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<strong>February</strong> 7, <strong>2018</strong><br />
Oscars<br />
IN THE HOMESTRETCH<br />
● WILLEM DAFOE Triumph<br />
of a <strong>Hollywood</strong> nomad<br />
● High stakes for the studios<br />
● From Mary J. to Chalamet:<br />
<strong>The</strong> nominee class photo<br />
#METOO HITS<br />
MOVIE DEALS<br />
Battle over morality clauses<br />
R.I.P. OFFICE<br />
ROMANCE<br />
Dating post-Harvey<br />
SONY SHAKE-UP<br />
New CEO, new sale buzz<br />
HOLLYWOOD’S<br />
MOST TOXIC<br />
BROMANCE
EMBRACE LIFE
EMBRACE STRENGTH
EMBRACE EA
CH OTHER<br />
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION<br />
THESHAPEOFWATERFYC.COM
Issue No. 6, <strong>February</strong> 7, <strong>2018</strong><br />
FEATURES<br />
54 Willem Dafoe: Triumph<br />
of a <strong>Hollywood</strong> Nomad<br />
Despite a hundred credits<br />
and three Oscar nominations<br />
— the most recent for <strong>The</strong><br />
Florida Project — the actor<br />
remains a shape-shifting<br />
enigma who eschews fame<br />
and comfort: “I remember<br />
my life by my movies.”<br />
60 Back to Basics in Berlin<br />
With Netflix and Amazon<br />
lying low in Sundance, this<br />
year’s European Film<br />
Market may continue a return<br />
to more traditional sales<br />
models — and dealmakers<br />
couldn’t be happier.<br />
64 <strong>The</strong> Doomed Bromance<br />
of Lenny and Charlie<br />
He’s a burnout major<br />
leaguer and an ex-con, but<br />
that didn’t prepare Lenny<br />
Dykstra for his friendship<br />
with Charlie Sheen, a man<br />
he alleges is a dangerous<br />
criminal about to be taken<br />
down by the Feds.<br />
70 ‘Simplistic but<br />
Complicated’<br />
Animated feature Oscar<br />
contenders introduced<br />
audiences to female characters<br />
who could tame a<br />
bull and handle a bossy,<br />
suit-wearing infant.<br />
54<br />
“I never thought acting<br />
could be a profession,”<br />
says Dafoe, photographed<br />
Feb. 2 at Siren<br />
Studios Orange in Los<br />
Angeles. He looks back at<br />
some of his iconic roles<br />
(and the time he played<br />
Marilyn Monroe in a<br />
Super Bowl commercial)<br />
at THR.com/video.<br />
Ralph Lauren sweater,<br />
Dolce & Gabbana pants,<br />
Jimmy Choo sneakers.<br />
Photographed here and for the cover by Martha Galvan<br />
2
CONGRATULATIONS TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET<br />
WINNER<br />
BEST ACTOR<br />
LONDON FILM CRITICS’ CIRCLE
Issue No. 6, <strong>February</strong> 7, <strong>2018</strong><br />
THE REPORT<br />
11 <strong>The</strong> Morality Dilemma<br />
In a post-Weinstein landscape,<br />
studios are adding<br />
language to talent contracts<br />
to protect themselves<br />
if claims hit the media.<br />
ABOUT TOWN<br />
23 Who Does Whitney<br />
Cummings Think She Is?<br />
<strong>The</strong> prolific TV star/creator<br />
helms her first feature, <strong>The</strong><br />
Female Brain.<br />
THE BUSINESS<br />
38 Executive Suite:<br />
Steve Bersch<br />
<strong>The</strong> acquisitions executive on<br />
the state of indie filmmaking<br />
THIS WEEK ON THR VIDEO<br />
Watch Cummings rave about<br />
her comedic hero, Paul Reiser.<br />
and the surprisingly<br />
most profitable division<br />
at Sony.<br />
STYLE<br />
49 That Touch of Pink<br />
Just in time for Valentine’s<br />
Day, new blush-hued<br />
scents hit all the right notes<br />
— from seductive woods<br />
to feminine florals.<br />
REVIEWS<br />
74 Black Panther<br />
Ryan Coogler’s Marvel<br />
entry dazzles with smartly<br />
staged action, magnetic<br />
performances and a bracing<br />
sense of novelty.<br />
BACKLOT<br />
77 How Canada Became<br />
a Springboard<br />
for Female Directors<br />
Multiple government<br />
initiatives are pushing for<br />
gender parity in the<br />
film business by 2020.<br />
CORRECTION Sufjan Stevens received<br />
a best song Oscar nomination for “Mystery<br />
of Love” (THR 1/31).<br />
23<br />
“I still have a bit of shame around being<br />
the boss,” says Cummings, photographed<br />
Jan. 26 at Harlowe in West <strong>Hollywood</strong>.<br />
49<br />
Chloe Nomade<br />
with plum,<br />
freesia and oak<br />
moss notes;<br />
$132, at Sephora<br />
Cummings photographed by Coral von Zumwalt<br />
“I am not a saint,”<br />
says Lenny Dykstra,<br />
photographed Nov. 8<br />
in New York City.<br />
64<br />
DYKSTRA: WESLEY MANN. FRAGRANCE: WILL DELEON.
Matthew Belloni<br />
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR<br />
Alison Brower<br />
DEPUTY EDITORIAL DIRECTOR<br />
Shanti Marlar<br />
CREATIVE DIRECTOR<br />
Tom Seeley<br />
DEPUTY EDITORIAL DIRECTOR,<br />
DIGITAL MEDIA<br />
Sudie Redmond<br />
EXECUTIVE MANAGING EDITOR<br />
Stephen Galloway<br />
EXECUTIVE EDITOR, FEATURES<br />
Jennifer Laski<br />
PHOTO & VIDEO DIRECTOR<br />
Jeanie Pyun<br />
DEPUTY EDITOR<br />
Erik Hayden<br />
NEWS DIRECTOR<br />
Lacey Rose<br />
EXECUTIVE EDITOR, TELEVISION<br />
David Katz<br />
EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ARTICLES<br />
EDITOR-AT-LARGE Kim Masters<br />
FILM<br />
FILM EDITOR Gregg Kilday • SENIOR FILM WRITERS Borys Kit, Pamela McClintock, Tatiana Siegel<br />
TECH EDITOR Carolyn Giardina • STAFF WRITER, FILM Mia Galuppo • INTERNATIONAL FILM EDITOR Deborah Young<br />
TELEVISION<br />
TELEVISION EDITOR, EAST COAST Marisa Guthrie • TELEVISION EDITOR, WEST COAST Lesley Goldberg<br />
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REVIEWS<br />
REVIEWS EDITOR Jon Frosch • CHIEF FILM CRITIC Todd McCarthy CHIEF TELEVISION CRITIC Tim Goodman<br />
CHIEF THEATER CRITIC David Rooney • TELEVISION CRITIC Daniel J. Fienberg<br />
SENIOR EDITOR Benjamin Svetkey • SENIOR EDITOR, COPY Mike Barnes<br />
FASHION & BEAUTY DIRECTOR Carol McColgin • AWARDS EDITOR Rebecca Ford<br />
REAL ESTATE & CITY EDITOR Peter Kiefer • SENIOR WRITERS Seth Abramovitch, Gary Baum,<br />
Scott Johnson • SENIOR AWARDS ANALYST Scott Feinberg • SENIOR EDITOR, EVENTS Ramona Saviss<br />
SENIOR REPORTER Rebecca Sun • INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS EDITOR Georg Szalai<br />
WEST COAST BUSINESS EDITOR Paul Bond • SENIOR EDITOR, NEW YORK Eriq Gardner<br />
BOOKS EDITOR Andy Lewis • STAFF WRITER Chris Gardner • STAFF WRITER, DIGITAL MEDIA Natalie Jarvey<br />
STAFF REPORTER Ashley Cullins • ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lindsay Flans • ASSISTANT STYLE EDITOR Jane Carlson<br />
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Kendal McAlpin • ASSISTANT TO THE EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Beno Akram<br />
REBECCA SUN<br />
moderated a Feb. 3<br />
Q&A at Netflix’s<br />
L.A. headquarters<br />
with Altered Carbon<br />
showrunner Laeta<br />
Kalogridis and actors<br />
Will Yun Lee, Byron<br />
Mann and Dichen<br />
Lachman following a<br />
screening co-hosted<br />
by the Coalition<br />
of Asian Pacifics in<br />
Entertainment.<br />
COPY<br />
ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR Jennifer H. Levin<br />
DEPUTY COPY CHIEF Darah Head • SENIOR COPY EDITOR Lisa de los Reyes<br />
ART<br />
DESIGN DIRECTOR Peter B. Cury<br />
ART DIRECTOR Kelsey Stefanson • ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTORS Nicholas Brawley,<br />
Christopher Hawkins, Fah Sakharet • SENIOR DESIGNER Jen Cienfuegos<br />
SENIOR ART PRODUCTION MANAGER Michelle Mondragon<br />
ART PRODUCTION ASSOCIATE Amanda Tannen • PRODUCTION ARTIST BJ Samuels • JUNIOR PRODUCTION ARTIST Ashley Bradley<br />
PHOTO & VIDEO<br />
DEPUTY PHOTO DIRECTOR Carrie Smith<br />
PHOTO EDITORS Chelsea Archer, Lisa Dragani, Michelle Stark • SENIOR PHOTO PRODUCER Kate Pappa<br />
ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITORS Tristan Cassel, Jared Rosenthal • PHOTO RESEARCHER Megan Downie<br />
PHOTO & VIDEO ASSISTANT Kayla Landrum • PHOTO EDITOR-AT-LARGE Jenny Sargent<br />
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION, VIDEO Stephanie Fischette<br />
SENIOR VIDEO PRODUCERS Marya Gullo, Victoria McKillop, Laela Zadeh • VIDEO PRODUCER Natalie Heltzel<br />
ASSOCIATE VIDEO PRODUCER Brian Porreca • YOUTUBE CHANNEL MANAGER Jason Al-Samarrie<br />
WEB VIDEO CONTENT MANAGER Ciara McVey • RIGHTS & CLEARANCES MANAGER Travis Gollaher<br />
LEAD VIDEO EDITOR Victor Klaus • VIDEO EDITOR/MOTION GRAPHICS ARTIST Darin Eaton<br />
JUNIOR VIDEO EDITOR Nebiyu Dingetu • VIDEO PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Dustin Hattier<br />
THR.COM<br />
DEPUTY EDITOR Kimberly Nordyke<br />
ASSIGNMENT EDITOR Jennifer Konerman • STYLE & FASHION NEWS DIRECTOR Booth Moore<br />
SENIOR EDITOR Hilary Lewis • EAST COAST DIGITAL LEAD EDITOR Jackie Strause<br />
SENIOR REPORTER Ryan Parker • EDITOR, HEAT VISION Aaron Couch<br />
INTERNATIONAL EDITOR Abid Rahman • STAFF EDITOR, NEWSLETTERS Ray Rahman<br />
ASSOCIATE EDITORS Lauren Huff, Meena Jang, Katherine Kilkenny<br />
ASSOCIATE STYLE EDITOR Samantha Reed • COPY CHIEF Pete Keeley<br />
SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR, DIGITAL Christina Pompa-Kwok • PHOTO EDITORS Mike Jianu, Ben Park<br />
DIGITAL CONTENT EDITOR, VIDEO Annie Howard • SENIOR MANAGER, SOCIAL MEDIA Jennifer Liles<br />
SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Sarah Gidick • SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Natalya Jaime • ASSISTANT EDITOR Patrick Shanley<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
INTERNATIONAL NEWS EDITOR Kevin Cassidy<br />
EUROPE BUREAU CHIEF Scott Roxborough • ASIA BUREAU CHIEF Patrick Brzeski • CANADA BUREAU CHIEF Etan Vlessing<br />
CORRESPONDENTS Agustin Mango ARGENTINA • Pip Bulbeck AUSTRALIA • Rhonda Richford FRANCE<br />
Karen Chu HONG KONG • Ariston Anderson ITALY • Nyay Bhushan INDIA • Gavin J. Blair JAPAN • Lee Hyo-won KOREA<br />
John Hecht MEXICO • Nick Holdsworth, Vladimir Koslov RUSSIA • Pamela Rolfe SPAIN • Alex Ritman U.K.<br />
SCOTT FEINBERG<br />
will moderate a<br />
conversation between<br />
I, Tonya’s Margot<br />
Robbie and Allison<br />
Janney — recipients of<br />
the Santa Barbara Film<br />
Festival’s performer<br />
of the year award — at<br />
the fest Feb. 8.<br />
VICTORIA MCKILLOP<br />
and THR’s video team<br />
kicked off the Where<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> Eats video<br />
series, which has<br />
expanded to include<br />
industry hotspots in<br />
Atlanta, New Orleans<br />
and New York along<br />
with Los Angeles, for<br />
ReachMe TV.<br />
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS<br />
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar • Jonathan Handel • Austin Hargrave • Bill Higgins • Wesley Mann<br />
Miller Mobley • Gavin Polone • Joe Pugliese • Ramona Rosales • Michael Wolff<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
6<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
“TRIUMPHANT, AUDACIOUS AND<br />
IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET.”<br />
— Justin Chang, LOS ANGELES TIMES<br />
“ONE OF THE BEST<br />
PICTURES OF THE YEAR”<br />
ON OVER 60 TOP 10 LISTS INCLUDING<br />
NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW, VANITY FAIR, LOS ANGELES TIMES,<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, ROLLING STONE, VOGUE, VULTURE, INDIEWIRE<br />
®<br />
BEST PICTURE<br />
BEST ACTOR<br />
Daniel Day-Lewis<br />
BEST DIRECTOR<br />
Paul Thomas Anderson<br />
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS<br />
Lesley Manville<br />
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE<br />
Jonny Greenwood<br />
BEST COSTUME DESIGN<br />
Mark Bridges<br />
F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O N<br />
Written and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson<br />
#PHANTOMTHREAD<br />
©<strong>2018</strong> PHANTOM THREAD, LLC.<br />
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Lynne Segall<br />
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT/GROUP PUBLISHER<br />
Elisabeth Deutschman<br />
VICE PRESIDENT, TELEVISION & MEDIA<br />
Victoria Gold<br />
VICE PRESIDENT, ENTERTAINMENT<br />
Randi Windt<br />
VICE PRESIDENT, BRAND PARTNERSHIPS<br />
Alison Smith-Pleiser<br />
MANAGING DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL SALES<br />
Alexandra von Bargen<br />
MANAGING DIRECTOR, LUXURY<br />
ADVERTISING<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INDEPENDENT FILM & TALENT Debra Fink<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FILM & TELEVISION Carolyn Bernstein • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TELEVISION Scott Perry<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LUXURY REAL ESTATE & REGIONAL SHELTER Sue Chrispell<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, ASSOCIATIONS & FILM COMMISSIONS Lori Copeland<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BRAND PARTNERSHIPS Hillary Gilmore • DIRECTOR, SPONSORSHIP & WEST COAST CONSUMER SALES Karbis Dokuzyan<br />
DIRECTORS, BRAND PARTNERSHIPS Jackie Horn, Gabrielle Koenig, Amy Jo Lagermeier, Justine Matthews<br />
MANAGING DIRECTOR, MUSIC Aki Kaneko • DIRECTOR, EAST COAST SALES Joe Maimone • MANAGER, BRAND PARTNERSHIPS Jamie Davidson<br />
DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Cathy Field • BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Dominique Angell<br />
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Ashley Lyle • SALES COORDINATORS Mitchell Brown, Katie Pope, Andrea Rico, Kendall Stempel<br />
ACCOUNT DIRECTOR, ASIA Ivy Lam • INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNT DIRECTOR Tommaso Campione<br />
ACCOUNT DIRECTOR, NEW ZEALAND & AUSTRALIA Lisa Cruse<br />
DIGITAL MEDIA<br />
GENERAL MANAGER, VIDEO Michael Palmer<br />
VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL REVENUE OPERATIONS Gina Perino<br />
DIRECTOR, PRODUCT Reed Hallstrom • INTERACTIVE ART DIRECTOR Rett Alcott • SENIOR DESIGNER Andrew Elder<br />
DESIGNER Ady Chng • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MUSIC STRATEGY & BRANDED CONTENT Alyssa Convertini<br />
DIRECTOR, ADVERTISING OPERATIONS & AUDIENCE REVENUE Daniel Eberle • DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIPS Shira Brown<br />
MANAGER, BRANDED CONTENT Ryan Katon • AD OPERATIONS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Cheryl Kampanis<br />
SENIOR AD OPERATIONS MANAGERS Ninash Delgado, Maureen Vanterpool • AD OPERATIONS MANAGER Samantha Turpen<br />
DIRECTOR, ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT Shameka Frank • SENIOR MANAGER, ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT Renee Giardina<br />
SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER, FILM & ENTERTAINMENT Greg Johnson • DIGITAL ACCOUNT MANAGERS Tracy Cayaban, Sarah Seo, Casey Shulman<br />
ASSOCIATE ACCOUNT MANAGERS Allie Hedlund, Chelsea Sageer, Tal Zaiet • ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ANALYTICS Katherine Shaoul<br />
SALES ANALYTICS SPECIALIST Lauren Kim • VIDEO ANALYTICS SPECIALIST Stephanie Kurse<br />
EDITORIAL ANALYST Kelsey Weekman • SEO SPECIALIST Matt Albrecht • ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, SOCIAL MEDIA Stephanie Apessos<br />
SOCIAL MARKETING MANAGER Dervla O’Brien • QA ENGINEER Robert MacCracken<br />
MARKETING<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STRATEGY Anjali Raja<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MARKETING & PARTNERSHIPS Laura Lorenz<br />
DIRECTOR, BRAND MARKETING & PARTNERSHIPS Erika Cespedes • DIRECTOR, TELEVISION DEVELOPMENT Joanna Zwickel<br />
MANAGERS, STRATEGY Ross Figlerski, Jonathan Holguin • STRATEGY EXECUTION MANAGERS Briana Berg, Kwasi Boadi<br />
MARKETING DESIGN MANAGER Kim Grasing • MARKETING COORDINATORS Steven Huizar, Sarah Lombard, Claire McMahon<br />
BRAND MARKETING COORDINATOR Erica Daul • EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT/MARKETING COORDINATOR Matthew Baum<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CONFERENCES & EVENTS Curtis Thompson • ASSOCIATE MANAGER, EVENT MARKETING Anush Yemenidjian<br />
LICENSING<br />
VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & LICENSING Andrew Min<br />
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & LICENSING Anuja Maheshka • DIRECTOR, LICENSING & MARKETING Amy Steinfeldt Ulmann<br />
MAGAZINE REPRINTS Wright’s Media (877) 652-5295, email PGM@wrightsmedia.com<br />
OPERATIONS<br />
GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR David Aimone<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FINANCE & OPERATIONS Jerry Ruiz • HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR Alexandra Aguilar<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GROUP PRODUCTION Kelly Jones • DEPUTY PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Mary Bradley • PRODUCTION MANAGER Maya Eslami<br />
SENIOR DESIGNER Suzanne Rush • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT & CIRCULATION Katie Fillingame<br />
SENIOR MANAGER, EMAIL MARKETING & CIRCULATION Meredith Kahn<br />
PROCUREMENT MANAGER Linda Lum • IMAGING MANAGER Brian Gaughen • IMAGING SPECIALIST Michael Sullivan<br />
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John Amato<br />
PRESIDENT<br />
Severin Andrieu-Delille<br />
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY<br />
OFFICER<br />
Gary Bannett<br />
CHIEF FINANCIAL<br />
OFFICER<br />
Dana Miller<br />
CHIEF MARKETING<br />
OFFICER<br />
Michele Singer<br />
GENERAL COUNSEL<br />
Jim Thompson<br />
CHIEF AUDIENCE<br />
OFFICER<br />
Robert Alessi<br />
CONTROLLER<br />
Barbara Grieninger<br />
VICE PRESIDENT,<br />
FINANCE<br />
Julian Holguin<br />
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,<br />
BRAND PARTNERSHIPS<br />
Angela Vitacco<br />
VICE PRESIDENT,<br />
HUMAN RESOURCES<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
8<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
BAFTA<br />
NOMINEE<br />
DOCUMENTARY<br />
WINNER<br />
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL<br />
SPECIAL JURY PRIZE<br />
(THE ORWELL AWARD)<br />
WINNER<br />
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL<br />
LONDON<br />
AUDIENCE AWARD<br />
WINNER<br />
CRITICS’ CHOICE DOCUMENTARY AWARDS<br />
BEST SPORTS<br />
DOCUMENTARY<br />
DGA<br />
NOMINEE<br />
BEST DIRECTOR<br />
BRYAN FOGEL<br />
“<br />
THERE WERE INSTANCES<br />
OF DOPING USE, TRUE.<br />
BUT NO ONE IS MAKING<br />
A BIG SHOW OF IT. ”<br />
– VLADIMIR PUTIN<br />
JANUARY 30, <strong>2018</strong><br />
“A TRULY ABSORBING PIECE OF FILMMAKING.<br />
COULDN’T BE MORE TIMELY.”<br />
INDIEWIRE<br />
CONSIDER T UTH<br />
THE THRILLER THAT TOOK DOWN AN EMPIRE
↑ Moguls<br />
Sony Shake-Up<br />
Does the new CEO care<br />
about <strong>Hollywood</strong>? p. 12<br />
Film<br />
Clint’s Casting<br />
Eastwood on why he hired<br />
non-actors for 15:17 p. 14<br />
<strong>The</strong> Re<br />
Behind the Headlines<br />
ort<br />
Heat Index<br />
David Benioff & D.B. Weiss<br />
<strong>The</strong> Game of Thrones creators<br />
jump to light speed with<br />
Lucasfilm to write and produce<br />
new Star Wars films (separate<br />
from the Rian Johnson trilogy).<br />
Charles Harder<br />
<strong>The</strong> litigator for Donald<br />
Trump, Harvey Weinstein and<br />
Hulk Hogan sees partner<br />
Douglas Mirell quit, saying<br />
he was “uncomfortable” with<br />
the firm’s client list.<br />
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.<br />
Dana Walden &<br />
Gary Newman<br />
<strong>The</strong> Fox TV co-CEOs<br />
preside over a robust launch<br />
for Ryan Murphy’s 911 and<br />
see the broadcaster hit No. 1<br />
for the first month of <strong>2018</strong><br />
— before the Super Bowl put<br />
NBC back on top.<br />
Vincent Cirrincione<br />
<strong>The</strong> producer and manager<br />
of Halle Berry and Taraji P.<br />
Henson shutters his company<br />
after nine claims of sexual<br />
harassment are reported by<br />
<strong>The</strong> Washington Post.<br />
Showbiz Stocks<br />
$220.88 (+2.9%)<br />
THE MADISON SQUARE<br />
GARDEN CO. (MSG)<br />
<strong>The</strong> venue owner posts strong<br />
quarterly earnings thanks to<br />
robust ticket sales.<br />
$1,005.80 (-10.2%)<br />
ALPHABET (GOOG)<br />
Google’s parent loses<br />
$3 billion in the latest quarter<br />
after taking a one-time<br />
tax charge of $9.9 billion to<br />
account for recent changes<br />
in the U.S. tax code.<br />
Jan. 29-Feb. 5<br />
‘Everyone Is Trying to Cover<br />
<strong>The</strong>ir Asses as Much as Possible’<br />
Sex abuse insurance? It could happen, as studios race to include broad morality clauses in contracts<br />
and dealmakers now must protect against unearthed misconduct claims BY TATIANA SIEGEL<br />
Moral turpitude? It’s a<br />
concept that showbiz<br />
talent soon will be wellacquainted<br />
with. <strong>The</strong> term, which<br />
means “an act or behavior that<br />
gravely violates the sentiment or<br />
accepted standard of the community,”<br />
is popping up in contracts of<br />
actors and filmmakers in the<br />
wake of the #MeToo movement<br />
that has rocked <strong>Hollywood</strong>.<br />
Fox is just one of the studios<br />
that is trying to insert broad<br />
morality clauses into its talent<br />
deals, giving it the ability to<br />
terminate any contract “if the<br />
talent engages in conduct that<br />
results in adverse publicity or<br />
notoriety or risks bringing the<br />
talent into public disrepute,<br />
contempt, scandal or ridicule.”<br />
A Paramount source says it long<br />
has had standards of conduct<br />
that it asks employees and talent<br />
to adhere to and that it’s reviewing<br />
its approach in the new<br />
era. At the same time, several<br />
smaller distributors have begun<br />
to add a clause in their longform<br />
contracts that gives them<br />
an out if a key individual in a<br />
film — whether during or before<br />
the term of the contract — committed<br />
or is charged with an act<br />
considered under state or federal<br />
laws to be a felony or crime of<br />
moral turpitude.<br />
Studios and buyers are<br />
responding to the real financial<br />
losses incurred in the aftermath<br />
of a flurry of sexual harassment<br />
and assault accusations and<br />
admissions that have enveloped<br />
everyone from Kevin Spacey<br />
Illustration by Zohar Lazar<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
11<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong><br />
to Brett Ratner to Jeremy Piven<br />
since October, when Harvey<br />
Weinstein first was outed as a<br />
predator. Netflix took a $39 million<br />
write-down following<br />
numerous assault accusations<br />
involving House of Cards’ Spacey,<br />
who also was poised to play<br />
Gore Vidal in a movie for the<br />
streamer. CFO David Wells didn’t<br />
name Spacey or <strong>The</strong> Ranch star<br />
Danny Masterson, who left the<br />
Netflix series following rape<br />
accusations, but said the writedown<br />
was “related to the societal<br />
reset around sexual harassment.”<br />
Similarly, All the Money in<br />
the World financier Imperative<br />
Entertainment had to pony<br />
up $10 million to replace Spacey<br />
with Christopher Plummer for<br />
eleventh-hour reshoots on the
MORALS; SEXUAL HARASSMENT; DISCRIMINATION. In the event<br />
Distributor becomes aware of a violation or alleged<br />
violation of Distributor’s policy by any key individual<br />
whether or not such violations occurred prior<br />
to, during or after such services were provided, or<br />
Distributor becomes aware that a Key Element has committed<br />
or has been charged with an act considered under<br />
state or federal laws to be a felony or crime of moral<br />
turpitude, then Distributor shall have the right to:<br />
(i) cease distribution of the Picture; (ii) delete any<br />
credit given to such Key Element in connection with<br />
the Picture and/or (iii) modify, edit and/or reshoot<br />
the Picture to the extent necessary to remove the Key<br />
Element from the Picture.<br />
One film distributor recently began adding this “morality clause” language to its contracts.<br />
Sony film. Spacey did not have a<br />
morality clause in his contracts,<br />
according to sources, and was<br />
paid for the entire final season<br />
of House of Cards — even though<br />
he won’t appear in any of the<br />
episodes — and for All the Money<br />
in the World.<br />
Lawyer Schuyler Moore has<br />
begun to add a morality clause to<br />
contracts in an effort to protect<br />
his distributor clients from being<br />
saddled with the next #MeTootainted<br />
film. “Any distributor<br />
can say, ‘I’m not picking up this<br />
film if somebody involved in the<br />
film has some charge like that.’<br />
Absolutely. I’m doing it, and<br />
[these clauses] are enforceable,”<br />
says the Greenberg Glusker partner.<br />
“And it’s just a question of<br />
drafting it in a way that works.”<br />
As such, there’s a new version<br />
of liability affecting <strong>Hollywood</strong>,<br />
and studios and buyers are<br />
scrambling to figure out how to<br />
handle it. Naturally, talent reps<br />
are balking.<br />
“I’m all for [#MeToo]. I totally<br />
support it. But I think [broad<br />
morality clauses] create a bad<br />
precedent,” says attorney Linda<br />
Lichter. “It’s one thing to say<br />
someone is a criminal. It’s another<br />
thing to say someone has been<br />
accused by someone and you can<br />
fire them and not pay them.”<br />
Others claim studios and buyers<br />
are hypocritical if they are<br />
unwilling to include a morality<br />
clause covering their own executives.<br />
Directors and talent endure<br />
economic hardship when their<br />
films are bought by a company<br />
whose top execs, like Weinstein,<br />
become synonymous with sexual<br />
What Does Sony’s New CEO Have Planned?<br />
Spider-Man: Homecoming (left) and Jumanji<br />
ignominy. On the flip side, Fox<br />
Searchlight lost millions on the<br />
release of <strong>The</strong> Birth of a Nation<br />
after revelations that star-filmmaker<br />
Nate Parker had stood trial<br />
for rape when he was a college<br />
student (Parker was acquitted)<br />
and that his accuser later took<br />
her own life.<br />
In the post-Weinstein landscape,<br />
a number of distributors<br />
have been left in vulnerable<br />
positions. YouTube Red dropped<br />
Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size<br />
Me 2: Holy Chicken! following the<br />
filmmaker’s admission of sexual<br />
misconduct, but<br />
not before paying<br />
$3.5 million that<br />
sources say it likely<br />
Moore won’t get back.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Orchard dodged<br />
a bullet when its $5 million<br />
acquisition of Louis C.K.’s I Love<br />
You, Daddy became unreleasable<br />
after a wave of harassment<br />
accusations were leveled at the<br />
comedian. Though C.K. was not<br />
legally obliged to take back the<br />
film, he wrote <strong>The</strong> Orchard a<br />
