hollywood stars, but now they’re 

exploring a new source of revenue: 

suing those same stars for 

posting their pics on social media 

without permission. 

Khloe Kardashian, Jessica 

Simpson and Gigi Hadid have each 

recently been sued for copyright 

infringement after paparazzi 

photos of themselves were shared 

on their official social media 

accounts. On Feb. 1, NFL star Odell 

Beckham Jr. sued Splash News 

for extortion after 

reportedly receiving 

a $40,000 demand 

for sharing an 

Reynolds image of himself on 

Instagram. 

Typically, paparazzi 

pics can easily be 

licensed for a couple 

Keenan of hundred bucks 

a pop. But if a star 

sees a photo online and shares it 

without permission, the move 

could lead to six-figure damages if 

it was willful. 

“These lawsuits are ironic and 

unfair,” says Neel Chatterjee, a 

Silicon Valley-based intellectual 

property litigator who has handled 

big-ticket suits for Facebook. 

↑ From left: Simpson, Hadid and Kardashian 

have been sued for posting paparazzi 

photographs on their social media accounts. 

“Paparazzi take pictures of them 

without authorization but then 

get irritated when the people they 

took pictures of use the pictures. 

This is a form of trolling — where 

paparazzi see a new medium 

to try to monetize their work.” 

Dan Taylor, a spokesman for 

BackGrid, a celebrity photo agency 

formed in 2016 when Xposure, 

AKM-GSI and FameFlynet USA 

merged, says his company outsources 

its copyright enforcement 

to a Beverly Hills-based outfit 

called Okularity, which scans the 

internet and print publications 

for clients’ photographs. Okularity 

then determines whether taking 

action is appropriate or if an 

unauthorized use qualifies for 

an exception under copyright laws. 

Xposure is the company suing 

Kardashian, and Taylor says 

unlicensed sharing shouldn’t 

be tolerated. 

“It always hurts the licensing 

market because it’s rarely transformative 

and it’s displayed to the 

same audience and with the same 

purpose as BackGrid’s paying clients,” 

says Taylor. “Unauthorized 

distribution virtually destroys 

the licensing value of an image.” 

While neither celebrity photography 

nor social media is 

new, experts say the ability for 

influencers to now monetize 

their posts is most likely what’s 

driving the legal clashes. “Social 

media is actually a business for 

celebrities,” says attorney Jeffrey 

Greenbaum, who specializes 

in advertising and intellectual 

property law. “It’s not surprising 

that photographers are saying, 

‘If you’re going to make money off 

your social media feed, it’s not 

fair that you’re going to take my 

photograph and not pay for a 

license to use it.’ ” 

While the suits have been geared 

toward street photos, awards-season 

red carpet images could spark 

the next wave of lawsuits. 

Sharing a photo registered 

with the U.S. Copyright Office 

could trigger damages of as 

much as $30,000, even absent a 

finding that the infringement 

was willful. But without that 

registration, a photographer 

would have to prove that he or 

she was damaged by the use 

— and entertainment litigator 

Jeremiah Reynolds says proving 

significant damages would 

be difficult with red carpet 

pics because of the sheer volume 

of nearly identical images. 

“One could argue there are 

20 sets of the same photo floating 

around, so your damages are zero,” 

says Reynolds. “You’d subpoena 

the photo agencies and see what 

they sold for and offer to pay 

the guy 200 bucks to go away.” 

Stefanie Keenan, a notable 

Hollywood events and fashion 

photographer who shoots for 

Getty, tells THR she doesn’t mind 

if stars share her images with 

watermarks that credit her. “I 

would rather have that happen 

than see stars using my images 

without a watermark after not 

having purchased the image or 

giving any credit to the photographers 

— or major publications 

reposting it from the star’s social 

media, again, without financial 

compensation,” she says. 

While other photographers 

may share Keenan’s outlook, attorneys 

still recommend caution. 

“This is an area where celebrities 

and their representatives 

should be extremely careful,” says 

Greenbaum. “Giving credit might 

in some circumstances make the 

photographer less aggravated by 

the use, but it’s unlikely to change 

the analysis that using someone’s 

photograph without consent most 

of the time is going to be copyright 

infringement in this kind 

of situation.” 

Natalie Jarvey and Chris Gardner 

contributed to this report. 

What a Following Is Worth 

A sponsored post can be very lucrative — if you’re popular 

Khloe Kardashian 72.1 M followers $406,700 estimated value 

Gigi Hadid 38.1 M followers $215,000 estimated value 

Jessica Simpson 4.1 M followers $23,400 estimated value 

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42 


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WHAT’S AT 

STAKE IN 

CATCHING 

OSCAR 

Forget about the talent: 

It’s the execs running the specialty 

labels who’ll really be sweating 

this year at the Dolby Theatre 

By Stephen Galloway and Gregg Kilday 

The Oscars won’t just determine 

the future of individual winners 

and losers this year. They could also 

have a real impact on the future 

of specialty-film distributors. After stealing 

the luster from studios when it comes to the 

awards, they’re now fighting for their lives 

in a radically changing media landscape, with 

streaming giants Netflix and Amazon threatening 

to gobble up the talent they’ve relied on 

to make a splash in awards season. 

Such studio subsidiaries as Fox Searchlight, 

Universal’s Focus Features and Sony Pictures 

Classics were set up in the 1990s with three 

goals: (1) develop the kind of filmmakers who 

could then be assigned bigger-budget films; 

(2) win back some of the box-office gold that 

had been siphoned away by indie challengers 

like Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films, which 

defined the game in the ’90s; and (3) add a 

touch of class to an otherwise crass business. 

None of these factors matters much today. 

With directors like Colin Trevorrow going 

straight from shoestring releases (Safety Not 

Guaranteed) to blockbusters (Jurassic World), 

the specialty divisions no longer function as 

breeding grounds for filmmakers; with corporations 

such as Disney aiming bigger and 

bigger in terms of theme parks and merchandising, 

as well as box office, there’s little need 

for the paltry sums most Oscar winners bring; 

and with the studios led by corporate players 

increasingly removed from the day-to-day filmmaking 

process, Oscar’s sheen has become all 

but irrelevant to the bottom line. 

Under pressure for their survival, the 

specialty labels need every bit of help they can 

get, and so do their art house rivals. Each is 

playing for high stakes: 

FOX SEARCHLIGHT With the two frontrunners 

for best picture (The Shape of Water and 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), 

Searchlight, led by longtime heads Stephen 

Gilula and Nancy Utley, has proved its uncanny 

eye for promising material. But will that matter 

once Disney absorbs Fox? In terms of box 

office, no. Shape has earned $55 million worldwide 

and Billboards $75 million, but those hits 

have to be balanced against such flops as Battle 

of the Sexes, with its $12.6 million to date. On 

the other hand, Disney’s planned streaming 

service will need high-visibility content, and 

Oscar wins (along with the box-office boost 

they bring) could provide a healthy rationale 

for not just retaining Searchlight but bolstering 

its resources. 

FOCUS FEATURES Two years ago, after experimenting 

with genre movies with middling 

success, Focus underwent a course correction 

under then-new chairman Peter Kujawski, 

who promised to return Focus to its prestigelabel 

roots. It bounced back this season with 

Darkest Hour ($46.4 million at the domestic 

box office, more than $100 million overall). 

An Oscar for Gary Oldman could add further 

lucre and counterbalance the financial 

disappointment of The Beguiled and The Book 

of Henry. 

SONY PICTURES CLASSICS Amid the ups and 

downs of their rivals, the veteran duo of Tom 

Bernard and Michael Barker has maintained 

a remarkably consistent course, relying on 

shrewd acquisitions rather than sinking money 

in pricey productions. They enter the Oscars 

with six nominations: four for Call Me by Your 

Name and two for foreign-language nominees 

Loveless and A Fantastic Woman. With parent 

Sony Pictures Entertainment looking like a 

prime target for acquisition by an internet 

giant, especially after Kaz Hirai’s departure as 

CEO, they’ll need to prove that their modest 

returns have added dividends. 

ANNAPURNA Megan Ellison’s stand-alone indie, 

which has gone from financing films to distributing 

them, had a box-office dud in Detroit 

(a non-contender this awards season). But even 

though it declined to finance Phantom Thread 

itself, it produced the film for Focus. Should 

the movie prove an unlikely best picture or best 

actor winner, that would burnish the credentials 

of the self-financed company and perhaps 

help it lure still more A-list talent away from 

burgeoning Amazon and Netflix. 

A24 Post-Moonlight, the producer-distributor, 

founded by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John 

Hodges, is seeking to maintain momentum as 

the hippest indie label around with awards for 

Lady Bird. It might need them given that The 

Florida Project was shut out of the best picture 

race and The Disaster Artist’s James Franco 

was snubbed amid an avalanche of allegations 

about his past. 

NEON Launched early last year by Tom 

Quinn and Tim League, the company is eager 

to prove itself as the hot new kid on the block 

and, along with 30West, is betting on I, Tonya, 

which has earned more than $20 million 

and multiple awards for Allison Janney. Having 

gone on an acquisition spree at Sundance — 

its $10 million buy of Assassination Nation was 

the fest’s biggest deal — Neon could do with 

an Oscar victory to prove it’s in the same class 

as its more established rivals. 

Illustration by Læmeur 


44 


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HOW THE GUARDIANS TEAM 

MADE KURT RUSSELL BLEED BLUE 

The visual effects in the final battle of this summer’s hit Marvel 

sequel were a complex undertaking involving mathematics: ‘We had 

to destroy a human body then rebuild it’ By Carolyn Giardina 

When it comes to superhero 

movies, visual effects 

don’t always get a lot of respect. 

The last time one of these films 

won a VFX Oscar was in 2004, for 

Spider-Man 2. And this year, 

only one superhero movie, 

Marvel’s Guardians of the 

Galaxy Vol. 2, fielded a VFX 

team that earned a ticket to 

the Dolby Theatre. They’re 

hoping to beat the odds thanks to 

the film’s complex effects created 

by a dozen vendors. 

The degree of difficulty they 

embraced is evident in the movie’s 

final battle, which pits the 

Guardians against Ego, a “Living 

Planet” that also takes the human 

Townsend 

form of actor Kurt Russell. The 

sequence’s visuals, with Weta 

serving as lead VFX house, were 

inspired by the comics, and the 

unique visual style was created 

with fractals — mathematically 

generated patterns 

— influenced by the work of 

fractal artist Hal Tenny, 

who served as a consultant. 

“To get the computer-created 

and mathematically derived 

aesthetic, we used the algorithms 

and had to translate them 

into a VFX pipeline,” explains 

effects supervisor Christopher 

Townsend. “The final model build 

for planet Ego was about half a 

trillion polygons.” 

← As Ego takes human form, the VFX team 

used a model of Russell, added layers of bone 

and muscle, and blue lightning in lieu of blood. 

Within this CG world — 

Townsend says it’s the most 

complex he has ever created — the 

team staged an epic battle that 

included live-action characters 

such as Chris Pratt’s Peter 

Quill and fully CG creations like 

Rocket and Baby Groot. 

In order for Ego to morph into 

different forms, delicate digital 

double work was required. “Weta 

created a digital version of Kurt, 

down to matching individual 

pores and hairs,” says Townsend. 

“When Ego creates his human 

form around his celestial framework 

over a sequence of shots, 

Weta mocked up Ego’s physiology 

with multiple passes — his 

skeleton, organs, muscles, skin 

and finally clothes and hair. We 

experimented with the timing 

and nature of the reveal of each of 

these building blocks, often overlapping 

them and playing them 

to the framing of each shot. As 

Ego was speaking throughout the 

reveal, we played with the delivery 

of dialogue via a skull only or 

by half skin/half muscle.” 

When Quill finally blasts Ego 

apart, only to see him regenerate, 

Townsend says, “We had to 

figure out how to destroy a human 

body, then rebuild it, inside of a 

PG-13 rating. We landed on a true 

representation of all the organs, 

bones, muscles, veins and nerves. 

But as the cells were getting 

destroyed by the energy blast, 

they would mutate back using the 

same 3D fractals that were seen 

elsewhere in Ego the planet; this 

added an alien element, an almost 

mathematically derived aspect 

to what could have been very gory. 

Instead of blood, the celestial 

framework’s blue energy was flung 

from the destruction points.” 

Fractals, mathematically constructed geometric forms (inset), 

were used to construct the “living planet” known as Ego. 

GUARDIANS: WETA/MARVEL (6). TOWNSEND: FRAZER HARRISON/GETTY IMAGES FOR BRITISH CONSULATE GENERAL LOS ANGELES. 

 

 

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Photographed by Will Deleon 


49 


Style 

Relationships 

L.A. Dating Post-Weinstein: 

‘The Office Romance Is Dead’ 

A TV comedy writer turns to two industry matchmakers who help singles 

navigate in the #MeToo age: It’s ‘like having an agent for your love life’ 

By Ari Berkowitz 

O 

nce, on my way to the bathroom in 

a West Hollywood restaurant, a guy 

asked if I was his waitress. “Excuse 

me?” I said, genuinely shocked. “You think I’m 

pretty enough to be a waitress in L.A.?” 

Dating in this town has always been hard. 

Aside from having the highest concentration 

of beautiful people on Earth, 

Hollywood is a small world where 

being successful often means 

being social. Most of the people 

Berkowitz you meet — and date — are in the 

biz. And that means most of the 

people you meet — and date — know everyone 

you’ve ever met and dated. 

But in a post-MeToo world, dating in 

Hollywood has grown even harder. Let me say 

this: I am a militant #MeToo/#TimesUp feminist. 

I think a spotlight on unwanted advances 

is incredibly positive ... but it does make it 

harder to navigate the wanted ones. 

In November, I went out with a friend-of-afriend 

in the industry. He bought me drinks 

until the bar closed, but after that, he left every 

move up to me. It wasn’t just the “yes-meansyes” 

standard that I expect, it was like Mad 

Libs Dating. He presented every decision and 

left me to fill in the blanks: What should we do 

now? Where should we go? Even after I got him 

home, got him another drink, sat him on my 

couch and intertwined our legs, I still couldn’t 

get him to make a move. Neither one of us knew 

how to navigate this new post-Weinstein world. 

Illustration by Eleanor Taylor 

Over the past few months, I’ve heard of 

companies in Hollywood instituting open-door 

policies, or sending female execs into meetings 

to chaperone powerful men when they 

meet with women. There are many political 

and business ramifications, but, honestly, I’m 

about to spend another Valentine’s Day alone, 

so I’m just gonna focus on the dating ramifications. 

In Hollywood, the office romance is dead. 

General meetings will never again bleed into 

late-night drinks. The blurred lines are focusing. 

And I’m glad. But Hollywood singles are 

facing a totally new era of dating. 

Enter matchmakers Jaydi Samuels and 

Lauren Rosenberg. I learned about them the 

way I learn about everything — in a general 

meeting. When the female 

exec I was meeting with casually 

mentioned she had just 

started using a matchmaker, 

I casually mentioned that 

she had to fucking tell me all 

the details immediately. 

LJMatchmaking, which 

started three years ago, costs 

$199 a year for women. Men 

pay nothing upfront, but are expected to 

pay for the first date. Members, who are referral 

only, answer a questionnaire, and then 

Jaydi, a comedy writer, and Lauren, a reality 

TV producer, follow up in person, sussing out 

dealbreakers you didn’t know you had. (When 

they asked if I’d date someone who voted for 

200% 

LJMatchmaking 

membership increase in 

January compared with 

an average month in 2017. 

Trump, I answered: Maybe — if they deeply 

regretted it now. When they asked if I’d date a 

guy who was bald, I said: Fuck no. Who knew 

I was the worst?!) There are no guarantees on 

how many dates they get you — they just let 

you know when they find a good match (i.e., a 

hairy, regretful Republican). 

A week after I met them, they emailed me 

my first match. I got his first name, age, religion, 

job, and a sentence about his personality 

and looks. No picture. No way to google him. 

Jaydi and Lauren asked me: Was I interested 

in meeting him? Was I free on one of three 

nights? Yes and yes. Jaydi and Lauren made us 

a reservation. All I had to do was show up. 

My first match was with a guy we’ll call 

“Tom.” Tom was 10 years older, a successful 

writer. We had a nice time drinking margaritas 

and talking about harassers, and after two 

hours, he drove me home. But the best part 

was that afterwards, I didn’t hear from him. I 

heard from my matchmakers. They checked in 

the next morning: “How did it go?” 

It felt amazing — this was like having an 

agent for your love life. You can leave a staffing 

meeting thinking everyone loved/hated you, 

but your agent always gets the real story. I told 

Jaydi and Lauren that I was interested in seeing 

Tom again. He wanted to see me, too! There 

were no Mad Libs about it: We had gone on a 

clearly defined date and wanted to do it again. 

Then Tom flaked on me twice in a row, and I 

pulled the plug. I’m not saying matchmakers 

fix all your dating problems in Hollywood. Just, 

like, a dozen of them. 

My second match was with “Josh.” Josh spent 

the first hour of our date mansplaining 

American foreign policy. When he segued to a 

football player who had been (very mildly) 

slandered in an article about campus sexual 

assault, I interjected: “Cry me a fucking river.” 

The next day, I told my matchmakers it was 

a bad fit. They were surprised — he wanted to 

see me again. 

What?! I got clammy 

thinking of how I was going 

to extricate myself. The one 

time Josh had asked a question 

about me, I told him 

about the pilot I was writing 

and he deftly brought the 

conversation back to him by 

listing all the powerful 

people he knew who could help me. If I offended 

him now, was there a chance he’d ask those 

powerful people to hurt my pilot? With a rush 

of relief, I realized I needn’t worry. My love 

agents would extricate me! I’m holding out 

hope that by next Valentine’s Day, they’ll find 

me someone who thinks I’m smart, funny 

and — just maybe — pretty enough to be an 

L.A. waitress. 

BERKOWITZ: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. 


50 


Style 

KIdman 

Rae 

Nyong’o 

Brown 

Britton 

Thompson 

W 

LINGUA 

FRANCA 

Winners of the New Woke Red Carpet 

As ‘Who are you wearing?’ is phased out of preshows, fashion labels feel the burn, but savvy brands 

attached to feminist stars are reaping the benefits: ‘Time’s Up has added a new dimension’ By Booth Moore 

ith Time’s Up pins 

outshining diamond 

jewelry and designer 

name-dropping on the red carpet 

at a minimum, is fashion this 

awards season’s biggest loser? 

“After the mad dash for black at 

the Golden Globes and media 

conversations directed toward 

the #MeToo movement, designer 

brands are not the winners,” says 

Stacy Jones, CEO of entertainment 

and fashion marketing firm 

Hollywood Branded Inc. 

The cancellation of E!’s Fashion 

Police in November — then 

Beyonce and Lorde skipping the 

Grammy carpet in response to 

an antiwage inequality petition 

calling for an E! News boycott — 

may signal the end of an era for 

preshow fashion commentary. 

PRABAL 

GURUNG 

“I don’t think it will return to 

being a one-dimensional conversation 

about fashion on the red 

carpet,” says Time’s Up founding 

member Amanda de Cadenet. 

Although most designers 

understand why the gender equality 

message takes precedence, 

even feminists like Prabal Gurung 

are “wish[ing] actresses got asked 

why they chose to wear the particular 

designer.” Luxury brands, 

of course, still are moving heaven 

and earth to dress stars. “We’re 

seeing the fashion discussion 

moving more to the digital space, 

where designers, publicists or 

stars themselves are pushing out 

info about styles,” says Jones. 

British house Ralph & Russo 

may have gone unnamed during 

preshows (as did Nicole Kidman’s 

ARMANI 

Armani at the SAG Awards), but 

it still stacks up as a big winner, 

dressing such “woke” A-listers as 

Lupita Nyong’o. Her gray gown at 

the SAG Awards reached 713.5 million 

readers, at a PR value of 

$13,084,612, says Jones. Notes CEO 

Michael Russo, “Time’s Up has 

added a new dimension to the red 

carpet for brands.” 

Gurung received multiple 

inquiries from potential customers 

about Issa Rae’s dramatic 

black gown at the Golden Globes. 

According to retail analytics 

company EDITED, sales of black 

dresses increased by 225 percent 

from Jan. 1 to 18 compared 

with the same period last year. 

With all-black at the Globes — 

also planned for the Feb. 18 

BAFTAs — and all-white onstage 

RALPH & 

RUSSO 

CONVERSE 

at the Grammys making headlines, 

unlikely faves have 

emerged, including Lingua 

Franca, Rachelle Hruska 

MacPherson’s New York label 

of hand-embroidered cashmere. 

After Connie Britton wore 

a “Poverty Is Sexist” sweater at 

the Globes (Tessa Thompson 

later wore a version with first 

names of female directors), “we 

got hundreds of emails,” says 

MacPherson. Reese Witherspoon 

ordered 20 Lingua Franca “Time’s 

Up” sweaters for Eva Longoria 

and other supporters. Converse 

enjoyed the rare shout-out at 

the SAG Awards by Millie Bobby 

Brown, who wore Chuck Taylors 

with her pink Calvin Klein dress. 

“Converse are cool!” says Jones. 

Now, even more so. 

BRITTON: JOE SCARNICI/GETTY IMAGES. THOMPSON: PHILLIP FARAONE/GETTY IMAGES. RAE, NYONG’O: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE. KIDMAN: AXELLE/ 

BAUER-GRIFFIN/FILMMAGIC. BROWN: JOHN SHEARER/GETTY IMAGES. AMERICAN: COURTESY OF ABRAMS BOOKS (2). PURSE: COURTESY OF 18008456790. 

THR 

Read 

Runways and Hollywood: A Long Love Affair 

FROM ITS SLEEPY BEGINNINGS to today’s star-laden productions, New York Fashion Week and its 

evolution are chronicled in American Runway (Abrams, $65), by THR style and fashion news director 

Booth Moore. “Once [publicist Eleanor Lambert] launched Press Week in 1943, the era of the 

American designer started,” writes Council of Fashion Designers of America board chair Diane 

von Furstenberg in the foreword (Moore worked with CFDA on the book). Celebrating its 75th anniversary, 

NYFW has had its fair share of Hollywood moments on its way to becoming a globally live-streamed event. 

“I underestimated the interest in fashion and how people are intrigued by the alchemy of something,” says Michael 

Kors of his early reticence about doing Project Runway, which debuted in 2004 and is now on its 16th season. As did 

exec producer Harvey Weinstein, recalls producer Desiree Gruber: “He didn’t [initially] understand the excitement 

of bringing an idea from a designer’s sketch to fabrication onto a model’s body to the runway.” — LAURIE BROOKINS 

Bottega Veneta just 

moved its show and 

store from Milan 

to NYC. Bag, $2,800. 

“You are literally being manhandled until they push you out on the runway … it’s a live performance,” says Cindy Crawford of NYFW in American Runway. 


52 


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T H E 

N 

O 

WILLEM DAFOE made six films last year, 

has 100 screen credits and three Oscar nominations (including for 

this awards season’s on-the-cheap underdog The Florida Project) 

in an enigmatic career that has resisted fame and routine: 

‘I remember my life by my movies’ 

By Benjamin Svetkey 

Photographed by Martha Galvan 

M

“He’s not a movie star,” 

says director Oliver Stone 

of Dafoe, who was 

photographed Feb. 2 at Siren 

Orange in Los Angeles. 

“He hasn’t fallen into the 

movie star trap. That’s why 

he’s still working.” 

Styling by George Kotsiopoulos 

Left: Ralph Lauren sweater 

Right: Prada tuxedo, COS shirt, 

Christian Louboutin shoes. 

A 

D

Here is a typical day in the life 

of Willem Dafoe: He wakes up 

early, usually around 5 or 6. He 

meditates, has a cup of coffee and 

writes in his journal for a while. 

Then he checks his email, does 

some yoga and makes breakfast. 

If he’s prepping for a film, which 

he almost always is, he’ll go over 

his lines for a couple of hours. 

If he’s not, he’ll read a book, take 

a walk around his West Village 

neighborhood or — his favorite 

activity of all — do some laundry. 

1 

“It’s one of my great pleasures,” he says, dead 

serious. “I love it so much, I have to resist the 

urge to do a lot of hand washing when I’m in 

hotels. Sometimes, when I’m in a strange 

city, I go to laundromats. I did that in France 

recently — I was shooting a movie there — 

and it was a beautiful experience. For some 

reason, people are really nice to me in laundromats 

and I have these great encounters. 

Talk about fun and sexy …” 

Of course, what makes Dafoe different from 

most people — aside from enjoying laundry 

— is that in his life there’s really no such thing 

as a typical day. Every one of them is pretty 

unusual. Today, for instance, the 62-year-old 

Oscar nominee — he’s up for best supporting 

actor for his role in The Florida Project, A24’s 

$2 million slice of life about kids from lowincome 

families living in cheap motels near 

Orlando’s Disney World — lounges on a shady 

terrace at a hotel overlooking downtown 

Santa Barbara, where he’s about to take another 

lap around the awards season circuit as it 

hurtles toward the finish line. He’s dressed 

With Brooklynn Prince in The Florida Project. 

in hipster casual — black jeans, white T-shirt 

and a scruffy graying beard (a remnant from 

his recent turn as Vincent Van Gogh in Julian 

Schnabel’s upcoming biopic, At Eternity’s Gate) 

— but in a few hours he’ll spruce himself up, 

slip into a suit and step onto a stage to accept 

the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s Vanguard 

Award, honoring what the program calls his 

“unique contributions to film.” 

In Dafoe’s case, unique is putting it mildly. 

He has played everybody from Jesus (in Martin 

Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ) to 

a tropical fish (in Finding Nemo). He shared a 

foxhole with Charlie Sheen in Oliver Stone’s 

1986 Vietnam War epic Platoon (which got 

him his first Oscar nomination), wore 6-inchlong 

fingernails and a prosthetic pointy head 

to play silent film star Max Schreck in 2000’s 

Shadow of the Vampire (which got him his 

second) and zoomed around New York on a 

flying hoverboard as the Green Goblin in 

2002’s Spider-Man (and its two sequels). And 

that’s just scratching the surface of his résumé 

— there’s also his lesser-applauded performances 

in 1993’s Body of Evidence (in which 

Madonna dripped hot wax onto his naked 

body) and in Lars von Trier’s 2009 drama 

Antichrist (in which Charlotte Gainsbourg 

crushed his testicles), along with a slew of 

other roles big, small and occasionally completely 

overlooked. Over the past 37 years, 

Dafoe has racked up credits on more than 100 

films, churning out two, three or sometimes 

even four or more a year (last year, he did six, 

a personal best, plus voiceover narrations on 

two documentaries). 

But here’s the thing about Willem Dafoe. 

Despite his prodigious output and nearubiquitous 

onscreen presence during the past 

four decades, he’s never quite popped as a 

full-fledged movie star. He’s gotten plenty of 

nominations, and the critics adore him. But 

nobody gossips about him. Photographers 

3 

don’t camp outside his home (or even know 

where it is). Fans let him wash his underpants 

in peace at laundromats. Dafoe insists 

he doesn’t want to be a bigger star than he 

already is and prefers that nobody know about 

his offscreen life. He says it makes it easier to 

“disappear into roles.” 

Still, disappearing isn’t exactly a winning 

strategy when you’re up for an Academy Award. 

So he slouches into his chair on his hotel terrace, 

gives his gray beard a couple of tugs and, 

for a few of hours anyway, lets a stranger rummage 

in his laundry bag. 

FOR STARTERS, HIS REAL NAME IS NOT WILLEM. 

It’s William. As a teenager in Appleton, 

Wisconsin, he was called Bill, or sometimes 

Billy, and there was a period during his early 

childhood when his older brothers teased him 

with the nickname “Bleeblob” (for reasons 

no family member will reveal but which they 

hint are hugely embarrassing). 

He was the seventh of eight children, all 

crammed into an overstuffed colonial where 

there was almost zero adult supervision. 

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56 


Dafoe’s dad was a doctor and his mom 

a nurse, and because they were seldom at 

home, he was raised mostly by his five sisters. 

“My parents started out as Eisenhower 

Republicans,” he says, “but by the time I 

came around they had loosened up.” Luckily, 

he thrived on the chaos. Once, when he was 

8 years old, he shut himself into a closet 

for two days. He wasn’t hiding or depressed. 

He just wanted to feel what it was like to 

be confined in a small space for a long period 

of time, like the astronauts in the Gemini 

rockets on the news. “Nobody in my family 

noticed,” he remembers. 

“He was always a performer,” says his 

brother Don, 67, a transplant surgeon in 

“ He got ahold of 

a gorilla suit and climbed 

the side of a building.” 

Laguna Beach who drove up to Santa Barbara 

for the film festival. “He was always doing 

crazy stuff to create a stir. I remember once 

when he was 10 or 12 years old, he got ahold 

of a gorilla costume and climbed the side of 

a building in downtown Appleton, like King 

Kong.” Adds brother Richard, 65, a commercial 

litigation attorney in Dallas who also attended 

the Santa Barbara ceremony, “He was always 

doing creative things. If he got a term paper 

assignment, he’d find a way to act it out in class 

instead of writing it.” 

Occasionally, Dafoe’s creative spirit landed 

him in hot water, like the time he borrowed 

his high school’s video camera to shoot 

a documentary and got expelled for making 

what the principal called “pornography” 

(“There was a bare bottom in it,” 

Dafoe says). But he didn’t want to stick 

around Appleton, anyway, so he bolted 

for Milwaukee, where he camped out 

on a friend’s sofa, started sitting in on 

drama classes at the university and 

eventually fell in with a small theater 

troupe where he first began learning 

4 

1 From left: Dafoe with 

Sheen and Tom Berenger. 

2 As Max Schreck in 

Shadow of the Vampire. 

3 The Green Goblin in 

Spider-Man. 

4 On the set of The 

Last Temptation of Christ 

with Scorsese. 

2 

to act. “But I never thought acting could be a 

profession,” he says. “I didn’t know anybody 

that made their living in the entertainment 

industry. It was just something I liked 

to do, something I had fun with, a social 

thing. I thought maybe I’d end up joining the 

Merchant Marines or the Army.” 

He started taking acting more seriously 

when he came to New York in the mid-1970s. 

That’s around the time he gave his name 

a Dutch makeover, dropping the “ia” and 

adding an “e” (although “William” is still on 

his driver’s license and passport). “It’s not 

like I was looking around for a stage name,” 

he says, “But I knew that I didn’t want to be a 

William or a Bill or a Billy.” It turned out to 

be a smart move; the new cool moniker helped 

him fit in with the downtown crowd he was 

hanging with. Before long, he was the youngest 

actor in the Wooster Group, a theater company 

in an old metal stamp factory in SoHo 

that mounted wacky experimental productions, 

like a version of Our Town with all the 

actors in blackface while sex videos played 

on monitors on the stage. The critics weren’t 

always kind, and money was always a problem 

(Dafoe made extra bucks by doing figure 

modeling for art classes), but it was here that 

he met his mentor and muse — and, for a long 

time, his partner. Theater director Elizabeth 

LeCompte was 33 and Dafoe was 22 when they 

began a relationship that lasted for nearly 

three decades (their child, Jack Dafoe, is now 

a 34-year-old public policy researcher) until 

they parted in 2004, after Dafoe met Italian 

director Giada Colagrande, 42, while shooting 

The Life Aquatic in Rome. “I wasn’t looking for 

anything, but I fell in love,” he says matter-offactly. 

“And so my life changed.” 

After the breakup, Dafoe was “excommunicated” 

from the Wooster Group, where 

LeCompte remains as director. But for 

many years, that small theater was Dafoe’s 

center of gravity, even as Hollywood beckoned. 

Technically, the first film he shot, in 

1980, was The Loveless, a low-budget biker 

drama co-directed by Monty Montgomery 

and a young first-time auteur named Kathryn 

Bigelow. But that film’s release was delayed 

for two years, so Dafoe’s first appearance in 

movie theaters ended up being a small part 

in Michael Cimino’s much more high-profile 

Heaven’s Gate. Dafoe spent three months 

on the set of that infamous train wreck as a 

“glorified extra” before getting fired. “We 

were standing on the set in full costume and 

makeup and they were adjusting the lights, 

and the woman next to me whispered a joke,” 

he says. “I laughed too loud. Cimino whirled 

around, looked at me and said, ‘Willem, 

step out!’ and he sent me back to my hotel 

room. An hour later, I was presented with a 

plane ticket and told to go home.” He can’t 

recall what the joke was but remembers “it 

was something dirty.” 


57 


“ I never thought 

acting could be a 

profession. I thought 

I’d end up joining the 

Merchant Marines.” 

Valentino coat, Frame Denim jeans, Rag & Bone shoes.

1 

WOOSTER: NANCY CAMPBELL/COURTESY OF SUBJECT. COLAGRANDE: MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES FOR MOET & CHANDON. 

Dafoe never had the face of 

a leading man — “I’m like the 

boy next door, if you live next 

door to a mausoleum,” he once 

said of himself — but even 

in his 20s and 30s he had the 

right bone structure and wild 

intensity to play villains, like 

the counterfeiter in William 

Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. 

He was even talked about for the 

Joker in 1989’s Batman, until Jack Nicholson 

snagged the role. “[Screenwriter Sam] Hamm 

said something about how physi cally I would 

be perfect for the part,” Dafoe recalls, “but they 

never offered it to me.” 

It was a much more angelic character 

that would put him on Hollywood’s radar. 

“Originally, the part was supposed to be 

for a Native American,” says Oliver Stone of 

Sgt. Gordon Elias, the kindly G.I. who gets 

riddled with machine gun fire in a rice paddy 

at the end of Platoon. “But we couldn’t find 

a Native American actor for the part. So we 

changed the character to white and looked 

around for an actor who had a different sort 

of face. We didn’t want to cast a classically 

handsome actor.” Stone, who later cast Dafoe 

in Born on the Fourth of July opposite classically 

handsome Tom Cruise, believes it’s 

precisely because of Dafoe’s unusual features 

(The New York Times once described his face 

as looking like a “demiurge as rendered by a 

cubist”) that he’s had such a durable career. 

“He’s not a movie star,” Stone says. “He’s not 

good looking in that way. But that’s why he’s 

still working. He hasn’t fallen into the movie 

star trap. He’s stayed an actor.” 

After his nomination for Platoon, Dafoe 

was offered just about everything — and, judging 

from his rambling credits, he didn’t turn 

much away. Dafoe gives lots of reasons for why 

he picks the projects he does — “Sometimes 

it can be a very simple thing, like, ‘Wow, I 

want to ride that motorcycle and wear those 

clothes’ ” — but in truth it’s not always easy 

to discern a guiding logic behind his choices. 

He’s the kind of actor who can shoot a highbrow 

drama like 1997’s Affliction one month 

and turn around and make Speed 2: Cruise 

Control the next. “Oh, I turn down things,” he 

insists. “I won’t say which ones, because that’s 

not nice to the people I’ve turned down.” 

As he’s grown older, Dafoe’s pace hasn’t 

slowed. In the past year, he’s starred in Kenneth 

Branagh’s remake of Murder on the Orient 

Express; done a dystopian thriller called What 

Happened to Monday; nearly appeared in Justice 

League (his underwater scenes as Nuidis 

Vulko got cut from the final print, but he’ll be 

back as the character this year in Aquaman); 

learned to paint like Van Gogh (Schnabel was 

his personal tutor); and, of course, performed 

his nominated turn as the father-figure motel 

manager who looks after his downwardly 

1 Dafoe (left) with 

Spalding Gray and 

other Wooster Group 

actors in 1979. 