check to reimburse the company<br />
for what it had paid toward the<br />
film’s release.<br />
Kenichiro Yoshida may not offload the film studio (just yet), say analysts BY GAVIN J. BLAIR<br />
Will Sony’s incoming CEO finally cut the cord Feb. 2, Yoshida identified movie production,<br />
on <strong>Hollywood</strong>? On Feb. 1, the conglomerate<br />
said top exec Kaz Hirai, 57, would hand over must be “very careful” with because of large<br />
along with semiconductors, as areas the company<br />
the reins to CFO Kenichiro Yoshida, 58, on April 1. investments required. (And on Feb. 6, worldwide<br />
<strong>The</strong> move ignited new speculation that Sony’s networks president Andy Kaplan, home entertainment<br />
chief Man Jit Singh and president/CMO<br />
entertainment assets could end up auctioned.<br />
Hirai has been a passionate advocate for Sony Sheraton Kalouria exited in a restructuring.)<br />
Pictures Entertainment, while Yoshida, a veteran Damian Thong, Sony analyst at Macquarie<br />
of corporate strategy who joined Sony in 1983, Capital in Tokyo, notes that “SPE is not a monolithic<br />
movie business” but includes a studio,<br />
not as much. But despite Yoshida’s reputation for<br />
paring underperforming units, many Sony watchers<br />
say he’s unlikely to unload SPE right away. “I<br />
postproduction facilities and cable channels. “One<br />
credit [Yoshida] with a big part of the turnaround<br />
of the past few years,” says Eric Jackson of EMJ<br />
Capital, which owns Sony stock. “He’s forced transparency<br />
on the different business units.”<br />
Yoshida and Hirai led Sony from huge losses to<br />
forecasting a record $6.6 billion profit for 2017 with<br />
such film hits as Jumanji ($857 million globally)<br />
and Spider-Man: Homecoming ($880 million). On<br />
<strong>The</strong> Report<br />
Behind the Headlines<br />
“Everyone is trying to cover<br />
their asses as much as possible,”<br />
says one distribution exec whose<br />
company recently began adding<br />
morality clauses to its contracts.<br />
One producer insists that<br />
restrictive clauses will spark an<br />
inability to finance movies.<br />
“If there is anything downstream<br />
that impedes the ability of a financier<br />
to recoup his investment, the<br />
financier will not invest,” says this<br />
producer, adding that bond companies<br />
do not currently address<br />
the potential of a key figure negatively<br />
impacting a film because<br />
of a sex scandal. Film Finances<br />
Inc., the top bond completion<br />
company working in <strong>Hollywood</strong>,<br />
declined to comment.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re’s definitely an opportunity<br />
for a company to come<br />
up with some sort of sex abuse<br />
insurance,” says the producer.<br />
That’s a point echoed by Lichter.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> studios should start thinking<br />
about whether there’s some<br />
kind of insurance for this type of<br />
thing,” she says. “This is a whole<br />
new territory.”<br />
Lacey Rose contributed to<br />
this report.<br />
Hirai (left), the president and CEO of Sony Corp. since 2012,<br />
will be succeeded in April by Yoshida, now the company’s CFO.<br />
reason Sony has remained relevant is an understanding<br />
that electronics is linked to content,”<br />
he adds. But in this era of M&A, Jackson thinks<br />
Sony should consider expanding its entertainment<br />
assets, perhaps by acquiring Lionsgate or MGM: “I<br />
would guess it’s more likely they sell their mobile<br />
phone and financial services units rather than their<br />
pictures unit.” But one Tokyo-based Sony analyst<br />
says a creative deal could lead to a sale: “If they can<br />
form some kind of alliance and sell maybe 30 to<br />
40 percent of SPE, then that is a possibility.”<br />
YOSHIDA: KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES. SPIDER-MAN: CHUCK ZLOTNICK/SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT. JUMANJI: FRANK MASI/SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT. MOORE: COURTESY OF SUBJECT.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
12<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
ACADEMY AWARD ®<br />
INCLUDING<br />
NOMINATIONS<br />
BEST PICTURE<br />
OF THE YEAR<br />
6BEST ACTOR GARY OLDMAN
<strong>The</strong> Report<br />
Behind the Headlines<br />
REAL<br />
LIFE<br />
MOVIE<br />
How Clint Handled Non-Actors:<br />
‘Massive Improvisation’<br />
Eastwood says if Warner Bros. execs questioned his decision to cast real-life<br />
heroes in the terrorism thriller 15:17 to Paris, ‘nobody expressed it to me’ BY TATIANA SIEGEL<br />
This past spring, Clint Eastwood was<br />
grilling Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos<br />
and Anthony Sadler about their takedown<br />
of an armed Islamic State recruit on<br />
a train heading from Amsterdam to Paris.<br />
Eastwood was mulling actors to portray the<br />
real-life trio whose story informed his new<br />
film, <strong>The</strong> 15:17 to Paris, when it hit him: “I just<br />
thought, ‘I wonder if they could do it?’ ” says<br />
Eastwood, 87. “<strong>The</strong> faces just fit,” he added.<br />
<strong>The</strong> idea isn’t unprecedented, even if talent<br />
might not love being replaced by real people.<br />
Steven Soderbergh has done it more than once,<br />
with the indies <strong>The</strong> Girlfriend Experience (led<br />
by porn star Sasha Grey) and Haywire (toplined<br />
by MMA fighter Gina Carano). Gus Van Sant<br />
took a similar route with Elephant as well as<br />
with another angst pic, Paranoid Park, each<br />
costing $3 million. But with a $30 million<br />
budget, Warner Bros.’ 15:17, which<br />
opens Feb. 9, marks the first time<br />
in decades that a major studio has<br />
taken a risk on real-life protagonists<br />
leading a moderately<br />
Eastwood<br />
budgeted film.<br />
Eastwood has used nonprofessionals before,<br />
albeit in supporting roles (in Gran Torino). Given<br />
that film’s box-office performance ($270 million<br />
worldwide on a $33 million budget),<br />
Warners wasn’t about to raise any objections.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re might’ve been a little discussion as<br />
to whether they thought it was a good idea, but<br />
nobody expressed it to me,” says Eastwood.<br />
In earlier times, studios groomed reallife<br />
celebrities like figure skater Sonja Henie<br />
Howard Stern, Video Star? SiriusXM Hopes So<br />
<strong>The</strong> satellite service plans a new add-on in its latest subscriber search BY PAUL BOND AND GEORG SZALAI<br />
Video will embrace the radio star<br />
this summer as 64-year-old<br />
Howard Stern will become a multimedia<br />
play for SiriusXM.<br />
In plans outlined during a Jan. 30<br />
earnings call, CEO Jim Meyer cautioned<br />
that “we are not<br />
going into the Netflix<br />
business” but will be<br />
“wading into the video<br />
Meyer<br />
pool” before July. <strong>The</strong><br />
satellite radio provider<br />
will draw on 30 years of Stern<br />
interviews as a blueprint to launch<br />
↑ From left: Skarlatos, Stone and Sadler were lauded for<br />
their bravery by President Obama in 2015. <strong>The</strong>y play themselves<br />
in the action thriller <strong>The</strong> 15:17 to Paris.<br />
video of other talk hosts, comedians<br />
and musicians. <strong>The</strong> video product<br />
will be part of SiriusXM All Access,<br />
which at $20.99 a month is about a<br />
$5 premium to the regular service.<br />
“Management isn’t planning to<br />
launch the video product as a separate<br />
package but expects it to drive<br />
higher take rates of the All Access<br />
package,” says Evercore ISI analyst<br />
Vijay Jayant.<br />
SiriusXM isn’t the only subscription<br />
audio-based company to dabble<br />
in video. Spotify began streaming<br />
videos from such partners as<br />
Comedy Central and ESPN in early<br />
2016, paving the way for the music<br />
service to greenlight a batch of<br />
original shortform videos. That effort<br />
struggled to gain traction. Apple,<br />
of course, is launching a video service<br />
to complement Apple Music.<br />
SiriusXM has nearly 33 million U.S.<br />
subscribers. Stern, who hasn’t had<br />
a headlining video presence since<br />
pay channel Howard TV shuttered in<br />
late 2013, is signed through 2020.<br />
Says Steven Birenberg, founder<br />
— once the highest-paid actress in <strong>Hollywood</strong><br />
— to essentially play themselves in movies<br />
like 20th Century Fox’s My Lucky Star. More<br />
recently, Paramount had mixed results when<br />
gambling on real-life characters, scoring<br />
a modest success with 1997’s Howard Stern<br />
comedy Private Parts and its $41 million<br />
haul. Six years later, it endured a bomb with<br />
<strong>The</strong> Real Cancun, which took in $5 million.<br />
And Relativity’s 2012 thriller Act of Valor, which<br />
earned $81 million worldwide off a $12 million<br />
budget, starred Navy SEALs whose last<br />
names did not appear in the credits and were<br />
not revealed in initial marketing of the film.<br />
In the case of 15:17, Eastwood made up for<br />
the lack of professional actors by doing “a massive<br />
amount of improvisation.” Now Stone, 25,<br />
is hanging on tight to his SAG-AFTRA card<br />
and has signed with UTA for all areas, with<br />
Jason Heyman representing him for acting.<br />
“I would love to make it a long career,” Stone<br />
says. For Eastwood’s next film, which he<br />
hasn’t yet determined, he likely will return to<br />
employing pros. “I’m not deserting my Screen<br />
Actors Guild,” he says. “<strong>The</strong> Screen Actors<br />
Guild just has three new members.”<br />
Stern’s SiriusXM show attracts an estimated<br />
9 million listeners each week.<br />
of Northlake Capital Management:<br />
“If they establish video within the<br />
current customer bases — and<br />
attract some new customers with<br />
it — eventually it could be a standalone<br />
product.”<br />
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.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
14<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
<strong>The</strong> Report<br />
Behind the Headlines<br />
Box Office<br />
Domestic International<br />
Gross Cume % Chg Gross Cume<br />
Total<br />
1. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle SONY<br />
10.9 352.6 (7) -32 12.6 *94 503.1 856.7<br />
<strong>The</strong> pic made a surprise Super Bowl<br />
comeback, reclaiming the top spot in its seventh<br />
weekend, the first time since Titanic that a<br />
wide December release has won in <strong>February</strong>.<br />
2. Maze Runner: <strong>The</strong> Death Cure FOX<br />
10.5 40 (2) -57 35.5 *81 143.2 183.2<br />
3. Winchester CBS FILMS/LIONSGATE<br />
9.3 9.3 (1) - N/A N/A 9.3<br />
<strong>The</strong> supernatural thriller sports a dismal<br />
13 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the worst<br />
score on the site for a feature starring Helen<br />
Mirren after 2010’s Love Ranch (12 percent).<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> Greatest Showman FOX<br />
7.7 137.4 (7) -19 16.2 *62 153.1 290.5<br />
5. <strong>The</strong> Post FOX<br />
5.2 67.2 (7) -43 10.3 *29 37.2 104.4<br />
6. Hostiles ENTERTAINMENT STUDIOS<br />
5.1 20.8 (7) -50 N/A N/A 20.8<br />
7. 12 Strong WARNER BROS.<br />
4.7 37.3 (3) -46 2.9 *38 8.7 46<br />
8. Den of Thieves STX<br />
4.6 36.2 (3) -47 6.5 *32 9.1 45.3<br />
9. <strong>The</strong> Shape of Water FOX SEARCHLIGHT<br />
4.4 44.7 (10) -25 4.4 *23 19.5 64.2<br />
Director Guillermo del Toro continues to rack<br />
up wins on the awards circuit, but the film<br />
fell 25 percent domestically despite upping<br />
its theater count to 2,341.<br />
10. Paddington 2 WARNER BROS./STUDIOCANAL<br />
3.3 36.5 (4) -42 2 *31 155.8 192.3<br />
11. Three Billboards … FOX SEARCHLIGHT<br />
3 41.8 (13) -22 8.3 *41 46.3 88.1<br />
12. I, Tonya NEON/VARIOUS<br />
2.5 22.6 (9) -19 1.6 *7 4.5 27.1<br />
13. Padmaavat VIVA ENTERTAINMENT<br />
2.4 8.9 (2) -46 2.2 *11 8.7 17.6<br />
14. Darkest Hour FOCUS FEATURES<br />
2.36 48.8 (11) -18 7.1 *59 65.8 114.6<br />
15. Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi DISNEY<br />
2.34 614.5 (8) -45 2.8 *29 706 1.32B<br />
Broadcast TV<br />
18-49 Audience<br />
Live+3<br />
Live+3<br />
1. Grammy Awards CBS<br />
6.3 20.8M<br />
2. This Is Us NBC<br />
4.5 14.9M<br />
3. Grey’s Anatomy ABC<br />
3.3 11.3M<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> Good Doctor ABC<br />
3.1 14.99M<br />
5. 911 FOX<br />
2.7 10.1M<br />
6. <strong>The</strong> Bachelor ABC<br />
2.2 7.4M<br />
7. NCIS CBS<br />
2.1 17.1M<br />
8. Ellen’s Game of Games NBC<br />
2.1 8.4M<br />
9. <strong>The</strong> Goldbergs ABC<br />
2.1 7.1M<br />
Good news for Sony: When ABC aired<br />
its passed-over pilot for the proposed<br />
Goldbergs spinoff, the episode topped<br />
broadcast and was the No. 1 comedy of<br />
the week — reigniting interest.<br />
10. Chicago Med NBC<br />
2.0 10M<br />
11. Bull CBS<br />
1.9 14.3M<br />
12. Chicago Fire NBC<br />
1.9 9.4M<br />
13. Scandal ABC<br />
1.9 7.0M<br />
14. American Housewife (1/24) ABC<br />
1.8 6.6M<br />
15. How to … Murder ABC<br />
1.8 5.9M<br />
Closer<br />
Look<br />
Dunkirk nabbed<br />
eight nominations.<br />
Cable TV<br />
Viewership<br />
Live+3<br />
1. Vikings HISTORY<br />
3.7<br />
2. <strong>The</strong> Alienist TNT<br />
3.1<br />
Turner cites a whopping 13 million<br />
viewers (with linear encores and digital<br />
lifts) for its adaptation of the Caleb<br />
Carr best-seller. It’s cable’s No. 1 drama<br />
launch of the young year.<br />
3. ACS: Versace FX<br />
2.98<br />
4. Haves and the Have Nots OWN<br />
2.87<br />
5. Shameless SHOWTIME<br />
2.82<br />
6. <strong>The</strong> Librarians TNT<br />
2.2<br />
7. Knightfall HISTORY<br />
2.1<br />
8. If Loving You Is Wrong OWN<br />
2.0<br />
9. Waco PARAMOUNT<br />
1.9<br />
10. Nashville CMT<br />
1.6<br />
One to Watch<br />
Waco PARAMOUNT<br />
<strong>The</strong> miniseries’ Jan. 24 debut, which<br />
earned a solid 1.1 rating in the key<br />
demo, coincided with the launch of the<br />
Paramount Network.<br />
Oscar Best Picture Scorecard<br />
<strong>The</strong> nominees’ worldwide grosses so far<br />
1. Dunkirk WARNER BROS. $525.6M<br />
2. Get Out UNIVERSAL $255M<br />
3. Darkest Hour FOCUS $114.6M<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> Post FOX $104.4M<br />
5. Three Billboards … FOX S. $88.1M<br />
6. Shape of Water FOX S. $64.2M<br />
7. Lady Bird A24 $43.7M<br />
8. Call Me by … SONY CLASSICS $22M<br />
9. Phantom Thread FOCUS $17.4M<br />
Source: ComScore<br />
Alma Har’el<br />
on the set of<br />
Coca-Cola’s<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Wonder<br />
of Us” ad.<br />
TV Ads Enlist<br />
More Female<br />
Directors<br />
Advertising agencies, spurred<br />
by a pledge campaign, are<br />
picking more women for highly<br />
coveted (and paid) ‘feeder’ gigs<br />
BY MIA GALUPPO<br />
An ongoing effort to get advertising<br />
agencies to book more female<br />
directors for big-budget TV spots<br />
is starting to pay off thanks to<br />
Free the Bid, a campaign started in<br />
September 2016 by director Alma<br />
Har’el, who is responsible for this<br />
year’s Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad.<br />
Susan Credle, chief creative<br />
officer at FCB Global, whose clients<br />
include Clorox and Levi’s, says the<br />
proportion of FCB’s ads directed<br />
by women has risen from 10 percent<br />
to 30 percent since the agency<br />
took the pledge last year to consider<br />
hiring female directors. Ad giant<br />
BBDO has doubled the number of<br />
female directors hired on commercials,<br />
while CP+B has seen a fourfold<br />
increase. Airbnb, Visa and Twitter<br />
are among brands that have joined<br />
the campaign.<br />
“Advertising has always been a<br />
feeder to <strong>Hollywood</strong>,” Har’el says.<br />
She notes that commercial work for<br />
up-and-coming female directors —<br />
Reed Morano and Ava DuVernay<br />
have helmed TV ads — boosts their<br />
careers in two ways: <strong>The</strong>y gain<br />
filmmaking experience (“<strong>The</strong>y<br />
get to argue with ad agencies and<br />
brands [in ways] that are similar to<br />
working with studios and financiers”)<br />
and financial security (“Right now,<br />
[women] can’t sustain their careers<br />
long enough to be competitive”).<br />
<strong>The</strong> campaign hopes to spur<br />
similar action for moviemaking. “A lot<br />
of great directors spend time coming<br />
through advertising as their university<br />
before going on to conquer<br />
the film world,” says Credle, adding:<br />
“[Alma’s] theory is that if more<br />
women get into advertising, we can<br />
change the game in film.”<br />
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.<br />
HAR’EL: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. JUMANJI: FRANK MASI/COLUMBIA PICTURES. WINCHESTER: BEN KING/CBS FILMS. SHAPE: KERRY HAYES/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX.<br />
ALIENIST: KATA VERMES/TNT. GOLDBERGS: ABC/RON TOM. WACO: PARAMOUNT NETWORK/URSULA COYOTE. DUNKIRK: COURTESY OF WARNER BROS.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
16<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
ARE OSCAR FRONTRUNNERS<br />
STARTING TO EMERGE?<br />
IS NOW<br />
<strong>The</strong> action isn’t slowing down yet: <strong>The</strong> Directors Guild has<br />
weighed in, and the writers are next up on Feb. 11 as the Academy’s<br />
day of judgment draws ever closer By Scott Feinberg<br />
DIRECTOR<br />
ONE OF THE WORLD’S<br />
PRE-EMINENT INTERNATIONAL<br />
CO-PRODUCTION MARKETS<br />
FOR FEATURE FILM, TV AND<br />
DIGITAL MEDIA.<br />
SEPTEMBER 13-15, <strong>2018</strong><br />
HALIFAX<br />
NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA<br />
FINPARTNERS.CA<br />
Guillermo del Toro,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
<strong>The</strong> Golden Globe and Producers Guild<br />
of America winner added the DGA’s top<br />
award to his mantelpiece Feb. 3. Only<br />
seven times in 69 years has the top DGA<br />
Award winner not gone on to win the<br />
best director Oscar.<br />
ACTOR<br />
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour<br />
<strong>The</strong> prohibitive frontrunner to win<br />
the Oscar — his portrayal of Winston<br />
Churchill has earned Globe and<br />
SAG awards — was feted at the Santa<br />
Barbara International Film Festival,<br />
where received the fest’s Maltin Master<br />
Award on Feb. 2.<br />
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE<br />
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail<br />
Acclaimed filmmaker Steve James<br />
(Hoop Dreams) got his first doc nomination<br />
for this look at a small bank that<br />
fell victim to the financial crisis. But at<br />
the DGA Awards, he lost the doc prize<br />
to Matthew Heineman’s City of Ghosts,<br />
which isn’t Oscar-nominated.<br />
Jordan Peele, Get Out<br />
He may have lost the DGA Award for<br />
film directing to Guillermo del Toro, but<br />
he remains in play after scoring the next<br />
best thing — the DGA’s prize for feature<br />
directorial debut — and earning a standing<br />
ovation at the ceremony as he headed<br />
to the stage.<br />
SUPPORTING ACTOR<br />
Christopher Plummer,<br />
All the Money in the World<br />
He was one of only five acting nominees<br />
who couldn’t make it to the Nominees<br />
Luncheon on Feb. 5 (along with Daniel<br />
Day-Lewis, Denzel Washington, Woody<br />
Harrelson and Lesley Manville), missing<br />
an opportunity for glad-handing voters.<br />
SONG<br />
“This Is Me”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Greatest Showman<br />
Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s Golden<br />
Globe-winning tune, sung by Keala<br />
Settle, is getting lots of primetime exposure<br />
in NBC advertisements for the<br />
Winter Olympics, including one featured<br />
during the Super Bowl.<br />
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.<br />
18
FOX SEARCHLIGHT WARMLY CONGRATULATES<br />
FRANCES McDORMAND<br />
WINNER OF THE 9 TH ANNUAL<br />
AFRICAN AMERICAN FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION’S<br />
AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS
<strong>The</strong> Report<br />
7 Days of DEALS<br />
Who’s inking on the dotted line this week<br />
HOW PARAMOUNT AND NETFLIX PULLED<br />
OFF THAT CLOVERFIELD SUPER BOWL JUKE<br />
Deal<br />
of the<br />
Week<br />
Stuber<br />
Paradox is<br />
the third film<br />
in Abrams’<br />
sci-fi horror<br />
anthology<br />
franchise<br />
Cloverfield.<br />
HGTV Lays New Foundation With Property Brothers<br />
Big<br />
Deal<br />
Super Bowl viewers were shocked when Netflix<br />
dropped an ad for <strong>The</strong> Cloverfield Paradox, revealing<br />
that the J.J. Abrams-produced movie heretofore<br />
known as God Particle would forgo a theatrical<br />
release and instead debut on the streaming service<br />
immediately following the big game Feb. 4.<br />
<strong>The</strong> marketing stunt capped a rescue plan<br />
hatched by Abrams, Paramount chairman-CEO Jim<br />
Gianopulos, Netflix chief Ted Sarandos and head<br />
of original films Scott Stuber, among others. Worried<br />
that Paradox would perish at the box office — it<br />
was set to hit theaters April 20 after several delays<br />
— Paramount and Abrams handed it to Netflix,<br />
which is willing to shell out big bucks for high-profile<br />
content. Sources say the deal, broached over the<br />
holidays and finalized in January, is worth north of<br />
Amid the looming departure<br />
of Fixer Upper stars<br />
Chip and Joanna Gaines,<br />
HGTV is not risking losing<br />
any more top-tier talent.<br />
Cable’s fifth-most-watched network has<br />
inked a multiyear extension with Property<br />
Brothers’ Drew and Jonathan Scott (CAA,<br />
Canada’s Stohn Hay), who first came<br />
to the Scripps Interactive-owned network in<br />
2011. <strong>The</strong> twins, 39, are responsible for an<br />
atypical share of HGTV output: the original<br />
Property Brothers, the spinoffs Buying<br />
& Selling and At Home and the competition<br />
series Brother vs. Brother — which,<br />
with a reach of 13 million cross-platform<br />
viewers per episode, is Scott Brothers<br />
Entertainment’s top series. “<strong>The</strong>y can<br />
produce and star in an incredible amount<br />
of content in a very short period of time,”<br />
says Scripps U.S. programming GM Allison<br />
Page. “It’s a scale we haven’t achieved<br />
with anyone else.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> exclusive pact comes as the<br />
Canadian imports become an increasingly<br />
mainstream presence. Drew placed fourth<br />
on the most recent season of ABC’s Dancing<br />
With the Stars, and both frequently appear<br />
on NBC’s Today to promote their series and<br />
licensed products.<br />
HGTV is aggressively fortifying its slate<br />
amid Scripps’ pending $11.9 billion sale to<br />
Rights Available! Hot new books with <strong>Hollywood</strong> appeal BY ANDY LEWIS AND TATIANA SIEGEL<br />
Everything Happens for a Reason:<br />
And Other Lies I’ve Loved (RANDOM HOUSE, FEB. 6)<br />
BY Kate Bowler AGENCY Gotham Group<br />
<strong>The</strong> Duke Divinity School professor chronicles her stage 4<br />
colon cancer diagnosis at age 35 and how it upended her beliefs.<br />
Her Jan. 26 New York Times op-ed furthered the conversation.<br />
$50 million, with Paramount retaining rights for<br />
China and home entertainment. It makes the movie<br />
instantly profitable for the studio, which avoids a<br />
(likely) misfire and costly marketing campaign.<br />
And Netflix got what it was looking for, regardless<br />
of withering reviews (18 percent on Rotten Tomatoes<br />
at press time): buzz. “It gets them attention and<br />
captures some viewing right off the bat,” says<br />
eMarketer’s Paul Vern. And even if the streamer<br />
doesn’t ultimately get the viewership it hoped for<br />
Paradox, “they still got a brand jolt,” he adds.<br />
Paradox, which finished principal photography in<br />
September 2016, was part of the successful and popular<br />
Cloverfield series, but sources say Gianopulos,<br />
who joined the studio six months later, was worried.<br />
Despite additions to clarify character beats and<br />
tie the film to the franchise’s universe, it was ultimately<br />
deemed unsalvageable despite a cast led by<br />
Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Elizabeth Debicki, David Oyelowo<br />
and Daniel Bruhl. Netflix was an obvious destination,<br />
having already taken over international rights<br />
to the Natalie Portman starrer Annihilation, which<br />
Paramount will release domestically Feb. 23.<br />
Paramount retains rights to future Cloverfield<br />
films. Overlord, a World War II zombie pic from<br />
Abrams that has scored high in test screenings, could<br />
be a contender, although sources say that its fate is<br />
undetermined. — BORYS KIT AND PAMELA MCCLINTOCK<br />
Discovery Communications. New siblingcentric<br />
series Restored by the Fords is<br />
retaining 60 percent of its Fixer Upper leadin,<br />
and the network has another 50-odd<br />
pilots (some with the Scotts) in development.<br />
— MICHAEL O’CONNELL<br />
Jonathan<br />
(left) and<br />
Drew Scott<br />
have been<br />
spending<br />
more time<br />
in L.A. and<br />
onscreen.<br />
Lone Stars (PHILOMEL BOOKS, SEPT. 12, 2017)<br />
Lane<br />
FILM<br />
Suki Waterhouse (CAA,<br />
the U.K.’s Independent,<br />
Untitled, Jackoway<br />
Tyerman) has joined<br />
Legendary’s Detective<br />
Pikachu movie along<br />
with Bill Nighy and You’re<br />
the Worst’s Chris Geere.<br />
Jim Parsons (CAA,<br />
Gang Tyre) has joined Zac<br />
Efron in the Ted Bundy<br />
biopic Extremely Wicked,<br />
Shockingly Evil and Vile.<br />
Riverdale star Cole<br />
Sprouse (WME, Authentic,<br />
Greenberg Traurig) is<br />
in talks to topline the CBS<br />
Films romantic drama Five<br />
Feet Apart.<br />
Big Boi (UTA, Career<br />
Artists) has joined Sony’s<br />
Superfly remake.<br />
Michelle MacLaren (ICM,<br />
Stone Genow) will direct<br />
Chris Pratt in Universal’s<br />
Cowboy Ninja Viking.<br />
BY Mike Lupica AGENCY ICM Partners<br />
Shopped as Friday Night Lights meets Concussion, this YA<br />
novel from the best-selling sports columnist follows a middle<br />
schooler who suspects his beloved football coach, a former pro<br />
player, is suffering from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy).<br />
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<br />