2 With his wife, 

director Giada 

Colagrande, in 2018. 

mobile tenants in The Florida Project, a film 

that had him practicing his craft with a 

parking lot full of 6-year-olds and first-time 

actors. “When I cast Willem, everyone was 

like, ‘Oh no, he’s a villain, he’s a bad guy,’ ” 

says director Sean Baker, whose most famous 

previous work was his 2015 iPhone-shot 

Tangerine. “But Willem made the character 

his own. He came down to Florida a week 

early and picked out his wardrobe — he’s the 

one who came up with the sunglasses — 

and met with actual hotel managers around 

the area, looking for inspiration. And he was 

great with the kids. Very casual with everyone. 

Very approachable. He never played the diva.” 

For Dafoe, working with children was a bit 

like experimental theater. “Since the movie is 

from the kids’ point of view, you have to invite 

the chaos,” he says. “The biggest challenge 

was to stay calm and be patient. I was ready to 

grab the wheel if we were going to crash, but [I] 

had to let the kids drive [the movie].” 

Dafoe doesn’t chew any scenery or have 

any over-the-top outbursts in The Florida 

Project — on the contrary, he gives such a 

quiet, low-key performance that his acting is 

practically invisible. That makes it a surprising 

choice for the Academy, which usually 

nominates more robust roles. Dafoe himself 

seems a little taken aback by all the attention. 

Or maybe it’s just that it’s been a while since 

his last go-around on the awards circuit and 

he’s feeling out of practice. “It’s changed so 

much since my first nomination,” he says of 

this year’s race. “It’s so much more developed 

and sophisticated, with a lot more outlets. My 

first nomination for Platoon, I didn’t even have 

a publicist. I didn’t even know what day they 

Find out what Dafoe’s 7-year-old co-star Brooklynn Prince taught him at THR.COM/VIDEO 

2 

were announcing the nominations. My son’s 

babysitter called to tell me I was nominated.” 

One change he particularly likes, though, is 

the rise of the #MeToo movement. “I’ve worked 

with a lot of women directors,” he points out. 

“My wife is a female director. I see the inequalities. 

I see how difficult it is. And it’s having an 

effect on me because I can see how things are 

shifting. When I read scripts now, red flags 

go off sometimes. Like, if I’m reading a script 

and all the women are taking off their clothes, 

I’m like, ‘OK, what is this?’ What can I say? I’m 

being educated.” 

“I LIVE A NOMADIC LIFE,” DAFOE OBSERVES, 

nodding at the leafy surroundings of the 

hotel terrace. “Last year it was five months 

in Australia, two months in England, three 

months in France …” 

He and his wife have homes in New York 

and Rome, but he rarely spends more than a 

month or two at either. For most of the year, 

he’s on the road, hopping from one film set 

to the next. Sometimes his wife travels with 

him, sometimes not (“She is my home,” he 

says). But the constant movement has given 

Dafoe a unique sense of continuity. While 

the rest of the world measures their lives in 

moments — birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, 

deaths — he measures his in film 

productions. “I remember my life by my movies,” 

he says. 

Later in the day, at the Arlington Theater in 

Santa Barbara, a couple hundred people turn 

out — including his two brothers, who don’t 

have nearly as fantastic hair but do bear a family 

resemblance around the eyes — to watch 

Dafoe get his Vanguard Award. Just before he 

steps onstage, Dafoe gets to watch his whole 

life-slash-movie-career flash before his eyes. 

There’s a five-minute pre-ceremony clip reel 

of his greatest moments. Or at least what 

somebody thought were his greatest moments. 

“They mostly showed my studio movies,” Dafoe 

points out afterward, a little disappointed. 

“They left out a lot of other films.” 

Of course, a more complete reel would last 

longer than one of von Trier’s movies. And 

Dafoe is constantly adding titles. He reportedly 

has signed on for an adaptation of Jonathan 

Lethem’s crime novel Motherless Brooklyn, about 

a 1950s detective with Tourette’s syndrome, 

that Edward Norton (who’ll be directing as well 

as starring in the lead role, with Dafoe playing 

his brother) has been trying to get made 

for years. “I’m always working on something,” 

Dafoe says, demonstrating his gift for 

understatement. “I don’t always know what’s 

right for me, but I know what turns me on and 

what makes me happy.” 

It turns out there’s not much in Dafoe’s 

anything-but-typical, laundry-loving life that 

makes him unhappy these days. 

“To tell you the truth,” he admits, “I’m not 

crazy about folding.” 


59 


BERLIN 

PRE VIEW 

A 

After several shaky movie markets 

in an industry plagued by 

seemingly constant transition, 

distributors and sales outfits 

are heading to Berlin’s European 

Film Market on Feb. 15 in an 

upbeat mood after Sundance. In 

Park City, newer buyers (Neon, 

30West, MoviePass, Annapurna) 

snatched up titles, and the studios 

returned in force to the indiepickup 

business, with Sony taking 

worldwide rights on the John 

Cho starrer Search, its SPC label 

nabbing Puzzle and Lionsgate 

boarding the Sundance opener 

Blindspotting. “There is some real 

breadth in the market,” says 

Protagonist Pictures CEO Dave 

Bishop. “That’s encouraging 

because it’s not just focused on 

two players.” He’s referring to 

Amazon and Netflix, neither of 

which bought a film at Sundance. 

Alison Thompson of Brit sales 

outfit Cornerstone Films also 

sees an ongoing shift away from 

the traditional presales market 

“toward what the business was 

like when I started in the 1990s, 

where buyers wait to bid on finished 

movies.” Her Cornerstone 

partner Mark Gooder agrees: “The 

presale market isn’t dead, but it’s 

getting harder to hit that bull’seye.” 

Several days out, new Berlin 

projects are thin on the ground, 

though most expect a handful of 

big-name titles to come together 

just before the EFM opens. 

THR’s 11 titles to watch: 

BACK TO BASICS 

IN BERLIN 

With Netflix and Amazon lying low in Sundance, this year’s European 

Film Market may continue a return to more traditional sales models — 

and dealmakers couldn’t be happier BY SCOTT ROXBOROUGH 

GREEN BOOK 

SALES FilmNation 

DIRECTOR Peter Farrelly 

CAST Viggo Mortensen, 

Mahershala Ali 

Moonlight’s Oscar winner Ali 

plays a virtuoso jazz pianist 

who forges an unlikely friendship 

with his blue-collar Italian- 

American chauffeur (Mortensen) 

during a 1962 tour of the racially 

segregated South. The film’s 

dramatic tone is a departure for 

comedy specialist Farrelly 

(Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin). 

STATUS Filming 

Rogowski 

and Toni 

Erdmann’s 

Huller in In 

the Aisles. 

HER SMELL 

SALES Endeavor Content/Bow 

and Arrow 

DIRECTOR Alex Ross Perry 

CAST Elisabeth Moss 

The Handmaid’s Tale star Moss 

has signed on to play Becky 

Something, a maniacally destructive 

punk rock star engaged 

in a yearslong war against 

sobriety in this new drama from 

Golden Exit director Perry. 

STATUS Shooting later this year 

IN THE AISLES 

SALES Beta Cinema 

DIRECTOR Thomas Stuber 

CAST Sandra Huller, Franz Rogowski 

German helmer Stuber follows 

up his award-winning 

Hubert (2015) with this lowkey 

romantic drama featuring 

Toni Erdmann’s Huller and 

up-and-coming German actor 

Rogowski, who will make his 

U.S. debut in Terrence Malick’s 

Radegund next year. 

STATUS Finished 

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 

SALES Filmnation 

DIRECTOR Chad Stahelski 

CAST Keanu Reeves 

The third entry in the shoot- 

’em-up franchise, starring 

Reeves as the assassin who just 

can’t quit the life, is about the 

closest thing possible to a bull’seye 

in the action movie space. 

STATUS Preproduction 

A MILLION LITTLE PIECES 

SALES Sierra/Affinity 

DIRECTOR Sam Taylor-Johnson 

CAST Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 

Billy Bob Thornton, Giovanni Ribisi 

Fifty Shades of Grey director 

Taylor-Johnson teams up with 

her husband, Aaron (Nocturnal 

Animals), to take on James 

Frey’s rehab memoir, which was 

the source of a literary scandal 

back in 2003 when it emerged 

that Frey invented many of the 

events described in his struggles 

with alcohol and crack addiction. 


TAYLOR-JOHNSON: SLAVEN VLASIC/GETTY IMAGES. ALI: CHRISTOPHER POLK/GETTY IMAGES FOR TNT. PORTMAN: JUN SATO/WIREIMAGE. REEVES: BENNETT RAGLIN/WIREIMAGE. BELLUCCI: ERNESTO RUSCIO/GETTY 

IMAGES. MOSS: CHRISTOPHER POLK/GETTY IMAGES FOR TURNER. WEDEL: ISA FOLTIN/WIREIMAGE. KNOL: DAVE BEDROSIAN/GEISLER-FOTOPRESS/PICTURE ALLIANCE/NEWSCOM. AISLES: COURTESY OF BETA CINEMA. 


60 


Clockwise from top left: A Million Little 

Pieces star Aaron Taylor-Johnson; Vox 

Lux’s Portman; Reeves, returning for John 

Wick: Chapter 3; Moss, who will play a 

self-destructive punk rocker in Her Smell; 

Spider in the Web star Bellucci; and Ali, 

who plays a jazz musician in Green Book. 

THE MISEDUCATION OF 

CAMERON POST 

SALES Elle Driver 

DIRECTOR Desiree Akhavan 

CAST Chloe Grace Moretz, 

Jennifer Ehle, Quinn Shephard 

Akhavan’s comic drama, about 

Christian teens wrestling with 

gay-conversion therapy, picked up 

the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 

and won acclaim for its delicate 

treatment of a hot-button topic. 


MONSTER FAMILY 2 

SALES Timeless Films 

DIRECTOR Holger Tappe 

The sequel to the 2017 animated 

movie, which featured the 

voice talents of Emily Watson, 

Nick Frost and Jason Isaacs and 

grossed more than $26 million 

internationally, returns with the 

Wishbones, an ordinary family 

who transform into monsters 

to save their friends and the world 

from an evil Monster Huntress. 


MRS LOWRY & SON 

SALES The Little Film Co. 

DIRECTOR Adrian Noble 

CAST Timothy Spall, 

Vanessa Redgrave 

British acting treasures Spall 

and Redgrave headline this 

biopic about the relationship 

between early 20th century 

British painter L.S. Lowry and 

his mother, Elizabeth. 


ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE US 

SALES Global Screen 

DIRECTOR Ozgur Yildirim 

CAST Moritz Bleibtreu 

The crossover success of Fatih 

Akin’s In the Fade could bode 

well for this German thriller, set 

on the mean streets of Frankfurt 

and featuring Bleibtreu (Run Lola 

Run) as a gangster trying to 

make a final score in order to 

escape his life of crime. 


SPIDER IN THE WEB 

SALES Film Constellation 

DIRECTOR Eran Riklis 

CAST Ben Kingsley, Monica Bellucci, 

Itay Tiran 

This espionage thriller from the 

award-winning Israeli director 

of The Lemon Tree centers on an 

aging spy (Kingsley) on the trail 

of a supposed chemical weapons 

sale to a Middle East dictatorship 

while being followed by an ambitious 

Mossad agent (Tiran). 

STATUS Shoots in the spring 

VOX LUX 

SALES Sierra/Affinity 

DIRECTOR Brady Corbet 

CAST Natalie Portman, Jude Law 

Corbet’s drama about the rise 

of a singer from national tragedy 

to pop superstar is back on 

track, with Oscar winner Portman 

replacing Rooney Mara in the 

leading role. Sia provided original 

songs for the soundtrack. 


Berlin Rolls Out the 

Red Carpet for Diversity 

From an anti-harassment ‘safe space policy’ to 

industry panels on gender equality, the Berlinale 

is getting woke for the #MeToo era 

Berlin wears its politics on its sleeve. In 2002, his first year 

as Berlinale director, Dieter Kosslick made “Accept 

Diversity” the festival motto. “And we meant it,” Kosslick 

tells THR. “Diversity of all sorts: all colors, all sexualities, all cultures.” 

This year, in the wake of Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo and Time’s 

Up, Berlin is trying to live up to that pledge. The fight for equality, 

whether based on gender, race or sexuality, will be in focus at both 

the festival and Berlin’s European Film Market (EFM). 

At the festival, Berlin will introduce what it calls a “safe space 

policy” that will include coordinating a hotline for visitors to report 

cases of discrimination or harassment they experience or witness. 

Sundance took a similar tack this year, updating its code of conduct 

to try and prevent any inappropriate behavior and introducing 

a new 24-hour hotline to report offenses. 

The policy’s urgency was brought home by the recent case of 

German director Dieter Wedel. Several women have accused the 

famed film and TV helmer of abuse — ranging from harassment 

to assault — going back decades. Wedel denied the initial charges 

brought forth by three women but since has gone 

silent and has resigned from his job as artistic director 

of the Bad Hersfeld Theater Festival, citing health 

concerns resulting from excessive media attention 

Wedel 

Wouter Knol 

on his case. 

At the EFM, the focus will be on analyzing the 

problem of discrimination and presenting workable 

solutions for the industry. Vivian Yvonne Hunt of 

consulting firm McKinsey & Co. will present the latest 

finding of her study “Delivering Through Diversity,” 

originally unveiled in late January at the Davos World 

Economic Forum in Switzerland. In a debate hosted by THR on 

Feb. 17, Hunt will break down her analysis of the diversity gap and 

what it means for the global film business. 

At Berlin’s Co-Production Market, the Austrian Film Institute 

will present a case study of its remarkably successful initiative to 

address the gender gap among film producers by boosting subsidy 

support for projects with higher female participation. 

The Swedish Film Institute, a leader in the push for gender 

equality, will also present in Berlin the latest findings in its 50-50 

initiative, which, in just three years, achieved gender parity in terms 

of film funding between men and women directors. 

“We are a market — we are interested in the business, not 

the politics,” says EFM director Matthijs Wouter Knol. “And when 

it comes to audiences, there are a lot of people out there, a lot 

of groups, who see themselves underrepresented in the content 

onscreen. What’s changed is that these groups are becoming more 

outspoken and, most importantly, have shown they are willing to 

pay for more diverse content.” — S.R. 

Illustration by Wren McDonald 


61 


BERLIN 

PRE VIEW 

hen it comes to making 

a European debut, 

director Gus Van Sant 

has experienced the 

highs, taking home the 

Palme d’Or at Cannes 

for the Columbineesque 

school massacre drama Elephant in 

2003. And then there were the lows, like 2015’s 

Sea of Trees unveiling at Cannes, where it 

was savaged by critics. Based on the Sundance 

reaction to his latest, the Joaquin Phoenix 

starrer Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, 

the 65-year-old filmmaker should receive 

a warm reception when the movie screens in 

competition at the Berlin Film Festival. The 

Amazon Studios title, which centers on a 

paraplegic cartoonist struggling with sobriety, 

is based on John Callahan’s memoir. The 

two-time Oscar nominee spoke to THR from 

his home in Palm Springs about his film 

and his relationship with the Phoenix family, 

which began when he directed the late River 

Phoenix in 1991’s My Own Private Idaho. 

W 

You directed Joaquin early in his career in 

To Die For and now in Don’t Worry. How would 

you describe his evolution as an actor? 

It’s very similar, but he’s 20-something years 

older, so he had has so much more experience 

in creating a role, all the experiences from 

the past. But otherwise, he seemed to do it in 

a similar way. He just gets very involved in 

the role — to the point where he’s kind of living 

the role — and then he shoots it. 

“It’s hard to read 

bad reviews, but it’s 

also hard to read 

really good reviews,” 

says Van Sant, 

photographed 

Jan. 19 at Sky Strada 

in Park City, Utah. 

‘IT’S A 

REALLY 

POLARIZING 

MOMENT’ 

Gus Van Sant on his Berlin entry Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, 

the #MeToo movement and why working with Weinstein was ‘great’ 

BY TATIANA SIEGEL 

What was the Phoenix family’s reaction to 

your documentary My Own Private River 

[which recontextualized footage from My Own 

Private Idaho]? 

Well, it was James Franco’s creation. I gave 

him permission. They were very upset by it. It 

was something that I probably should never 

have done because I love the family so much. I 

wasn’t intending on a bad reaction, and I just 

handled it incorrectly. 

You co-directed that film with Franco. Do you 

think he’s being unfairly treated as he has been 

swept up in the #MeToo movement? 

I didn’t really co-direct. I allowed him to use 

the footage. I think that he gave me that codirector 

distinction. ... I don’t necessarily have 

a way to differentiate James’ situation with 

anyone else’s. There’s been accusations, and I 

don’t know. I’m not close enough to him. 

In general, what do you think of the avalanche 

of accusations hitting Hollywood? 

It’s a really polarizing moment in especially 

Hollywood but [also] in many 

different communities. And the relationship 

between men and women and power 

and influence extends to so many things. 

It’s a very interesting moment, and it can 

be very difficult as well. 

A 9/11 Drama and 3 More Fest Standouts 

ISLE OF DOGS ► 

Eight years after bringing 

his idiosyncratic wit 

to stop-motion animation 

with Fantastic 

Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson 

returns to the form 

with this original story 

set in a dystopian 

future Japan, where 

a boy must venture 

into a canine quarantine 

area to rescue his 

beloved pet. 

THE LOOMING TOWER 

Dan Futterman and 

Alex Gibney are among 

the creators of this Hulu 

limited series based 

on Lawrence Wright’s 

Pulitzer Prize-winning 

book about the escalating 

threat of Osama 

bin Laden during the late 

1990s and the events 

that led to 9/11. 

MUSEO 

Mexican director 

Alonso Ruizpalacios 

follows his distinctive 

look at restless 

youth, Gueros, with 

this true-crime thriller 

based on the 1985 

robbery of 140 priceless 

Photographed by Austin Hargrave 


62 


The Best Veggie 

Bowls in Berlin 

The city of curry wurst has discovered 

its inner lust for quinoa and beetroot 

Vollbluth 

Vollbluth, which just opened in September, takes 

the veggie bowl to the next level with its seasonally 

adjusted selection of salads topped off with millet, 

black lentils or hulled wheat. Non-vegans can add a 

portion of pork belly, duck sausage or salmon marinated 

in maple syrup. Welserstrasse 10-12 

Daluma 

Just a short cab ride from the festival center, this 

is the spot to get your superfood fix in Berlin. Try the 

legendary acai bowl or a breakfast chia pudding. 