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.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
20<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
103.4M<br />
People who watched the Feb. 4<br />
Big<br />
Number<br />
Super Bowl on NBC (106 million with<br />
streaming), down 3 percent from<br />
last year and the fewest since 2009.<br />
Sutter<br />
Waterhouse<br />
Gray<br />
MacLaren<br />
Sprouse<br />
China’s CMC Capital<br />
Partners has taken<br />
full ownership of Oriental<br />
DreamWorks from<br />
NBCUniversal and will<br />
rename it Pearl Studio.<br />
F. Gary Gray (UTA,<br />
Principato Young, Del<br />
Shaw) is in talks to direct<br />
Sony’s Men in Black spinoff.<br />
Octavia Spencer (WME,<br />
Jackoway Tyerman)<br />
and <strong>The</strong> Help director<br />
Tate Taylor (CAA, Lichter<br />
Grossman) will reteam<br />
for Blumhouse horror thriller<br />
Ma, also starring Luke<br />
Evans and Juliette Lewis.<br />
Willem Dafoe (CAA, the<br />
U.K.’s Artists Partnership,<br />
Circle of Confusion)<br />
has joined Edward Norton’s<br />
adaptation of Jonathan<br />
Lethem’s detective novel<br />
Motherless Brooklyn<br />
along with Bruce Willis and<br />
Alec Baldwin.<br />
Lionsgate and Roadside<br />
Attractions have acquired<br />
U.S. rights to the Rose<br />
Byrne starrer Juliet, Naked.<br />
Iger and Bay’s Fifth Avenue co-op features Central Park views.<br />
IFC Films has picked<br />
up North American rights<br />
to the gender-identity<br />
drama A Kid Like Jake.<br />
James Mangold (WME,<br />
Management 360)<br />
will direct Fox’s untitled<br />
drama about the rivalry<br />
between automakers Ford<br />
and Ferrari.<br />
Adam Shankman (UTA,<br />
Bloom Hergott) will<br />
direct Taraji P. Henson in<br />
Paramount Players’ What<br />
Men Want.<br />
Jim Caviezel (ICM, Frank<br />
Stewart) is in talks to<br />
reprise his role as Jesus in<br />
Mel Gibson’s sequel to<br />
<strong>The</strong> Passion of the Christ.<br />
Spectre’s John<br />
Logan (CAA) will adapt<br />
Walter Isaacson’s<br />
Leonardo da Vinci biography<br />
for Paramount<br />
and Leonardo DiCaprio.<br />
TriStar Pictures has<br />
acquired the rights to<br />
Kristin Hannah’s upcoming<br />
novel <strong>The</strong> Great Alone.<br />
Drew Barrymore (CAA,<br />
Hansen Jacobson) will<br />
play two starring roles in<br />
Jamie Babbit’s romantic<br />
comedy <strong>The</strong> Stand-In.<br />
This Is Us’ Chrissy Metz<br />
(CAA, Luber Roklin,<br />
Meyers & Downs) will star<br />
in Fox 2000’s faith-based<br />
drama <strong>The</strong> Impossible.<br />
Riverdale’s K.J. Apa<br />
(UTA, Luber Roklin,<br />
Jackoway Tyerman) will<br />
topline Gulfstream Pictures’<br />
ensemble romantic<br />
comedy <strong>The</strong> Last Summer.<br />
TELEVISION<br />
<strong>The</strong> NFL and Fox<br />
have reached a five-year,<br />
$3.3 billion deal for<br />
Thursday Night Football.<br />
Dwayne Johnson (WME,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Garcia Co., Gang Tyre)<br />
will host and executive<br />
produce NBC’s competition<br />
series <strong>The</strong> Titan Games.<br />
Leslie Jones (Integral,<br />
Hansen Jacobson)<br />
will join NBC’s coverage of<br />
the <strong>2018</strong> Winter Olympics.<br />
Hannibal’s Jesse<br />
Alexander (CAA,<br />
Kleinberg Lange) will<br />
showrun season two<br />
of Starz’s American Gods<br />
alongside Neil Gaiman.<br />
Katherine Heigl (Zero<br />
Gravity, Morris Yorn)<br />
will be a series regular on<br />
Suits, which USA has<br />
renewed for season eight.<br />
Kurt Sutter (WME,<br />
Gendler & Kelly) has<br />
renewed his overall<br />
deal with 20th Century<br />
Fox Television, Fox 21<br />
Television Studios and<br />
FX Productions.<br />
Zachary Quinto (CAA,<br />
Untitled, Jackoway<br />
Tyerman) will host History’s<br />
revival of In Search Of,<br />
whose original iteration was<br />
hosted by Leonard Nimoy.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Leftovers’ Nicole<br />
Kassell (WME, Washington<br />
Square, Frankfurt<br />
Kurnit) will direct HBO’s<br />
Watchmen pilot.<br />
HBO has ordered<br />
J.J. Abrams’ sci-fi drama<br />
Demimonde straight to<br />
series. … NBC has picked<br />
up Julian Fellowes’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Gilded Age to series.<br />
DIGITAL<br />
Warner Bros. Digital<br />
Networks has ordered<br />
the drama Metropolis<br />
straight to series<br />
for the upcoming DC<br />
Digital Service.<br />
Rep<br />
Sheet<br />
Empire’s Jussie Smollett<br />
has signed with UTA.<br />
Billions’ David Costabile,<br />
who also is in <strong>The</strong> Post,<br />
has signed with ICM<br />
Partners, as has Politico.<br />
Rectify alum Aden<br />
Young has signed with<br />
Anonymous Content,<br />
as has <strong>The</strong> New York<br />
Times Co.<br />
This Is Us co-showrunners<br />
Isaac Aptaker<br />
and Elizabeth Berger<br />
have signed with CAA.<br />
Comedian Tony Rock has<br />
signed with E2W PR.<br />
Diane Lane (UTA,<br />
Weintraub Tobin) and<br />
Greg Kinnear (WME,<br />
Stone Genow) will play<br />
siblings on the final season<br />
of Netflix’s House of Cards.<br />
Tony winner Ben Platt<br />
(CAA, One Entertainment,<br />
Jackoway Tyerman) will<br />
topline Ryan Murphy’s musical<br />
series <strong>The</strong> Politician,<br />
which received a twoseason<br />
order from Netflix,<br />
with Barbra Streisand and<br />
Gwyneth Paltrow in talks to<br />
co-star.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Vampire Diaries’<br />
Jaz Sinclair (UTA,<br />
Next<br />
Big<br />
Thing<br />
Ayanna Floyd Davis<br />
REP ICM Partners<br />
WHY SHE MATTERS<br />
Davis will replace<br />
Elwood Reid as showrunner<br />
of critically<br />
acclaimed new drama<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chi, which<br />
Showtime has renewed<br />
for a second season.<br />
Davis is a veteran<br />
television writer with<br />
credits on Private<br />
Practice, Hannibal and<br />
Empire, but the Lena<br />
Waithe-created series<br />
will mark her first turn<br />
as an executive producer<br />
and head of the<br />
writers room.<br />
Creative Partners,<br />
Hirsch Wallerstein) will<br />
co-star in Netflix’s<br />
untitled Riverdale spinoff<br />
about Sabrina the<br />
Teenage Witch.<br />
BOOKS<br />
Rogue One writer<br />
Gary Whitta (UTA, Circle<br />
of Confusion, Behr<br />
Abramson) will pen<br />
Marvel’s comic book series<br />
adaptation of <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi.<br />
REAL ESTATE<br />
Bob Iger and wife Willow<br />
Bay (Stribling) have sold<br />
a New York City co-op for<br />
$18.75 million.<br />
THE PLACE YOU’RE LOOKING FOR.<br />
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About Town<br />
PERSON OF INTEREST<br />
Who Does<br />
Whitney<br />
Cummings<br />
Think She Is?<br />
<strong>The</strong> prolific TV star/creator helms<br />
her first feature, <strong>The</strong> Female Brain<br />
By Lacey Rose • Photographed by Coral von Zumwalt<br />
W<br />
hitney Cummings was right around<br />
30 when her mother and father suffered<br />
strokes within two years of<br />
each other. Desperate to understand<br />
what went wrong, she began devouring neurology<br />
books, which led her to Louann Brizendine’s<br />
<strong>The</strong> Female Brain. While it would do little to aid<br />
her parents, the book profoundly changed the<br />
comedian’s understanding of herself. “I remember<br />
feeling an overwhelming sense of relief,” she<br />
says, “and a lot less crazy.” Now Cummings, 35<br />
and a prolific TV creator (2 Broke Girls, Whitney),<br />
has spun the tome into a rom-com (out Feb. 9 via<br />
IFC Films), enlisting Neal Brennan (Chappelle’s<br />
Show) to co-write and lining up Sofia Vergara,<br />
James Marsden and the NBA’s Blake Griffin to join<br />
her onscreen. That her directorial debut, a film<br />
centering on empathy between the sexes, arrives<br />
in the heat of the Time’s Up moment isn’t lost on<br />
the D.C.-reared Ivy Leaguer, also a showrunner<br />
on ABC’s Roseanne revival. Though the movement<br />
has Cummings reconsidering some of her early<br />
experiences in comedy (“Because of the rejection<br />
you get and how tough you have to be … I<br />
didn’t realize some sexual harassment I had dealt<br />
with”), she says stand-up remains “the only place<br />
I’m comfortable. It’s where I oxygenate.”<br />
People, Places, Preoccupations<br />
HAIR BY DAVID STANWELL FOR DOVE HAIRCARE AT THE WALL GROUP, MAKEUP BY KATHLEEN KARRIDENE.<br />
Your financier, Black Bicycle’s Erika Olde, had to<br />
persuade you to direct <strong>The</strong> Female Brain. Why?<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are tectonic plates moving in our business<br />
Hear about Cummings’ tsunami experience on set at THR.COM/VIDEO<br />
“One of the big conversations I’m trying<br />
to have onstage right now is that to be<br />
pro-woman, you don’t have to be anti-man.<br />
Saying all men suck makes you look like<br />
an idiot,” says Cummings, photographed<br />
Jan. 26 at Harlowe in West <strong>Hollywood</strong>.<br />
Styling by George Kotsiopoulos<br />
Wolk Morais jacket, vest, trousers,<br />
shirt and tie, Christian Louboutin shoes.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
23<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
About Town<br />
People, Places,<br />
Preoccupations<br />
but — and this is my shit that<br />
I need to work on — I still have<br />
a bit of shame around raising<br />
my hand and being the boss.<br />
Our society has this way of going,<br />
“Don’t shine too bright, know<br />
your place.” So the idea of being<br />
in a position of domination made<br />
me [uncomfortable].<br />
By 28, you had already created<br />
two TV shows. You didn’t get<br />
comfortable then?<br />
I definitely learned, but there<br />
was also a bit of, “She’s doing too<br />
much and we don’t like it.”<br />
Who’s the “we”?<br />
My @ replies on Twitter? (Laughs.)<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was a bit of, “Who does she<br />
think she is?” And people get mad<br />
at you. I thought my dreams were<br />
coming true, then someone was<br />
like, “Don’t listen to them.” I’m all,<br />
“Who’s them?” I had no idea. I do<br />
think things have changed, even<br />
in the last six months, but there’s<br />
this idea of, you don’t get to<br />
achieve too much [as a woman]<br />
without losing friends and<br />
people not liking it. And I’ve definitely<br />
had male counterparts [for<br />
whom] people were like, “Fucking<br />
awesome, dude, that’s so cool.<br />
You’re killing it.” <strong>The</strong>re’s not a lot<br />
of, “Who does he think he is?”<br />
You got your start writing for<br />
Comedy Central roasts. In 2011,<br />
you roasted Donald Trump.<br />
With every roast, it’s all fun and<br />
games until you’re up there, and<br />
then people’s feelings always end<br />
up getting hurt. But his feelings<br />
did not get hurt. I remember being<br />
like, “Wow, he’s loving this.”<br />
And net-worth jokes were off-limits?<br />
Oh yeah. At every roast, something’s<br />
off-limits. I love that it<br />
wasn’t his daughter or his wife,<br />
it was his money.<br />
Griffin<br />
with Cecily<br />
Strong in<br />
<strong>The</strong> Female<br />
Brain.<br />
I Was Wrongly Accused of<br />
Harassment. This Is What I Did<br />
I<br />
‘To have my workplace conduct questioned was gut-wrenching,’ writes<br />
the E! News star of allegations recently found to be unsubstantiated,<br />
as he pledges ‘to help voices be heard’ By Ryan Seacrest<br />
do not take things for granted. Every day I<br />
am living my childhood dream because of the<br />
efforts of so many other people. I do my best<br />
to show and express my gratitude to my co-hosts,<br />
producers, guests, audiences, executives, partners<br />
and fans for the privilege of their collaboration<br />
and participation, and for the unwavering support<br />
of my loved ones and team.<br />
In November, I received a letter from a lawyer<br />
representing a former show stylist. She claimed<br />
that I mistreated her more than a decade ago<br />
when we worked together. This arrived<br />
during an unprecedented public reckoning<br />
by women in our industry and beyond,<br />
courageously coming forward to share<br />
their stories, many of them heartbreaking. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
women sought to bring attention to the systemic<br />
gender inequality that has occurred for decades. I<br />
was — and am — amazed at their bravery.<br />
To have my workplace conduct questioned<br />
was gut-wrenching. I’ve always aimed to treat all<br />
of my colleagues with honesty, respect, kindness<br />
and compassion. Yet I knew, regardless of the<br />
confidence I had that there was no merit to the<br />
allegations, my name would likely soon appear on<br />
the lists of those suspected of despicable words<br />
and deeds. <strong>The</strong> pressures of our overflowing newsfeeds<br />
would insist on it.<br />
I absolutely want to be part of the change,<br />
the progress, that is coming. I did not want to be<br />
a postscript of evidence of its cause.<br />
After sharing the letter with the network, I publicly<br />
denied the claims against me and agreed<br />
to participate in any inquiry the network deemed<br />
appropriate. On Feb. 1, I received notice that an<br />
Guest<br />
Column<br />
↑ Seacrest appeared on E!’s Live From the Red Carpet before the<br />
Grammy Awards on Jan. 28.<br />
independent third party found the claims to be<br />
unsubstantiated and that there was no evidence<br />
of wrongdoing on my part.<br />
Most of us agree that the presumption of innocence<br />
is an important standard. We are taught<br />
early on that it’s essential to see all sides, to give<br />
everyone a chance to explain and to check for<br />
exculpatory evidence that may have been missed.<br />
At a time when improper interactions between<br />
men and women, particularly in the workplace,<br />
are part of a national conversation,<br />
we must find a way to ensure that everyone<br />
— the public, private and public<br />
institutions, accusers and accused — is given the<br />
opportunity for a swift and fair review.<br />
My job is to listen. Beyond listening, which I will<br />
continue in earnest, I also will ask questions and<br />
try to help voices be heard. It isn’t lost on me that<br />
my platforms — radio, TV, social media — can be<br />
powerful conduits for change.<br />
We all have the right to be treated equally,<br />
regardless of our gender, race, faith, ethnicity,<br />
sexual orientation, gender identity or other<br />
status. We find ourselves in extraordinary times<br />
in American culture. We live with near-constant<br />
change, disruption and public discourse. I realize<br />
the morals and values, the decency, we’ve perhaps<br />
taken for granted, individually and as citizens of<br />
the world, are in question. Worse, at risk. I do not<br />
take these things for granted.<br />
Seacrest is an award-winning TV/radio host and<br />
producer and creative entrepreneur.<br />
FEMALE: COURTESY OF IFC FILMS. SEACREST: TIMOTHY KURATEK/CBS (2).<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
24<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
ACADEMY AWARD ® NOMINATIONS<br />
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY<br />
MARY J. BLIGE RACHEL MORRISON<br />
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY<br />
VIRGIL WILLIAMS AND DEE REES<br />
“HISTORY-MAKING.”<br />
THE FIRST PERSON NOMINATED FOR ACTING AND MUSIC IN THE SAME YEAR<br />
MARY J. BLIGE<br />
THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN NOMINATED FOR ADAPTED SCREENPLAY<br />
DEE REES<br />
THE FIRST WOMAN NOMINATED FOR CINEMATOGRAPHY<br />
RACHEL MORRISON<br />
TO EXPERIENCE MARY J. BLIGE'S SONG, “MIGHTY RIVER,” VISIT:<br />
GUILDS.NETFLIX.COM/MUDBOUND/MUSIC<br />
BEST ORIGINAL SONG<br />
“MIGHTY RIVER”<br />
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Yes, I Did Say That!<br />
A look at who’s saying what in entertainment<br />
Compiled by Brian Porreca<br />
About Town<br />
Quotes<br />
“ ‘Hit 40 miles per hour<br />
or your hair won’t<br />
blow the right way and I’ll<br />
make you do it again.’ ”<br />
UMA THURMAN<br />
<strong>The</strong> actress, revealing to <strong>The</strong> New York Times what<br />
Quentin Tarantino told her on the set of Kill Bill before<br />
a dangerous driving stunt led to a violent crash.<br />
“I was offered<br />
the role of Poop;<br />
I was like,<br />
‘That’s fucked up.’ ”<br />
JORDAN PEELE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Get Out director, revealing<br />
at the DGA Awards that<br />
<strong>The</strong> Emoji Movie helped convince<br />
him to retire from acting.<br />
“100% less Trump.”<br />
MACAULAY CULKIN<br />
<strong>The</strong> grown-up child star, revealing<br />
on Reddit why he preferred<br />
the first Home Alone movie<br />
over the sequel, which featured<br />
a cameo by the president.<br />
“Everybody,<br />
this is not the pilot<br />
speaking. This is<br />
Jennifer Lawrence.”<br />
JENNIFER LAWRENCE<br />
<strong>The</strong> actress, using an<br />
airplane intercom on her flight<br />
to celebrate the Philadelphia<br />
Eagles’ Super Bowl win.<br />
J.T.’S<br />
HALF-<br />
TIME<br />
SUPER<br />
FUMBLE<br />
“How you gonna call<br />
me, but Oprah<br />
ain’t called me? Isn’t<br />
Oprah your friend?”<br />
TIFFANY HADDISH<br />
<strong>The</strong> Girls Trip star, joking to Vanity<br />
Fair about begging Tyler Perry to<br />
introduce her to Oprah Winfrey.<br />
“Woefully out of<br />
touch with today’s<br />
music, the music<br />
business, and even<br />
more significantly,<br />
society.”<br />
MICHELE ANTHONY<br />
<strong>The</strong> Universal Music Group<br />
executive vp, co-signing a<br />
letter to the Recording Academy<br />
with five top female music<br />
execs in response to president<br />
Neil Portnow’s comments<br />
about women needing to “step up.”<br />
Twitter didn’t enjoy Justin Timberlake’s Super Bowl<br />
halftime performance. Kathy Griffin brought up<br />
Janet Jackson, Billy Eichner critiqued his wardrobe<br />
(“wow he’s wearing fringe”), while Anthony<br />
Bourdain snarked: “I find myself spiraling into<br />
a deep dark hole of rage and depression.”<br />
“I am canceling<br />
upcoming public<br />
appearances<br />
because I have<br />
given enough.”<br />
ROSE MCGOWAN<br />
<strong>The</strong> activist, tweeting at Barnes &<br />
Noble after she was “verbally<br />
assaulted” by a transgender woman<br />
during her Brave book tour.<br />
“No tripping.”<br />
PATTON OSWALT<br />
<strong>The</strong> comedian, speaking at<br />
the Oscar nominees lunch,<br />
offering advice to potential<br />
winners. “Jennifer [Lawrence]<br />
owns it. That’s her thing now.”<br />
LAWRENCE: JON KOPALOFF/FILMMAGIC. HADDISH: GABRIEL OLSEN/FILMMAGIC. THURMAN: WALTER MCBRIDE/WIREIMAGE. TIMBERLAKE: CHRISTOPHER POLK/GETTY IMAGES. OSWALT: MATT WINKELMEYER/WIREIMAGE.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
26<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
ACADEMY AWARD ®<br />
NOMINATION<br />
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS<br />
“Shot for shot, line for line, it’s an<br />
extravagant and witty follow-up, made<br />
with the same friendly virtuosic dazzle.”<br />
VARIETY | OWEN GLEIBERMAN
Oscars: <strong>The</strong> <strong>2018</strong> Class Photo<br />
170 nominated filmmakers — and one<br />
cardboard cutout — gathered for lunch<br />
Feb. 5 at the Beverly Hilton By Gregg Kilday<br />
First Row<br />
1 Mike Meinardus<br />
Kong: Skull Island<br />
Visual Effects<br />
2 Evelyn O’Neill<br />
Lady Bird<br />
Best Picture<br />
3 Glen Gauthier<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
4 Ziad Doueiri<br />
<strong>The</strong> Insult<br />
Foreign-Language Film<br />
5 Katja Benrath<br />
Watu Wote/All of Us<br />
Live Action Short<br />
6 Lou Sheppard<br />
Victoria & Abdul<br />
Makeup and Hairstyling<br />
7 Marco Morabito<br />
Call Me by Your Name<br />
Best Picture<br />
8 Brad Zoern<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
When <strong>The</strong> Shape of Water’s<br />
Guillermo del Toro passed<br />
Steven Spielberg and Greta<br />
Gerwig’s table, he insisted<br />
on taking a selfie with them.<br />
139<br />
105<br />
140<br />
106<br />
141<br />
1<strong>07</strong><br />
142<br />
108<br />
109<br />
46<br />
73<br />
110<br />
143<br />
74<br />
47<br />
144<br />
111<br />
75 76<br />
145<br />
48<br />
112<br />
77 78<br />
113<br />
50<br />
49<br />
146<br />
79<br />
114<br />
51<br />
147<br />
80<br />
52<br />
26 27<br />
148<br />
115<br />
149 150 151<br />
81<br />
53<br />
28<br />
116<br />
29<br />
82<br />
117<br />
54<br />
83<br />
118<br />
55<br />
84<br />
30<br />
85<br />
152 153<br />
56<br />
31<br />
119<br />
86<br />
57<br />
154<br />
120<br />
32<br />
58<br />
87<br />
155<br />
121<br />
9 Scott Neustadter<br />
<strong>The</strong> Disaster Artist<br />
Adapted Screenplay<br />
10 Laura Checkoway<br />
Edith+Eddie<br />
Documentary Short<br />
11 Kobe Bryant<br />
Dear Basketball<br />
Animated Short<br />
12 Ildiko Enyedi<br />
On Body and Soul<br />
Foreign-Language Film<br />
104<br />
45<br />
21<br />
22<br />
23<br />
24 25<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
6<br />
7<br />
8<br />
9<br />
10<br />
13 Raphael Saadiq<br />
Mudbound<br />
Original Song<br />
1<br />
14 Paul Denham Austerberry<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Production Design<br />
15 Josh Lawson<br />
<strong>The</strong> Eleven O’Clock<br />
Live Action Short<br />
16 Michael Green<br />
Logan<br />
Adapted Screenplay<br />
17 Vanessa Taylor<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Original Screenplay<br />
As supporting actress<br />
nominee Laurie Metcalf<br />
took her place beside<br />
Oscar, she got a big<br />
shoutout from nominated<br />
co-star Saoirse Ronan.<br />
18 James Mangold<br />
Logan<br />
Adapted Screenplay<br />
19 Richard King<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Sound Editing<br />
20 Reed Van Dyk<br />
DeKalb Elementary<br />
Live Action Short<br />
Second Row<br />
21 Thomas Lennon<br />
Knife Skills<br />
Documentary Short<br />
22 Peter Spears<br />
Call Me by Your Name<br />
Best Picture<br />
23 Sidney Wolinsky<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Film Editing<br />
24 Jakob Schuh<br />
Revolting Rhymes<br />
Animated Short<br />
25 Scott Frank<br />
Logan<br />
Adapted Screenplay<br />
26 Jan Lachauer<br />
Revolting Rhymes<br />
Animated Short<br />
27 Scott Benza<br />
Kong: Skull Island<br />
Visual Effects<br />
28 Darla K. Anderson<br />
Coco<br />
Animated Feature<br />
29 Alex Gibson<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Sound Editing<br />
30 Gary A. Rizzo<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
31 Daniel Phillips<br />
Victoria & Abdul<br />
Makeup and Hairstyling<br />
32 Laurie Metcalf<br />
Lady Bird<br />
Supporting Actress<br />
33 Nora Twomey<br />
<strong>The</strong> Breadwinner<br />
Animated Feature<br />
34 David Malinowski<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Makeup and Hairstyling<br />
35 Luis Sequeira<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Costume Design<br />
36 Christopher Townsend<br />
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2<br />
Visual Effects<br />
37 Daniel Barrett<br />
War for the Planet of the Apes<br />
Visual Effects<br />
38 Stephen Rosenbaum<br />
Kong: Skull Island<br />
Visual Effects<br />
39 Jeff White<br />
Kong: Skull Island<br />
Visual Effects<br />
40 Mark Bridges<br />
Phantom Thread<br />
Costume Design<br />
41 Tobias Rosen<br />
Watu Wote/All of Us<br />
Live Action Short<br />
42 Joel Whist<br />
War for the Planet of the Apes<br />
Visual Effects<br />
43 Emily V. Gordon<br />
<strong>The</strong> Big Sick<br />
Original Screenplay<br />
44 Kumail Nanjiani<br />
<strong>The</strong> Big Sick<br />
Original Screenplay<br />
Third Row<br />
45 Ru Kuwahata<br />
Negative Space<br />
Animated Short<br />
46 Jonathan Amos<br />
Baby Driver<br />
Film Editing<br />
47 Douglas Urbanski<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Best Picture<br />
48 Dana Murray<br />
LOU<br />
Animated Short<br />
49 Justin Paul<br />
<strong>The</strong> Greatest Showman<br />
Original Song<br />
50 Richard R. Hoover<br />
Blade Runner 2049<br />
Visual Effects<br />
51 Carter Burwell<br />
Three Billboards Outside<br />
Ebbing, Missouri<br />
Original Score<br />
52 Matthew Wood<br />
Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi<br />
Sound Editing<br />
53 David Heilbroner<br />
Traffic Stop<br />
Documentary Short<br />
54 Feras Fayyad<br />
Last Men in Aleppo<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
55 Kate Davis<br />
Traffic Stop<br />
Documentary Short<br />
56 Eli Bush<br />
Lady Bird<br />
Best Picture<br />
57 Paul Machliss<br />
Baby Driver<br />
Film Editing<br />
58 Eric Fellner<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Best Picture<br />
59 Megan Ellison<br />
Phantom Thread<br />
Best Picture<br />
60 Richard Jenkins<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Supporting Actor<br />
61 Ren Klyce<br />
Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi<br />
Sound Editing, Sound Mixing<br />
62 Timothee Chalamet<br />
Call Me by Your Name<br />
Best Actor<br />
63 Ruben Ostlund<br />
<strong>The</strong> Square<br />
Foreign-Language Film<br />
64 Shane Vieau<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Production Design<br />
65 Dan Laustsen<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Cinematography<br />
66 Elaine McMillion Sheldon<br />
Heroin(e)<br />
Documentary Short<br />
67 Kerrin James Sheldon<br />
Heroin(e)<br />
Documentary Short<br />
68 Dave Mullins<br />
LOU<br />
Animated Short<br />
69 Rachel Shenton<br />
<strong>The</strong> Silent Child<br />
Live Action Short<br />
70 Mark Mangini<br />
Blade Runner 2049<br />
Sound Editing<br />
71 Anthony Leo<br />
<strong>The</strong> Breadwinner<br />
Animated Feature<br />
72 Mark Weingarten<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
Fourth Row<br />
73 Michael Semanick<br />
Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
74 Michael Mulholland<br />
Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi<br />
Visual Effects<br />
75 Gabriel Grapperon<br />
Garden Party<br />
Animated Short<br />
76 Lisa Bruce<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Best Picture<br />
77 Kazuhiro Tsuji<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Makeup and Hairstyling<br />
78 Julie Goldman<br />
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
79 Nathan Robitaille<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Sound Editing<br />