Top it all off with a guilt-free cold-pressed smoothie. 

Weinbergsweg 3 

To keep things from getting stale, 

My Goodness rotates its menu daily. 

My Goodness 

Also a short trip from Potsdamer Platz, this brandnew 

power-food spot with an adjunct yoga and 

spinning studio (Becycle) in the same building lets 

you pack in a workout and a detox meal in one go. 

Everything — from the breakfast sweet bowls to the 

lunch salads of kale, quinoa and artichoke — is fresh, 

surprising and delicious. Brunnenstrasse 24 — S.R. 

Phoenix (left) plays cartoonist John Callahan, who became 

a paraplegic at age 21 following a car accident. 

KOSSLICK: PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGES. WORRY, ISLE: COURTESY OF BERLINALE. GOODNESS: COURTESY OF SUBJECT (2). 

You worked with Harvey Weinstein on 1997’s 

Good Will Hunting. How was your experience? 

It was great. He was always very hands-off. 

The amount of interaction was quite small. He 

came to the set one day, then I saw him at the 

screening, and then I saw him at the premiere. 

You’ve tackled several films featuring real 

people, from John Callahan to Harvey Milk, and 

some loosely based on real people. What’s the 

biggest challenge in portraying real people? 

Harvey Milk was a well-known person, but 

he’s not as well known as some [film subjects], 

so we had a certain amount of leeway. The 

same with John Callahan. I still haven’t done, 

say, Churchill. To me, they’re the same dramatically. 

They’re all directly connected to the 

reality, whether or not we’re using real names. 

You played Dr. Campbell in The Canyons, among 

other roles. Why do you take on these parts? 

The Entourage one was [supposedly me], but 

I don’t think they knew me very well, so they 

just invented a character that was more like 

James Cameron. I’ve accepted roles generally 

to see if I could actually pull it off. They’ve 

always been very instructional as to how actors 

feel on my own set. If your costume isn’t ready, 

it interrupts the whole flow. So I do acting as 

an experiment. 

pre-Hispanic artifacts 

from the 

National Museum 

of Anthropology in 

Mexico City. Gael 

Garcia Bernal stars. 

UNSANE 

After breaking his hiatus 

from features with 

2017’s heist comedy 

Logan Lucky, Steven 

Soderbergh takes a more 

experimental turn with 

this claustrophobic psycho-thriller 

shot entirely 

on an iPhone. Claire 

Foy loses her crown 

as a woman convinced 

she’s being pursued 

by a stalker, even after 

she’s involuntarily 

committed to a mental 

institution. — DAVID ROONEY 

The Knives Come Out for 

a Festival Director 

WITH DIETER KOSSLICK’S CONTRACT RUNNING OUT AFTER 17 YEARS, INSIDERS 

ARE DEBATING HIS LEGACY AND SCRAMBLING TO FIND A SUCCESSOR 

Dieter Kosslick, 

with his black 

fedora and bright 

red scarf, has been the 

enduring symbol of the 

Berlin International 

Film Festival for the 17 

years he has served as 

festival director. 

But with his contract 

up in May 2019, he only 

has two festivals left — 

including the one that 

kicks off Feb. 15. And 

already a battle has 

erupted over his legacy 

and what comes next. 

In late November, 79 

directors — including 

art house stars Fatih 

Akin (In the Fade), Maren 

Ade (Toni Erdmann) 

and Oscar winner Volker 

Schlondorff (The Tin 

Drum) signed an open 

letter calling for a post- 

Kosslick transformation. 

When he steps down, 

the directors wrote, the 

Berlinale should “refresh 

and renew” the festival 

and think about its 

“fundamental direction.” 

Innocuous enough. 

But the letter, published 

by Spiegel magazine, 

has set off a wave of 

Dieter bashing. 

In November, 79 directors 

signed a letter calling for the 

Berlinale to change its focus. 

“The Berlinale has 

gotten bigger and bigger 

[under Kosslick], but 

its profile continues to 

diminish,” says German 

director Christoph 

Hochhausler, a signatory 

to the letter and, Kosslick 

has suggested, a driving 

force behind it. 

Kosslick dismisses his 

critics as “the same small 

group of people with 

the same old complaints: 

No American films or 

no European films, too 

big or too whatever.” 

But he admits that his 

Berlinale is less studioheavy. 

This year features 

a solitary studio title: 

Wes Anderson’s fest 

opener, Isle of Dogs, 

from Fox Searchlight. 

In his defense, 

Kosslick cites a poll 

of more than 1,000 

festivalgoers by German 

survey group the Forsa 

Institute, which found 

nearly all were “satisfied” 

with the Berlinale 

and more than half 

“very satisfied” or “overwhelmingly 

satisfied.” 

“They want more 

films, not fewer,” says 

Kosslick. “They live in an 

entirely different world 

than some critics live 

in. … If people want a 

different type of festival, 

a smaller festival with 

12 films to watch over a 

week, they can go somewhere 

else. The Berlinale 

isn’t a small, sweet little 

festival for five people.” 

Indeed, under 

Kosslick, Berlin’s oncetiny 

European Film 

Market has become the 

second largest film market 

in the world, after 

Cannes. The critics may 

complain, but the market 

remains robust, with 

no signs of companies 

pulling up stakes. — S.R. 


63 


Speaking of the sweep 

of his relationship with 

Sheen, Dykstra grasps 

for words. “It can be 

described as a tragedy, 

a meltdown, a calamity, 

a cataclysm,” he says. 

He was photographed 

Nov. 8 in New York City. 


64 


THE DOOMED 

HOLLYWOOD 

He’s a burnout 

major leaguer 

nicknamed ‘Nails’ 

and an ex-con 

hustler who made 

(and lost) 

millions, but 

none of th at could 

have prepared 

LENNY DYKSTRA for 

BROMANCE 

his friendship 

with wild man 

Charlie Sheen, 

who he alleges is 

a dangerous 

criminal about 

to be taken down 

by the Feds 

OF LENNY AND 

CHARLIE 

By GARY BAUM 

Photographed by 

WESLEY MANN 


65 


Lenny Dykstra, the ex-con and former major 

league center fielder, relishes his wild man 

reputation, and relishes running his mouth 

about it even more. With roughly Pete Rose’s 

chance of making it to Cooperstown, he’ll talk 

about gobbling Human Growth Hormone with 

his cereal during his playing days just as easily 

as he’ll open up about how, in his mid-50s, 

he’s developed a post-prison side gig as a silverhaired 

gigolo to Beverly Hills grandmothers. 

But over lunch in a corner booth at The Beverly 

Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge, it’s another wild man, 

more famous and even more hard living, once 

his best buddy but with whom he no longer 

speaks, who has him gabbing. Dykstra explains 

that he believes his onetime friend Charlie 

Sheen is on the verge of being prosecuted, in 

a roundabout way, for knowingly spreading 

his HIV — and that the actor is under federal 

investigation for tax and wire fraud. What’s 

more, Dykstra claims to know this because it 

was his own semi-accidental whistle-blowing 

to the government that got the Internal Revenue 

Service sniffing around in the first place. “I 

don’t know why Charlie doesn’t try to leave the 

country,” he says. 

Dykstra, 54, nicknamed “Nails” decades ago 

for his relentlessness on the field — parts of five 

seasons with the New York Mets and eight with 

the Philadelphia Phillies — isn’t done. He goes 

on to float that Sheen was involved in the sudden 

death of a member of his own inner circle 

and beat his pregnant ex-fiancee. The 52-yearold 

Sheen, says Dykstra, is not simply the 

drug-addled clown the tabloids have been feasting 

on for years but is truly dangerous. 

Dykstra is going public now with this new 

info about Sheen, he says, because he’s genuinely 

sickened by the worst of the actor’s 

behavior. “I am not a saint, but I will not tolerate 

a man beating a woman,” he says. Still, 

under questioning, another motive emerges. 

Dykstra was friendly with Sheen for more 

than two decades, eventually joining his core 

clique. Now he’s excommunicated. His allegations 

against Sheen are telling; his willingness 

to share them even more so. The doomed bromance 

of Lenny and Charlie is a glimpse into the 

hedonistic lure of a real-life Entourage, only sadder, 

more desperate and ultimately damned — a 

cautionary tale about Hollywood alpha-male 

bonding at its most decadent and damaging. 

The industry has always been a magnet for 

guys like Dykstra: confident outsider-hustlers 

who see opportunity in its chaos, imagining 

that their accomplishments in other fields 

mean they must have the wits, guts and guile 

to conquer the gilded mayhem. But with Sheen 

and his all-star team of professional handlers, 

Nails met his match. 

Like his ex-pal, Dykstra has a public reputation 

so sullied that Newsweek referred to him 

as a “scumbag” after he had a Twitter dustup 

with Lena Dunham. Yet Nails, who speaks 

with a lisp due to a jailhouse beating that left 

him with many missing teeth, is self-aware 

enough of his notoriety (and so eager to instill 

confidence in his tale) that he insists on providing 

the password to his personal email 

account for full disclosure. “Look at whatever 

you want,” he says. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” 

Press Dykstra about his rationalization for 

selling out his former friend, and he’ll tell you 

that Sheen took his wise counsel for granted, 

ignored it and left him with nothing to show 

for it. No surprise, Dykstra is hoping to drum 

up interest in a possible stand-alone Sheen 

documentary project as well as a multipart 

docuseries about his own over-the-top life — 

he envisions it in the sweeping, kaleidoscopic 

terms of O.J.: Made in America. “There are so 

1 

many people to interview, from prison guards 

to my [private plane] pilots to pussy,” he says. 

If Dykstra’s actions mean Sheen gets 

burned, so be it. “Charlie is getting what he 

deserves,” he says. Sheen declined to speak 

for this story. But Dykstra doesn’t appear at 

all conflicted about publicly crossing his 

ex-friend, even one who once warned him to 

“watch your front side, watch your backside, 

watch both sides.” Dykstra takes a swig of 

Irish coffee, settles into his booth and alludes 

to his time at the federal penitentiary in 

Victorville, California. “When you’ve been 

where I’ve been, I’m not afraid of anything.” 

T 

he bad-boy pair first hung out when 

Dykstra’s Phillies were in Los Angeles 

playing the Dodgers during the 1993 

season. Sheen — who dreamed of being 

a big leaguer as a kid and was then reprising 

his role as reliever Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn 

for Major League II — cold called him at the 

clubhouse with an invitation to his Malibu 

home. “I was a huge fan of Wall Street,” says 

Dykstra. “Turns out he’s a serious baseball guy: 

He has a cage lit up like a pro stadium. I told 

him, ‘Dude, you can hit!’ He could.” 

That first evening, Sheen uncorked a $3,000 

bottle of red wine (“I spilled half”) and then, 

once “hammered,” showed off what Dykstra 

describes as his “legitimate fucking gunnery” 

and suggested they fire off automatic 

weapons together. Dykstra passed, but the two 

became buddies. “He’s funny, he’s smart, 

he knows about everything,” says Dykstra. 

Dykstra, who last played in the majors 

in 1996, retired at age 33 to a notoriously 

checkered business career. He was involved 

in car-wash dealerships, quick-lube centers, 

jet charters and stock picking. By 2008, he 

was worth $58 million. The following year, he 

2 

had filed for Chapter 11 and was reportedly 

forced to sell his Mets 1986 World Series ring 

to help pay off more than $31 million in debt. 

His problems weren’t merely financial. 

Between 2009 and 2011, Dykstra was accused 

by a former employee of making racist and 

homophobic remarks, writing a bad check to an 

escort and sexually assaulting his housekeeper. 

He also was charged with indecent exposure, 

drug possession, grand theft auto, identity theft 

and filing false financial statements — and 

eventually sentenced to three years. 

Before going to prison, Dykstra reconnected 

with Sheen in February 2011 after having 

lost touch for some time. Fittingly, they ran 

into each other at the UCLA baseball field, as 

Dykstra helped his son Cutter, then a minor 

league player (and husband of Sopranos actress 

Jamie-Lynn Sigler), practice for the upcoming 

season. “Charlie came running up to me, 

DYKSTRA GROOMING BY LAURA COSTA AT ENNIS INC. SHEEN: GEORGE PIMENTEL/WIREIMAGE. HOUSE: 

SPLASH NEWS. COURTHOUSE: MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ/LA TIMES/GETTY IMAGES. METS: AP PHOTO. 


66 


hugging me, telling me how much he missed 

me,” explains Dykstra. “I could tell he was lit 

up but in good spirits.” 

Over just a few frenzied months that spring, 

before being taken into custody in June, 

Dykstra found himself operating as a Thomas 

Cromwell-style fixer in the erratic Beverly 

Hills court of King Charles. When the actor 

ended up in an embarrassing cash crunch 

while attempting to purchase film producer 

Mike Medavoy’s Mulholland Estate house 

for nearly $7 million, Dykstra claims to have 

secured a hard-money lender at the last minute. 

After Sheen went on Alex Jones’ Infowars 

radio show and disparaged his Two and a Half 

Men showrunner Chuck Lorre as “Chaim 

Levine,” Dykstra begged him to apologize. 

Sheen didn’t, and Warner Bros. Television fired 

him soon after. 

Despite his best intentions, Dykstra 

says most of his efforts to act as the star’s 

3 

unofficial manager were met with resistance. 

He says Sheen, despite his urging, snubbed 

a $2 million cameo on the Australian iteration 

of Big Brother and could not be persuaded 

to perform his infamous “Violent Torpedo 

of Truth/Defeat Is Not an Option” speaking 

spectacle as a Las Vegas residency. “He turns 

it down to go play a bunch of fucking rinkydink 

cities. It was crazy.” 

Dykstra also cooked up a series of licensing 

deals, including a vaping product called Nico- 

Sheen and a caffeinated liquor, Sheen Vodka, 

which were to be hawked on an umbrella web 

portal titled Planet Sheen. He says that Sheen’s 

personal manager at the time, Mark Burg, 

and former business manager, Barry Klarberg, 

kiboshed the whole thing. 

“Lenny was a friend of Charlie’s who tried to 

get more involved in his life, and I don’t think 

he ever wanted that,” explains Burg. Klarberg 

did not respond to requests for comment. 

In a March 21 email to Dykstra reviewed by 

THR, the actor pulled the plug on Planet 

Sheen: “The pressure I’m under from my business 

team to NOT pursue this with you, is 

tsunami-esque.” 

Dykstra’s tussles with Sheen’s circle continued 

after he returned from serving out 

his three-year stint. He asserts that Burg, 

Klarberg and Sheen’s then-attorney Marty 

Singer put the brakes on Dykstra’s most 

audacious gambit of all: a complex $85 million 

play to sell the note on what remained 

of the actor’s Warner Bros. financial package 

to solve Sheen’s cash crunch. He insists it 

was sabotaged late in the game when they 

realized what the document-review process 

might expose. Before he could bring anyone 

in on the details, “Marty put an NDA together 

that was so vicious, so stacked, that no one 

would sign it,” explains Dykstra, still fuming. 

1 Sheen and his ex-fiancee, porn star Scottine Rossi, 

in 2014. 2 The actor bought this estate from Medavoy 

in 2011. 3 Dykstra was arraigned June 6, 2011, at the 

San Fernando Courthouse on felony charges, including 

grand theft auto and possession of a controlled 

substance. 4 Dykstra played center field and hit leadoff 

for the world champion Mets. 

4 

“I finally get one [potential investor] to sign 

it and what do they send him? Dick. Nothing 

relevant.” 

Singer disputes the claim as “absurd and 

ridiculous. The NDAs were appropriate,” adding, 

“As far as I understand it, Lenny likely 

had an NDA, too, and I don’t believe he’s living 

up to it.” Dykstra responds that he doesn’t 

“give a shit” about breaking its terms “because 

I was saving Charlie’s fucking life.” 

All of this time, Sheen’s drug use was worsening. 

During the manically loquacious interview 

spree in early 2011 that bequeathed pop 

culture the catchphrase “Winning!” Dykstra 

claims the actor was high on OxyContin: 

“When [the pills] are at their peak, it’s a euphoria, 

where you’re smart and you’re creative 

and you’re quick and you’re invincible.” But by 

summer 2014, Sheen had locked himself in a 

crack den hidden in his mansion for nine days. 

Sheen warned 

Dykstra to 

“watch your 

front side, 

watch your 

backside, 

watch both 

sides.” 

“It was right out of a mystery spy thriller, with 

a sliding bookcase,” says Dykstra. “I walked 

in and Charlie was standing there with a glass 

dick — a crack pipe — in one hand and his 

phone in the other. I took one look around, 

there’s all this stuff, cool paintings and Babe 

Ruth’s ring, and I said, ‘Charlie, I have to 

admit, if you’re going to smoke crack, this has 

got to be the best crack den on the planet!’ That 

broke the ice.” 

By Dykstra’s account, Sheen soon confessed 

to him that he had HIV, which 

he believed he’d contracted from a transsexual 

partner, and that he was being extorted 

for millions over the secret. Dykstra urged 

the star to go public about his health, 

as Sheen’s parents, Martin and Janet, had 

already been urging. “I said, ‘You can’t live 

like this anymore — this isn’t even living.’ ” 

Dykstra contends that he was crushed 

by Sheen’s last-minute decision to pull out 

of a news conference he’d helped arrange 

that November for his friend to get out in 

front of the diagnosis — a full year before 

the National Enquirer would finally force 

the issue. It was to be held at Sheen’s parents’ 

house, with Hollywood publicist Larry 

Winokur brought in by Dykstra to orchestrate 

the crisis management. Winokur, 

whose casting-director wife had hired Sheen 

on Major League and Lucas, confirms Dykstra 

and Sheen reached out to him about the plan, 

noting the sincerity with which Dykstra 

approached the endeavor. “Lenny played team 

sports very successfully, and if you’re on 

Lenny’s team, I think he’d give you the shirt 

off his back,” he says. 