80 Bruno Delbonnel<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Cinematography<br />
81 Victor Caire<br />
Garden Party<br />
Animated Short<br />
82 Sally Hawkins<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Best Actress<br />
83 Diane Warren<br />
Marshall<br />
Original Song<br />
84 Bryan Fogel<br />
Icarus<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
85 Lee Smith<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Film Editing<br />
86 Kevin Wilson Jr.<br />
My Nephew Emmett<br />
Live Action Short<br />
87 Arjen Tuiten<br />
Wonder<br />
Makeup and Hairstyling<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
28<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
<strong>The</strong> French artist JR, nominated<br />
for the documentary Faces<br />
Places, brought a life-size<br />
cutout of his co-director, Agnes<br />
Varda, 89, planting it beside<br />
Greta Gerwig and Meryl Streep.<br />
Mudbound’s Rachel Morrison,<br />
the first woman nominated for<br />
cinematography, got one of the<br />
biggest rounds of applause.<br />
Best picture nominee Steven Spielberg<br />
brought as his guest Daniel Ellsberg,<br />
whose leaking of the Pentagon Papers is<br />
dramatized in <strong>The</strong> Post. Ellsberg chatted<br />
it up with writer-director Aaron Sorkin<br />
and his guest, poker queen Molly Bloom.<br />
Most in the crowd didn’t<br />
recognize the name when<br />
Lonnie Lynn, a best song<br />
nominee for Marshall, was<br />
asked to take his place —<br />
until they realized that, of<br />
course, that’s Common.<br />
About Town<br />
People, Places,<br />
Preoccupations<br />
88<br />
TODD WAWRYCHUK/©A.M.P.A.S.<br />
59<br />
156<br />
122<br />
33<br />
89<br />
60<br />
11<br />
157<br />
123<br />
34<br />
90<br />
158<br />
12<br />
124<br />
61<br />
159<br />
91<br />
35 36<br />
Most were starstruck around<br />
Lakers legend Kobe Bryant,<br />
nominated for the animated<br />
short Dear Basketball. Allison<br />
Janney approached him, saying,<br />
“I never ask for photos, but …”<br />
13<br />
62<br />
125<br />
88 Daniel Lupi<br />
Phantom Thread<br />
Best Picture<br />
89 Saoirse Ronan<br />
Lady Bird<br />
Best Actress<br />
90 JoAnne Sellar<br />
Phantom Thread<br />
Best Picture<br />
91 Nelson Ferreira<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Sound Editing<br />
92 Ivan Mactaggart<br />
Loving Vincent<br />
Animated Feature<br />
93 Emilie Georges<br />
Call Me by Your Name<br />
Best Picture<br />
94 Doug Hemphill<br />
Blade Runner 2049<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
95 Katie Spencer<br />
Beauty and the Beast,<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Production Design<br />
96 Daniel Kaluuya<br />
Get Out<br />
Best Actor<br />
97 Dennis Gassner<br />
Blade Runner 2049<br />
Production Design<br />
98 Lucy Sibbick<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Makeup and Hairstyling<br />
160<br />
92<br />
63<br />
14<br />
126<br />
37<br />
161<br />
127 128<br />
93 94<br />
15<br />
99 Gregg Landaker<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
100 Christian T. Cooke<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
101 Graham Broadbent<br />
Three Billboards Outside<br />
Ebbing, Missouri<br />
Best Picture<br />
102 Max Porter<br />
Negative Space<br />
Animated Short<br />
103 Stuart Wilson<br />
Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
Fifth Row<br />
64<br />
65<br />
38 39<br />
16<br />
162<br />
95<br />
104 Virgil Williams<br />
Mudbound<br />
Adapted Screenplay<br />
105 Mark Mitten<br />
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
106 Frank Stiefel<br />
Heaven Is a Traffic Jam<br />
on the 405<br />
Documentary Short<br />
1<strong>07</strong> Lori Forte<br />
Ferdinand<br />
Animated Feature<br />
108 Chris Overton<br />
<strong>The</strong> Silent Child<br />
Live Action Short<br />
109 Tom McGrath<br />
<strong>The</strong> Boss Baby<br />
Animated Feature<br />
17<br />
163 164 165<br />
18<br />
40<br />
19<br />
129<br />
66<br />
96<br />
41<br />
20<br />
130<br />
67<br />
42<br />
97<br />
68<br />
131<br />
43<br />
98<br />
69<br />
110 Glen Keane<br />
Dear Basketball<br />
Animated Short<br />
111 Chris Corbould<br />
Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi<br />
Visual Effects<br />
112 John Nelson<br />
Blade Runner 2049<br />
Visual Effects<br />
113 Dee Rees<br />
Mudbound<br />
Adapted Screenplay<br />
114 Lee Unkrich<br />
Coco<br />
Animated Feature<br />
115 Margot Robbie<br />
I, Tonya<br />
Best Actress<br />
116 Dan Cogan<br />
Icarus<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
99<br />
117 Paul Thomas Anderson<br />
Phantom Thread<br />
Directing, Best Picture<br />
118 Hugh Welchman<br />
Loving Vincent<br />
Animated Feature<br />
119 Gary Oldman<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Best Actor<br />
120 Dan Lemmon<br />
War for the Planet of the Apes<br />
Visual Effects<br />
121 J. Miles Dale<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Best Picture<br />
166 167 168<br />
132 133<br />
100<br />
70<br />
44<br />
101<br />
134<br />
71<br />
169<br />
102<br />
135<br />
170<br />
136<br />
122 Taura Stinson<br />
Mudbound<br />
Original Song<br />
123 Jacqueline Durran<br />
Beauty and the Beast,<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Costume Design<br />
124 Yance Ford<br />
Strong Island<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
125 Willem Dafoe<br />
<strong>The</strong> Florida Project<br />
Supporting Actor<br />
126 Allison Janney<br />
I, Tonya<br />
Supporting Actress<br />
127 Sebastian Lelio<br />
A Fantastic Woman<br />
Foreign-Language Film<br />
128 Rachel Morrison<br />
Mudbound<br />
Cinematography<br />
129 Jordan Peele<br />
Get Out<br />
Directing,<br />
Original Screenplay,<br />
Best Picture<br />
130 Kristen Anderson-Lopez<br />
Coco<br />
Original Song<br />
131 Robert Lopez<br />
Coco<br />
Original Song<br />
132 Michael H. Weber<br />
<strong>The</strong> Disaster Artist<br />
Adapted Screenplay<br />
72<br />
103<br />
171<br />
137<br />
133 Joslyn Barnes<br />
Strong Island<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
134 Sean McKittrick<br />
Get Out<br />
Best Picture<br />
135 Thomas Lee Wright<br />
Edith+Eddie<br />
Documentary Short<br />
136 Benj Pasek<br />
<strong>The</strong> Greatest Showman<br />
Original Song<br />
137 Dan Sudick<br />
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2<br />
Visual Effects<br />
138 David Parker<br />
Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
Sixth Row<br />
138<br />
Kumail Nanjiani, an original<br />
screenplay nominee with his<br />
wife, Emily V. Gordon, took a<br />
selfie of the group shot.<br />
139 Alexandre Desplat<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Original Score<br />
140 Mary J. Blige<br />
Mudbound<br />
Supporting Actress,<br />
Original Song<br />
141 Amy Pascal<br />
<strong>The</strong> Post<br />
Best Picture<br />
142 Gary Fettis<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Production Design<br />
143 Octavia Spencer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Supporting Actress<br />
144 Guillermo del Toro<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Directing,<br />
Original Screenplay,<br />
Best Picture<br />
145 Ben Morris<br />
Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Last Jedi<br />
Visual Effects<br />
146 Aaron Sorkin<br />
Molly’s Game<br />
Adapted Screenplay<br />
147 Kristie Macosko Krieger<br />
<strong>The</strong> Post<br />
Best Picture<br />
148 Jeffrey A. Melvin<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
Production Design<br />
149 Hoyte van Hoytema<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Cinematography<br />
150 Andrey Zvyagintsev<br />
Loveless<br />
Foreign-Language Film<br />
151 Sarah Greenwood<br />
Beauty and the Beast,<br />
Darkest Hour<br />
Production Design<br />
152 Jason Blum<br />
Get Out<br />
Best Picture<br />
153 Christopher Nolan<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Directing, Best Picture<br />
154 Sam Rockwell<br />
Three Billboards Outside<br />
Ebbing, Missouri<br />
Supporting Actor<br />
155 Emma Thomas<br />
Dunkirk<br />
Best Picture<br />
156 Steve James<br />
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
157 Joe Letteri<br />
War for the Planet of the Apes<br />
Visual Effects<br />
158 Carlos Saldanha<br />
Ferdinand<br />
Animated Feature<br />
159 Meryl Streep<br />
<strong>The</strong> Post<br />
Best Actress<br />
160 Greta Gerwig<br />
Lady Bird<br />
Directing,<br />
Original Screenplay<br />
161 Agnes Varda (cutout)<br />
Faces Places<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
162 JR<br />
Faces Places<br />
Documentary Feature<br />
163 Tatiana S. Riegel<br />
I, Tonya<br />
Film Editing<br />
164 Steven Spielberg<br />
<strong>The</strong> Post<br />
Best Picture<br />
165 Luca Guadagnino<br />
Call Me by Your Name<br />
Best Picture<br />
166 Ramsey Naito<br />
<strong>The</strong> Boss Baby<br />
Animated Feature<br />
167 Julian Slater<br />
Baby Driver<br />
Sound Editing,<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
168 Common<br />
Marshall<br />
Original Song<br />
169 Ron Bartlett<br />
Blade Runner 2049<br />
Sound Mixing<br />
170 Pete Czernin<br />
Three Billboards Outside<br />
Ebbing, Missouri<br />
Best Picture<br />
171 <strong>The</strong>o Green<br />
Blade Runner 2049<br />
Sound Editing<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
29<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
About Town<br />
<strong>The</strong> Red Carpet<br />
THR Nominees Night<br />
Beverly Hills, Feb. 5<br />
1<br />
From left: Bria Vinaite,<br />
Kumail Nanjiani<br />
and Emily V. Gordon<br />
7<br />
Gary Oldman with<br />
wife Gisele Schmidt<br />
2<br />
Allison Janney<br />
and Willem Dafoe<br />
5<br />
THR’s Matthew<br />
Belloni (left)<br />
and Jordan Peele<br />
6<br />
Greta Gerwig<br />
(left) and<br />
Laurie Metcalf<br />
12<br />
From left: Guillermo del<br />
Toro, Doug Jones,<br />
Agnes Varda’s cardboard<br />
cutout and J. Miles Dale<br />
13<br />
Luca Guadagnino<br />
(left) and<br />
Timothee Chalamet<br />
14<br />
From left: Michael Gracey,<br />
Keala Settle, Benj Pasek<br />
and Justin Paul<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
30<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
9<br />
Disney Studios’ Alan Horn<br />
(left) and Sony Pictures<br />
Classics’ Michael Barker<br />
3<br />
Bryan Fogel<br />
(left) and<br />
Frank Marshall<br />
8<br />
Common, Goldie<br />
and Kyle Townsend<br />
15<br />
10<br />
Betty<br />
Gabriel<br />
3<br />
Diane Warren (left)<br />
and Frances Fisher<br />
First LastName, First<br />
LastName, First LastName<br />
17<br />
Miguel<br />
4<br />
From left:<br />
Tim Zajaros, Dee Rees<br />
and Sarah M. Broom<br />
11<br />
David Bar Katz<br />
(left) and<br />
Sam Rockwell<br />
16<br />
From left: THR’s<br />
Lynne Segall,<br />
Aaron Sorkin and<br />
Molly Bloom<br />
18<br />
Adrian Molina<br />
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.<br />
Party<br />
Crawler<br />
Oscar Contenders<br />
Out in Force<br />
THR’s sixth annual<br />
Nominees Night got a jolt<br />
from two Oscar-contending<br />
songs when Miguel (17)<br />
and Common (8)<br />
took the stage for surprise<br />
sets. Miguel performed<br />
“Remember Me” from<br />
Coco. Common and singer<br />
Goldie (8) belted out<br />
“Stand Up for Something”<br />
from Marshall as songwriter<br />
Diane Warren (10)<br />
stood by the stage singing<br />
along at Wolfgang Puck’s<br />
Cut at the Beverly Wilshire.<br />
Hosted by THR editorial<br />
director Matthew<br />
Belloni (5), the starstudded<br />
event drew Oscar<br />
nominees Jordan Peele (5)<br />
(Get Out); Greta Gerwig<br />
and Laurie Metcalf (6)<br />
(Lady Bird); Timothee<br />
Chalamet and Luca<br />
Guadagnino (13) (Call<br />
Me by Your Name); Gary<br />
Oldman (7) (Darkest Hour);<br />
Guillermo del Toro (12)<br />
and Richard Jenkins (<strong>The</strong><br />
Shape of Water); Willem<br />
Dafoe (2) (<strong>The</strong> Florida<br />
Project); Sam Rockwell (11)<br />
(Three Billboards Outside<br />
Ebbing, Missouri); Kumail<br />
Nanjiani and Emily V.<br />
Gordon (1) (<strong>The</strong> Big Sick);<br />
Aaron Sorkin (16) (Molly’s<br />
Game); Dee Rees (4)<br />
(Mudbound); and Allison<br />
Janney (2) (I, Tonya),<br />
among others. Inside,<br />
Guadagnino and Chalamet<br />
made a beeline for the raw<br />
bar, Star Wars’ Kelly Marie<br />
Tran chatted with Get Out’s<br />
Betty Gabriel (15), and<br />
<strong>The</strong> Greatest Showman<br />
breakout Keala Settle (14)<br />
joked of her upcoming<br />
Oscars performance: “I<br />
want to melt Meryl Streep’s<br />
face off.” While honorary<br />
Oscar winner and doc<br />
feature nominee Agnes<br />
Varda (Faces Places) was<br />
not in attendance, her<br />
co-nominee, JR, squired<br />
a cardboard cutout of the<br />
legendary director and her<br />
cat. <strong>The</strong> Shape of Water<br />
director del Toro posed<br />
with the Varda stand-in,<br />
while Doug Jones (12)<br />
pretended to eat the cat.<br />
“It’s just like the movie,”<br />
joked del Toro, referring<br />
to a scene from his film<br />
featuring Jones’ amphibian<br />
creature and an unlucky<br />
feline. — MIA GALUPPO<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
31<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
About Town<br />
<strong>The</strong> Red Carpet<br />
4<br />
Sally Hawkins<br />
70th DGA Awards<br />
Beverly Hills, Feb. 3<br />
Jordan Peele and<br />
Greta Gerwig<br />
Santa Barbara International Film Festival<br />
Santa Barbara, Jan. 31–Feb. 10<br />
7<br />
Gary Oldman<br />
5<br />
Kyra Sedgwick<br />
and Kevin Bacon<br />
8<br />
From left: Emilio Estevez, Alec Baldwin<br />
and Che “Rhymefest” Smith<br />
1<br />
3<br />
Judd Apatow and<br />
Angela Lansbury<br />
From left: Warner Bros.<br />
Entertainment’s Kevin Tsujihara,<br />
Christopher Nolan and Nolan’s<br />
wife, producer Emma Thomas<br />
9<br />
Saoirse<br />
Ronan<br />
6<br />
From left: Directors<br />
Guillermo del Toro,<br />
Norman Jewison<br />
and Jeremy Kagan<br />
2<br />
Helmers Honored<br />
With Guillermo del<br />
Toro’s (6) win for directorial<br />
achievement in<br />
feature film at the DGA’s<br />
annual ceremony, his<br />
sci-fi fantasy <strong>The</strong> Shape<br />
of Water — having also<br />
earned the Producers Guild<br />
of America’s top honor<br />
in January — has consolidated<br />
its status as Oscar<br />
frontrunner. Accepting<br />
his award at <strong>The</strong> Beverly<br />
Hilton, del Toro acknowledged<br />
that his film doesn’t<br />
fit the awards-season<br />
mold and thanked his fellow<br />
directors for “allowing<br />
us as a genre to come<br />
into the conversation.”<br />
Jordan Peele’s (1) Get Out,<br />
another genre entry, also<br />
was recognized when the<br />
guild honored its helmer for<br />
first-time feature film<br />
directing. “I truly believe<br />
these things we put out<br />
into the world, these stories<br />
of our love and passion,<br />
are the greatest weapons<br />
against the hate and the<br />
bigotry,” said Peele at the<br />
podium. <strong>The</strong> event, hosted<br />
by Judd Apatow (3), also<br />
saw such television winners<br />
as <strong>The</strong> Handmaid’s Tale’s<br />
Reed Morano, Veep’s Beth<br />
McCarthy-Miller and<br />
Big Little Lies’ Jean-Marc<br />
Vallee. — GREGG KILDAY<br />
<strong>The</strong> Santa Barbara<br />
Show Must Go On<br />
Following the deadly<br />
Montecito mudslides,<br />
the 33rd annual festival<br />
powered through with<br />
its opening-night gala<br />
Jan. 31 featuring Emilio<br />
Estevez’s (8) <strong>The</strong> Public.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first two days of<br />
the fest, which runs<br />
through Feb. 10, bestowed<br />
Willem Dafoe with the<br />
Cinema Vanguard Award<br />
and Gary Oldman (7) —<br />
who received a standing<br />
ovation — with the Maltin<br />
Modern Master Award<br />
on Feb. 1 at the Arlington<br />
<strong>The</strong>atre. Other highlights<br />
included Saoirse<br />
Ronan’s (9) Santa Barbara<br />
Award win Feb. 4 and a<br />
THR-led Feb. 6 panel with<br />
Oscar-nominated helmers<br />
Greta Gerwig (1), Peele,<br />
del Toro, Christopher<br />
Nolan (2) and Paul Thomas<br />
Anderson. — SCOTT FEINBERG<br />
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.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
32<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
About Town<br />
Heard Around <strong>Hollywood</strong><br />
NBC’s Salke (inset) and her Eagles fan son Henry’s “favorite moment in his life.”<br />
Rambling <strong>Reporter</strong><br />
By Chris Gardner<br />
How an NBC Exec’s Son Got Personal With the Lombardi Trophy<br />
A Super Bowl that saw the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England<br />
Patriots was a real family affair for the Salkes. Like the Eagles, Fox 21 TV<br />
Studios’ Bert Salke hails from Philly; the game aired on NBC, home to<br />
NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke; and the couple’s son Henry,<br />
now 18, “had an Eagles jersey on in diapers,” Jennifer tells THR. “Henry’s<br />
biggest dream was for the Eagles to win a championship, though prior to<br />
this it was never really close,” she says via email Feb. 5 while on a flight<br />
back to L.A. “When the impossible happened, [NBC Entertainment chair]<br />
Bob Greenblatt invited Henry as his guest.” How’d that Instagram post<br />
happen with Henry kissing the Vince Lombardi Trophy? “We were lucky<br />
enough to be invited to the postgame celebration, where Henry made<br />
a beeline for the trophy and asked if he could hold it,” she writes. “As of<br />
now, it is his favorite moment in his life.”<br />
Brian Grazer’s Headshots<br />
Habit Rides Again?<br />
Is Brian Grazer up to his old tricks?<br />
During a stop at power lunch<br />
hangout <strong>The</strong> Palm in Beverly Hills,<br />
THR clocked two heart-framed<br />
photographs of the uber-producer<br />
atop the host stand. <strong>The</strong> pics seem<br />
to be evidence of Grazer doing a<br />
cutesy variation on a prior hobby<br />
of dropping off headshots of<br />
himself all over town. THR first<br />
reported on his quirky custom<br />
of depositing photos at colleagues’<br />
homes and in the lobby bathroom<br />
at Chateau Marmont in 2012,<br />
but sightings then tapered off. <strong>The</strong><br />
Two photos of Grazer at <strong>The</strong> Palm.<br />
Palm and Grazer, who dined with<br />
outgoing Teen Vogue editor Elaine<br />
Welteroth the day his pictures were<br />
spotted, did not return requests<br />
for comment.<br />
PETA ‘Veg’-ucates Spielberg<br />
Not everyone is impressed<br />
with Steven Spielberg’s gracious<br />
Blair<br />
Got tips? Email rambling@thr.com<br />
gesture of sending all five<br />
Oscar-nominated best directors<br />
a gift basket of champagne and<br />
caviar. PETA’s Andrew Bernstein<br />
responded to the news in THR<br />
by sending Spielberg a note that<br />
opened with a compliment: PETA<br />
activists are “big fans of yours” —<br />
but not fans of real caviar. “Our<br />
favorite caviar is vegan — it’s<br />
sustainable and cruelty-free, and<br />
it’s the only one that we think<br />
E.T. and the BFG would approve<br />
of,” Bernstein wrote, citing<br />
Spielberg’s films. “We wanted to<br />
get you started with this awardwinning<br />
vegan Cavi-art that we<br />
hope you’ll sink your Jaws into.”<br />
PETA’s parting movie pun: “As<br />
more information about the food<br />
industry’s treatment of animals<br />
is revealed, consuming meat<br />
and dairy ‘products’ is becoming<br />
much like the Jurassic period — a<br />
thing of the past.”<br />
How Avengers Helmers Helped<br />
Selma Blair Come Forward<br />
When Selma Blair weighed the<br />
decision of whether to share<br />
her claims that filmmaker James<br />
Toback sexually assaulted her<br />
in 1999, she received support<br />
from Rachel McAdams, Jessica<br />
Chastain and two others. “Really,<br />
it was two men who were the<br />
most comforting to me in saying,<br />
‘You’ll be safe, you’ll be<br />
OK,’ ” Blair tells THR. “That was<br />
[Guardians of the Galaxy director]<br />
James Gunn and [Doctor Strange<br />
writer-helmer] Scott Derrickson.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y reached out and said how<br />
important it was to be on this<br />
side of history.” (Gunn praised<br />
Blair on Facebook in October,<br />
calling her “a hero,” adding that<br />
he knew she in no way “WANTED<br />
to have to come forward with<br />
this story, but she still did it.<br />
Most of these women (and, yes,<br />
some men) have nothing to<br />
gain by telling their stories ...<br />
<strong>The</strong>y do it for ... the sake of others,<br />
the future …”) Adds Blair:<br />
“<strong>The</strong> women have taken it so far,<br />
but it’s been men, too, who have<br />
been supportive, and I have felt<br />
that. I’m really in admiration of<br />
women and men.”<br />
Lansing<br />
Bale<br />
HOT NEW<br />
RESTAURANT<br />
Power<br />
Dining<br />
Sherry Lansing held<br />
court at Mr Chow.<br />
Ben Harper sat with<br />
WME agent Will Ward.<br />
… James Franco,<br />
Harry Styles, Jeremy<br />
Piven and Dev Patel<br />
were at Croft Alley. …<br />
Henry Winkler and<br />
wife Stacey had lunch<br />
with Terry Bradshaw<br />
at Farmshop. Director<br />
Bryan Gordon was<br />
nearby. … Ben Affleck<br />
lunched at Tavern. …<br />
Over at Bottega Louie,<br />
Helen Hunt broke<br />
bread with Jodi Foster.<br />
… Malcolm Gladwell<br />
sat at Brentwood<br />
Country Mart’s Caffe<br />
Luxxe. … Keanu Reeves<br />
stopped by Polo<br />
Lounge. … Christian<br />
Bale was at Tallula’s<br />
with Hostiles director<br />
Scott Cooper. Shawn<br />
Levy sat nearby.<br />
<strong>The</strong> NoMad<br />
Mezzanine<br />
<strong>The</strong> Quick Pitch<br />
Daniel Humm and<br />
Will Guidara (of NYC’s<br />
designated “World’s<br />
Best Restaurant”<br />
Eleven Madison Park)<br />
are responsible for<br />
the dining options at<br />
the new NoMad Hotel.<br />
Try the duo’s $98<br />
signature black truffle<br />
roast chicken for two<br />
with brioche stuffing.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Inside Dish<br />
Clearly intent on luring<br />
a certain clientele,<br />
the hotel poached<br />
Phil Pavel as its<br />
managing director<br />
after his two-decade<br />
stint as the wellconnected<br />
prince of<br />
the Chateau Marmont.<br />
649 S. Olive St.<br />
— GARY BAUM<br />
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.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
34<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
About Town<br />
Mileposts<br />
<strong>The</strong> Adventures of<br />
Tom Sawyer, died<br />
Jan. 31 in England.<br />
She was 90.<br />
2<br />
Ezra Swerdlow, the<br />
producer and production<br />
manager who<br />
worked on <strong>The</strong> King of<br />
Comedy, Zombieland<br />
and five Woody Allen<br />
films, died Jan. 23 in<br />
Boston of pancreatic<br />
cancer. He was 64.<br />
Weddings<br />
Jeffrey Kopp, supervising<br />
producer for<br />
<strong>The</strong> Late Late Show<br />
With James Corden,<br />
married Pamela<br />
Gibson on Dec. 23 in<br />
Kenilworth, Illinois.<br />
<strong>The</strong> couple first<br />
met while attending<br />
New Trier<br />
East High School<br />
in 1977 and found<br />
each other again<br />
while cheering for<br />
the Cubs in the<br />
2016 World Series.<br />
Births<br />
Yale Chasin, an agent<br />
in UTA’s Independent<br />
Film Group, and wife<br />
<strong>The</strong> Pargac family<br />
Hitched, Hatched, Hired<br />
Inside the industry’s celebrations and news<br />
Marissa Berman<br />
welcomed daughter<br />
Tovah Juliette Chasin<br />
on Jan. 6 at Cedars-<br />
Sinai Medical Center<br />
in Los Angeles.<br />
Farhana Pargac, head<br />
of strategy for UTA<br />
marketing, and husband<br />
Brian Pargac,<br />
co-executive producer<br />
on Bravo’s Flipping<br />
Out, welcomed son<br />
James August Pargac<br />
on Dec. 13 at Cedars.<br />
Congrats<br />
Tammy Golihew was<br />
named director of<br />
publicity at Amazon<br />
Studios on Feb. 5.<br />
Bunim/Murray<br />
Productions promoted<br />
Julie Pizzi<br />
to president of<br />
entertainment<br />
and development;<br />
Farnaz Farjam<br />
Chazan to senior vp<br />
entertainment and<br />
development; Sasha<br />
Alpert to executive vp<br />
entertainment and<br />
To submit, send email to hhh@thr.com<br />
development; Megan<br />
Sleeper to senior<br />
vp casting; and Ben<br />
Salter to senior<br />
vp development; and<br />
named Russell Jay<br />
vp entertainment and<br />
development Feb. 1.<br />
Nick Pepper will<br />
head Legendary TV<br />
when his contract<br />
with <strong>The</strong> Mark Gordon<br />
Co. ends May 31.<br />
1982-<strong>2018</strong><br />
Mark Salling<br />
1<br />
<strong>The</strong> Glee actor, 35, facing<br />
years in jail for child pornography,<br />
hanged himself Jan. 30<br />
T<br />
he death of Glee star Mark<br />
Salling — which came ahead<br />
of a March 7 sentencing<br />
date for pleading guilty Sept. 29 to<br />
keeping a vast trove of child pornography<br />
— will go down as one of<br />
the darkest downfalls in <strong>Hollywood</strong><br />
history. Salling, who for six seasons<br />
played the bully turned glee club<br />
member Puck on the Fox show, was<br />
expected to get between four and<br />
seven years for his crimes, discovered<br />
after a December 2015 raid on<br />
3<br />
Deaths<br />
John Mahoney,<br />
who played Kelsey<br />
Grammer and<br />
David Hyde Pierce’s<br />
irascible father on<br />
Frasier, died Feb. 4 in<br />
Chicago. He was 77.<br />
Louis Zorich, the<br />
husband of Olympia<br />
Dukakis who<br />
played Paul Reiser’s<br />
dad on Mad About<br />
1 Kopp<br />
and Gibson<br />
2 Tovah<br />
Juliette<br />
3 Swerdlow<br />
You, died Jan. 30 in<br />
New York. He was 93.<br />
Cyrus Yavneh,<br />
a producer on 24,<br />
Supernatural and<br />
It’s Pat: <strong>The</strong> Movie,<br />
died Jan. 25 of lung<br />
cancer in Santa<br />
Monica. He was 76.<br />
Ann Gillis, the former<br />
child star who starred<br />
in David O. Selznick’s<br />
his Sunland home recovered more<br />
than 50,000 digital photos and<br />
videos depicting child rape, some<br />
of the victims as young as 3. Salling<br />
also was to to pay $50,000 in<br />
restitution to any victim who came<br />
forward. (Now a lawsuit might be<br />
required to get a piece of Salling’s<br />
$1.91 million estate.) <strong>The</strong>re are<br />
questions as to why the actor was<br />