By the end of that year, Dykstra had come 

to believe Sheen was suicidal. Dykstra was 

reduced to attempting to rein in his buddy 

via desperate, all-caps-laden text messages. 

“Charlie, you are a fucking winner!” Dykstra 

typed during an exchange on the evening of 

Dec. 21. “Do not quit on me bro! I KNOW YOU 

ARE NOT A PUSSY!” Sheen replied, “I’m too 

tired bro going away now where no one can 


67 


hurt me ever again fuk tv fuk media fuk the 

public fuk cutting deals fuk getting rolled I 

own my truth forever adios senior….. x” 

D 

ykstra appears most solemn when 

discussing the summer 2012 death of 

Rick Calamaro, Sheen’s recently fired 

assistant, as well as the alleged violence 

perpetrated against Sheen’s ex-fiancee, 

Scottine “Brett” Rossi. 

L.A. native Calamaro — known for his years 

as the phone-glued-to-his-ear partner at 

A-list velvet rope clubs like Holly’s and Ivar — 

was discovered July 1 by his maid, lying face 

up in his bed beside a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, 

in his longtime Fairfax district apartment. 

The autopsy report listed “very high” levels of 

Fentanyl, the powerful opioid, and noted that 

Calamaro, 50, had suffered from depression 

and had been taking a mixture of prescription 

medication for pain and anxiety. “Based on 

the history and circumstances, as currently 

“ I have her in my car, 

driving to Cedars, flying 

down the 405, shaking 

her: ‘Don’t die on me!’” 

known,” the autopsy concluded, “the manner 

of death is accident.” 

Calamaro extended his gatekeeping instinct 

at times to Sheen’s social circle, eventually 

earning the enmity of Dykstra, who grew convinced 

that Calamaro was working on a tell-all. 

“Before I went [to jail], I said, ‘Dude, this guy, he 

is writing a fucking book, you got to fire him,’ ” 

recalls Dykstra (while freely admitting he 

himself later served as an unnamed source for 

the Enquirer). 

After he got out of jail, says Dykstra, he asked 

Sheen, “What the fuck happened to Calamaro?” 

who had overdosed while Dykstra was in 

prison. “He said, ‘You mean Dead Rick? What 

fucking happened is the motherfucker tried 

to blackmail me just like you said — wanted 

$5 million. I had him fucking iced.’ He said he 

had a hot dose put in there,” using slang for a 

lethal intravenous injection prepared for an 

unsuspecting victim. (Dykstra again offers no 

proof his recollection is accurate, and Sheen’s 

current lawyer, Shane Bernard, issued a denial 

of the allegations, noting Dykstra’s “laundry 

list of crimes” and asserting that his “disturbing, 

vile and outright ridiculous claims” are 

unreliable.) 

Sheen’s close friend, Tony Todd, who lived 

with the actor during this period and has 

known him since the two attended Santa 

Monica High School, laughingly scoffs at the 

charge, adding that even if Sheen were to 

have done such a thing, “Charlie’s not going 

to tell it to Lenny Dykstra!” 

Rossi says that while she is unaware of such 

an admission pertaining to Calamaro specifically, 

it’s certainly possible given her own 

history with the actor, which she outlined 

in a 2015 lawsuit. According to her filing, 

Sheen said “he wanted to murder people that 

he was angry with.” The suit also refers to 

a “hit” Sheen allegedly took out on Rossi’s 

ex-husband. The following year, she obtained 

a restraining order against Sheen after the 

LAPD began investigating an alleged recording 

in which he threatened to pay someone 

$20,000 to “kick her head in.” 

Since Sheen himself won’t comment, the 

likelihood of another scenario — that the star, 

while high, simply made a distasteful joke 

about having Calamaro killed — is unclear. 

Dykstra has a complicated relationship with 

Rossi, a porn star who says she met Sheen on 

a $10,000 escort date. Early on, as a favor to 

Sheen, Dykstra hired “an Armenian buddy to 

follow [Rossi] for a few days” to confirm she 

wasn’t cheating on him. (Dykstra says he used 

to hire private eyes to dig up dirt on umpires, 

noting “it wasn’t a coincidence” that he led the 

league in walks in 1993.) Dykstra eventually 

became Rossi’s confidant, and she divulged 

details of Sheen’s sexual kinks. Rossi tells THR: 

“He would look at transsexual porn when he 

was high and [ask her], ‘Which one is hot?’ ” 

Dykstra claims to have seen further proof of 

Sheen’s lifestyle. He says that attorney Keith 

Davidson, recently in the news for orchestrating 

porn actress Stormy Daniels’ alleged $130,000 

payment to stay quiet about a 2006 affair with 

President Trump, showed him a copy of the 

tape that media outlets have reported was circulating 

in which Sheen participated in gay 

sex. (Over email, Davidson asserts, “This just 

never happened.”) 

Rossi confirms that once Sheen kicked 

her out, it was Dykstra who helped her free up 

money by selling off her pricey gifted watch 

collection to underground buyers and listened 

Dykstra, who last played in the majors in 1986, once served three years for indecent exposure, grand theft auto and filing false financial statements. 


68 


as she told stories of domestic abuse by Sheen, 

including battery, false imprisonment and 

that he knowingly exposed her to HIV (all of 

which she alleged in a December 2013 lawsuit). 

Rossi told Dykstra and confirmed to THR 

that Sheen, concerned over how his crack use 

would affect the fetus, pressured her to get 

an abortion. “Right now,” says Rossi, “I would 

have a 3-year-old running around.” 

Dykstra shakes his head in repudiation. He 

is bothered less by the possibility of Sheen’s 

involvement in Calamaro’s death than what 

allegedly happened to Rossi. “Killing the guy 

that fucking tried to extort him: That’s his 

business,” he says. But what Rossi alleges happened 

to her is too much for him. “Men, they 

get in rages. But no pummeling.” 

Dykstra’s evident frustration with how things 

always seemed to go for him when it came 

to Sheen — sideways, to his mind, with him 

playing the good guy but getting no recognition 

to show for it — reaches a crescendo as he 

recalls another grim episode involving Rossi 

in November 2014. As he has it, she dialed him 

in tears, having overdosed on Valium in her 

Encino home, which she’d moved into after her 

breakup with Sheen. 

“Scottine says, ‘I’m dying.’ I say, ‘There’s a 

number for that: 9-1-1.’ ‘No, Charlie won’t like 

that.’ I go over there, she says she needs to go 

to the bathroom. It hits me. I run in and she’s 

swallowing a handful of pills. I tackle her 

and they go all over, but she gets a lot down.” 

Dykstra is an often-demonstrative raconteur, 

acting out the maneuver. “It was out of Pulp 

Fiction. Soon I have her in my car, driving to 

Cedars, flying down the 405, shaking her: 

‘Don’t fucking die on me, bitch!’ ” He pauses, 

shakes his head. “I was on probation, dude!” 

He’s still irritated that “no one knows I 

saved her life.” Worse, he adds, getting worked 

up, Rossi never acknowledged his heroism. 

“The amount of times she thanked me is zero. 

Can you believe it?” 

Rossi confirms the pill incident but says 

that Dykstra — whose ditching of her at the 

hospital was so abrupt, she was forced to submit 

to a rape kit (“That’s what happens when 

some guy just drops you off and goes, ‘Bye!’ ”) 

— should be gallant enough not to ask to be 

recognized as her “knight in shining armor.” 

She laughs. “He’s still talking about that?” 

D 

ykstra began to lose favor in the court of 

King Charles — all of those gone-nowhere 

deals, all of that advice not taken. And 

what he considered his one, momentarily 

satisfying victory was, in hindsight, the thing 

he’s sure will be Sheen’s ultimate demise. 

Dykstra long suspected that another mansion 

nemesis, Sheen’s head of security, was 

ripping off the boss — charging personal 

expenses, including getaways and real estate 

taxes, back to Sheen. And he believes he has 

the AmEx bills (shared with THR) to back it up. 

The military veteran insists zero embezzlement 

took place and that any and all charges 

“were made with Charlie’s permission.” 

In any case, it wasn’t any purported theft 

that led to the employee’s firing. “What did it 

is that Charlie went to check his guns,” recalls 

Dykstra. “He calls me drunk, freaking out: 

‘He took the fucking pins outta my guns! He 

put my family in danger!’ He went the most 

nuclear I’ve ever seen him.” Dykstra laughs, 

observing that in spite of his feelings about 

the security chief, “I would’ve taken those pins 

out too, the way Charlie was [behaving].” 

Still, Dykstra worried that the terminated 

employee would seek retribution and sought 

to neutralize him. Given Dykstra’s probationary 

status, he figured his best bet would 

be to pass on documents that he believed 

incriminated the man to the IRS. On Oct. 8, 

Dykstra got an email from an IRS agent, asking 

for a follow-up call. But the investigator 

wasn’t interested in talking more about the 

security chief. He had turned his attention 

to Sheen. “[The IRS agent] says, ‘What do you 

know about these $20,000 cash payments 

for “women of the night”?’ That’s when I 

knew they’re going to come at him with tax 

fraud, wire fraud — everything.” (The IRS 

will not comment on particular tax cases.) 

Dykstra knows from experience what it’s like 

when the government, patient and powerful, 

zeroes in on you. “It was a felony if you didn’t 

tell a woman you have HIV when you know 

it. Nothing has happened to him since all of 

those women went public. Think about it,” he 

says, proffering his own legal analysis. “This 

is how he is going to go down.” 

Dykstra and Sheen haven’t spoken since 

Dec. 21, 2014 — a final two-hour call 

initiated by the actor, whom Dykstra characterizes 

as downbeat. “He kept on saying 

how sorry he was,” he recalls. “Charlie said, 

‘Everything you told me was right, they all lied 

to me.’ ” 

Dykstra believes that although they reconciled 

during the conversation, Sheen couldn’t 

bring himself to ever hang out with his old 

buddy again, since during a heated argument 

weeks earlier, Dykstra had revealed he had 

seen Sheen’s allegedly compromising sex tapes. 

“He couldn’t face me. He knows what I saw. 

He’s humiliated.” 

Yet livid texts sent by Sheen to Dykstra 

on Sept. 9 and obtained by THR from another 

source point to betrayal, not shame, as the 

actor’s reason for cutting off his friend. Sheen 

discovered that Dykstra planned to pocket 

5 percent of that Warner Bros. payout deal — a 

cut the star felt had been arranged behind his 

back. Sheen typed: “bro – I repeatedly asked 

you, (and DO NOT CHALLENGE MY MEMORY) 

‘Hey Len, what’s in this for you?’ and you 

always said; QUOTE: ‘Oh hey man, we’ll figure 

out something fair later on …’ well now I have 

to re invent what later on means between us. 

Newsflash GasLighter; You FUCKING KNEW 

FROM JUMP STREET WHAT IT WAS … you 

came in here to clean house and also clean my 

HARD EARNED CLOCK!” 

More than anything, Dykstra wants to present 

himself as the ultimate cleanup hitter, an 

unsung hero (OK, antihero) who in selfless 

service of a buddy went up against Hollywood’s 

most sordid retinue. He can’t countenance 

the prospect that he might not have been trustworthy, 

that maybe he was just out to extract 

his piece like all the rest of them. 

Or perhaps his initial motive for joining 

Sheen’s team truly was as simple as friendship. 

This just wasn’t his sport. 

Following that final call on Dec. 21, 2014, 

Dykstra texted Sheen once more. “It makes 

me feel so good that you know ‘I AM WHO 

I AM’ and the fact that you know I am your 

REAL FRIEND!” And continued, “FYI — I 

deleted everything on this phone and nobody 

knows we spoke tonight.” 

His signoff: “NAILS OUT!” 


69 


ANIMATED FEATURE 

‘Simplistic but 

Complicated’ 

These nominated animated films introduced audiences to five 

female characters who could tame a bull, protect their families 

and handle a bossy, suit-wearing infant By Carolyn Giardina 

The five nominees for animated feature have a slew of memorable characters, and, it 

turns out, many are female. They range from a brave 11-year-old girl living under 

Taliban rule in Afghanistan to an intimidating Mexican great-great-grandmother and 

a bossy therapy goat. When it came to creating this band of colorful characters, the 

filmmakers had to decide how they would look (including expressive eyes and lovable underbites), 

dress (such as a buttoned-up mom and a matriarch with an affinity for Victorian-era clothing) 

and sound (thanks to voice cameos by an Oscar-nominated actress and a Saturday Night Live comedy 

queen). Creators reveal how they built these characters from the blank page up. 

I 

’m here to calm you now so you 

can maim and gore things later,” 

Lupe the Calming Goat tells the bull 

Ferdinand when they meet in Fox/ 

Blue Sky’s Ferdinand, an animated 

tale about a pacifist bull who’d 

rather smell the flowers 

than fight in the ring. 

Director Carlos 

Saldanha says the 

Saldanha 

quirky goat started out 

as a male character, but 

the filmmakers changed direction 

to create a strong female character 

who could stand up to the bulls. 

(They kept the big eyes, underbite 

and exposed teeth.) “We didn’t 

want a ‘princess’ goat,” he says. 

“We wanted her to be sharp, edgy 

and confident. We gave her an inyour-face, 

explosive personality.” 

Saturday Night Live’s Kate 

McKinnon was cast to voice the 

character because she “could 

be strong, funny and warm at the 

same time. I met with her, and I felt 

she was a perfect match.” 

In the film, Ferdinand is sweet and 

earnest, but based on his size, he’s 

considered a fighter. Ferdinand’s and 

Lupe’s storylines tie into the film’s 

“don’t judge a book by its cover” 

theme. Says Saldanha: “Lupe’s a goat 

that people don’t care about; she’s a 

companion to a bull, but she wanted 

more. She needed to be the opposite 

of a calming goat.” 

Ferdinand 

The Boss 

Baby 

A 

s in many real-life households, 

the mother of Boss Baby 

(the suit-wearing infant voiced by 

Alec Baldwin) is the foundation 

of her family and as such “has her 

head on straight. She’s soft and 

sweet but also firm and authoritative,” 

says director Tom McGrath, 

who adds that for this character, he 

“wanted to do something 

very stylized and 

be more cartoony” 

to fit the film’s style 

McGrath 

yet give her enough 

range so that the 

animators could create an emotive 

performance. “Simplistic but complicated,” 

he says. 

Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s 

The Boss Baby is a period film that 

merges aspects of the ’60s, ’70s 

and ’80s, but McGrath didn’t want 

to overdo trendy clothing. “We kept 

her in pants and with her hair up 

because she’s a working parent,” 

he notes. “When we were designing 

the family, we also created a sort 

of ‘Sears portrait’ to see how the 

[characters] play off of each other.” 

Lisa Kudrow completed the 

picture by voicing the character. 

“The goal was to be charming, 

not ruthless. We wanted her voice 

to feel real,” McGrath says, adding 

that sometimes the actress would 

improv the lines: “She has great 

comedic timing and can play the 

serious bits just as well.” 

Loving 

Vincent 

FERDINAND: COURTESY OF BLUE SKY STUDIOS. BOSS: COURTESY OF DREAMWORKS ANIMATION. BREADWINNER: COURTESY OF GKIDS (2). VINCENT: COURTESY OF GOOD DEED ENTERTAINMENT. COCO: DISNEY/PIXAR. SALDANHA: STUART C. 

WILSON/GETTY IMAGES. MCGRATH: FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES. WELCHMAN: JEFF SPICER/GETTY IMAGES FOR BFI. TWOMEY: JON KOPALOFF/FILMMAGIC. UNKRICH: MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES FOR MOET & CHANDON. 


70 


The 

Breadwinner 

1 

I 

n creating Parvana, an 11-year-old girl 

growing up under the Taliban regime in 

Afghanistan who disguises herself as a boy so 

she can work to support her family, Ireland’s 

Cartoon Saloon and director Nora Twomey 

wanted to work “from the eyes out, with very 

few lines,” says Twomey. “The fewer lines with 

a hand-drawn character, the more you can 

identify with the character because she’s less 

specific and more universal.” 

Indeed, in the GKIDS feature The 

Breadwinner, Parvana’s eyes reveal much of 

her emotion. For instance, when Parvana 

goes to the market with her father, it can be a 

1 Parvana in disguise. 

2 Parvana with her father, Nurullah, voiced by Ali Badshah. 

frightening experience for a girl. She stands 

out with her long hair and bright scarf, but her 

body language shows that she doesn’t want to 

be seen — her shoulders are drawn in to take 

up a small space, and she keeps 

her eyes down. When she returns, 

dressed as a boy, she blends in, 

and with her body language she 

Twomey 

takes up more space. 

“There’s a warmth and 

earthiness to her personality,” says Twomey 

of Parvana, who is voiced by Saara Chaudry. 

“She has flaws, she has humor — she’s fully 

rounded. We wanted a character that was 

relatable, even when she does something 

incredibly brave.” 

2 

Coco 

T 

o examine the life of Dutch 

post-impressionist painter 

Vincent van Gogh, writer-directors 

Hugh Welchman and Dorota 

Kobiela developed a story that 

follows fictional character Armand 

Roulin (Douglas Booth) on a journey 

to van Gogh’s final destination, 

the quiet village of Auvers-sur- 

Oise just outside Paris, where 

Roulin hears conflicting stories 

about the artist’s life. 

Saoirse Ronan (nominated for 

a best actress Oscar for Lady 

Bird) plays Marguerite Gachet, 

the daughter of van Gogh’s 

physician and the subject of 

his works Marguerite Gachet at 

the Piano and Marguerite Gachet 

in the Garden. “We wanted her 

to look like the paintings,” says 

Welchman, though they gave 

Marguerite the face 

of Ronan, who is 

about the same age 

(23) as Gachet was. 

Welchman 

The drama, produced 

by Poland’s 

BreakThru Films and the U.K.’s 

Trademark Films, was made using 

a frame-by-frame animation 

technique (like stop-motion) with 

roughly 65,000 oil paintings on 

canvas. The filmmakers started by 

shooting the performances of 

the actors, including Ronan, on a 

greenscreen at 12 fps, edited as 

if it were a live-action film and then 

broke it up into images that were 

painted in van Gogh’s style. 

As to Marguerite’s role in the 

story, Welchman says: “There 

was speculation that something 

was going on between [her and 

van Gogh]. We used that speculation 

as part of the dramatic 

development of the story. She’s an 

enigma to us.” 

I 

n Pixar’s Coco, Mama Imelda 

is the matriarch of young 

Miguel’s family in Mexico. As such, 

“she had to be a character that you 

could believably see the rest of the 

family cowering at her feet,” says 

director Lee Unkrich. “We needed 

somebody with a real sense of gravitas 

so you would buy that she has 

such sway over the family.” 

She was designed to look similar 

to Maria Felix and other formidable 

Mexican actresses from the ’30s 

and ’40s. “We have the 

white shock in her hair. 

We wanted her dress to 

be corseted so that she 

Unkrich 

feels tightly wound,” 

Unkrich says. “We gave 

her big shoulder pads so that she 

would be physically formidable and 

also have a sense of history.” 

The team behind the film, 

which is based on the Dia de los 

Muertos (Day of the Dead) tradition, 

also centered Mama’s look 

on a Victorian aesthetic, using the 

works of Mexican engraver Jose 

Guadalupe Posada, including his 

famous La Catrina, which featured a 

skeleton woman in period garb. 

Alanna Ubach (Girlfriends’ Guide 

to Divorce) was cast to voice 

Mama. “There’s such a richness to 

the sound of Alanna’s voice,” adds 

Unkrich. When she was cast, the 

director didn’t know the part would 

require singing, but, luckily, “it 

turns out she’s a great singer.” 


71 


‘I NEVER IMAGINED I 

COULD BE KOBE BRYANT’ 

Two men in transition — a 38-year Disney animator who’d worked on The Little Mermaid and 

Beauty and the Beast and an NBA great — found common ground and a shared new purpose 

with animated short nominee Dear Basketball By Glen Keane, as told to Mia Galuppo 

Ihad left Disney after nearly 

40 years there, and since 

then I had been focusing on 

personal, expressive films. 

Kobe had seen this film I did for 

Google, Duet, and he contacted one 

of the executive producers, and she 

set up a meeting. He came in to 

our tiny studio in West Hollywood, 

which is just in a duplex, and it 

was so surreal. He drives up in a 

big black Suburban, and he is just 

in our neighborhood. Kobe Bryant! 

Kobe loves animation; he is an 

animation geek. So he walked 

in and was standing in our little 

dining room — but it is actually 

our story room — and he looked 

around at the drawings 

and storyboards 

and little things 

on the wall, and I’m 

Keane thinking, “Oh boy, 

here it comes.” And 

he says, “This is perfect. This 

is what I want.” We crowded into 

my little office in the back and 

connected over things we had in 

common. For me, it was leaving 

a career at Disney, which was so 

much a part of me, and for Kobe it 

was leaving behind the Lakers. 

We talked about doing something 

together but didn’t know 

exactly what it would be. Before 

Kobe retired, he wrote this 

letter, “Dear Basketball,” and he 

called me and asked me if I 

would be interested in animating 

it. He goes, “I have my friend John 

Williams who is going to do the 

music.” And I go, “Oh, that would 

be really wonderful.” 

Right after his last game [in 

2016], where he scored 60 points 

and my son and I were in our little 

studio screaming our heads off, 

he texted and said, “Let’s do this.” 

I told Kobe, “You’ve got the worst 

basketball player on earth animating 

you.” He said that it was 

OK because everything I would 

learn about basketball was going 

to come through studying him. So 

Kobe came over, and we downloaded 

YouTube’s “Top 20 Kobe 

Bryant Plays” and stop-framed 

through every one while Kobe 

talked about what was happening 

on the court. My mentor — one 

of Disney’s Nine Old Men — Ollie 

Johnston told me, “Glen, don’t 

animate what the character is 

doing — animate what the character 

is thinking.” So we talked 

Toon Contenders 

GARDEN PARTY 

A gang of frogs 

at a luxurious 

villa uncover the 

human owner’s 

whereabouts. 

NEGATIVE SPACE 

An often-away 

father bonds 

with his son by 

teaching him 

how to pack. 

LOU 

In this Pixar short, 

a creature made 

of lost-and-found 

items attempts 

to mentor a bully. 

REVOLTING RHYMES 

Roald Dahl’s 

darker take on 

Snow White, Red 

Riding Hood and 

more fairy tales. 

about what was going on on the 

inside. Kobe has an incredible 

emotional memory of how he was 

feeling during the plays. Any time 

you are animating, you are living 

in the skin of your character. 

For me, I’ve been a mermaid 

and a beast, but I never imagined 

I could be Kobe Bryant. 

DEAR: COURTESY OF GUNPOWDER & SKY. KEANE: THEO WARGO/GETTY IMAGES FOR TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL. GARDEN: COURTESY OF MOPA. LOU: DISNEY/PIXAR. NEGATIVE: COURTESY OF IKKI FILMS & 

MANUEL CAM STUDIO. RHYMES: COURTESY OF GKIDS. DEKALB: COURTESY OF REED VAN DYK. ELEVEN: COURTESY OF FINCH COMPANY. NEPHEW: COURTESY OF JOE ZAKKO. HOUSTON: AP PHOTO/GEORGE 

BRICH. ERLAND: VALERIE MACON/GETTY IMAGES. LORD: PIERRE VINET/NEW LINE CINEMA/PHOTOFEST. LETTERI: DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES FOR SCAD. SILENT, WATU: COURTESY OF LONDON FLAIR PR. 

Real-Life 

Action 

Several of this 

year’s live-action 

short nominees 

were inspired by true 

events, while others 

tackle complicated 

relationships 

By Rebecca Ford 

DEKALB ELEMENTARY 

Inspired by a real 911 call during a school shooting 

in Atlanta, the film follows a man who enters an 

elementary school with a semiautomatic rifle. 

THE ELEVEN O’CLOCK 

This Australian short is set during a session 

between a psychiatrist and a patient (who is 

convinced he is the doctor). 

MY NEPHEW EMMETT 

A 64-year-old African-American man tries to 

protect his 14-year-old nephew, Emmett Till, from 

two white men who invade his home. 


72 


Academy 

Sci-Tech 

Awards 

Feb. 10 

Beverly 

Wilshire Hotel 

A VFX MASTER ISSUES A WARNING 

Jonathan Erland, this year’s recipient of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, worries that 

the overuse of visual effects doesn’t always serve storytellers By Carolyn Giardina 

C 

inema is going through massive 

changes,” acknowledges visual 

effects technologist Jonathan Erland, who 

will receive the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, 

an Oscar statuette, at the Academy’s 

Scientific and Technical Awards on Feb. 10 

at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. “But then, 

100 years ago things were technically in a 

state of chaos, and it’s interesting that 

100 years later they are in a state of chaos.” 

The innovator himself personally 

has witnessed many of those changes. The 

U.K.-born Erland, 78, initially trained as an 

actor — he appeared in the 1965 pilot for 

TV’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. — but soon 

transferred into effects work. He was part of 

the team that created the Charles Eamesdesigned 

audio animatronic puppet theaters 

for the I.B.M. Pavilion at the 1964 New York 

World’s Fair, and he also worked as a miniatures 

model-builder during production of 

1977’s Star Wars. 

In addition to serving on the Academy’s 

board of governors, he was a founding 

member of the Academy Science and 

Technology Council and has been honored 

with two previous Sci-Tech awards. 

Erland welcomes the newest technologies, 

citing developing laser projectors that 

enable high-dynamic-range imagery as 

well as the potential for variable frame rates 

that give the cinematographer a broader 

range of creative tools. But 

he also issues a warning — 

today’s movies use too many 

razzle-dazzle visual effects 

Erland 

too indiscriminately. “The 

VFX world, which is capable 

of some quite extraordinary accomplishments 

in terms of putting images on the 

screen, is suffering somewhat from what 

I would call the commodification of VFX,” he 

says. “So you see films with a lot of VFX in 

which the VFX are not necessarily advancing 

the storytelling. That’s a shame. It’s 

more effective when a very powerful art 

form like VFX is being used to enhance the 

storytelling process.” 

Fresh off Star 

Wars in 1977, 

Erland (center) 

and fellow 

model makers 

Paul Houston 

(left) and 

Lorne Peterson 

created 

spaceships for 

TV’s Space 

Academy. 

HOW DINOSAURS LED 

TO CREATING GOLLUM 

The wizardly Joe Letteri, busy with all those 

Avatar sequels, will be honored with the 

Visual Effects Society’s George Melies Award 

King Kong. The Lord of the Rings’ Gollum. Avatar’s 

Neytiri. The Planet of the Apes’ Caesar. These are just 

some of the iconic digitally created characters that have 

been brought to the screen with the help of Joe Letteri, 

four-time Oscar winner, Weta Digital’s senior VFX supervisor 

and 2018’s recipient of the Visual Effects Society’s 

Georges Melies Award. 

In fact, it was the opportunity to play a role in creating 

the tragic Gollum that brought Letteri, 60, to Peter 

Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. He had worked as a CG 

artist on 1993’s Jurassic Park, where, he explains, “I became 

interested in what made something like a dinosaur look 

realistic — some of that was the detail that you see in the 

dinosaur skin. I also started learning about cinematography 

and lighting.” Seeing those creatures come alive onscreen, 

he realized the next step was to use similar techniques 

to create a character, and “Gollum was the 

perfect opportunity to do that.” 

While Gollum started with Andy Serkis’ 

performance capture, the challenge for Letteri 

was “creating a facial performance that would 

believably convey human expressions. I had 

never had to work with a character that was so 

humanlike, delivering a compelling performance 

onscreen right next to other actors.” 

His work on Avatar took it all one step further, 

since performance capture was combined 

with virtual production while the actors were 

effectively working with digital sets, allowing 

director James Cameron to shoot as if he were 

filming a live-action movie. On the upcoming 

Avatar sequels, the process has become “more 

integrated than anything we have been able 

to do in the past and is a much more realistic 

representation of being in that world,” says 

Letteri. “That’s great for the actors, great for the director, 

and it’s great for us because we know what the film is 

that we’re trying to make.” 

Having set the bar more than once, Letteri admits that 

it now keeps getting raised higher. “If you could do one 

Gollum, you must be able to do a whole planet full,” he 

notes. “Figure out how to do something new, and it quickly 

expands into having to do lots of them. That’s still hard to 

do; it’s still a very artist-dependent medium.” — C.G. 

16th Visual 

Effects 

Society 

Awards 

Feb. 13 

The Beverly 

Hilton 

Lifetime 

Achievement 

Award 

Jon Favreau 

THE SILENT CHILD 

A deaf 4-year-old, isolated from the world 

and her hearing family, is taught sign language 

by a caring social worker. 

WATU WOTE: ALL OF US 

The Kenya-set tale follows bus passengers who 

are attacked by a terrorist group demanding the 

Muslim passengers identify the Christian onboard. 

Letteri 


73 


Film 

Black Panther 

Ryan Coogler’s Marvel Comics entry 

dazzles with smartly staged action, magnetic 

performances, genuine suspense and 

a bracing sense of novelty By Todd McCarthy 

With uncanny timing, Marvel has taken its 

superheroes into a domain they’ve never inhabited 

before — and is all the better for it. 

There’s no mistaking you’re still in the 

Marvel universe here, but Black Panther sweeps 

you off to a part of it you’ve never seen: a 

hidden lost world in Africa defined by royal 

traditions and technological wonders that 

open up refreshing dramatic, visual and casting 

possibilities. Getting it right where other 

studios and franchises — they know who they 

are — get it wrong, Marvel and Disney have 

another commercial leviathan, although it’ll be 

interesting to see how it plays in certain overseas 

markets where industry traditionalists say 

black-dominated fare underperforms. 

Producer Kevin Feige and the Marvel brain 

trust introduced Black Panther into their 

superhero mix in 2016’s Civil War: Captain 

America with the intention of spinning yet 

another franchise around him. This seems 

like a natural idea now, but in July 1966, when 

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby birthed the character 

in Fantastic Four No. 52, he was the first black 

superhero to appear in American comics. 

Although director/co-writer Ryan Coogler 

(Fruitvale Station, Creed) sets his framing 

action in Oakland, California, the film’s 

heart lies in Africa. In one of the tale’s 

beguiling inventions, the land of Wakanda 

keeps the world away by posing as one of 

the planet’s poorest countries and restricting 

visitors. In fact, it possesses advanced 

technology and has a gleaming metropolis 

that coexists with natural wonders on 

par with anything in the world. What makes 

this possible is a mined substance called 

OPENS Friday, Feb. 16 (Disney) 

CAST Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, 

Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright 

DIRECTOR Ryan Coogler 

Rated PG-13, 135 minutes 

vibranium, a source of power akin to nuclear 

that Wakanda keeps to itself. 

The novelties of the society are fun to behold, 

the streets full of life, the inhabitants happy. 

But this enlightened land remains a monarchy, 

and, with his father’s death, T’Challa (Chadwick 

Boseman) becomes king in a spectacular 

coronation ceremony. There to support him are 

his mother, Ramonda (Angela Bassett); sister 

Shuri (Letitia Wright), a scientist who’s next 

in line for the throne; chief counsel W’Kabi 

(Daniel Kaluuya), head of security for a tough 

border tribe; mentor Zuri (Forest Whitaker), 

the king’s spiritual leader; and the Dora Milaje, 

an independent-minded security force comprising 

shaven-headed women, notably its best 

fighter Okoye (Danai Gurira) and rebellious 

Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o). 

Then there’s M’Baku (Winston Duke), who 

is opposed to T’Challa’s technological beliefs 

and challenges him to a mano-a-mano slugfest

PANTHER: COURTESY OF MARVEL STUDIOS. JOHNSON: JB LACROIX/WIREIMAGE. NANJIANI:TAYLOR HILL/GETTY 

IMAGES. DESCHANEL: AXELLE/BAUER-GRIFFIN/GETTY IMAGES. FALLON: NOAM GALAI/WIREIMAGE. 

Boseman’s 

Black Panther 

defends 

Wakanda from 

adversaries 

seeking its 

most precious 

natural 

resource. 

that takes place in a lagoon located between 

towering brown rocks and a cliff you don’t want 

to fall off. 

Does this sound like your everyday Marvel 

film so far? 

It certainly doesn’t look like one. Along 

with the color of nearly everyone’s skin, there 

are vistas, costumes and settings that keep 

the images popping off the screen, even though 

this Marvel offering is not in 3D. 

Black Panther also sets itself apart via an 

ideological divide between two camps within 

the Wakandan leadership. The royals and 

traditionalists, including T’Challa, insist that 

vibranium must remain exclusively in their 

own possession, as it’s been the secret of their 

success since time immemorial. A minority 

believes that this extraordinary substance 

should be shared with the world, or at least 

with their struggling African neighbors, in 

the interest of the common good. It’s a potent 

political dispute that will presumably continue 

to inform the series in further episodes. 

In the meantime, a deliciously nasty bad 

guy, a white South African gangster named 

Klaw (Andy Serkis, in a role he introduced three 

years ago in Avengers: Age of Ultron), is keen to 

get his hands on some vibranium himself. That 

leads the story to South Korea for a prolonged 

sequence heavy on chases and tough-guy action 

but rather more conventional than the rest of 

the film. 

But the most challenging threat to 

Wakandian stability comes from another mercenary, 

an imposing African named Erik 

Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan). Convinced 

that vibranium should be available to all people 

(and that he should profit by dispensing it), 

this intimidating wannabe usurper challenges 

the king to a duel in the watery arena — one for 

which he cannot wear his Black Panther armor. 

Much intense drama and action follow; 

there’s a real and sustained sense of jeopardy 

for the kingdom, and the fighting significantly 

involves the female warriors, who are 

very cool indeed. Just as he staged the boxing 

in Creed with intensity and invention, Coogler 

handles the more extensive physical faceoffs 

here with freshness and brio, building to 

a tensely stirring climax. For such an actionpacked 

modern film, it’s surprising how little 

blood figures into this combat epic. A brief 

return to Oakland at the end brings things 

full circle, while the usual Marvel post-credits 

teaser reminds us that its next offering will 

be Avengers: Infinity War (coming May 4), in 

which T’Challa/Black Panther also appears. 

The actors are all seen to very good advantage. 

Boseman certainly holds his own, but 

there are quite a few charismatic supporting 

players here eager to steal every scene they can 

— and they do, notably the physically imposing 

Jordan, the radiant Nyong’o and especially 

Wright, who gives each of her scenes extra 

punch and humor. 


75 

THR’S SOCIAL CLIMBERS 

A ranking of the week’s top actors, comedians 

and personalities based on social media engagement 

across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and more 

This 

Week 

Last 

Week 

Actors 

1 ↑ I 2 I Dwayne Johnson 

A week after Millie Bobby 

Brown ended Johnson’s 

nine-week run at No. 1, he 

regains the top spot with 

the week’s most liked 

Instagram post by an actor: 

A Jan. 28 video of him 

playing “The Entertainer” 

on a floor piano with his feet 

got 3 million favorites. 

2 ↑ I 4 I Kevin Hart 

3 ↑ I 8 I Deepika Padukone 

4 ↓ I 1 I Millie Bobby Brown 

5 ↑ I 7 I Will Smith 

6 ↓ I 3 I Dove Cameron 

7 ↓ I 6 I Jennifer Lopez 

8 ↓ I 5 I Priyanka Chopra 

9 ↑ I 11 I Gal Gadot 

10 ↓ I 9 I Noah Schnapp 

11 ↑ I 13 I Finn Wolfhard 

12 ↑ I 16 I Zendaya 

13 ↑ I - I Chris Hemsworth 

14 ↑ I - I Tom Holland 

15 ↓ I 12 I Hugh Jackman 

16 ↑ I 18 I Cara Delevingne 

17 ↑ I 25 I Zooey Deschanel 

Deschanel follows her 

chart debut (No. 25, Jan. 31) 

by jumping to No. 17 with a 

654 percent boost in 

Facebook shares (mostly 

reshares of videos, photos 

and memes she had already 

posted). She added 413,000 

Instagram favorites after 

showing off her new haircut. 