left unattended — especially after<br />
he had attempted suicide Aug. 22,<br />
Jeff Hunter, the<br />
agent who discovered<br />
and then repped<br />
Morgan Freeman<br />
for more than four<br />
decades, died Jan. 27 in<br />
New York. He was 91.<br />
Jay Curtis, who<br />
produced promo campaigns<br />
and managed<br />
CBS’ brand for more<br />
than 20 years, died<br />
Jan. 25 in San Diego of<br />
ALS. He was 67.<br />
Marge Rowland,<br />
a longtime accountant<br />
at Paramount<br />
and Warner Bros.,<br />
died Jan. 8 in Laguna<br />
Woods, California,<br />
of a heart attack. She<br />
was 68.<br />
cutting his wrists, according to<br />
TMZ, before being discovered by a<br />
roommate and rushed to a hospital.<br />
L.A.-based criminal attorney Mike<br />
Cavalluzzi, however, says “the court<br />
doesn’t have an affirmative duty” to<br />
safeguard a defendant from himself.<br />
Family members reported Salling<br />
missing the morning of Jan. 30 after<br />
they hadn’t heard from him since<br />
11:30 p.m. the previous day. Six<br />
hours later, after spotting his 20<strong>07</strong><br />
Infiniti M35 parked on a roadside,<br />
police found his body hanging from<br />
a tree in Big Tujunga Creek, a<br />
remote riverbed in the San Gabriel<br />
Mountains. — SETH ABRAMOVITCH<br />
← Salling died of “asphyxia by hanging,<br />
suicide,” the L.A. coroner said Feb. 1.<br />
KOPP: ANGELA GARBOT PHOTOGRAPHY. CHASIN: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. SWERDLOW: COURTESY OF ICM PARTNERS. PARGAC: ANGELICA MARIE PHOTOGRAPHY. SALLING: C. FLANIGAN/GETTY IMAGES.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
36<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
COMPETITIVE<br />
FINANCIAL<br />
INCENTIVES<br />
THE SHAPE OF WATER — 13 OSCAR ® NOMINATIONS<br />
INDIAN HORSE<br />
MOLLY’S GAME — OSCAR ® NOMINEE<br />
THE BREADWINNER — OSCAR ® NOMINEE<br />
GRIZZLIES<br />
ONTARIO<br />
PRODUCERS<br />
MAKE GREAT<br />
PARTNERS<br />
LITTLE ITALY<br />
SHOOT IN ONTARIO<br />
“We shot most of Molly’s Game right here on stages in Toronto. I have to say, I’ve never worked<br />
with a better crew. <strong>The</strong>y are phenomenally talented.”<br />
—Aaron Sorkin, Molly’s Game, Director & Writer<br />
#ONcreates<br />
@OMDCtweets OMDConline OMDConline
<strong>The</strong> Business<br />
Executive Suite<br />
Steve Bersch<br />
<strong>The</strong> veteran film exec sounds off on the<br />
state of indie moviemaking, taking over<br />
Screen Gems and the surprising most<br />
profitable division at Sony By Tatiana Siegel<br />
It’s an impressive stat that<br />
comes with a small asterisk:<br />
Sony Pictures Worldwide<br />
Acquisitions president Steve<br />
Bersch, 61, runs the most profitable<br />
division within the studio.<br />
<strong>The</strong> caveat is that with just 20<br />
employees, SPWA doesn’t carry<br />
the same overhead as, say,<br />
Columbia Pictures, given that it is<br />
not a releasing entity. Still, during<br />
his 10-year stint, SPWA boasts<br />
films such as Arrival, the Insidious<br />
franchise, Spotlight, Whiplash,<br />
Foxcatcher, Don’t Breathe and the<br />
upcoming Tom Hanks-starring<br />
RÉSUMÉ<br />
CURRENT TITLE<br />
President of Screen<br />
Gems and president<br />
of Sony Pictures<br />
Worldwide Acquisitions<br />
PREVIOUS JOB<br />
COO, 20th Century Fox<br />
Home Entertainment<br />
BIG HIT<br />
<strong>The</strong> Insidious<br />
horror franchise’s four<br />
films have grossed<br />
$517 million worldwide<br />
Photographed by Michele Thomas<br />
Greyhound. On Jan. 19, Bersch’s<br />
purview expanded even further<br />
when he took the reins of Screen<br />
Gems following the announcement<br />
that Clint Culpepper was<br />
exiting after a 28-year run at the<br />
genre label.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was little time to<br />
celebrate considering that Bersch<br />
was busy negotiating a slew of<br />
deals on the ground at Sundance,<br />
where he acquired worldwide<br />
rights to the John Cho internet<br />
thriller Search for $5 million, and<br />
all international rights to Debra<br />
Granik’s drama Leave No Trace and<br />
↑ Bersch, photographed Feb. 1 at his<br />
Culver City office on the Sony lot, says,<br />
“<strong>The</strong> job of acquisitions when you’re<br />
buying at the script stage is twofold: to<br />
predict execution and marketability.”<br />
the Nick Offerman-led Hearts<br />
Beat Loud. <strong>The</strong> company had previously<br />
nabbed a wide swath<br />
of international territories for<br />
Paul Dano’s directorial debut,<br />
Wildlife, which was well reviewed<br />
after its Sundance premiere.<br />
Bersch, a Berkeley grad (“I’m a longsuffering<br />
Cal fan”) and father of<br />
two, talked to THR about his busy<br />
festival, the most profitable SPWA<br />
film and Screen Gems’ future.<br />
GROOMING BY SU HAN AT DEW BEAUTY<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
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FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
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<strong>The</strong> Business<br />
Executive Suite<br />
Now that you are in charge of both<br />
Screen Gems and SPWA, will they<br />
remain autonomous?<br />
Yeah. <strong>The</strong>y’ll remain autonomous<br />
divisions. I don’t look at SPWA<br />
as a releasing label. SPWA does<br />
operate under the Stage 6 label<br />
for our higher-profile stuff, only<br />
because we didn’t think “Sony<br />
Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions”<br />
was a very good label to put on a<br />
movie to consumers. Screen Gems<br />
obviously will be more focused<br />
on development and production<br />
— SPWA being more of an indiefocused<br />
label, working with<br />
independent producers on either<br />
productions or acquisitions.<br />
How will Screen Gems change<br />
under your leadership?<br />
I think that’s going to evolve,<br />
but I’m not sure it will change.<br />
Screen Gems will fill a valuable<br />
role as a lower- and modestly<br />
budgeted production division<br />
for targeted audiences. We’re<br />
not going to try to be Columbia,<br />
pursuing large tentpole movies<br />
for a wide, wide audience.<br />
TriStar is more of a dramatic,<br />
adult-oriented, literatureoriented<br />
division. <strong>The</strong>re’s a great<br />
space for Screen Gems to operate,<br />
not only in the horror and<br />
urban spaces where it has been<br />
successful, but Clint had success<br />
in other modestly budgeted<br />
targeted movies, from Easy A<br />
to <strong>The</strong> Vow to other movies that<br />
might not feel like big Columbia/<br />
TriStar movies. Certainly,<br />
I’m not looking to make $100 million<br />
movies.<br />
How will SPWA and Stage 6 be<br />
distinct from Screen Gems?<br />
Stage 6 operates within SPWA.<br />
I think SPWA’s going to continue<br />
doing what it’s doing, making<br />
and acquiring interesting and<br />
adventurous movies. <strong>The</strong>re is<br />
some overlap with Screen Gems<br />
product, be it Insidious or Don’t<br />
Breathe or <strong>The</strong> Call — many of<br />
which could be released under<br />
the Screen Gems banner. But it’s<br />
a different group of executives<br />
who’ve had great success, and<br />
I think will continue to pursue<br />
1<br />
1 A scoresheet from Game 5 of the 1965 World Series, which Dodgers fan Bersch<br />
attended with his father. 2 Original Porky’s poster “given to me by writer-director<br />
Bob Clark after we discussed a potential sequel idea.” 3 Bobbleheads<br />
“representing a pet project I want to make about the 1948 [Harlem] Globetrotters.”<br />
4 A box-office chart from the weekend Insidious: Chapter 2 debuted at No. 1.<br />
what they’ve been doing. As an<br />
acquisition entity, SPWA has<br />
branched out to higher-budget<br />
[fare] by acquiring most of the<br />
international rights to Arrival,<br />
which is certainly not a genre<br />
movie, and we’ll continue to do<br />
things like that.<br />
Arrival made more money overseas<br />
than it did domestically. Why didn’t<br />
Paramount take that gamble?<br />
I have no idea. We were circling<br />
the movie at Cannes several years<br />
ago. We were looking to take the<br />
world on the movie, and then<br />
we heard Paramount had stepped<br />
up and bought U.S., Canada and<br />
China. By the time we moved, we<br />
took everything off the table that<br />
we could.<br />
What has been the most profitable<br />
SPWA film to date for you?<br />
Recently, Don’t Breathe [2016] was<br />
extremely profitable for us. It was<br />
a sub-$10 million movie, which<br />
did about $160 million at the box<br />
office. It also helped bring Fede<br />
2<br />
4<br />
3<br />
Alvarez to the studio. He’s now<br />
doing the Girl in the Spider’s Web<br />
movie [for Columbia]. That picture<br />
was a success all the way around.<br />
How would you characterize the<br />
state of indie filmmaking right now?<br />
It’s as robust as I’ve ever seen it.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re has been a huge infusion<br />
of capital and high-net-worth individuals<br />
coming into the space.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re’s some great independent<br />
pictures being made. It feels like<br />
it’s very healthy. We’re all challenged<br />
by the market economics,<br />
the streaming services and<br />
people not going to theaters as<br />
much, but the state of the industry<br />
from a production and a<br />
creative perspective is probably<br />
at an all-time high.<br />
Does the old adage that so-called<br />
“black” movies don’t play overseas<br />
still hold?<br />
I don’t think that’s consistently<br />
true. Movies that speak to a<br />
uniquely American experience<br />
don’t play overseas. Evangelical<br />
Christian movies, as opposed to<br />
biblical movies, might be more<br />
American. Sports movies don’t<br />
play, baseball movies especially.<br />
A lot of dialogue-driven comedies<br />
don’t play because it’s more<br />
American in the humor. So I<br />
think to the extent that African-<br />
American movies speak to a<br />
more Americanized experience,<br />
they won’t play. But I’m sure<br />
you can find numerous movies<br />
with largely African-American<br />
casts that have played big. Get Out<br />
played well overseas, because I<br />
don’t think it spoke to a uniquely<br />
American experience.<br />
Do you ever trade notes or wind up<br />
competing with Sony Pictures<br />
Classics’ Michael Barker and Tom<br />
Bernard at festivals?<br />
We wouldn’t compete, but we<br />
certainly talk to them and coordinate<br />
with them all the time.<br />
Whiplash was an example where<br />
[pre-Sundance] we had bought a<br />
significant percentage of international,<br />
and then they came in at<br />
the festival and bought domestic<br />
rights and most of the remaining<br />
international rights. <strong>The</strong>y’ve<br />
released a number of movies<br />
that we’ve bought either at festivals<br />
or otherwise, like Austenland,<br />
which we bought at Sundance.<br />
Sometimes we buy pictures<br />
in concert with them, sometimes<br />
buying international where they<br />
then stepped up for domestic,<br />
and sometimes buying pictures<br />
that they then agreed to distribute<br />
for us. <strong>The</strong>re’s a wide variety<br />
of ways we can work with our<br />
sister division.<br />
You are one of the only high-level<br />
executives to survive the Sony<br />
hack. What was the fallout for you?<br />
I don’t know how much of my<br />
personal information was out<br />
there because I didn’t want to<br />
know. I signed up for the Cadillac<br />
version of LifeLock for myself<br />
and my kids. I think everybody’s<br />
more careful with what they put<br />
in writing. Doing less by email<br />
and more by phone is far more<br />
efficient anyway. We have a great<br />
workspace here where we’re all<br />
contained on a floor, and I’m on my<br />
feet all the time in other people’s<br />
offices because I find face-to-face<br />
communication far more effective<br />
in getting things done.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
40<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
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<strong>The</strong> Business<br />
Legal<br />
Who Owns That Instagram Pic?<br />
As stars and web influencers use unlicensed paparazzi shots to monetize social media accounts,<br />
photographers now are filing six-figure lawsuits: ‘This is a form of trolling’ By Ashley Cullins<br />
Paparazzi long have<br />
built lucrative careers on<br />
capturing candids of<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> stars, but now they’re<br />
exploring a new source of revenue:<br />
suing those same stars for<br />
posting their pics on social media<br />
without permission.<br />
Khloe Kardashian, Jessica<br />
Simpson and Gigi Hadid have each<br />
recently been sued for copyright<br />
infringement after paparazzi<br />
photos of themselves were shared<br />
on their official social media<br />
accounts. On Feb. 1, NFL star Odell<br />
Beckham Jr. sued Splash News<br />
for extortion after<br />
reportedly receiving<br />
a $40,000 demand<br />
for sharing an<br />
Reynolds image of himself on<br />
Instagram.<br />
Typically, paparazzi<br />
pics can easily be<br />
licensed for a couple<br />
Keenan of hundred bucks<br />
a pop. But if a star<br />
sees a photo online and shares it<br />
without permission, the move<br />
could lead to six-figure damages if<br />
it was willful.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>se lawsuits are ironic and<br />
unfair,” says Neel Chatterjee, a<br />
Silicon Valley-based intellectual<br />
property litigator who has handled<br />
big-ticket suits for Facebook.<br />
↑ From left: Simpson, Hadid and Kardashian<br />
have been sued for posting paparazzi<br />
photographs on their social media accounts.<br />
“Paparazzi take pictures of them<br />
without authorization but then<br />
get irritated when the people they<br />
took pictures of use the pictures.<br />
This is a form of trolling — where<br />
paparazzi see a new medium<br />
to try to monetize their work.”<br />
Dan Taylor, a spokesman for<br />
BackGrid, a celebrity photo agency<br />
formed in 2016 when Xposure,<br />
AKM-GSI and FameFlynet USA<br />
merged, says his company outsources<br />
its copyright enforcement<br />
to a Beverly Hills-based outfit<br />
called Okularity, which scans the<br />
internet and print publications<br />
for clients’ photographs. Okularity<br />
then determines whether taking<br />
action is appropriate or if an<br />
unauthorized use qualifies for<br />
an exception under copyright laws.<br />
Xposure is the company suing<br />
Kardashian, and Taylor says<br />
unlicensed sharing shouldn’t<br />
be tolerated.<br />
“It always hurts the licensing<br />
market because it’s rarely transformative<br />
and it’s displayed to the<br />
same audience and with the same<br />
purpose as BackGrid’s paying clients,”<br />
says Taylor. “Unauthorized<br />
distribution virtually destroys<br />
the licensing value of an image.”<br />
While neither celebrity photography<br />
nor social media is<br />
new, experts say the ability for<br />
influencers to now monetize<br />
their posts is most likely what’s<br />
driving the legal clashes. “Social<br />
media is actually a business for<br />
celebrities,” says attorney Jeffrey<br />
Greenbaum, who specializes<br />
in advertising and intellectual<br />
property law. “It’s not surprising<br />
that photographers are saying,<br />
‘If you’re going to make money off<br />
your social media feed, it’s not<br />
fair that you’re going to take my<br />
photograph and not pay for a<br />
license to use it.’ ”<br />
While the suits have been geared<br />
toward street photos, awards-season<br />
red carpet images could spark<br />
the next wave of lawsuits.<br />
Sharing a photo registered<br />
with the U.S. Copyright Office<br />
could trigger damages of as<br />
much as $30,000, even absent a<br />
finding that the infringement<br />
was willful. But without that<br />
registration, a photographer<br />
would have to prove that he or<br />
she was damaged by the use<br />
— and entertainment litigator<br />
Jeremiah Reynolds says proving<br />
significant damages would<br />
be difficult with red carpet<br />
pics because of the sheer volume<br />
of nearly identical images.<br />
“One could argue there are<br />
20 sets of the same photo floating<br />
around, so your damages are zero,”<br />
says Reynolds. “You’d subpoena<br />
the photo agencies and see what<br />
they sold for and offer to pay<br />
the guy 200 bucks to go away.”<br />
Stefanie Keenan, a notable<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> events and fashion<br />
photographer who shoots for<br />
Getty, tells THR she doesn’t mind<br />
if stars share her images with<br />
watermarks that credit her. “I<br />
would rather have that happen<br />
than see stars using my images<br />
without a watermark after not<br />
having purchased the image or<br />
giving any credit to the photographers<br />
— or major publications<br />
reposting it from the star’s social<br />
media, again, without financial<br />
compensation,” she says.<br />
While other photographers<br />
may share Keenan’s outlook, attorneys<br />
still recommend caution.<br />
“This is an area where celebrities<br />
and their representatives<br />
should be extremely careful,” says<br />
Greenbaum. “Giving credit might<br />
in some circumstances make the<br />
photographer less aggravated by<br />
the use, but it’s unlikely to change<br />
the analysis that using someone’s<br />
photograph without consent most<br />
of the time is going to be copyright<br />
infringement in this kind<br />
of situation.”<br />
Natalie Jarvey and Chris Gardner<br />
contributed to this report.<br />
What a Following Is Worth<br />
A sponsored post can be very lucrative — if you’re popular<br />
Khloe Kardashian 72.1 M followers $406,700 estimated value<br />
Gigi Hadid 38.1 M followers $215,000 estimated value<br />
Jessica Simpson 4.1 M followers $23,400 estimated value<br />
Source: Inkifi; based on $5.70 per every 1,000 followers on Instagram<br />
SIMPSON, HADID: SPLASH NEWS. KARDASHIAN: AKM-GSI. KEENAN: JESSE GRANT/WIREIMAGE. REYNOLDS: TODD WILLIAMSON/GETTY IMAGES FOR THR.<br />
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WHAT’S AT<br />
STAKE IN<br />
CATCHING<br />
OSCAR<br />
Forget about the talent:<br />
It’s the execs running the specialty<br />
labels who’ll really be sweating<br />
this year at the Dolby <strong>The</strong>atre<br />
By Stephen Galloway and Gregg Kilday<br />
<strong>The</strong> Oscars won’t just determine<br />
the future of individual winners<br />
and losers this year. <strong>The</strong>y could also<br />
have a real impact on the future<br />
of specialty-film distributors. After stealing<br />
the luster from studios when it comes to the<br />
awards, they’re now fighting for their lives<br />
in a radically changing media landscape, with<br />
streaming giants Netflix and Amazon threatening<br />
to gobble up the talent they’ve relied on<br />
to make a splash in awards season.<br />
Such studio subsidiaries as Fox Searchlight,<br />
Universal’s Focus Features and Sony Pictures<br />
Classics were set up in the 1990s with three<br />
goals: (1) develop the kind of filmmakers who<br />
could then be assigned bigger-budget films;<br />
(2) win back some of the box-office gold that<br />
had been siphoned away by indie challengers<br />
like Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films, which<br />
defined the game in the ’90s; and (3) add a<br />
touch of class to an otherwise crass business.<br />
None of these factors matters much today.<br />
With directors like Colin Trevorrow going<br />
straight from shoestring releases (Safety Not<br />
Guaranteed) to blockbusters (Jurassic World),<br />
the specialty divisions no longer function as<br />
breeding grounds for filmmakers; with corporations<br />
such as Disney aiming bigger and<br />
bigger in terms of theme parks and merchandising,<br />
as well as box office, there’s little need<br />
for the paltry sums most Oscar winners bring;<br />
and with the studios led by corporate players<br />
increasingly removed from the day-to-day filmmaking<br />
process, Oscar’s sheen has become all<br />
but irrelevant to the bottom line.<br />
Under pressure for their survival, the<br />
specialty labels need every bit of help they can<br />
get, and so do their art house rivals. Each is<br />
playing for high stakes:<br />
FOX SEARCHLIGHT With the two frontrunners<br />
for best picture (<strong>The</strong> Shape of Water and<br />
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri),<br />
Searchlight, led by longtime heads Stephen<br />
Gilula and Nancy Utley, has proved its uncanny<br />
eye for promising material. But will that matter<br />
once Disney absorbs Fox? In terms of box<br />
office, no. Shape has earned $55 million worldwide<br />
and Billboards $75 million, but those hits<br />
have to be balanced against such flops as Battle<br />
of the Sexes, with its $12.6 million to date. On<br />
the other hand, Disney’s planned streaming<br />
service will need high-visibility content, and<br />
Oscar wins (along with the box-office boost<br />
they bring) could provide a healthy rationale<br />
for not just retaining Searchlight but bolstering<br />
its resources.<br />
FOCUS FEATURES Two years ago, after experimenting<br />
with genre movies with middling<br />
success, Focus underwent a course correction<br />
under then-new chairman Peter Kujawski,<br />
who promised to return Focus to its prestigelabel<br />
roots. It bounced back this season with<br />
Darkest Hour ($46.4 million at the domestic<br />
box office, more than $100 million overall).<br />
An Oscar for Gary Oldman could add further<br />
lucre and counterbalance the financial<br />
disappointment of <strong>The</strong> Beguiled and <strong>The</strong> Book<br />
of Henry.<br />
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS Amid the ups and<br />
downs of their rivals, the veteran duo of Tom<br />
Bernard and Michael Barker has maintained<br />
a remarkably consistent course, relying on<br />
shrewd acquisitions rather than sinking money<br />
in pricey productions. <strong>The</strong>y enter the Oscars<br />
with six nominations: four for Call Me by Your<br />
Name and two for foreign-language nominees<br />
Loveless and A Fantastic Woman. With parent<br />
Sony Pictures Entertainment looking like a<br />
prime target for acquisition by an internet<br />
giant, especially after Kaz Hirai’s departure as<br />
CEO, they’ll need to prove that their modest<br />
returns have added dividends.<br />
ANNAPURNA Megan Ellison’s stand-alone indie,<br />
which has gone from financing films to distributing<br />
them, had a box-office dud in Detroit<br />
(a non-contender this awards season). But even<br />
though it declined to finance Phantom Thread<br />
itself, it produced the film for Focus. Should<br />
the movie prove an unlikely best picture or best<br />
actor winner, that would burnish the credentials<br />
of the self-financed company and perhaps<br />
help it lure still more A-list talent away from<br />
burgeoning Amazon and Netflix.<br />
A24 Post-Moonlight, the producer-distributor,<br />
founded by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John<br />
Hodges, is seeking to maintain momentum as<br />
the hippest indie label around with awards for<br />
Lady Bird. It might need them given that <strong>The</strong><br />
Florida Project was shut out of the best picture<br />
race and <strong>The</strong> Disaster Artist’s James Franco<br />
was snubbed amid an avalanche of allegations<br />
about his past.<br />
NEON Launched early last year by Tom<br />
Quinn and Tim League, the company is eager<br />
to prove itself as the hot new kid on the block<br />
and, along with 30West, is betting on I, Tonya,<br />
which has earned more than $20 million<br />
and multiple awards for Allison Janney. Having<br />
gone on an acquisition spree at Sundance —<br />
its $10 million buy of Assassination Nation was<br />
the fest’s biggest deal — Neon could do with<br />
an Oscar victory to prove it’s in the same class<br />
as its more established rivals.<br />
Illustration by Læmeur<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
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HOW THE GUARDIANS TEAM<br />
MADE KURT RUSSELL BLEED BLUE<br />
<strong>The</strong> visual effects in the final battle of this summer’s hit Marvel<br />
sequel were a complex undertaking involving mathematics: ‘We had<br />
to destroy a human body then rebuild it’ By Carolyn Giardina<br />
When it comes to superhero<br />
movies, visual effects<br />
don’t always get a lot of respect.<br />
<strong>The</strong> last time one of these films<br />
won a VFX Oscar was in 2004, for<br />
Spider-Man 2. And this year,<br />
only one superhero movie,<br />
Marvel’s Guardians of the<br />
Galaxy Vol. 2, fielded a VFX<br />
team that earned a ticket to<br />
the Dolby <strong>The</strong>atre. <strong>The</strong>y’re<br />
hoping to beat the odds thanks to<br />
the film’s complex effects created<br />
by a dozen vendors.<br />
<strong>The</strong> degree of difficulty they<br />
embraced is evident in the movie’s<br />
final battle, which pits the<br />
Guardians against Ego, a “Living<br />
Planet” that also takes the human<br />
Townsend<br />
form of actor Kurt Russell. <strong>The</strong><br />
sequence’s visuals, with Weta<br />
serving as lead VFX house, were<br />
inspired by the comics, and the<br />
unique visual style was created<br />
with fractals — mathematically<br />
generated patterns<br />
— influenced by the work of<br />
fractal artist Hal Tenny,<br />
who served as a consultant.<br />
“To get the computer-created<br />
and mathematically derived<br />
aesthetic, we used the algorithms<br />
and had to translate them<br />
into a VFX pipeline,” explains<br />
effects supervisor Christopher<br />
Townsend. “<strong>The</strong> final model build<br />
for planet Ego was about half a<br />
trillion polygons.”<br />
← As Ego takes human form, the VFX team<br />
used a model of Russell, added layers of bone<br />
and muscle, and blue lightning in lieu of blood.<br />
Within this CG world —<br />
Townsend says it’s the most<br />
complex he has ever created — the<br />
team staged an epic battle that<br />
included live-action characters<br />
such as Chris Pratt’s Peter<br />
Quill and fully CG creations like<br />
Rocket and Baby Groot.<br />
In order for Ego to morph into<br />
different forms, delicate digital<br />
double work was required. “Weta<br />