18 ↑ I - I Bella Thorne 

19 ↑ I - I Reese Witherspoon 

20 ↑ I - I Vanessa Hudgens 

21 ↓ I 19 I Ansel Elgort 

22 ↑ I 23 I Lily Collins 

23 ↓ I 10 I Jack Dylan Grazer 

24 ↑ I - I Shay Mitchell 

25 ↑ I - I Hailee Steinfeld 

FEBRUARY 7, 2018 

This 

Week 

This 

Week 

Last 

Week 

10 ↓ I 7 I Bill Maher 

Last 

Week 

Comedians 

1 ←→ I 1 I Kevin Hart 

2 ←→ I 2 I D.L. Hughley 

3 ←→ I 3 I Joe Rogan 

4 ↑ I 6 I Colleen Ballinger 

5 ↑ I - I Adam Sandler 

6 ↑ I - I Martin Lawrence 

7 ↓ I 4 I Marlon Wayans 

8 ↓ I 5 I Mike Epps 

9 ↑ I - I Kumail Nanjiani 

Nanjiani’s Jan. 29 tweet 

that art, music, movies and 

books “have always been 

political. Keep your ‘Keep 

your politics out of BLANK’ 

bs outta my face” garnered 

him a 16 percent increase 

in retweets and was the 

week’s most-engaged-with 

tweet by a comedian. 

TV Personalities 

1 ↑ I 10 I Jimmy Fallon 

A 406 percent gain in 

Facebook post likes allows 

the Tonight Show host to 

reach No. 1 on the chart for 

the first time. One of his top 

posts was a clip of Fallon, 

as the character Peter, 

singing Journey’s “Don’t 

Stop Believin’ ” while 

heckled by Will Ferrell. 

2 ↑ I 6 I Gordon Ramsay 

3 ↑ I 5 I Mike Rowe 

4 ↑ I 9 I Jake Tapper 

5 ↓ I 3 I Mike Huckabee 

6 ↓ I 4 I Tamera Mowry 

7 ↑ I - I Tyra Banks 

8 ↓ I 2 I Joanna Gaines 

9 ↓ I 7 I Chris Hayes 

10 ↓ I 1 I Chelsea Handler 

Data Compiled By 

Source: The week’s most active and talked-about entertainers on 

leading social networking sites Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, 

Twitter and YouTube for the week ending Jan. 31. Rankings are based 

on a formula blending weekly additions of fans as well as cumulative 

weekly reactions and conversations, as tracked by MVP Index.

Making Her Directorial Debut and 

Winner of the NEXT Innovator Prize at Sundance! 

Congratulations to our Friend and Client 

Jordana Spiro 

and the entire Night Comes On cast and crew 

We can’t wait to see what’s NEXT 

www.pragermetis.com 

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UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM 

25th ANNIVERSARY LOS ANGELES DINNER 

THURSDAY, MARCH 1 

PLEASE JOIN US TO COMMEMORATE the Museum’s 25th anniversary and 

to honor VERA and PAUL GUERIN, their family, and the memory of LILLY and 

NATHAN SHAPELL Z”L as they receive the National Leadership Award. 

RECEPTION 6 p.m. DINNER 7 p.m. 

The Beverly Hilton 

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Tickets are $500 per person and sponsorship and tribute opportunities are 

available. For more information, contact the Museum’s Western Regional Office 

at 310.556.3222 or western@ushmm.org. 

RSVP at ushmm.org/events/2018-la-dinner. 

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Washington, DC 20024-2126 ushmm.org/campaign

Backlot 

Innovators, Events, Honors 

Canada 

Spotlight 

How Canada Became a Springboard for Female 

Directors Multiple government initiatives are pushing for 

gender parity in the film business by 2020 By Etan Vlessing 

JOLY: AMANDA EDWARDS/GETTY IMAGES. 

C 

anadian Prime Minister Justin 

Trudeau proudly displayed his progressive 

bona fides three years 

ago when he announced that his 30-member 

Cabinet would be the country’s first 

to represent men and women equally, 50- 

50. When asked by a journalist why, he 

made global headlines with his blunt reply: 

“Because it’s 2015.” 

Roughly a year later — and well before 

the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements — 

Telefilm Canada, the powerful, well-funded 

film financing arm of the Canadian government, 

followed Trudeau’s lead and unveiled 

its own ambitious drive to achieve gender 

parity in the film sector by 2020. The goal 

was clear: The agency would choose which 

films to finance based on whether projects 

were directed by, or revolved around, women 

(among other criteria). 

The initiative already is having an effect: 

A 2017 Telefilm study shows a 27 percent 

increase in agency-backed projects directed by 

women since 2015. 

And it’s not just Telefilm: The National Film 

Board of Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting 

Corp. and the Canada Media Fund also have 

unveiled plans to achieve gender parity by 2020. 

But with its deep pockets — the agency 

invests around $100 million annually 

in homegrown filmmaking 

— Telefilm is leading the way. 

“There are systemic barriers to 

Joly funding,” says Federal Heritage 

Minister Melanie Joly, a close ally 

of Trudeau. “We believe that we should, as a 

feminist government, have a clear commitment 

to overcome these barriers.” 

The practical initiatives from Telefilm 

include its Talent to Watch program, formerly 

Illustration by Dan Woodger 

the Micro-Budget Production Program. 

Telefilm renamed and revamped the 5-yearold 

micro-budget program in November 

with a mandate to back 50 first-time and, 

where possible, female-led features annually, 

with investments capped at $120,000 for 

each movie. 

That in turn led organizers to consider 

how they could help maintain a young filmmaker’s 

momentum in the industry after 

completion of that all-important first project. 

So, also in late 2017, Telefilm unveiled its 

Fast Track program, which assures $500,000 

in second-feature financing for filmmakers 

producing internationally recognized 

first features. 

To promote female voices and visions, 

Telefilm, when considering funding for projects 

of equal value — determined by such 

factors as the script, talent attached and the 


77 


Backlot 

production team — between a male or female 

applicant, is favoring projects directed and/or 

written by women. 

“We want to create a path to success,” says 

Telefilm executive director Carolle Brabant. 

“We want to reward the success of the first 

features by having emerging directors make 

their second film.” 

Take Werewolf, writer-director Ashley 

McKenzie’s debut feature about youth and drug 

addiction in a small Nova Scotia mining town. 

The indie received microbudget financing 

from Telefilm and became a critical hit on the 

film festival circuit after bowing at Toronto 

and screening at Berlin. 

Now McKenzie is eyeing possible Fast Track 

financing as she develops her second feature. 

“There’s a gap for filmmakers to take 

the next step after their first feature,” she 

says, adding that Telefilm has helped to 

shorten the time she and her producer Nelson 

MacDonald need to secure financing for their 

sophomore effort. 

Brabant says Canada’s push for gender parity 

has helped alter long-standing perceptions 

in an industry where female filmmakers have 

become accustomed to discouraging barriers 

to the industry. “It has made women realize, 

‘Well, it can happen,’ ” she says. 

“It’s comforting to know you can get your 

foot in the door,” adds Sonia Boileau, who 

leveraged Telefilm investment for her debut 

feature, Le Dep, to develop her second film, 

Rustic Oracle, about an 8-year-old Mohawk girl 

searching for a missing sister. 

The push for gender parity has implications 

beyond Canada. Jordan Canning, who 

HOW CANADA’S GENDER- 

EQUALITY INITIATIVES 

ALREADY ARE PAYING OFF 

In a little over a year, female-led projects 

backed by Telefilm have more than doubled 

50 

45 

40 

35 

30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

5 

44% 

17% 

Films directed 

by women 

Canada 

Spotlight 

46% 

22% 

Films written 

by women 

2017 

2015 

In November 

2016, Telefilm 

introduced 

its initiative 

to improve 

gender parity. 

Source: Telefilm 

Canada, Women in 

View on Screen 

directed more than a dozen short films before 

completing her first and second features, We 

Were Wolves and Suck It Up, respectively, says 

Telefilm’s Talent to Watch and Fast Track 

programs can help open doors in the U.S. and 

other foreign markets. 

“Once you have two features, you’re hopefully 

at a level where you can access funding 

in different countries and team up with international 

co-producers,” she says. 

With the various gender-parity initiatives 

gaining steam, insiders say the lure of financing 

is also leading filmmakers to rethink 

projects from the conception point. “In the 

general community at large, people are just 

hungry to attach women to projects and slates, 

because it’s smart from a tactical viewpoint. 

I’d do the same,” says Molly McGlynn, whose 

debut feature, Mary Goes Round, was produced 

through Telefilm’s Talent to Watch program. 

Toronto-based director Michelle Latimer says 

the initiatives help female filmmakers avoid 

“going up against the old guard.” After the 

success of her documentary short film Nucca, 

which screened at Sundance and Toronto, 

Latimer nabbed a yearlong filmmaking 

fellowship with Laura Poitras’ (Citizenfour) 

documentary unit Field of Vision. 

“[Telefilm] is democratizing the way we 

secure film financing, and it’s particularly 

good for younger filmmakers who can’t go 

the regular financing route,” Latimer says. 

The Canadian film sector is also focusing 

on hiring more women in key positions 

throughout the industry. Jane Tattersall, 

senior vp at Sim Post Toronto, who supervised 

the sound editing on Hulu’s The 

Handmaid’s Tale, says she’s hiring more women 

as mixers and editors in a traditionally maledominated 

business. 

“I’m not being idealistic or doing favors,” 

she says. “It’s much more selfish — the workplace 

is more interesting and more normal 

when you have a mix of women and men.” 

Marjolaine Tremblay, VFX producer and 

supervisor at Rodeo FX, insists that the 

Canadian industry needs to allow women to 

move from management and backroom jobs 

to active creative roles, including overcoming 

technical VFX challenges. 

“I have a great employer now that believes 

in all of my skill sets and supports me all the 

way,” says Tremblay. 

Another point of emphasis for Minister 

Joly is creating a healthy environment in 

the Time’s Up era. To that end, she says the 

Canadian industry now has a zero-tolerance 

policy for workplace harassment. 

“The #MeToo movement for us is clearly a 

fundamental change of culture,” she says. “It’s 

changing the way people will interact with 

each other and make sure there’s more respect 

between men and women, and ensuring the 

entertainment-sector workplace, as all workplaces, 

is much safer.” 

T 

he Baltimore of 1962 is 

meticulously re-created 

in Guillermo del Toro’s 

multi-Oscar-nominated sci-fi 

romance The Shape of Water. 

From an iconic, neon-lit diner 

to an ornate movie theater, the 

film revels in Americana from 

another age, making the fact 

that it was shot in and around 

Toronto all the more 

impressive. The film 

marks del Toro’s 

third collaboration 

Dale with producer — 

and Toronto native 

— J. Miles Dale and is the director’s 

fourth consecutive feature 

to be shot in Canada. Dale talked 

to THR about why the Mexican 

auteur now calls Toronto home 

and the Oscar odds for Shape 

of Water. 

Toronto hosted shoots for earlier 

Oscar best picture winners like 

TURNING A 

TORONTO SUBURB 

INTO STOCKHOLM 

The Ethan Hawke thriller Stockholm 

chronicles the real-life 1973 bank heist 

in the Swedish capital that produced the 

term “Stockholm Syndrome” — shorthand 

to describe when captors and captives 

form an unusual bond. 

With a modest budget of $10.5 million, 

Canadian co-producer Nicholas Tabarrok 

effectively cobbled together numerous 

BTS: COURTESY OF FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES. SHAPE: KERRY HAYES/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. DALE: BARRY 

KING/GETTY IMAGES. STOCKHOLM: COURTESY OF DARIUS FILMS. WAPEEMUKWA, FOROUGHI: COURTESY OF 

SUBJECT. MCLEOD: COURTESY OF JIVE PR + DIGITAL. ENGLISH: COURTESY OF GAT PR. SANCHEZ: LAURENT GUERIN. 


78 


‘ You Don’t Have to Go 

Anywhere Else’ 

Shape of Water producer 

J. Miles Dale on why 

del Toro shoots in Canada 

Chicago and Spotlight. What’s 

different with The Shape of Water? 

With Chicago, there were no 

Canadian designers on that. And 

even Spotlight, it wasn’t a heavy 

design movie. On The Shape of 

Water, other than the cinematographer 

and a couple of special 

effects and makeup artists, every 

single person from the production 

and costume designers, the 

sound team, the editor — they’re 

all Canadian. It tells the world: 

“We can play with anybody now. 

Our top people are right up 

there. You don’t have to go anywhere 

else.” 

Does that mean you and del Toro 

will make all your future movies 

in Toronto? 

The script will always tell you 

what it needs to be. If you need to 

do something on a mountain, 

you can’t do that here. If you’re 

stranded in the Pacific, you 

can’t do that here. But for anything 

that’s set in an East Coast 

Left: Dale (left) on the set of Shape of Water 

with del Toro. Above: the film’s stars, Richard 

Jenkins and Sally Hawkins. 

American city or some generic 

countryside like the Midwest, you 

can definitely do it here. 

Why has Toronto become del Toro’s 

filmmaking base? 

Ever since he did Pacific Rim, 

Guillermo has been here. He lives 

here and his family lives here. 

He’s really embraced the community, 

and he really feels 

he’s found a filmmaking home 

in Toronto. I think he likes the 

Canadian sensibility. 

Any word on your next project 

with him? 

I think he’d like to take a short 

break from directing. We have 

a couple of feature projects that 

we’re producing together. He’s 

also writing something for himself 

to direct, maybe next year. 

He’s going to stay prolific. He can’t 

really slow down. 

How do you feel as the Oscars 

approach? 

We’ve had a nice run so far. If it 

ended today, that would be fine. 

We’re going to the BAFTA Awards 

in London, where we led the nominations. 

And two weeks after that, 

there’s the Oscars. So these last 

couple of laps should be very interesting. 

We’re definitely feeling a 

lot of love right now, so hopefully 

that continues. — E.V. 

CANADIAN 

DIRECTORS TO 

WATCH 

WAYNE 

WAPEEMUKWA 

Wapeemukwa, 

27, won the 

best Canadian 

first feature 

prize at the 2017 Toronto 

film fest with his debut, 

Luk’Luk’I. “Walking away 

from TIFF with the best 

first feature prize confirmed 

for my cast, crew 

and me that we were 

on the right track,” he says. 

SADAF 

FOROUGHI 

Born in Iran, 

Foroughi, 

41, studied in 

France and 

settled in Montreal before 

writing and directing Ava, 

a coming-of-age drama 

that won the FIPRESCI 

critics prize at Toronto 

in 2017. 

SHELAGH 

MCLEOD 

After 

establishing a 

career as an 

actress on U.K. 

TV, McLeod, 57, recently 

wrapped production on 

her debut feature, 

the Richard Dreyfuss- and 

Colm Feore-starring 

thriller Astronaut, shot just 

north of Toronto. 

JACKIE 

ENGLISH 

After a string 

of acting 

credits, 

including CBS’ 


English broke into the 

feature world with 

Becoming Burlesque, a 

Toronto-set drama about 

a young Muslim woman 

who embraces the world 

of burlesque dancing. 

subsidies and incentives available north of 

the border to make the film happen. 

The heist flick was shot mostly in 

Hamilton, Ontario, allowing the producers 

to nab the province’s 10 percent tax credit. 

That’s in addition to a separate incentive 

that refunds 21.5 percent of qualified 

Ontario production expenditures. 

As a co-production with Sweden, the 

film tapped subsidies in both countries 

thanks to the casting of Swedish actors, 

including Noomi Rapace. Tabarrok won’t 

say how much financing came from 

← Hawke was the only castmember to shoot scenes in the real city of Stockholm. 

79 

Sweden, but Ontario Media Development 

Corp. chipped in $440,000. Telefilm 

Canada also invested at the script stage. 

The Hamilton locations were so effective 

that Hawke was the only actor to 

travel to the real Stockholm to capture 

exterior shots. 

“Stockholm would not have been possible 

without the support of Telefilm, 

provincial and federal tax credits and the 

OMDC,” Tabarrok says. “It’s nearly impossible 

to finance a film this size without the 

support of government incentives.” — E.V. 

JASON AND CARLOS 

SANCHEZ 

Allure, the debut feature 

written and directed by 

Jason, 36, and Carlos, 41, 

Montreal-based still 

photographers turned 

filmmakers, stars Evan 

Rachel Wood as a house 

cleaner with a dark past. 

Samuel Goldwyn Films 

plans a mid-March U.S. 

release. — E.V.

Backlot 

BAFTA 

SO HOW IS THREE 

BILLBOARDS BRITISH? 

W 

ith Stephen Fry having 

given up his hosting 

duties after a record 

12 editions, BAFTA has turned 

to arguably an even bigger British 

national treasure for its latest 

awards ceremony: Joanna Lumley, 

who will be taking the reins 

Feb. 18 at London’s famed Royal 

Albert Hall. Ahead of the biggest 

film awards outside the U.S., 

Lumley explains why she won’t be 

making any political gags, how 

the British equivalent of #MeToo 

might look on the night and 

whether her most famous onscreen 

character — Absolutely Fabulous’ 

champers-guzzling Patsy — will 

be making an appearance. 

Do you have any nerves about 

stepping into Stephen Fry’s welltrodden 

BAFTA shoes? 

Stephen is a huge friend of 

mine. I shall do my level best to 

fit into those huge shoes. He’s 

such a consummate, easy, welcoming, 

darling host, but we’re 

different. So I shan’t copy him, 

because you can’t do that. I’ll just 

do my best to be me and make 

everyone welcome. 

Has he given you any tips? 

He said something terribly funny 

but very true: Nobody has ever 

complained that an awards ceremony 

is too short. He also told 

me to remember that our job is as 

host. We’re not the main entertainment; 

we are literally the host. 

We’re the silken strands that join 

people together. 

Do you think this will be a newer, 

revamped BAFTAs with you at 

the helm? 

I don’t really want it to change. 

There’s something quite serious 

about all this. We’re the British 

academy, and the Oscars are the 

American academy, so this is the 

senior prefects’ table. 

Any particular hosting style you 

like and might try to emulate? 

I do a lot of awards ceremonies, so 

I’m used to the whole easing people 

on, easing people off, mopping 

their tears. But I’m not a stand-up 

‘ My Part Is to Be 

Quite Dignified’ 

Joanna Lumley plans her 

BAFTA takeover By Alex Ritman 

comic. I’m not a satirist. I’m not 

a political commentator. People 

know me because I’ve been banging 

around the block for 100 

years, so why would I be someone 

completely different? 

You’ve already said you 

won’t be pulling out any 

Weinstein gags. How 

about Trump? Brexit? 

I’m not really going to do any 

heavy political commentary, 

because for people who do come 

up and have something to say, it’s 

absolutely up to them. It’s their 

night, it’s not mine. My part is to 

be quite dignified, but if everyone 

else wants to put their pants on 

their head and scream, that’s fine 

by me. 

How do you think the #MeToo 

movement seen at the Golden 

Globes will translate to the BAFTAs? 

It’s going to be so interesting. I 

noticed at the SAG Awards all 

the girls were in gorgeous dresses. 

So maybe the Golden Globes 

British 

Academy Film 

Awards 

Feb. 18 

Royal Albert Hall 

was the [only] night of wearing 

black to protest. I’ll just see 

whether people are still feeling 

enough of it to warrant it going 

on or feeling that we’ve got to 

look to the future. We all 

know … it’s all out in the 

open now. The Golden 

Globes have made everyone 

so aware of it. 

How about yourself, will you be 

wearing black? 

I don’t think so. But let’s put it like 

this: I won’t be wearing shocking 

pink. I want to look like a dignified 

host. But I do think I’m going 

to look pretty fab, not showy. 

Any temptations to give Patsy a 

brief whirl onstage, perhaps brandishing 

a glass of champagne? 

Well, I know I won’t be allowed a 

glass of Bolly onstage, but sometimes 

Patsy creeps through. She 

doesn’t mean to, but sometimes 

she just has to have a word. I’ll 

try to keep her under control for 

the night! 

Martin McDonagh’s Midwestern 

drama is up for a best Brit BAFTA 

At the 2017 BAFTA Awards, the outstanding 

British film honor went 

to Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, a gritty 

human tale about a carpenter from 

the north of England and his nearexcruciating 

struggle to navigate the 

U.K.’s bureaucratic benefits system 

after having a heart attack. In other 

words, extremely British. 

This year, among a crop of equally 

British titles sits a rather unusual entry. 

The nomination of Three Billboards 

Outside Ebbing, Missouri, despite 

director Martin McDonagh’s burgundy 

British passport, has caused a little confusion 

in the U.S. Not only is the film’s 

main cast almost exclusively American, 

but it also was shot in North Carolina, 

is based on a real-life American story 

and even includes the words “Ebbing, 

Missouri” right there in the title. How, 

exactly, is this film British? 

The answer can be found in BAFTA’s 

myriad list of rules and regulations. 

To qualify for the outstanding 

British film category, the rules state 

that a film must “have significant 

creative involvement by individuals 

who are British (U.K. passport holders 

or permanent resident in the U.K. for 

at least 10 years up to and including 

the eligibility period).” 

Alongside McDonagh, Three 

Billboards was produced by the British 

duo of Graham Broadbent and Peter 

Czernin for their Blueprint Pictures 

(headquartered on London’s Great 

Portland Street), with half the funding 

coming from Film4, the movie arm of 

U.K. network Channel 4. 

“A film like this — which doesn’t 

look remotely British — does seem 

to crop up each year,” admits one 

industry insider. 

As it happens, last year there were 

two: American Honey (backed by 

Film4 and the British Film Institute) and 

Under the Shadow (which was in Farsi 

but produced by U.K.-based Wigwam 

Films). And in 2016, the winner was 

Brooklyn, named after the borough but 

produced by Brits, written by a Brit and 

backed by BBC Films. — A.R. 

Woody Harrelson (left) and Sam Rockwell in 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. 

LUMLEY: MATT HOLYOAK/BAFTA/CAMERA PRESS/REDUX. THREE: MERRICK MORTON/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. 


80 


SJIWFF29 • OCTOBER 17–21, 2018 

ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA 

WOMENSFILMFESTIVAL.COM

Backlot 

Awards 

Watch 

‘ I Found My Voice While She Found 

Hers’ Liz Hannah and Josh Singer on 

penning Katharine Graham’s story By Rebecca Ford 

L 

iz Hannah wrote the screenplay for The Post with the hope that 

she’d get an agent. Instead, the 32-year-old screenwriter saw 

her spec script turned into a movie directed by Steven Spielberg 

and starring Meryl Streep as The Washington Post publisher Katharine 

Graham. The timely ’70s-set drama has been nominated for the best picture 

Oscar, and Hannah and her co-writer, Josh Singer (who won the 

original screenplay Oscar in 2016 for Spotlight), will receive the Writers 

Guild of America West’s Paul Selvin Award at the Feb. 11 ceremony. 

Both writers spoke to THR about their process and the “high bar” set by 

working with Spielberg. 

What was it about Graham’s story 

that made you want to adapt it? 

HANNAH I only had vaguely heard 

about her, but I didn’t know 

anything about her life. And she 

lived one that I felt deserved to be 

out in the world. For me 

personally, it was about 

a woman finding her 

voice, finally ignoring all 

the naysayers — and even 

herself — telling her she 

couldn’t do it and standing on her 

own two feet. The irony is not lost 

on me that this is the script I got 

noticed on. I found my voice while 

she found hers. 

How did the two of you collaborate? 

SINGER Liz wrote an incredible spec 

script, but it wasn’t a shooting 

GOLD STAR SCRIBES 

A comic book icon, an LGBTQ 

activist and two veteran 

writers land WGA honors 

WGA West 

Awards 

Feb. 11 

Beverly Hilton 

draft. With these fact-based dramas, 

you want to vet them — send 

them out to the world and get 

lots of notes, because you want 

to get it right. With Spotlight, I 

had terrible fear of not getting the 

journalism part right. 

Plus, the needs of a spec 

script and the needs of 

a Steven Spielberg film 

are slightly different. 

Because with a Steven 

Spielberg film, you’re going to 

get the highest degree of scrutiny 

you can possibly get. Fairly or 

unfairly, you get held to a pretty 

high bar. We had to make this 

as accurate as possible within the 

context of telling a good story. 

HANNAH I had never written a 

movie that had been produced 

◄ DUSTIN LANCE BLACK 

The Valentine Davies 

Award will recognize the 

Milk writer’s work for 

the LGBTQ community. 

↑ From left: Singer, Spielberg, Hannah, 

Tom Hanks and Streep on Jan. 4 

at the Palm Springs Film Festival. 

before, let alone written a movie 

produced and directed by Steven 

Spielberg. The thing about Josh 

is that he’s not only an incredibly 

talented writer, he also has an 

enormous amount of experience in 

the journalism world and in the 

political world with Spotlight and 

The West Wing. We really tackled 

it more like a writers room; it was 

a very collaborative experience. 

Because of the quick timeline, he 

was used to working under the 

gun and under the pressure that 

the first choice is the best choice 

and the only choice. 

JAMES L. BROOKS 

The Mary Tyler Moore 

Show co-creator 

gets the Laurel Award 

for screenwriting. 

ALISON CROSS 

The Paddy Chayefsky 

Laurel Award goes to the 

writer-producer (Roe vs. 

Wade, Murder in the First). 

What is your worst habit as 

a writer? 

HANNAH Procrastination. I think 

it’s every writer’s worst habit. 

But when you’re procrastinating, 

you’re still thinking about it. 

SINGER My wife, who is a novelist, 

makes fun of me for this all 

the time: I tend to get lost in 

the research. I go on really deep 

dives. Lawrence O’Donnell told 

me early on that the word 

“author” comes from authority. 

I am not a huge risk taker, so I 

really don’t like writing about 

something unless I feel like I’m 

quite knowledgeable about it. 

Is there one thing you must have 

in order to write? 

HANNAH Because I’m 90 years old 

in a 32-year-old’s body, I have 

a heating pad on the back of my 

chair. When you’re sitting there 

for hours at a time, I don’t care 

how comfortable that chair is, 

it can get pretty gnarly. So a heating 

pad kind of wakes me up. 

SINGER I need headphones and 

music. I tend to love classical, 

but it can be any kind. It really 

depends on what I’m working 

on. There’s a trick I learned 

from my wife: I’ll listen to the 

same thing over and over again. 

So good Bose headphones with 

music to drown out the world. 

And then I must have a baseball 

cap, because I need blinders. 

“There’s an 

immediate 

connection as 

a woman, 

knowing what 

it’s like to be 

in a room full 

of men and 

not have your 

voice heard,” 

says Hannah 

of Graham’s 

story (Streep, 

center). 

LEN WEIN 

The late comic book icon, 

co-creator of Wolverine, 

will be honored with the 

Animation Writing Award. 

SINGER: VIVIEN KILLILEA/GETTY IMAGES FOR PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. POST: NIKO TAVERNISE/20TH CENTURY FOX. BLACK: DAVE BENETT/GETTY IMAGES. 


82 


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James H. Rich, Jr., age 70, of Tarzana, CA, died peacefully 

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years, Abigail Crow Rich, by his side. 

Jim was born in Pittsburgh, PA, on December 24, 1947, 

to James H. Rich and the late Idamae Brody Rich. The 

date of his birth, he would tell everyone, was the result 

of his mother falling off a ladder while trying to put a 

star on the Christmas tree. 

He attended an all-boys prep school, Shadyside Academy, 

where, among other activities, he was a member 

of the honorary Sargon Society, 

and played on the varsity tennis 

and football teams. Summers 

he hung out at WAMO, 

his father’s radio station. After 

graduation in 1965, he went to 

Syracuse University to study 

Communications, where he 

lived in the football dorm and 

thought he was going to play 

until he was positioned in front 

of Larry Csonka and Floyd Little 

at a practice game and was 

flattened. 

Always resilient and practical, 

he looked around and realized 

that not only was it safer 

to go into the theater department, 

but there were real-live 

girls there. And so his show 

business career was born. 

He transferred to New York 

University’s Film School, where 

Martin Scorsese was his instructor, and where he created 

his award-winning student film, Ginkgo. After 

film school, he worked on Sesame Street shorts, commercials, 

and industrials in New York, and created his 

documentary Earth Day, starring Rod Serling and Pete 

Seeger. 

In the mid-1970s, he headed to Los Angeles to work 

for Bob Stivers Productions and began a career that 

spanned almost 50 years. As he advanced from young 

production manager to executive producer, he worked 

on hundreds of television shows, including Circus of the 

Stars, People’s Choice Awards, People’s Court, Superior 

Court, Vincent with Leonard Nimoy, John Denver and 

the Muppets, Kid Songs, Monty Python Live at the Hollywood 

Bowl, Red Skelton’s Funny Faces, George Burns 

in Concert, Enchanted Musical Playhouse with the Osmonds, 

Straight to the Heart, A Talent for Murder with 

Sir Lawrence Olivier and Angela Lansbury and many, 

many others. 

ADVERTISEMENT 

James H. Rich 

1947-2018 

Jim was a member of the Producers Guild of America. 

He was the executive vice president of Cable and Syndication 

at Centerpoint Productions, where he worked 

for Tom Tannenbaum with production partners Guber- 

Peters, Blake Edwards, and Grasso-Jacobson. He won 

an ACE award in 1983 for Sweeney Todd, which won 

seven Emmys. In the early 2000s, he produced three 

two-hour specials to promote the opening of Universal’s 

theme park in Osaka. The specials featured top 

Japanese television stars and Universal stars Meryl 

Streep, Gene Hackman and Steven Spielberg. 

After retiring, he co-founded 

The Great Beer Company, 

brewers of the award-winning 

kölsch-style ale, Hollywood 

Blonde. He was a practicing 

Buddhist, worked on the campaign 

to elect Obama, and volunteered 

with an organization 

for troubled teens. 

Jim loved many things, not 

the least of which was walking 

the dogs at his beach house 

in Ventura, CA, watching 

Pittsburgh Steeler games, going 

to the symphony and the 

Hollywood Bowl with his wife, 

talking to his father, and bragging 

about his children and 

grandchildren. 

His life was marked by an 

electric spirit, an extraordinary 

ability to persevere, a goofy 

sense of humor, a quest for 

spiritual knowledge, and a generous soul. He is remembered 

by friends and admirers as someone who lifted 

them up when they needed it, and encouraged them to 

be their best and truest selves. 

In addition to his wife, Jim is survived by his father, 

James H. Rich, of Pittsburgh, PA; his son, Nicholas 

James Rich, and daughter-in-law, Cara Delizia Rich of 

Tarzana, CA; his daughter, Kit Rich, of Santa Monica, CA; 

three grandsons, Hunter Rich, Lucas Rich, and Crosby 

Rich; his sister, Kathryn Rich Sherman of Pittsburgh, 

PA; and numerous brothers/sisters-in-law, nieces, 

nephews and cousins. 

His memorial will be held in Tarzana, CA on March 3, 

2018 from noon to 4:00. Family members will commit 

his ashes to the sea the following day. 

In lieu of flowers, please donate to his favorite charity, 

“No Kid Hungry,” (https://www.nokidhungry.org/) 

the campaign of the national anti-hunger organization 

Share Our Strength.

89 Years of THR 

Memorable moments from a storied history 

1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 

25 Years Ago, Cool Runnings Was a Gold Medal Hit 

For The Hollywood Reporter, 1993’s 

Cool Runnings was a “near-perfectly 

executed tale” that centered 

on “one of the nuttiest and most 

inspiring modern sports stories.” 

The Jon Turteltaub film is 

the loosely factual tale of the 

Jamaican bobsled team that competed 

in the 1988 Calgary Winter 

Olympics. (Three decades later, 

the Pyeongchang Games begin 

Feb. 9, and there’s a 25th anniversary 

screening of Cool Runnings 

a day earlier at the El Capitan in 

Hollywood.) “It’s the timeless 

story of the underdog,” says Jeff 

Sagansky, who acquired the 

script in 1989 when he headed 

TriStar Pictures. “And here, the 

underdog was going to the Winter 

Olympics from a country with 

no snow.” As difficult as it was for 

Jamaicans to make it to Canada, 

so it was for the film to get made. 

When Dawn Steel became head 

of Columbia Pictures in 1987, she 

became aware of the Runnings 

script because TriStar was a sister 

company. After she left in 1990, 

Steel made it the first film she did 

under her new production deal 

at Disney. “To me, it was Rocky,” 

said Steel, who died in 1997. The 

$15 million production ($25 million 

today) went on to earn 

$155 million worldwide ($263 million). 

Along the way, the script 

went from a drama at TriStar to a 

family comedy at Disney. Hiring 

John Candy as the team’s coach 

was a key piece of casting. “[Studio 

chief] Jeffrey Katzenberg was 

the one who said we were going 

with John,” says Turteltaub. “Up 

until then, we were thinking 

‘Olympic coach? Kurt Russell.’ 

And Kurt ended up playing [Herb 

Brooks] in Miracle. I guess he 

was born to be an Olympic coach.” 

Turteltaub’s most vivid memory 

of the shoot was being awakened 

at 1 a.m. on location in Calgary 

and told by Katzenberg that he’d 

be fired unless he could get the 

cast to speak in an understandable 

Jamaican accent. “He said, ‘If 

you can’t make them sound like 

Sebastian the Crab in The Little 

Mermaid, I’ll find a director who 

will.’ So the next day I told the 

cast I’d be fired if they didn’t start 

sounding like Sebastian the Crab. 

And they laughed and found the 

in-between.” — BILL HIGGINS 

↑ From left: Leon (as Derice Bannock), Rawle D. Lewis (as Junior Bevil), Malik Yoba (as Yul Brenner) and Doug E. Doug (as Sanka Coffie) in Cool Runnings. 

The Hollywood Reporter, Vol. CDXXIV, No. 6 (ISSN 0018-3660; USPS 247-580) is published weekly; 39 issues — two issues in April, July, October and December; three issues in January and June; four issues in February, March, May, August and September; and five issues in November — with 15 special issues: 

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Wright’s Media, (877) 652-5295; pgm@wrightsmedia.com. Subscription inquiries: U.S. call toll-free (866) 525-2150. Outside the U.S., call (845) 267-4192, or e-mail subscriptions@hollywoodreporter.com. Copyright ©2015 Prometheus Global Media, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be 

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PROMOTION 

THE SUNDANCE TV ORIGINAL SERIES RETURNS 

CANDID ROUNDTABLES WITH TOP FILM TALENT 

THE PRODUCERS 

From Left: Ridley Scott, Jason Blum, Amy Pascal, Eric Fellner, Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen 

with 

PRODUCERS FEBRUARY 11 

WRITERS FEBRUARY 18 

CINEMATOGRAPHERS FEBRUARY 25 

ACTORS & ACTRESSES (LIVE AUDIENCE) MARCH 4 

CABLE 10AM ET / 7AM PT • SATELLITE 10AM ET / 7AM PT 

DISH CHANNEL 126 • DIRECTV CHANNEL 557

4 ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINATIONS 

BEST PICTURE 

BEST DIRECTOR 

JORDAN PEELE 

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SCREENPLAY 

JORDAN PEELE 

BEST ACTOR 

DANIEL KALUUYA 

CONSIDER 

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY 

JORDAN PEELE

The_Hollywood_Reporter__February_07_2018

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