created a digital version of Kurt,<br />
down to matching individual<br />
pores and hairs,” says Townsend.<br />
“When Ego creates his human<br />
form around his celestial framework<br />
over a sequence of shots,<br />
Weta mocked up Ego’s physiology<br />
with multiple passes — his<br />
skeleton, organs, muscles, skin<br />
and finally clothes and hair. We<br />
experimented with the timing<br />
and nature of the reveal of each of<br />
these building blocks, often overlapping<br />
them and playing them<br />
to the framing of each shot. As<br />
Ego was speaking throughout the<br />
reveal, we played with the delivery<br />
of dialogue via a skull only or<br />
by half skin/half muscle.”<br />
When Quill finally blasts Ego<br />
apart, only to see him regenerate,<br />
Townsend says, “We had to<br />
figure out how to destroy a human<br />
body, then rebuild it, inside of a<br />
PG-13 rating. We landed on a true<br />
representation of all the organs,<br />
bones, muscles, veins and nerves.<br />
But as the cells were getting<br />
destroyed by the energy blast,<br />
they would mutate back using the<br />
same 3D fractals that were seen<br />
elsewhere in Ego the planet; this<br />
added an alien element, an almost<br />
mathematically derived aspect<br />
to what could have been very gory.<br />
Instead of blood, the celestial<br />
framework’s blue energy was flung<br />
from the destruction points.”<br />
Fractals, mathematically constructed geometric forms (inset),<br />
were used to construct the “living planet” known as Ego.<br />
GUARDIANS: WETA/MARVEL (6). TOWNSEND: FRAZER HARRISON/GETTY IMAGES FOR BRITISH CONSULATE GENERAL LOS ANGELES.<br />
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Style<br />
Beauty<br />
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2. Miu Miu<br />
L’eau Rosee combines<br />
soft florals including lily of the<br />
valley and cassis buds with a<br />
hint of musk; $105, at Sephora<br />
3. Guerlain<br />
Mon Guerlain Florale<br />
has a bouquet of lavender,<br />
jasmine, peony and iris;<br />
$124, at Saks Fifth Avenue<br />
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Amo Ferragamo’s woody and<br />
sweet notes of rosemary,<br />
sandalwood, jasmine and black<br />
currant mingle into a light oriental<br />
floral; $125, at Bloomingdale’s<br />
5. Proenza Schouler<br />
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Photographed by Will Deleon<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
49<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
Style<br />
Relationships<br />
L.A. Dating Post-Weinstein:<br />
‘<strong>The</strong> Office Romance Is Dead’<br />
A TV comedy writer turns to two industry matchmakers who help singles<br />
navigate in the #MeToo age: It’s ‘like having an agent for your love life’<br />
By Ari Berkowitz<br />
O<br />
nce, on my way to the bathroom in<br />
a West <strong>Hollywood</strong> restaurant, a guy<br />
asked if I was his waitress. “Excuse<br />
me?” I said, genuinely shocked. “You think I’m<br />
pretty enough to be a waitress in L.A.?”<br />
Dating in this town has always been hard.<br />
Aside from having the highest concentration<br />
of beautiful people on Earth,<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> is a small world where<br />
being successful often means<br />
being social. Most of the people<br />
Berkowitz you meet — and date — are in the<br />
biz. And that means most of the<br />
people you meet — and date — know everyone<br />
you’ve ever met and dated.<br />
But in a post-MeToo world, dating in<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> has grown even harder. Let me say<br />
this: I am a militant #MeToo/#TimesUp feminist.<br />
I think a spotlight on unwanted advances<br />
is incredibly positive ... but it does make it<br />
harder to navigate the wanted ones.<br />
In November, I went out with a friend-of-afriend<br />
in the industry. He bought me drinks<br />
until the bar closed, but after that, he left every<br />
move up to me. It wasn’t just the “yes-meansyes”<br />
standard that I expect, it was like Mad<br />
Libs Dating. He presented every decision and<br />
left me to fill in the blanks: What should we do<br />
now? Where should we go? Even after I got him<br />
home, got him another drink, sat him on my<br />
couch and intertwined our legs, I still couldn’t<br />
get him to make a move. Neither one of us knew<br />
how to navigate this new post-Weinstein world.<br />
Illustration by Eleanor Taylor<br />
Over the past few months, I’ve heard of<br />
companies in <strong>Hollywood</strong> instituting open-door<br />
policies, or sending female execs into meetings<br />
to chaperone powerful men when they<br />
meet with women. <strong>The</strong>re are many political<br />
and business ramifications, but, honestly, I’m<br />
about to spend another Valentine’s Day alone,<br />
so I’m just gonna focus on the dating ramifications.<br />
In <strong>Hollywood</strong>, the office romance is dead.<br />
General meetings will never again bleed into<br />
late-night drinks. <strong>The</strong> blurred lines are focusing.<br />
And I’m glad. But <strong>Hollywood</strong> singles are<br />
facing a totally new era of dating.<br />
Enter matchmakers Jaydi Samuels and<br />
Lauren Rosenberg. I learned about them the<br />
way I learn about everything — in a general<br />
meeting. When the female<br />
exec I was meeting with casually<br />
mentioned she had just<br />
started using a matchmaker,<br />
I casually mentioned that<br />
she had to fucking tell me all<br />
the details immediately.<br />
LJMatchmaking, which<br />
started three years ago, costs<br />
$199 a year for women. Men<br />
pay nothing upfront, but are expected to<br />
pay for the first date. Members, who are referral<br />
only, answer a questionnaire, and then<br />
Jaydi, a comedy writer, and Lauren, a reality<br />
TV producer, follow up in person, sussing out<br />
dealbreakers you didn’t know you had. (When<br />
they asked if I’d date someone who voted for<br />
200%<br />
LJMatchmaking<br />
membership increase in<br />
January compared with<br />
an average month in 2017.<br />
Trump, I answered: Maybe — if they deeply<br />
regretted it now. When they asked if I’d date a<br />
guy who was bald, I said: Fuck no. Who knew<br />
I was the worst?!) <strong>The</strong>re are no guarantees on<br />
how many dates they get you — they just let<br />
you know when they find a good match (i.e., a<br />
hairy, regretful Republican).<br />
A week after I met them, they emailed me<br />
my first match. I got his first name, age, religion,<br />
job, and a sentence about his personality<br />
and looks. No picture. No way to google him.<br />
Jaydi and Lauren asked me: Was I interested<br />
in meeting him? Was I free on one of three<br />
nights? Yes and yes. Jaydi and Lauren made us<br />
a reservation. All I had to do was show up.<br />
My first match was with a guy we’ll call<br />
“Tom.” Tom was 10 years older, a successful<br />
writer. We had a nice time drinking margaritas<br />
and talking about harassers, and after two<br />
hours, he drove me home. But the best part<br />
was that afterwards, I didn’t hear from him. I<br />
heard from my matchmakers. <strong>The</strong>y checked in<br />
the next morning: “How did it go?”<br />
It felt amazing — this was like having an<br />
agent for your love life. You can leave a staffing<br />
meeting thinking everyone loved/hated you,<br />
but your agent always gets the real story. I told<br />
Jaydi and Lauren that I was interested in seeing<br />
Tom again. He wanted to see me, too! <strong>The</strong>re<br />
were no Mad Libs about it: We had gone on a<br />
clearly defined date and wanted to do it again.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n Tom flaked on me twice in a row, and I<br />
pulled the plug. I’m not saying matchmakers<br />
fix all your dating problems in <strong>Hollywood</strong>. Just,<br />
like, a dozen of them.<br />
My second match was with “Josh.” Josh spent<br />
the first hour of our date mansplaining<br />
American foreign policy. When he segued to a<br />
football player who had been (very mildly)<br />
slandered in an article about campus sexual<br />
assault, I interjected: “Cry me a fucking river.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> next day, I told my matchmakers it was<br />
a bad fit. <strong>The</strong>y were surprised — he wanted to<br />
see me again.<br />
What?! I got clammy<br />
thinking of how I was going<br />
to extricate myself. <strong>The</strong> one<br />
time Josh had asked a question<br />
about me, I told him<br />
about the pilot I was writing<br />
and he deftly brought the<br />
conversation back to him by<br />
listing all the powerful<br />
people he knew who could help me. If I offended<br />
him now, was there a chance he’d ask those<br />
powerful people to hurt my pilot? With a rush<br />
of relief, I realized I needn’t worry. My love<br />
agents would extricate me! I’m holding out<br />
hope that by next Valentine’s Day, they’ll find<br />
me someone who thinks I’m smart, funny<br />
and — just maybe — pretty enough to be an<br />
L.A. waitress.<br />
BERKOWITZ: COURTESY OF SUBJECT.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
50<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
Style<br />
KIdman<br />
Rae<br />
Nyong’o<br />
Brown<br />
Britton<br />
Thompson<br />
W<br />
LINGUA<br />
FRANCA<br />
Winners of the New Woke Red Carpet<br />
As ‘Who are you wearing?’ is phased out of preshows, fashion labels feel the burn, but savvy brands<br />
attached to feminist stars are reaping the benefits: ‘Time’s Up has added a new dimension’ By Booth Moore<br />
ith Time’s Up pins<br />
outshining diamond<br />
jewelry and designer<br />
name-dropping on the red carpet<br />
at a minimum, is fashion this<br />
awards season’s biggest loser?<br />
“After the mad dash for black at<br />
the Golden Globes and media<br />
conversations directed toward<br />
the #MeToo movement, designer<br />
brands are not the winners,” says<br />
Stacy Jones, CEO of entertainment<br />
and fashion marketing firm<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> Branded Inc.<br />
<strong>The</strong> cancellation of E!’s Fashion<br />
Police in November — then<br />
Beyonce and Lorde skipping the<br />
Grammy carpet in response to<br />
an antiwage inequality petition<br />
calling for an E! News boycott —<br />
may signal the end of an era for<br />
preshow fashion commentary.<br />
PRABAL<br />
GURUNG<br />
“I don’t think it will return to<br />
being a one-dimensional conversation<br />
about fashion on the red<br />
carpet,” says Time’s Up founding<br />
member Amanda de Cadenet.<br />
Although most designers<br />
understand why the gender equality<br />
message takes precedence,<br />
even feminists like Prabal Gurung<br />
are “wish[ing] actresses got asked<br />
why they chose to wear the particular<br />
designer.” Luxury brands,<br />
of course, still are moving heaven<br />
and earth to dress stars. “We’re<br />
seeing the fashion discussion<br />
moving more to the digital space,<br />
where designers, publicists or<br />
stars themselves are pushing out<br />
info about styles,” says Jones.<br />
British house Ralph & Russo<br />
may have gone unnamed during<br />
preshows (as did Nicole Kidman’s<br />
ARMANI<br />
Armani at the SAG Awards), but<br />
it still stacks up as a big winner,<br />
dressing such “woke” A-listers as<br />
Lupita Nyong’o. Her gray gown at<br />
the SAG Awards reached 713.5 million<br />
readers, at a PR value of<br />
$13,084,612, says Jones. Notes CEO<br />
Michael Russo, “Time’s Up has<br />
added a new dimension to the red<br />
carpet for brands.”<br />
Gurung received multiple<br />
inquiries from potential customers<br />
about Issa Rae’s dramatic<br />
black gown at the Golden Globes.<br />
According to retail analytics<br />
company EDITED, sales of black<br />
dresses increased by 225 percent<br />
from Jan. 1 to 18 compared<br />
with the same period last year.<br />
With all-black at the Globes —<br />
also planned for the Feb. 18<br />
BAFTAs — and all-white onstage<br />
RALPH &<br />
RUSSO<br />
CONVERSE<br />
at the Grammys making headlines,<br />
unlikely faves have<br />
emerged, including Lingua<br />
Franca, Rachelle Hruska<br />
MacPherson’s New York label<br />
of hand-embroidered cashmere.<br />
After Connie Britton wore<br />
a “Poverty Is Sexist” sweater at<br />
the Globes (Tessa Thompson<br />
later wore a version with first<br />
names of female directors), “we<br />
got hundreds of emails,” says<br />
MacPherson. Reese Witherspoon<br />
ordered 20 Lingua Franca “Time’s<br />
Up” sweaters for Eva Longoria<br />
and other supporters. Converse<br />
enjoyed the rare shout-out at<br />
the SAG Awards by Millie Bobby<br />
Brown, who wore Chuck Taylors<br />
with her pink Calvin Klein dress.<br />
“Converse are cool!” says Jones.<br />
Now, even more so.<br />
BRITTON: JOE SCARNICI/GETTY IMAGES. THOMPSON: PHILLIP FARAONE/GETTY IMAGES. RAE, NYONG’O: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE. KIDMAN: AXELLE/<br />
BAUER-GRIFFIN/FILMMAGIC. BROWN: JOHN SHEARER/GETTY IMAGES. AMERICAN: COURTESY OF ABRAMS BOOKS (2). PURSE: COURTESY OF 18008456790.<br />
THR<br />
Read<br />
Runways and <strong>Hollywood</strong>: A Long Love Affair<br />
FROM ITS SLEEPY BEGINNINGS to today’s star-laden productions, New York Fashion Week and its<br />
evolution are chronicled in American Runway (Abrams, $65), by THR style and fashion news director<br />
Booth Moore. “Once [publicist Eleanor Lambert] launched Press Week in 1943, the era of the<br />
American designer started,” writes Council of Fashion Designers of America board chair Diane<br />
von Furstenberg in the foreword (Moore worked with CFDA on the book). Celebrating its 75th anniversary,<br />
NYFW has had its fair share of <strong>Hollywood</strong> moments on its way to becoming a globally live-streamed event.<br />
“I underestimated the interest in fashion and how people are intrigued by the alchemy of something,” says Michael<br />
Kors of his early reticence about doing Project Runway, which debuted in 2004 and is now on its 16th season. As did<br />
exec producer Harvey Weinstein, recalls producer Desiree Gruber: “He didn’t [initially] understand the excitement<br />
of bringing an idea from a designer’s sketch to fabrication onto a model’s body to the runway.” — LAURIE BROOKINS<br />
Bottega Veneta just<br />
moved its show and<br />
store from Milan<br />
to NYC. Bag, $2,800.<br />
“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.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
52<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
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ON SALE 2/28 ISSUE CLOSE 2/21 MATERIALS 2/22
T H E<br />
N<br />
O<br />
WILLEM DAFOE made six films last year,<br />
has 100 screen credits and three Oscar nominations (including for<br />
this awards season’s on-the-cheap underdog <strong>The</strong> Florida Project)<br />
in an enigmatic career that has resisted fame and routine:<br />
‘I remember my life by my movies’<br />
By Benjamin Svetkey<br />
Photographed by Martha Galvan<br />
M
“He’s not a movie star,”<br />
says director Oliver Stone<br />
of Dafoe, who was<br />
photographed Feb. 2 at Siren<br />
Orange in Los Angeles.<br />
“He hasn’t fallen into the<br />
movie star trap. That’s why<br />
he’s still working.”<br />
Styling by George Kotsiopoulos<br />
Left: Ralph Lauren sweater<br />
Right: Prada tuxedo, COS shirt,<br />
Christian Louboutin shoes.<br />
A<br />
D
Here is a typical day in the life<br />
of Willem Dafoe: He wakes up<br />
early, usually around 5 or 6. He<br />
meditates, has a cup of coffee and<br />
writes in his journal for a while.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n he checks his email, does<br />
some yoga and makes breakfast.<br />
If he’s prepping for a film, which<br />
he almost always is, he’ll go over<br />
his lines for a couple of hours.<br />
If he’s not, he’ll read a book, take<br />
a walk around his West Village<br />
neighborhood or — his favorite<br />
activity of all — do some laundry.<br />
1<br />
“It’s one of my great pleasures,” he says, dead<br />
serious. “I love it so much, I have to resist the<br />
urge to do a lot of hand washing when I’m in<br />
hotels. Sometimes, when I’m in a strange<br />
city, I go to laundromats. I did that in France<br />
recently — I was shooting a movie there —<br />
and it was a beautiful experience. For some<br />
reason, people are really nice to me in laundromats<br />
and I have these great encounters.<br />
Talk about fun and sexy …”<br />
Of course, what makes Dafoe different from<br />
most people — aside from enjoying laundry<br />
— is that in his life there’s really no such thing<br />
as a typical day. Every one of them is pretty<br />
unusual. Today, for instance, the 62-year-old<br />
Oscar nominee — he’s up for best supporting<br />
actor for his role in <strong>The</strong> Florida Project, A24’s<br />
$2 million slice of life about kids from lowincome<br />
families living in cheap motels near<br />
Orlando’s Disney World — lounges on a shady<br />
terrace at a hotel overlooking downtown<br />
Santa Barbara, where he’s about to take another<br />
lap around the awards season circuit as it<br />
hurtles toward the finish line. He’s dressed<br />
With Brooklynn Prince in <strong>The</strong> Florida Project.<br />
in hipster casual — black jeans, white T-shirt<br />
and a scruffy graying beard (a remnant from<br />
his recent turn as Vincent Van Gogh in Julian<br />
Schnabel’s upcoming biopic, At Eternity’s Gate)<br />
— but in a few hours he’ll spruce himself up,<br />
slip into a suit and step onto a stage to accept<br />
the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s Vanguard<br />
Award, honoring what the program calls his<br />
“unique contributions to film.”<br />
In Dafoe’s case, unique is putting it mildly.<br />
He has played everybody from Jesus (in Martin<br />
Scorsese’s <strong>The</strong> Last Temptation of Christ) to<br />
a tropical fish (in Finding Nemo). He shared a<br />
foxhole with Charlie Sheen in Oliver Stone’s<br />
1986 Vietnam War epic Platoon (which got<br />
him his first Oscar nomination), wore 6-inchlong<br />
fingernails and a prosthetic pointy head<br />
to play silent film star Max Schreck in 2000’s<br />
Shadow of the Vampire (which got him his<br />
second) and zoomed around New York on a<br />
flying hoverboard as the Green Goblin in<br />
2002’s Spider-Man (and its two sequels). And<br />
that’s just scratching the surface of his résumé<br />
— there’s also his lesser-applauded performances<br />
in 1993’s Body of Evidence (in which<br />
Madonna dripped hot wax onto his naked<br />
body) and in Lars von Trier’s 2009 drama<br />
Antichrist (in which Charlotte Gainsbourg<br />
crushed his testicles), along with a slew of<br />
other roles big, small and occasionally completely<br />
overlooked. Over the past 37 years,<br />
Dafoe has racked up credits on more than 100<br />
films, churning out two, three or sometimes<br />
even four or more a year (last year, he did six,<br />
a personal best, plus voiceover narrations on<br />
two documentaries).<br />
But here’s the thing about Willem Dafoe.<br />
Despite his prodigious output and nearubiquitous<br />
onscreen presence during the past<br />
four decades, he’s never quite popped as a<br />
full-fledged movie star. He’s gotten plenty of<br />
nominations, and the critics adore him. But<br />
nobody gossips about him. Photographers<br />
3<br />
don’t camp outside his home (or even know<br />
where it is). Fans let him wash his underpants<br />
in peace at laundromats. Dafoe insists<br />
he doesn’t want to be a bigger star than he<br />
already is and prefers that nobody know about<br />
his offscreen life. He says it makes it easier to<br />
“disappear into roles.”<br />
Still, disappearing isn’t exactly a winning<br />
strategy when you’re up for an Academy Award.<br />
So he slouches into his chair on his hotel terrace,<br />
gives his gray beard a couple of tugs and,<br />
for a few of hours anyway, lets a stranger rummage<br />
in his laundry bag.<br />
FOR STARTERS, HIS REAL NAME IS NOT WILLEM.<br />
It’s William. As a teenager in Appleton,<br />
Wisconsin, he was called Bill, or sometimes<br />
Billy, and there was a period during his early<br />
childhood when his older brothers teased him<br />
with the nickname “Bleeblob” (for reasons<br />
no family member will reveal but which they<br />
hint are hugely embarrassing).<br />
He was the seventh of eight children, all<br />
crammed into an overstuffed colonial where<br />
there was almost zero adult supervision.<br />
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ORION PICTURES/PHOTOFEST. SHADOW: LIONSGATE FILMS/PHOTOFEST. CHRIST: UNIVERSAL PICTURES/PHOTOFEST. SPIDER-MAN: COLUMBIA PICTURES/SONY PICTURES/PHOTOFEST.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
56<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
Dafoe’s dad was a doctor and his mom<br />
a nurse, and because they were seldom at<br />
home, he was raised mostly by his five sisters.<br />
“My parents started out as Eisenhower<br />
Republicans,” he says, “but by the time I<br />
came around they had loosened up.” Luckily,<br />
he thrived on the chaos. Once, when he was<br />
8 years old, he shut himself into a closet<br />
for two days. He wasn’t hiding or depressed.<br />
He just wanted to feel what it was like to<br />
be confined in a small space for a long period<br />
of time, like the astronauts in the Gemini<br />
rockets on the news. “Nobody in my family<br />
noticed,” he remembers.<br />
“He was always a performer,” says his<br />
brother Don, 67, a transplant surgeon in<br />
“ He got ahold of<br />
a gorilla suit and climbed<br />
the side of a building.”<br />
Laguna Beach who drove up to Santa Barbara<br />
for the film festival. “He was always doing<br />
crazy stuff to create a stir. I remember once<br />
when he was 10 or 12 years old, he got ahold<br />
of a gorilla costume and climbed the side of<br />
a building in downtown Appleton, like King<br />
Kong.” Adds brother Richard, 65, a commercial<br />
litigation attorney in Dallas who also attended<br />
the Santa Barbara ceremony, “He was always<br />
doing creative things. If he got a term paper<br />
assignment, he’d find a way to act it out in class<br />
instead of writing it.”<br />
Occasionally, Dafoe’s creative spirit landed<br />
him in hot water, like the time he borrowed<br />
his high school’s video camera to shoot<br />
a documentary and got expelled for making<br />
what the principal called “pornography”<br />
(“<strong>The</strong>re was a bare bottom in it,”<br />
Dafoe says). But he didn’t want to stick<br />
around Appleton, anyway, so he bolted<br />
for Milwaukee, where he camped out<br />
on a friend’s sofa, started sitting in on<br />
drama classes at the university and<br />
eventually fell in with a small theater<br />
troupe where he first began learning<br />
4<br />
1 From left: Dafoe with<br />
Sheen and Tom Berenger.<br />
2 As Max Schreck in<br />
Shadow of the Vampire.<br />
3 <strong>The</strong> Green Goblin in<br />
Spider-Man.<br />
4 On the set of <strong>The</strong><br />
Last Temptation of Christ<br />
with Scorsese.<br />
2<br />
to act. “But I never thought acting could be a<br />
profession,” he says. “I didn’t know anybody<br />
that made their living in the entertainment<br />
industry. It was just something I liked<br />
to do, something I had fun with, a social<br />
thing. I thought maybe I’d end up joining the<br />
Merchant Marines or the Army.”<br />
He started taking acting more seriously<br />
when he came to New York in the mid-1970s.<br />
That’s around the time he gave his name<br />
a Dutch makeover, dropping the “ia” and<br />
adding an “e” (although “William” is still on<br />
his driver’s license and passport). “It’s not<br />
like I was looking around for a stage name,”<br />
he says, “But I knew that I didn’t want to be a<br />
William or a Bill or a Billy.” It turned out to<br />
be a smart move; the new cool moniker helped<br />
him fit in with the downtown crowd he was<br />
hanging with. Before long, he was the youngest<br />
actor in the Wooster Group, a theater company<br />
in an old metal stamp factory in SoHo<br />
that mounted wacky experimental productions,<br />
like a version of Our Town with all the<br />
actors in blackface while sex videos played<br />
on monitors on the stage. <strong>The</strong> critics weren’t<br />
always kind, and money was always a problem<br />
(Dafoe made extra bucks by doing figure<br />
modeling for art classes), but it was here that<br />
he met his mentor and muse — and, for a long<br />
time, his partner. <strong>The</strong>ater director Elizabeth<br />
LeCompte was 33 and Dafoe was 22 when they<br />
began a relationship that lasted for nearly<br />
three decades (their child, Jack Dafoe, is now<br />
a 34-year-old public policy researcher) until<br />
they parted in 2004, after Dafoe met Italian<br />
director Giada Colagrande, 42, while shooting<br />
<strong>The</strong> Life Aquatic in Rome. “I wasn’t looking for<br />
anything, but I fell in love,” he says matter-offactly.<br />
“And so my life changed.”<br />
After the breakup, Dafoe was “excommunicated”<br />
from the Wooster Group, where<br />
LeCompte remains as director. But for<br />
many years, that small theater was Dafoe’s<br />
center of gravity, even as <strong>Hollywood</strong> beckoned.<br />
Technically, the first film he shot, in<br />
1980, was <strong>The</strong> Loveless, a low-budget biker<br />
drama co-directed by Monty Montgomery<br />
and a young first-time auteur named Kathryn<br />
Bigelow. But that film’s release was delayed<br />
for two years, so Dafoe’s first appearance in<br />
movie theaters ended up being a small part<br />
in Michael Cimino’s much more high-profile<br />
Heaven’s Gate. Dafoe spent three months<br />
on the set of that infamous train wreck as a<br />
“glorified extra” before getting fired. “We<br />
were standing on the set in full costume and<br />
makeup and they were adjusting the lights,<br />
and the woman next to me whispered a joke,”<br />
he says. “I laughed too loud. Cimino whirled<br />
around, looked at me and said, ‘Willem,<br />
step out!’ and he sent me back to my hotel<br />
room. An hour later, I was presented with a<br />
plane ticket and told to go home.” He can’t<br />
recall what the joke was but remembers “it<br />
was something dirty.”<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
57<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
“ I never thought<br />
acting could be a<br />
profession. I thought<br />
I’d end up joining the<br />
Merchant Marines.”<br />
Valentino coat, Frame Denim jeans, Rag & Bone shoes.
1<br />
WOOSTER: NANCY CAMPBELL/COURTESY OF SUBJECT. COLAGRANDE: MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES FOR MOET & CHANDON.<br />
Dafoe never had the face of<br />
a leading man — “I’m like the<br />
boy next door, if you live next<br />
door to a mausoleum,” he once<br />
said of himself — but even<br />
in his 20s and 30s he had the<br />
right bone structure and wild<br />
intensity to play villains, like<br />
the counterfeiter in William<br />
Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A.<br />
He was even talked about for the<br />
Joker in 1989’s Batman, until Jack Nicholson<br />
snagged the role. “[Screenwriter Sam] Hamm<br />
said something about how physi cally I would<br />
be perfect for the part,” Dafoe recalls, “but they<br />
never offered it to me.”<br />
It was a much more angelic character<br />
that would put him on <strong>Hollywood</strong>’s radar.<br />
“Originally, the part was supposed to be<br />
for a Native American,” says Oliver Stone of<br />
Sgt. Gordon Elias, the kindly G.I. who gets<br />
riddled with machine gun fire in a rice paddy<br />
at the end of Platoon. “But we couldn’t find<br />
a Native American actor for the part. So we<br />
changed the character to white and looked<br />
around for an actor who had a different sort<br />
of face. We didn’t want to cast a classically<br />
handsome actor.” Stone, who later cast Dafoe<br />
in Born on the Fourth of July opposite classically<br />
handsome Tom Cruise, believes it’s<br />
precisely because of Dafoe’s unusual features<br />
(<strong>The</strong> New York Times once described his face<br />
as looking like a “demiurge as rendered by a<br />
cubist”) that he’s had such a durable career.<br />
“He’s not a movie star,” Stone says. “He’s not<br />
good looking in that way. But that’s why he’s<br />
still working. He hasn’t fallen into the movie<br />
star trap. He’s stayed an actor.”<br />
After his nomination for Platoon, Dafoe<br />
was offered just about everything — and, judging<br />
from his rambling credits, he didn’t turn<br />
much away. Dafoe gives lots of reasons for why<br />
he picks the projects he does — “Sometimes<br />
it can be a very simple thing, like, ‘Wow, I<br />
want to ride that motorcycle and wear those<br />
clothes’ ” — but in truth it’s not always easy<br />
to discern a guiding logic behind his choices.<br />
He’s the kind of actor who can shoot a highbrow<br />
drama like 1997’s Affliction one month<br />
and turn around and make Speed 2: Cruise<br />
Control the next. “Oh, I turn down things,” he<br />
insists. “I won’t say which ones, because that’s<br />
not nice to the people I’ve turned down.”<br />
As he’s grown older, Dafoe’s pace hasn’t<br />
slowed. In the past year, he’s starred in Kenneth<br />
Branagh’s remake of Murder on the Orient<br />
Express; done a dystopian thriller called What<br />
Happened to Monday; nearly appeared in Justice<br />
League (his underwater scenes as Nuidis<br />
Vulko got cut from the final print, but he’ll be<br />
back as the character this year in Aquaman);<br />
learned to paint like Van Gogh (Schnabel was<br />
his personal tutor); and, of course, performed<br />
his nominated turn as the father-figure motel<br />
manager who looks after his downwardly<br />
1 Dafoe (left) with<br />
Spalding Gray and<br />
other Wooster Group<br />
actors in 1979.<br />
2 With his wife,<br />
director Giada<br />
Colagrande, in <strong>2018</strong>.<br />
mobile tenants in <strong>The</strong> Florida Project, a film<br />
that had him practicing his craft with a<br />
parking lot full of 6-year-olds and first-time<br />
actors. “When I cast Willem, everyone was<br />
like, ‘Oh no, he’s a villain, he’s a bad guy,’ ”<br />
says director Sean Baker, whose most famous<br />
previous work was his 2015 iPhone-shot<br />
Tangerine. “But Willem made the character<br />
his own. He came down to Florida a week<br />
early and picked out his wardrobe — he’s the<br />
one who came up with the sunglasses —<br />
and met with actual hotel managers around<br />
the area, looking for inspiration. And he was<br />
great with the kids. Very casual with everyone.<br />
Very approachable. He never played the diva.”<br />
For Dafoe, working with children was a bit<br />
like experimental theater. “Since the movie is<br />
from the kids’ point of view, you have to invite<br />
the chaos,” he says. “<strong>The</strong> biggest challenge<br />
was to stay calm and be patient. I was ready to<br />
grab the wheel if we were going to crash, but [I]<br />
had to let the kids drive [the movie].”<br />
Dafoe doesn’t chew any scenery or have<br />
any over-the-top outbursts in <strong>The</strong> Florida<br />
Project — on the contrary, he gives such a<br />
quiet, low-key performance that his acting is<br />
practically invisible. That makes it a surprising<br />
choice for the Academy, which usually<br />
nominates more robust roles. Dafoe himself<br />
seems a little taken aback by all the attention.<br />
Or maybe it’s just that it’s been a while since<br />
his last go-around on the awards circuit and<br />
he’s feeling out of practice. “It’s changed so<br />
much since my first nomination,” he says of<br />
this year’s race. “It’s so much more developed<br />
and sophisticated, with a lot more outlets. My<br />
first nomination for Platoon, I didn’t even have<br />
a publicist. I didn’t even know what day they<br />
Find out what Dafoe’s 7-year-old co-star Brooklynn Prince taught him at THR.COM/VIDEO<br />
2<br />
were announcing the nominations. My son’s<br />
babysitter called to tell me I was nominated.”<br />
One change he particularly likes, though, is<br />
the rise of the #MeToo movement. “I’ve worked<br />
with a lot of women directors,” he points out.<br />
“My wife is a female director. I see the inequalities.<br />
I see how difficult it is. And it’s having an<br />
effect on me because I can see how things are<br />
shifting. When I read scripts now, red flags<br />
go off sometimes. Like, if I’m reading a script<br />
and all the women are taking off their clothes,<br />
I’m like, ‘OK, what is this?’ What can I say? I’m<br />
being educated.”<br />
“I LIVE A NOMADIC LIFE,” DAFOE OBSERVES,<br />
nodding at the leafy surroundings of the<br />
hotel terrace. “Last year it was five months<br />
in Australia, two months in England, three<br />
months in France …”<br />
He and his wife have homes in New York<br />
and Rome, but he rarely spends more than a<br />
month or two at either. For most of the year,<br />
he’s on the road, hopping from one film set<br />
to the next. Sometimes his wife travels with<br />
him, sometimes not (“She is my home,” he<br />
says). But the constant movement has given<br />
Dafoe a unique sense of continuity. While<br />
the rest of the world measures their lives in<br />
moments — birthdays, anniversaries, weddings,<br />
deaths — he measures his in film<br />
productions. “I remember my life by my movies,”<br />
he says.<br />
Later in the day, at the Arlington <strong>The</strong>ater in<br />
Santa Barbara, a couple hundred people turn<br />
out — including his two brothers, who don’t<br />
have nearly as fantastic hair but do bear a family<br />
resemblance around the eyes — to watch<br />
Dafoe get his Vanguard Award. Just before he<br />
steps onstage, Dafoe gets to watch his whole<br />
life-slash-movie-career flash before his eyes.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re’s a five-minute pre-ceremony clip reel<br />
of his greatest moments. Or at least what<br />
somebody thought were his greatest moments.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>y mostly showed my studio movies,” Dafoe<br />
points out afterward, a little disappointed.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>y left out a lot of other films.”<br />
Of course, a more complete reel would last<br />
longer than one of von Trier’s movies. And<br />
Dafoe is constantly adding titles. He reportedly<br />
has signed on for an adaptation of Jonathan<br />
Lethem’s crime novel Motherless Brooklyn, about<br />
a 1950s detective with Tourette’s syndrome,<br />
that Edward Norton (who’ll be directing as well<br />
as starring in the lead role, with Dafoe playing<br />
his brother) has been trying to get made<br />
for years. “I’m always working on something,”<br />
Dafoe says, demonstrating his gift for<br />
understatement. “I don’t always know what’s<br />
right for me, but I know what turns me on and<br />
what makes me happy.”<br />
It turns out there’s not much in Dafoe’s<br />
anything-but-typical, laundry-loving life that<br />
makes him unhappy these days.<br />
“To tell you the truth,” he admits, “I’m not<br />
crazy about folding.”<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
59<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
BERLIN<br />
PRE VIEW<br />
A<br />
After several shaky movie markets<br />
in an industry plagued by<br />
seemingly constant transition,<br />
distributors and sales outfits<br />
are heading to Berlin’s European<br />
Film Market on Feb. 15 in an<br />
upbeat mood after Sundance. In<br />
Park City, newer buyers (Neon,<br />
30West, MoviePass, Annapurna)<br />
snatched up titles, and the studios<br />
returned in force to the indiepickup<br />
business, with Sony taking<br />
worldwide rights on the John<br />
Cho starrer Search, its SPC label<br />
nabbing Puzzle and Lionsgate<br />
boarding the Sundance opener<br />
Blindspotting. “<strong>The</strong>re is some real<br />
breadth in the market,” says<br />
Protagonist Pictures CEO Dave<br />
Bishop. “That’s encouraging<br />
because it’s not just focused on<br />
two players.” He’s referring to<br />
Amazon and Netflix, neither of<br />
which bought a film at Sundance.<br />
Alison Thompson of Brit sales<br />
outfit Cornerstone Films also<br />
sees an ongoing shift away from<br />
the traditional presales market<br />
“toward what the business was<br />
like when I started in the 1990s,<br />
where buyers wait to bid on finished<br />
movies.” Her Cornerstone<br />
partner Mark Gooder agrees: “<strong>The</strong><br />
presale market isn’t dead, but it’s<br />
getting harder to hit that bull’seye.”<br />
Several days out, new Berlin<br />
projects are thin on the ground,<br />
though most expect a handful of<br />
big-name titles to come together<br />
just before the EFM opens.<br />
THR’s 11 titles to watch:<br />
BACK TO BASICS<br />
IN BERLIN<br />
With Netflix and Amazon lying low in Sundance, this year’s European<br />
Film Market may continue a return to more traditional sales models —<br />
and dealmakers couldn’t be happier BY SCOTT ROXBOROUGH<br />
GREEN BOOK<br />
SALES FilmNation<br />
DIRECTOR Peter Farrelly<br />
CAST Viggo Mortensen,<br />
Mahershala Ali<br />
Moonlight’s Oscar winner Ali<br />
plays a virtuoso jazz pianist<br />
who forges an unlikely friendship<br />
with his blue-collar Italian-<br />
American chauffeur (Mortensen)<br />
during a 1962 tour of the racially<br />
segregated South. <strong>The</strong> film’s<br />
dramatic tone is a departure for<br />
comedy specialist Farrelly<br />
(Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin).<br />
STATUS Filming<br />
Rogowski<br />
and Toni<br />
Erdmann’s<br />
Huller in In<br />
the Aisles.<br />
HER SMELL<br />
SALES Endeavor Content/Bow<br />
and Arrow<br />
DIRECTOR Alex Ross Perry<br />
CAST Elisabeth Moss<br />
<strong>The</strong> Handmaid’s Tale star Moss<br />
has signed on to play Becky<br />
Something, a maniacally destructive<br />
punk rock star engaged<br />
in a yearslong war against<br />
sobriety in this new drama from<br />
Golden Exit director Perry.<br />
STATUS Shooting later this year<br />
IN THE AISLES<br />
SALES Beta Cinema<br />
DIRECTOR Thomas Stuber<br />
CAST Sandra Huller, Franz Rogowski<br />
German helmer Stuber follows<br />
up his award-winning<br />
Hubert (2015) with this lowkey<br />
romantic drama featuring<br />
Toni Erdmann’s Huller and<br />
up-and-coming German actor<br />
Rogowski, who will make his<br />
U.S. debut in Terrence Malick’s<br />
Radegund next year.<br />
STATUS Finished<br />
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3<br />
SALES Filmnation<br />
DIRECTOR Chad Stahelski<br />
CAST Keanu Reeves<br />
<strong>The</strong> third entry in the shoot-<br />
’em-up franchise, starring<br />
Reeves as the assassin who just<br />
can’t quit the life, is about the<br />
closest thing possible to a bull’seye<br />
in the action movie space.<br />
STATUS Preproduction<br />
A MILLION LITTLE PIECES<br />
SALES Sierra/Affinity<br />
DIRECTOR Sam Taylor-Johnson<br />
CAST Aaron Taylor-Johnson,<br />
Billy Bob Thornton, Giovanni Ribisi<br />
Fifty Shades of Grey director<br />
Taylor-Johnson teams up with<br />
her husband, Aaron (Nocturnal<br />
Animals), to take on James<br />
Frey’s rehab memoir, which was<br />
the source of a literary scandal<br />
back in 2003 when it emerged<br />
that Frey invented many of the<br />
events described in his struggles<br />
with alcohol and crack addiction.<br />
STATUS Preproduction<br />
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<br />
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.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
60<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
Clockwise from top left: A Million Little<br />
Pieces star Aaron Taylor-Johnson; Vox<br />
Lux’s Portman; Reeves, returning for John<br />
Wick: Chapter 3; Moss, who will play a<br />
self-destructive punk rocker in Her Smell;<br />
Spider in the Web star Bellucci; and Ali,<br />
who plays a jazz musician in Green Book.<br />
THE MISEDUCATION OF<br />
CAMERON POST<br />
SALES Elle Driver<br />
DIRECTOR Desiree Akhavan<br />
CAST Chloe Grace Moretz,<br />
Jennifer Ehle, Quinn Shephard<br />
Akhavan’s comic drama, about<br />
Christian teens wrestling with<br />
gay-conversion therapy, picked up<br />
the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance<br />
and won acclaim for its delicate<br />
treatment of a hot-button topic.<br />
STATUS Finished<br />
MONSTER FAMILY 2<br />
SALES Timeless Films<br />
DIRECTOR Holger Tappe<br />
<strong>The</strong> sequel to the 2017 animated<br />
movie, which featured the<br />
voice talents of Emily Watson,<br />
Nick Frost and Jason Isaacs and<br />
grossed more than $26 million<br />
internationally, returns with the<br />
Wishbones, an ordinary family<br />
who transform into monsters<br />
to save their friends and the world<br />
from an evil Monster Huntress.<br />
STATUS Preproduction<br />
MRS LOWRY & SON<br />
SALES <strong>The</strong> Little Film Co.<br />
DIRECTOR Adrian Noble<br />
CAST Timothy Spall,<br />
Vanessa Redgrave<br />
British acting treasures Spall<br />
and Redgrave headline this<br />
biopic about the relationship<br />
between early 20th century<br />
British painter L.S. Lowry and<br />
his mother, Elizabeth.<br />
STATUS Filming<br />
ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE US<br />
SALES Global Screen<br />
DIRECTOR Ozgur Yildirim<br />
CAST Moritz Bleibtreu<br />
<strong>The</strong> crossover success of Fatih<br />
Akin’s In the Fade could bode<br />
well for this German thriller, set<br />
on the mean streets of Frankfurt<br />
and featuring Bleibtreu (Run Lola<br />
Run) as a gangster trying to<br />
make a final score in order to<br />
escape his life of crime.<br />
STATUS Finished<br />
SPIDER IN THE WEB<br />
SALES Film Constellation<br />
DIRECTOR Eran Riklis<br />
CAST Ben Kingsley, Monica Bellucci,<br />
Itay Tiran<br />
This espionage thriller from the<br />
award-winning Israeli director<br />
of <strong>The</strong> Lemon Tree centers on an<br />
aging spy (Kingsley) on the trail<br />
of a supposed chemical weapons<br />
sale to a Middle East dictatorship<br />
while being followed by an ambitious<br />
Mossad agent (Tiran).<br />
STATUS Shoots in the spring<br />
VOX LUX<br />
SALES Sierra/Affinity<br />
DIRECTOR Brady Corbet<br />
CAST Natalie Portman, Jude Law<br />
Corbet’s drama about the rise<br />
of a singer from national tragedy<br />
to pop superstar is back on<br />
track, with Oscar winner Portman<br />
replacing Rooney Mara in the<br />
leading role. Sia provided original<br />
songs for the soundtrack.<br />
STATUS Filming<br />
Berlin Rolls Out the<br />
Red Carpet for Diversity<br />
From an anti-harassment ‘safe space policy’ to<br />
industry panels on gender equality, the Berlinale<br />
is getting woke for the #MeToo era<br />
Berlin wears its politics on its sleeve. In 2002, his first year<br />
as Berlinale director, Dieter Kosslick made “Accept<br />
Diversity” the festival motto. “And we meant it,” Kosslick<br />
tells THR. “Diversity of all sorts: all colors, all sexualities, all cultures.”<br />
This year, in the wake of Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo and Time’s<br />
Up, Berlin is trying to live up to that pledge. <strong>The</strong> fight for equality,<br />
whether based on gender, race or sexuality, will be in focus at both<br />
the festival and Berlin’s European Film Market (EFM).<br />
At the festival, Berlin will introduce what it calls a “safe space<br />
policy” that will include coordinating a hotline for visitors to report<br />
cases of discrimination or harassment they experience or witness.<br />
Sundance took a similar tack this year, updating its code of conduct<br />
to try and prevent any inappropriate behavior and introducing<br />
a new 24-hour hotline to report offenses.<br />
<strong>The</strong> policy’s urgency was brought home by the recent case of<br />
German director Dieter Wedel. Several women have accused the<br />
famed film and TV helmer of abuse — ranging from harassment<br />
to assault — going back decades. Wedel denied the initial charges<br />
brought forth by three women but since has gone<br />
silent and has resigned from his job as artistic director<br />
of the Bad Hersfeld <strong>The</strong>ater Festival, citing health<br />
concerns resulting from excessive media attention<br />
Wedel<br />
Wouter Knol<br />
on his case.<br />
At the EFM, the focus will be on analyzing the<br />
problem of discrimination and presenting workable<br />
solutions for the industry. Vivian Yvonne Hunt of<br />
consulting firm McKinsey & Co. will present the latest<br />
finding of her study “Delivering Through Diversity,”<br />
originally unveiled in late January at the Davos World<br />
Economic Forum in Switzerland. In a debate hosted by THR on<br />
Feb. 17, Hunt will break down her analysis of the diversity gap and<br />
what it means for the global film business.<br />
At Berlin’s Co-Production Market, the Austrian Film Institute<br />
will present a case study of its remarkably successful initiative to<br />
address the gender gap among film producers by boosting subsidy<br />
support for projects with higher female participation.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Swedish Film Institute, a leader in the push for gender<br />
equality, will also present in Berlin the latest findings in its 50-50<br />
initiative, which, in just three years, achieved gender parity in terms<br />
of film funding between men and women directors.<br />
“We are a market — we are interested in the business, not<br />
the politics,” says EFM director Matthijs Wouter Knol. “And when<br />
it comes to audiences, there are a lot of people out there, a lot<br />
of groups, who see themselves underrepresented in the content<br />
onscreen. What’s changed is that these groups are becoming more<br />
outspoken and, most importantly, have shown they are willing to<br />
pay for more diverse content.” — S.R.<br />
Illustration by Wren McDonald<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
61<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
BERLIN<br />
PRE VIEW<br />
hen it comes to making<br />
a European debut,<br />
director Gus Van Sant<br />
has experienced the<br />
highs, taking home the<br />
Palme d’Or at Cannes<br />
for the Columbineesque<br />
school massacre drama Elephant in<br />
2003. And then there were the lows, like 2015’s<br />
Sea of Trees unveiling at Cannes, where it<br />
was savaged by critics. Based on the Sundance<br />
reaction to his latest, the Joaquin Phoenix<br />
starrer Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot,<br />
the 65-year-old filmmaker should receive<br />
a warm reception when the movie screens in<br />
competition at the Berlin Film Festival. <strong>The</strong><br />
Amazon Studios title, which centers on a<br />
paraplegic cartoonist struggling with sobriety,<br />
is based on John Callahan’s memoir. <strong>The</strong><br />
two-time Oscar nominee spoke to THR from<br />
his home in Palm Springs about his film<br />
and his relationship with the Phoenix family,<br />
which began when he directed the late River<br />
Phoenix in 1991’s My Own Private Idaho.<br />
W<br />
You directed Joaquin early in his career in<br />
To Die For and now in Don’t Worry. How would<br />
you describe his evolution as an actor?<br />
It’s very similar, but he’s 20-something years<br />
older, so he had has so much more experience<br />
in creating a role, all the experiences from<br />
the past. But otherwise, he seemed to do it in<br />
a similar way. He just gets very involved in<br />
the role — to the point where he’s kind of living<br />
the role — and then he shoots it.<br />
“It’s hard to read<br />
bad reviews, but it’s<br />
also hard to read<br />
really good reviews,”<br />
says Van Sant,<br />
photographed<br />
Jan. 19 at Sky Strada<br />
in Park City, Utah.<br />
‘IT’S A<br />
REALLY<br />
POLARIZING<br />
MOMENT’<br />
Gus Van Sant on his Berlin entry Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot,<br />
the #MeToo movement and why working with Weinstein was ‘great’<br />
BY TATIANA SIEGEL<br />
What was the Phoenix family’s reaction to<br />
your documentary My Own Private River<br />
[which recontextualized footage from My Own<br />
Private Idaho]?<br />
Well, it was James Franco’s creation. I gave<br />
him permission. <strong>The</strong>y were very upset by it. It<br />
was something that I probably should never<br />
have done because I love the family so much. I<br />
wasn’t intending on a bad reaction, and I just<br />
handled it incorrectly.<br />
You co-directed that film with Franco. Do you<br />
think he’s being unfairly treated as he has been<br />
swept up in the #MeToo movement?<br />
I didn’t really co-direct. I allowed him to use<br />
the footage. I think that he gave me that codirector<br />
distinction. ... I don’t necessarily have<br />
a way to differentiate James’ situation with<br />
anyone else’s. <strong>The</strong>re’s been accusations, and I<br />
don’t know. I’m not close enough to him.<br />
In general, what do you think of the avalanche<br />
of accusations hitting <strong>Hollywood</strong>?<br />
It’s a really polarizing moment in especially<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> but [also] in many<br />
different communities. And the relationship<br />
between men and women and power<br />
and influence extends to so many things.<br />
It’s a very interesting moment, and it can<br />
be very difficult as well.<br />
A 9/11 Drama and 3 More Fest Standouts<br />
ISLE OF DOGS ►<br />
Eight years after bringing<br />
his idiosyncratic wit<br />
to stop-motion animation<br />
with Fantastic<br />
Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson<br />
returns to the form<br />
with this original story<br />
set in a dystopian<br />
future Japan, where<br />
a boy must venture<br />
into a canine quarantine<br />
area to rescue his<br />
beloved pet.<br />
THE LOOMING TOWER<br />
Dan Futterman and<br />
Alex Gibney are among<br />
the creators of this Hulu<br />
limited series based<br />
on Lawrence Wright’s<br />
Pulitzer Prize-winning<br />
book about the escalating<br />
threat of Osama<br />
bin Laden during the late<br />
1990s and the events<br />
that led to 9/11.<br />
MUSEO<br />
Mexican director<br />
Alonso Ruizpalacios<br />
follows his distinctive<br />
look at restless<br />
youth, Gueros, with<br />
this true-crime thriller<br />
based on the 1985<br />
robbery of 140 priceless<br />
Photographed by Austin Hargrave<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
62<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
<strong>The</strong> Best Veggie<br />
Bowls in Berlin<br />
<strong>The</strong> city of curry wurst has discovered<br />
its inner lust for quinoa and beetroot<br />
Vollbluth<br />
Vollbluth, which just opened in September, takes<br />
the veggie bowl to the next level with its seasonally<br />
adjusted selection of salads topped off with millet,<br />
black lentils or hulled wheat. Non-vegans can add a<br />
portion of pork belly, duck sausage or salmon marinated<br />
in maple syrup. Welserstrasse 10-12<br />
Daluma<br />
Just a short cab ride from the festival center, this<br />
is the spot to get your superfood fix in Berlin. Try the<br />
legendary acai bowl or a breakfast chia pudding.<br />
Top it all off with a guilt-free cold-pressed smoothie.<br />
Weinbergsweg 3<br />
To keep things from getting stale,<br />
My Goodness rotates its menu daily.<br />
My Goodness<br />
Also a short trip from Potsdamer Platz, this brandnew<br />
power-food spot with an adjunct yoga and<br />
spinning studio (Becycle) in the same building lets<br />
you pack in a workout and a detox meal in one go.<br />
Everything — from the breakfast sweet bowls to the<br />
lunch salads of kale, quinoa and artichoke — is fresh,<br />
surprising and delicious. Brunnenstrasse 24 — S.R.<br />
Phoenix (left) plays cartoonist John Callahan, who became<br />
a paraplegic at age 21 following a car accident.<br />
KOSSLICK: PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGES. WORRY, ISLE: COURTESY OF BERLINALE. GOODNESS: COURTESY OF SUBJECT (2).<br />
You worked with Harvey Weinstein on 1997’s<br />
Good Will Hunting. How was your experience?<br />
It was great. He was always very hands-off.<br />
<strong>The</strong> amount of interaction was quite small. He<br />
came to the set one day, then I saw him at the<br />
screening, and then I saw him at the premiere.<br />
You’ve tackled several films featuring real<br />
people, from John Callahan to Harvey Milk, and<br />
some loosely based on real people. What’s the<br />
biggest challenge in portraying real people?<br />
Harvey Milk was a well-known person, but<br />
he’s not as well known as some [film subjects],<br />
so we had a certain amount of leeway. <strong>The</strong><br />
same with John Callahan. I still haven’t done,<br />
say, Churchill. To me, they’re the same dramatically.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y’re all directly connected to the<br />
reality, whether or not we’re using real names.<br />
You played Dr. Campbell in <strong>The</strong> Canyons, among<br />
other roles. Why do you take on these parts?<br />
<strong>The</strong> Entourage one was [supposedly me], but<br />
I don’t think they knew me very well, so they<br />
just invented a character that was more like<br />
James Cameron. I’ve accepted roles generally<br />
to see if I could actually pull it off. <strong>The</strong>y’ve<br />
always been very instructional as to how actors<br />
feel on my own set. If your costume isn’t ready,<br />
it interrupts the whole flow. So I do acting as<br />
an experiment.<br />
pre-Hispanic artifacts<br />
from the<br />
National Museum<br />
of Anthropology in<br />
Mexico City. Gael<br />
Garcia Bernal stars.<br />
UNSANE<br />
After breaking his hiatus<br />
from features with<br />
2017’s heist comedy<br />
Logan Lucky, Steven<br />
Soderbergh takes a more<br />
experimental turn with<br />
this claustrophobic psycho-thriller<br />
shot entirely<br />
on an iPhone. Claire<br />
Foy loses her crown<br />
as a woman convinced<br />
she’s being pursued<br />
by a stalker, even after<br />
she’s involuntarily<br />
committed to a mental<br />
institution. — DAVID ROONEY<br />
<strong>The</strong> Knives Come Out for<br />
a Festival Director<br />
WITH DIETER KOSSLICK’S CONTRACT RUNNING OUT AFTER 17 YEARS, INSIDERS<br />
ARE DEBATING HIS LEGACY AND SCRAMBLING TO FIND A SUCCESSOR<br />
Dieter Kosslick,<br />
with his black<br />
fedora and bright<br />
red scarf, has been the<br />
enduring symbol of the<br />
Berlin International<br />
Film Festival for the 17<br />
years he has served as<br />
festival director.<br />
But with his contract<br />
up in May 2019, he only<br />
has two festivals left —<br />
including the one that<br />
kicks off Feb. 15. And<br />
already a battle has<br />
erupted over his legacy<br />
and what comes next.<br />
In late November, 79<br />
directors — including<br />
art house stars Fatih<br />
Akin (In the Fade), Maren<br />
Ade (Toni Erdmann)<br />
and Oscar winner Volker<br />
Schlondorff (<strong>The</strong> Tin<br />
Drum) signed an open<br />
letter calling for a post-<br />
Kosslick transformation.<br />
When he steps down,<br />
the directors wrote, the<br />
Berlinale should “refresh<br />
and renew” the festival<br />
and think about its<br />
“fundamental direction.”<br />
Innocuous enough.<br />
But the letter, published<br />
by Spiegel magazine,<br />
has set off a wave of<br />
Dieter bashing.<br />
In November, 79 directors<br />
signed a letter calling for the<br />
Berlinale to change its focus.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Berlinale has<br />
gotten bigger and bigger<br />
[under Kosslick], but<br />
its profile continues to<br />
diminish,” says German<br />
director Christoph<br />
Hochhausler, a signatory<br />
to the letter and, Kosslick<br />
has suggested, a driving<br />
force behind it.<br />
Kosslick dismisses his<br />
critics as “the same small<br />
group of people with<br />
the same old complaints:<br />
No American films or<br />
no European films, too<br />
big or too whatever.”<br />
But he admits that his<br />
Berlinale is less studioheavy.<br />
This year features<br />
a solitary studio title:<br />
Wes Anderson’s fest<br />
opener, Isle of Dogs,<br />
from Fox Searchlight.<br />
In his defense,<br />
Kosslick cites a poll<br />
of more than 1,000<br />
festivalgoers by German<br />
survey group the Forsa<br />
Institute, which found<br />
nearly all were “satisfied”<br />
with the Berlinale<br />
and more than half<br />
“very satisfied” or “overwhelmingly<br />
satisfied.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong>y want more<br />
films, not fewer,” says<br />
Kosslick. “<strong>The</strong>y live in an<br />
entirely different world<br />
than some critics live<br />
in. … If people want a<br />
different type of festival,<br />
a smaller festival with<br />
12 films to watch over a<br />
week, they can go somewhere<br />
else. <strong>The</strong> Berlinale<br />
isn’t a small, sweet little<br />
festival for five people.”<br />
Indeed, under<br />
Kosslick, Berlin’s oncetiny<br />
European Film<br />
Market has become the<br />
second largest film market<br />
in the world, after<br />
Cannes. <strong>The</strong> critics may<br />
complain, but the market<br />
remains robust, with<br />
no signs of companies<br />
pulling up stakes. — S.R.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
63<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
Speaking of the sweep<br />
of his relationship with<br />
Sheen, Dykstra grasps<br />
for words. “It can be<br />
described as a tragedy,<br />
a meltdown, a calamity,<br />
a cataclysm,” he says.<br />
He was photographed<br />
Nov. 8 in New York City.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
64<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
THE DOOMED<br />
HOLLYWOOD<br />
He’s a burnout<br />
major leaguer<br />
nicknamed ‘Nails’<br />
and an ex-con<br />
hustler who made<br />
(and lost)<br />
millions, but<br />
none of th at could<br />
have prepared<br />
LENNY DYKSTRA for<br />
BROMANCE<br />
his friendship<br />
with wild man<br />
Charlie Sheen,<br />
who he alleges is<br />
a dangerous<br />
criminal about<br />
to be taken down<br />
by the Feds<br />
OF LENNY AND<br />
CHARLIE<br />
By GARY BAUM<br />
Photographed by<br />
WESLEY MANN<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
65<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
Lenny Dykstra, the ex-con and former major<br />
league center fielder, relishes his wild man<br />
reputation, and relishes running his mouth<br />
about it even more. With roughly Pete Rose’s<br />
chance of making it to Cooperstown, he’ll talk<br />
about gobbling Human Growth Hormone with<br />
his cereal during his playing days just as easily<br />
as he’ll open up about how, in his mid-50s,<br />
he’s developed a post-prison side gig as a silverhaired<br />
gigolo to Beverly Hills grandmothers.<br />
But over lunch in a corner booth at <strong>The</strong> Beverly<br />
Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge, it’s another wild man,<br />
more famous and even more hard living, once<br />
his best buddy but with whom he no longer<br />
speaks, who has him gabbing. Dykstra explains<br />
that he believes his onetime friend Charlie<br />
Sheen is on the verge of being prosecuted, in<br />
a roundabout way, for knowingly spreading<br />
his HIV — and that the actor is under federal<br />
investigation for tax and wire fraud. What’s<br />
more, Dykstra claims to know this because it<br />
was his own semi-accidental whistle-blowing<br />
to the government that got the Internal Revenue<br />
Service sniffing around in the first place. “I<br />
don’t know why Charlie doesn’t try to leave the<br />
country,” he says.<br />
Dykstra, 54, nicknamed “Nails” decades ago<br />
for his relentlessness on the field — parts of five<br />
seasons with the New York Mets and eight with<br />
the Philadelphia Phillies — isn’t done. He goes<br />
on to float that Sheen was involved in the sudden<br />
death of a member of his own inner circle<br />
and beat his pregnant ex-fiancee. <strong>The</strong> 52-yearold<br />
Sheen, says Dykstra, is not simply the<br />
drug-addled clown the tabloids have been feasting<br />
on for years but is truly dangerous.<br />
Dykstra is going public now with this new<br />
info about Sheen, he says, because he’s genuinely<br />
sickened by the worst of the actor’s<br />
behavior. “I am not a saint, but I will not tolerate<br />
a man beating a woman,” he says. Still,<br />
under questioning, another motive emerges.<br />
Dykstra was friendly with Sheen for more<br />
than two decades, eventually joining his core<br />
clique. Now he’s excommunicated. His allegations<br />
against Sheen are telling; his willingness<br />
to share them even more so. <strong>The</strong> doomed bromance<br />
of Lenny and Charlie is a glimpse into the<br />
hedonistic lure of a real-life Entourage, only sadder,<br />
more desperate and ultimately damned — a<br />
cautionary tale about <strong>Hollywood</strong> alpha-male<br />
bonding at its most decadent and damaging.<br />
<strong>The</strong> industry has always been a magnet for<br />
guys like Dykstra: confident outsider-hustlers<br />
who see opportunity in its chaos, imagining<br />
that their accomplishments in other fields<br />
mean they must have the wits, guts and guile<br />
to conquer the gilded mayhem. But with Sheen<br />
and his all-star team of professional handlers,<br />
Nails met his match.<br />
Like his ex-pal, Dykstra has a public reputation<br />
so sullied that Newsweek referred to him<br />
as a “scumbag” after he had a Twitter dustup<br />
with Lena Dunham. Yet Nails, who speaks<br />
with a lisp due to a jailhouse beating that left<br />
him with many missing teeth, is self-aware<br />
enough of his notoriety (and so eager to instill<br />
confidence in his tale) that he insists on providing<br />
the password to his personal email<br />
account for full disclosure. “Look at whatever<br />
you want,” he says. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”<br />
Press Dykstra about his rationalization for<br />
selling out his former friend, and he’ll tell you<br />
that Sheen took his wise counsel for granted,<br />
ignored it and left him with nothing to show<br />
for it. No surprise, Dykstra is hoping to drum<br />
up interest in a possible stand-alone Sheen<br />
documentary project as well as a multipart<br />
docuseries about his own over-the-top life —<br />
he envisions it in the sweeping, kaleidoscopic<br />
terms of O.J.: Made in America. “<strong>The</strong>re are so<br />
1<br />
many people to interview, from prison guards<br />
to my [private plane] pilots to pussy,” he says.<br />
If Dykstra’s actions mean Sheen gets<br />
burned, so be it. “Charlie is getting what he<br />
deserves,” he says. Sheen declined to speak<br />
for this story. But Dykstra doesn’t appear at<br />
all conflicted about publicly crossing his<br />
ex-friend, even one who once warned him to<br />
“watch your front side, watch your backside,<br />
watch both sides.” Dykstra takes a swig of<br />
Irish coffee, settles into his booth and alludes<br />
to his time at the federal penitentiary in<br />
Victorville, California. “When you’ve been<br />
where I’ve been, I’m not afraid of anything.”<br />
T<br />
he bad-boy pair first hung out when<br />
Dykstra’s Phillies were in Los Angeles<br />
playing the Dodgers during the 1993<br />
season. Sheen — who dreamed of being<br />
a big leaguer as a kid and was then reprising<br />
his role as reliever Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn<br />
for Major League II — cold called him at the<br />
clubhouse with an invitation to his Malibu<br />
home. “I was a huge fan of Wall Street,” says<br />
Dykstra. “Turns out he’s a serious baseball guy:<br />
He has a cage lit up like a pro stadium. I told<br />
him, ‘Dude, you can hit!’ He could.”<br />
That first evening, Sheen uncorked a $3,000<br />
bottle of red wine (“I spilled half”) and then,<br />
once “hammered,” showed off what Dykstra<br />
describes as his “legitimate fucking gunnery”<br />
and suggested they fire off automatic<br />
weapons together. Dykstra passed, but the two<br />
became buddies. “He’s funny, he’s smart,<br />
he knows about everything,” says Dykstra.<br />
Dykstra, who last played in the majors<br />
in 1996, retired at age 33 to a notoriously<br />
checkered business career. He was involved<br />
in car-wash dealerships, quick-lube centers,<br />
jet charters and stock picking. By 2008, he<br />
was worth $58 million. <strong>The</strong> following year, he<br />
2<br />
had filed for Chapter 11 and was reportedly<br />
forced to sell his Mets 1986 World Series ring<br />
to help pay off more than $31 million in debt.<br />
His problems weren’t merely financial.<br />
Between 2009 and 2011, Dykstra was accused<br />
by a former employee of making racist and<br />
homophobic remarks, writing a bad check to an<br />
escort and sexually assaulting his housekeeper.<br />
He also was charged with indecent exposure,<br />
drug possession, grand theft auto, identity theft<br />
and filing false financial statements — and<br />
eventually sentenced to three years.<br />
Before going to prison, Dykstra reconnected<br />
with Sheen in <strong>February</strong> 2011 after having<br />
lost touch for some time. Fittingly, they ran<br />
into each other at the UCLA baseball field, as<br />
Dykstra helped his son Cutter, then a minor<br />
league player (and husband of Sopranos actress<br />
Jamie-Lynn Sigler), practice for the upcoming<br />
season. “Charlie came running up to me,<br />
DYKSTRA GROOMING BY LAURA COSTA AT ENNIS INC. SHEEN: GEORGE PIMENTEL/WIREIMAGE. HOUSE:<br />
SPLASH NEWS. COURTHOUSE: MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ/LA TIMES/GETTY IMAGES. METS: AP PHOTO.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
66<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
hugging me, telling me how much he missed<br />
me,” explains Dykstra. “I could tell he was lit<br />
up but in good spirits.”<br />
Over just a few frenzied months that spring,<br />
before being taken into custody in June,<br />
Dykstra found himself operating as a Thomas<br />
Cromwell-style fixer in the erratic Beverly<br />
Hills court of King Charles. When the actor<br />
ended up in an embarrassing cash crunch<br />
while attempting to purchase film producer<br />
Mike Medavoy’s Mulholland Estate house<br />
for nearly $7 million, Dykstra claims to have<br />
secured a hard-money lender at the last minute.<br />
After Sheen went on Alex Jones’ Infowars<br />
radio show and disparaged his Two and a Half<br />
Men showrunner Chuck Lorre as “Chaim<br />
Levine,” Dykstra begged him to apologize.<br />
Sheen didn’t, and Warner Bros. Television fired<br />
him soon after.<br />
Despite his best intentions, Dykstra<br />
says most of his efforts to act as the star’s<br />
3<br />
unofficial manager were met with resistance.<br />
He says Sheen, despite his urging, snubbed<br />
a $2 million cameo on the Australian iteration<br />
of Big Brother and could not be persuaded<br />
to perform his infamous “Violent Torpedo<br />
of Truth/Defeat Is Not an Option” speaking<br />
spectacle as a Las Vegas residency. “He turns<br />
it down to go play a bunch of fucking rinkydink<br />
cities. It was crazy.”<br />
Dykstra also cooked up a series of licensing<br />
deals, including a vaping product called Nico-<br />
Sheen and a caffeinated liquor, Sheen Vodka,<br />
which were to be hawked on an umbrella web<br />
portal titled Planet Sheen. He says that Sheen’s<br />
personal manager at the time, Mark Burg,<br />
and former business manager, Barry Klarberg,<br />
kiboshed the whole thing.<br />
“Lenny was a friend of Charlie’s who tried to<br />
get more involved in his life, and I don’t think<br />
he ever wanted that,” explains Burg. Klarberg<br />
did not respond to requests for comment.<br />
In a March 21 email to Dykstra reviewed by<br />
THR, the actor pulled the plug on Planet<br />
Sheen: “<strong>The</strong> pressure I’m under from my business<br />
team to NOT pursue this with you, is<br />
tsunami-esque.”<br />
Dykstra’s tussles with Sheen’s circle continued<br />
after he returned from serving out<br />
his three-year stint. He asserts that Burg,<br />
Klarberg and Sheen’s then-attorney Marty<br />
Singer put the brakes on Dykstra’s most<br />
audacious gambit of all: a complex $85 million<br />
play to sell the note on what remained<br />
of the actor’s Warner Bros. financial package<br />
to solve Sheen’s cash crunch. He insists it<br />
was sabotaged late in the game when they<br />
realized what the document-review process<br />
might expose. Before he could bring anyone<br />
in on the details, “Marty put an NDA together<br />
that was so vicious, so stacked, that no one<br />
would sign it,” explains Dykstra, still fuming.<br />
1 Sheen and his ex-fiancee, porn star Scottine Rossi,<br />
in 2014. 2 <strong>The</strong> actor bought this estate from Medavoy<br />
in 2011. 3 Dykstra was arraigned June 6, 2011, at the<br />
San Fernando Courthouse on felony charges, including<br />
grand theft auto and possession of a controlled<br />
substance. 4 Dykstra played center field and hit leadoff<br />
for the world champion Mets.<br />
4<br />
“I finally get one [potential investor] to sign<br />
it and what do they send him? Dick. Nothing<br />
relevant.”<br />
Singer disputes the claim as “absurd and<br />
ridiculous. <strong>The</strong> NDAs were appropriate,” adding,<br />
“As far as I understand it, Lenny likely<br />
had an NDA, too, and I don’t believe he’s living<br />
up to it.” Dykstra responds that he doesn’t<br />
“give a shit” about breaking its terms “because<br />
I was saving Charlie’s fucking life.”<br />
All of this time, Sheen’s drug use was worsening.<br />
During the manically loquacious interview<br />
spree in early 2011 that bequeathed pop<br />
culture the catchphrase “Winning!” Dykstra<br />
claims the actor was high on OxyContin:<br />
“When [the pills] are at their peak, it’s a euphoria,<br />
where you’re smart and you’re creative<br />
and you’re quick and you’re invincible.” But by<br />
summer 2014, Sheen had locked himself in a<br />
crack den hidden in his mansion for nine days.<br />
Sheen warned<br />
Dykstra to<br />
“watch your<br />
front side,<br />
watch your<br />
backside,<br />
watch both<br />
sides.”<br />
“It was right out of a mystery spy thriller, with<br />
a sliding bookcase,” says Dykstra. “I walked<br />
in and Charlie was standing there with a glass<br />
dick — a crack pipe — in one hand and his<br />
phone in the other. I took one look around,<br />
there’s all this stuff, cool paintings and Babe<br />
Ruth’s ring, and I said, ‘Charlie, I have to<br />
admit, if you’re going to smoke crack, this has<br />
got to be the best crack den on the planet!’ That<br />
broke the ice.”<br />
By Dykstra’s account, Sheen soon confessed<br />
to him that he had HIV, which<br />
he believed he’d contracted from a transsexual<br />
partner, and that he was being extorted<br />
for millions over the secret. Dykstra urged<br />
the star to go public about his health,<br />
as Sheen’s parents, Martin and Janet, had<br />
already been urging. “I said, ‘You can’t live<br />
like this anymore — this isn’t even living.’ ”<br />
Dykstra contends that he was crushed<br />
by Sheen’s last-minute decision to pull out<br />
of a news conference he’d helped arrange<br />
that November for his friend to get out in<br />
front of the diagnosis — a full year before<br />
the National Enquirer would finally force<br />
the issue. It was to be held at Sheen’s parents’<br />
house, with <strong>Hollywood</strong> publicist Larry<br />
Winokur brought in by Dykstra to orchestrate<br />
the crisis management. Winokur,<br />
whose casting-director wife had hired Sheen<br />
on Major League and Lucas, confirms Dykstra<br />
and Sheen reached out to him about the plan,<br />
noting the sincerity with which Dykstra<br />
approached the endeavor. “Lenny played team<br />
sports very successfully, and if you’re on<br />
Lenny’s team, I think he’d give you the shirt<br />
off his back,” he says.<br />
By the end of that year, Dykstra had come<br />
to believe Sheen was suicidal. Dykstra was<br />
reduced to attempting to rein in his buddy<br />
via desperate, all-caps-laden text messages.<br />
“Charlie, you are a fucking winner!” Dykstra<br />
typed during an exchange on the evening of<br />
Dec. 21. “Do not quit on me bro! I KNOW YOU<br />
ARE NOT A PUSSY!” Sheen replied, “I’m too<br />
tired bro going away now where no one can<br />
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hurt me ever again fuk tv fuk media fuk the<br />
public fuk cutting deals fuk getting rolled I<br />
own my truth forever adios senior….. x”<br />
D<br />
ykstra appears most solemn when<br />
discussing the summer 2012 death of<br />
Rick Calamaro, Sheen’s recently fired<br />
assistant, as well as the alleged violence<br />
perpetrated against Sheen’s ex-fiancee,<br />
Scottine “Brett” Rossi.<br />
L.A. native Calamaro — known for his years<br />
as the phone-glued-to-his-ear partner at<br />
A-list velvet rope clubs like Holly’s and Ivar —<br />
was discovered July 1 by his maid, lying face<br />
up in his bed beside a bottle of Jack Daniel’s,<br />
in his longtime Fairfax district apartment.<br />
<strong>The</strong> autopsy report listed “very high” levels of<br />
Fentanyl, the powerful opioid, and noted that<br />
Calamaro, 50, had suffered from depression<br />
and had been taking a mixture of prescription<br />
medication for pain and anxiety. “Based on<br />
the history and circumstances, as currently<br />
“ I have her in my car,<br />
driving to Cedars, flying<br />
down the 405, shaking<br />
her: ‘Don’t die on me!’”<br />
known,” the autopsy concluded, “the manner<br />
of death is accident.”<br />
Calamaro extended his gatekeeping instinct<br />
at times to Sheen’s social circle, eventually<br />
earning the enmity of Dykstra, who grew convinced<br />
that Calamaro was working on a tell-all.<br />
“Before I went [to jail], I said, ‘Dude, this guy, he<br />
is writing a fucking book, you got to fire him,’ ”<br />
recalls Dykstra (while freely admitting he<br />
himself later served as an unnamed source for<br />
the Enquirer).<br />
After he got out of jail, says Dykstra, he asked<br />
Sheen, “What the fuck happened to Calamaro?”<br />
who had overdosed while Dykstra was in<br />
prison. “He said, ‘You mean Dead Rick? What<br />
fucking happened is the motherfucker tried<br />
to blackmail me just like you said — wanted<br />
$5 million. I had him fucking iced.’ He said he<br />
had a hot dose put in there,” using slang for a<br />
lethal intravenous injection prepared for an<br />
unsuspecting victim. (Dykstra again offers no<br />
proof his recollection is accurate, and Sheen’s<br />
current lawyer, Shane Bernard, issued a denial<br />
of the allegations, noting Dykstra’s “laundry<br />
list of crimes” and asserting that his “disturbing,<br />
vile and outright ridiculous claims” are<br />
unreliable.)<br />
Sheen’s close friend, Tony Todd, who lived<br />
with the actor during this period and has<br />
known him since the two attended Santa<br />
Monica High School, laughingly scoffs at the<br />
charge, adding that even if Sheen were to<br />
have done such a thing, “Charlie’s not going<br />
to tell it to Lenny Dykstra!”<br />
Rossi says that while she is unaware of such<br />
an admission pertaining to Calamaro specifically,<br />
it’s certainly possible given her own<br />
history with the actor, which she outlined<br />
in a 2015 lawsuit. According to her filing,<br />
Sheen said “he wanted to murder people that<br />
he was angry with.” <strong>The</strong> suit also refers to<br />
a “hit” Sheen allegedly took out on Rossi’s<br />
ex-husband. <strong>The</strong> following year, she obtained<br />
a restraining order against Sheen after the<br />
LAPD began investigating an alleged recording<br />
in which he threatened to pay someone<br />
$20,000 to “kick her head in.”<br />
Since Sheen himself won’t comment, the<br />
likelihood of another scenario — that the star,<br />
while high, simply made a distasteful joke<br />
about having Calamaro killed — is unclear.<br />
Dykstra has a complicated relationship with<br />
Rossi, a porn star who says she met Sheen on<br />
a $10,000 escort date. Early on, as a favor to<br />
Sheen, Dykstra hired “an Armenian buddy to<br />
follow [Rossi] for a few days” to confirm she<br />
wasn’t cheating on him. (Dykstra says he used<br />
to hire private eyes to dig up dirt on umpires,<br />
noting “it wasn’t a coincidence” that he led the<br />
league in walks in 1993.) Dykstra eventually<br />
became Rossi’s confidant, and she divulged<br />
details of Sheen’s sexual kinks. Rossi tells THR:<br />
“He would look at transsexual porn when he<br />
was high and [ask her], ‘Which one is hot?’ ”<br />
Dykstra claims to have seen further proof of<br />
Sheen’s lifestyle. He says that attorney Keith<br />
Davidson, recently in the news for orchestrating<br />
porn actress Stormy Daniels’ alleged $130,000<br />
payment to stay quiet about a 2006 affair with<br />
President Trump, showed him a copy of the<br />
tape that media outlets have reported was circulating<br />
in which Sheen participated in gay<br />
sex. (Over email, Davidson asserts, “This just<br />
never happened.”)<br />
Rossi confirms that once Sheen kicked<br />
her out, it was Dykstra who helped her free up<br />
money by selling off her pricey gifted watch<br />
collection to underground buyers and listened<br />
Dykstra, who last played in the majors in 1986, once served three years for indecent exposure, grand theft auto and filing false financial statements.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
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FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
as she told stories of domestic abuse by Sheen,<br />
including battery, false imprisonment and<br />
that he knowingly exposed her to HIV (all of<br />
which she alleged in a December 2013 lawsuit).<br />
Rossi told Dykstra and confirmed to THR<br />
that Sheen, concerned over how his crack use<br />
would affect the fetus, pressured her to get<br />
an abortion. “Right now,” says Rossi, “I would<br />
have a 3-year-old running around.”<br />
Dykstra shakes his head in repudiation. He<br />
is bothered less by the possibility of Sheen’s<br />
involvement in Calamaro’s death than what<br />
allegedly happened to Rossi. “Killing the guy<br />
that fucking tried to extort him: That’s his<br />
business,” he says. But what Rossi alleges happened<br />
to her is too much for him. “Men, they<br />
get in rages. But no pummeling.”<br />
Dykstra’s evident frustration with how things<br />
always seemed to go for him when it came<br />
to Sheen — sideways, to his mind, with him<br />
playing the good guy but getting no recognition<br />
to show for it — reaches a crescendo as he<br />
recalls another grim episode involving Rossi<br />
in November 2014. As he has it, she dialed him<br />
in tears, having overdosed on Valium in her<br />
Encino home, which she’d moved into after her<br />
breakup with Sheen.<br />
“Scottine says, ‘I’m dying.’ I say, ‘<strong>The</strong>re’s a<br />
number for that: 9-1-1.’ ‘No, Charlie won’t like<br />
that.’ I go over there, she says she needs to go<br />
to the bathroom. It hits me. I run in and she’s<br />
swallowing a handful of pills. I tackle her<br />
and they go all over, but she gets a lot down.”<br />
Dykstra is an often-demonstrative raconteur,<br />
acting out the maneuver. “It was out of Pulp<br />
Fiction. Soon I have her in my car, driving to<br />
Cedars, flying down the 405, shaking her:<br />
‘Don’t fucking die on me, bitch!’ ” He pauses,<br />
shakes his head. “I was on probation, dude!”<br />
He’s still irritated that “no one knows I<br />
saved her life.” Worse, he adds, getting worked<br />
up, Rossi never acknowledged his heroism.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> amount of times she thanked me is zero.<br />
Can you believe it?”<br />
Rossi confirms the pill incident but says<br />
that Dykstra — whose ditching of her at the<br />
hospital was so abrupt, she was forced to submit<br />
to a rape kit (“That’s what happens when<br />
some guy just drops you off and goes, ‘Bye!’ ”)<br />
— should be gallant enough not to ask to be<br />
recognized as her “knight in shining armor.”<br />
She laughs. “He’s still talking about that?”<br />
D<br />
ykstra began to lose favor in the court of<br />
King Charles — all of those gone-nowhere<br />
deals, all of that advice not taken. And<br />
what he considered his one, momentarily<br />
satisfying victory was, in hindsight, the thing<br />
he’s sure will be Sheen’s ultimate demise.<br />
Dykstra long suspected that another mansion<br />
nemesis, Sheen’s head of security, was<br />
ripping off the boss — charging personal<br />
expenses, including getaways and real estate<br />
taxes, back to Sheen. And he believes he has<br />
the AmEx bills (shared with THR) to back it up.<br />
<strong>The</strong> military veteran insists zero embezzlement<br />
took place and that any and all charges<br />
“were made with Charlie’s permission.”<br />
In any case, it wasn’t any purported theft<br />
that led to the employee’s firing. “What did it<br />
is that Charlie went to check his guns,” recalls<br />
Dykstra. “He calls me drunk, freaking out:<br />
‘He took the fucking pins outta my guns! He<br />
put my family in danger!’ He went the most<br />
nuclear I’ve ever seen him.” Dykstra laughs,<br />
observing that in spite of his feelings about<br />
the security chief, “I would’ve taken those pins<br />
out too, the way Charlie was [behaving].”<br />
Still, Dykstra worried that the terminated<br />
employee would seek retribution and sought<br />
to neutralize him. Given Dykstra’s probationary<br />
status, he figured his best bet would<br />
be to pass on documents that he believed<br />
incriminated the man to the IRS. On Oct. 8,<br />
Dykstra got an email from an IRS agent, asking<br />
for a follow-up call. But the investigator<br />
wasn’t interested in talking more about the<br />
security chief. He had turned his attention<br />
to Sheen. “[<strong>The</strong> IRS agent] says, ‘What do you<br />
know about these $20,000 cash payments<br />
for “women of the night”?’ That’s when I<br />
knew they’re going to come at him with tax<br />
fraud, wire fraud — everything.” (<strong>The</strong> IRS<br />
will not comment on particular tax cases.)<br />
Dykstra knows from experience what it’s like<br />
when the government, patient and powerful,<br />
zeroes in on you. “It was a felony if you didn’t<br />
tell a woman you have HIV when you know<br />
it. Nothing has happened to him since all of<br />
those women went public. Think about it,” he<br />
says, proffering his own legal analysis. “This<br />
is how he is going to go down.”<br />
Dykstra and Sheen haven’t spoken since<br />
Dec. 21, 2014 — a final two-hour call<br />
initiated by the actor, whom Dykstra characterizes<br />
as downbeat. “He kept on saying<br />
how sorry he was,” he recalls. “Charlie said,<br />
‘Everything you told me was right, they all lied<br />
to me.’ ”<br />
Dykstra believes that although they reconciled<br />
during the conversation, Sheen couldn’t<br />
bring himself to ever hang out with his old<br />
buddy again, since during a heated argument<br />
weeks earlier, Dykstra had revealed he had<br />
seen Sheen’s allegedly compromising sex tapes.<br />
“He couldn’t face me. He knows what I saw.<br />
He’s humiliated.”<br />
Yet livid texts sent by Sheen to Dykstra<br />
on Sept. 9 and obtained by THR from another<br />
source point to betrayal, not shame, as the<br />
actor’s reason for cutting off his friend. Sheen<br />
discovered that Dykstra planned to pocket<br />
5 percent of that Warner Bros. payout deal — a<br />
cut the star felt had been arranged behind his<br />
back. Sheen typed: “bro – I repeatedly asked<br />
you, (and DO NOT CHALLENGE MY MEMORY)<br />
‘Hey Len, what’s in this for you?’ and you<br />
always said; QUOTE: ‘Oh hey man, we’ll figure<br />
out something fair later on …’ well now I have<br />
to re invent what later on means between us.<br />
Newsflash GasLighter; You FUCKING KNEW<br />
FROM JUMP STREET WHAT IT WAS … you<br />
came in here to clean house and also clean my<br />
HARD EARNED CLOCK!”<br />
More than anything, Dykstra wants to present<br />
himself as the ultimate cleanup hitter, an<br />
unsung hero (OK, antihero) who in selfless<br />
service of a buddy went up against <strong>Hollywood</strong>’s<br />
most sordid retinue. He can’t countenance<br />
the prospect that he might not have been trustworthy,<br />
that maybe he was just out to extract<br />
his piece like all the rest of them.<br />
Or perhaps his initial motive for joining<br />
Sheen’s team truly was as simple as friendship.<br />
This just wasn’t his sport.<br />
Following that final call on Dec. 21, 2014,<br />
Dykstra texted Sheen once more. “It makes<br />
me feel so good that you know ‘I AM WHO<br />
I AM’ and the fact that you know I am your<br />
REAL FRIEND!” And continued, “FYI — I<br />
deleted everything on this phone and nobody<br />
knows we spoke tonight.”<br />
His signoff: “NAILS OUT!”<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
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FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
ANIMATED FEATURE<br />
‘Simplistic but<br />
Complicated’<br />
<strong>The</strong>se nominated animated films introduced audiences to five<br />
female characters who could tame a bull, protect their families<br />
and handle a bossy, suit-wearing infant By Carolyn Giardina<br />
<strong>The</strong> five nominees for animated feature have a slew of memorable characters, and, it<br />
turns out, many are female. <strong>The</strong>y range from a brave 11-year-old girl living under<br />
Taliban rule in Afghanistan to an intimidating Mexican great-great-grandmother and<br />
a bossy therapy goat. When it came to creating this band of colorful characters, the<br />
filmmakers had to decide how they would look (including expressive eyes and lovable underbites),<br />
dress (such as a buttoned-up mom and a matriarch with an affinity for Victorian-era clothing)<br />
and sound (thanks to voice cameos by an Oscar-nominated actress and a Saturday Night Live comedy<br />
queen). Creators reveal how they built these characters from the blank page up.<br />
I<br />
’m here to calm you now so you<br />
can maim and gore things later,”<br />
Lupe the Calming Goat tells the bull<br />
Ferdinand when they meet in Fox/<br />
Blue Sky’s Ferdinand, an animated<br />
tale about a pacifist bull who’d<br />
rather smell the flowers<br />
than fight in the ring.<br />
Director Carlos<br />
Saldanha says the<br />
Saldanha<br />
quirky goat started out<br />
as a male character, but<br />
the filmmakers changed direction<br />
to create a strong female character<br />
who could stand up to the bulls.<br />
(<strong>The</strong>y kept the big eyes, underbite<br />
and exposed teeth.) “We didn’t<br />
want a ‘princess’ goat,” he says.<br />
“We wanted her to be sharp, edgy<br />
and confident. We gave her an inyour-face,<br />
explosive personality.”<br />
Saturday Night Live’s Kate<br />
McKinnon was cast to voice the<br />
character because she “could<br />
be strong, funny and warm at the<br />
same time. I met with her, and I felt<br />
she was a perfect match.”<br />
In the film, Ferdinand is sweet and<br />
earnest, but based on his size, he’s<br />
considered a fighter. Ferdinand’s and<br />
Lupe’s storylines tie into the film’s<br />
“don’t judge a book by its cover”<br />
theme. Says Saldanha: “Lupe’s a goat<br />
that people don’t care about; she’s a<br />
companion to a bull, but she wanted<br />
more. She needed to be the opposite<br />
of a calming goat.”<br />
Ferdinand<br />
<strong>The</strong> Boss<br />
Baby<br />
A<br />
s in many real-life households,<br />
the mother of Boss Baby<br />
(the suit-wearing infant voiced by<br />
Alec Baldwin) is the foundation<br />
of her family and as such “has her<br />
head on straight. She’s soft and<br />
sweet but also firm and authoritative,”<br />
says director Tom McGrath,<br />
who adds that for this character, he<br />
“wanted to do something<br />
very stylized and<br />
be more cartoony”<br />
to fit the film’s style<br />
McGrath<br />
yet give her enough<br />
range so that the<br />
animators could create an emotive<br />
performance. “Simplistic but complicated,”<br />
he says.<br />
Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s<br />
<strong>The</strong> Boss Baby is a period film that<br />
merges aspects of the ’60s, ’70s<br />
and ’80s, but McGrath didn’t want<br />
to overdo trendy clothing. “We kept<br />
her in pants and with her hair up<br />
because she’s a working parent,”<br />
he notes. “When we were designing<br />
the family, we also created a sort<br />
of ‘Sears portrait’ to see how the<br />
[characters] play off of each other.”<br />
Lisa Kudrow completed the<br />
picture by voicing the character.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> goal was to be charming,<br />
not ruthless. We wanted her voice<br />
to feel real,” McGrath says, adding<br />
that sometimes the actress would<br />
improv the lines: “She has great<br />
comedic timing and can play the<br />
serious bits just as well.”<br />
Loving<br />
Vincent<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
70<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
<strong>The</strong><br />
Breadwinner<br />
1<br />
I<br />
n creating Parvana, an 11-year-old girl<br />
growing up under the Taliban regime in<br />
Afghanistan who disguises herself as a boy so<br />
she can work to support her family, Ireland’s<br />
Cartoon Saloon and director Nora Twomey<br />
wanted to work “from the eyes out, with very<br />
few lines,” says Twomey. “<strong>The</strong> fewer lines with<br />
a hand-drawn character, the more you can<br />
identify with the character because she’s less<br />
specific and more universal.”<br />
Indeed, in the GKIDS feature <strong>The</strong><br />
Breadwinner, Parvana’s eyes reveal much of<br />
her emotion. For instance, when Parvana<br />
goes to the market with her father, it can be a<br />
1 Parvana in disguise.<br />
2 Parvana with her father, Nurullah, voiced by Ali Badshah.<br />
frightening experience for a girl. She stands<br />
out with her long hair and bright scarf, but her<br />
body language shows that she doesn’t want to<br />
be seen — her shoulders are drawn in to take<br />
up a small space, and she keeps<br />
her eyes down. When she returns,<br />
dressed as a boy, she blends in,<br />
and with her body language she<br />
Twomey<br />
takes up more space.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re’s a warmth and<br />
earthiness to her personality,” says Twomey<br />
of Parvana, who is voiced by Saara Chaudry.<br />
“She has flaws, she has humor — she’s fully<br />
rounded. We wanted a character that was<br />
relatable, even when she does something<br />
incredibly brave.”<br />
2<br />
Coco<br />
T<br />
o examine the life of Dutch<br />
post-impressionist painter<br />
Vincent van Gogh, writer-directors<br />
Hugh Welchman and Dorota<br />
Kobiela developed a story that<br />
follows fictional character Armand<br />
Roulin (Douglas Booth) on a journey<br />
to van Gogh’s final destination,<br />
the quiet village of Auvers-sur-<br />
Oise just outside Paris, where<br />
Roulin hears conflicting stories<br />
about the artist’s life.<br />
Saoirse Ronan (nominated for<br />
a best actress Oscar for Lady<br />
Bird) plays Marguerite Gachet,<br />
the daughter of van Gogh’s<br />
physician and the subject of<br />
his works Marguerite Gachet at<br />
the Piano and Marguerite Gachet<br />
in the Garden. “We wanted her<br />
to look like the paintings,” says<br />
Welchman, though they gave<br />
Marguerite the face<br />
of Ronan, who is<br />
about the same age<br />
(23) as Gachet was.<br />
Welchman<br />
<strong>The</strong> drama, produced<br />
by Poland’s<br />
BreakThru Films and the U.K.’s<br />
Trademark Films, was made using<br />
a frame-by-frame animation<br />
technique (like stop-motion) with<br />
roughly 65,000 oil paintings on<br />
canvas. <strong>The</strong> filmmakers started by<br />
shooting the performances of<br />
the actors, including Ronan, on a<br />
greenscreen at 12 fps, edited as<br />
if it were a live-action film and then<br />
broke it up into images that were<br />
painted in van Gogh’s style.<br />
As to Marguerite’s role in the<br />
story, Welchman says: “<strong>The</strong>re<br />
was speculation that something<br />
was going on between [her and<br />
van Gogh]. We used that speculation<br />
as part of the dramatic<br />
development of the story. She’s an<br />
enigma to us.”<br />
I<br />
n Pixar’s Coco, Mama Imelda<br />
is the matriarch of young<br />
Miguel’s family in Mexico. As such,<br />
“she had to be a character that you<br />
could believably see the rest of the<br />
family cowering at her feet,” says<br />
director Lee Unkrich. “We needed<br />
somebody with a real sense of gravitas<br />
so you would buy that she has<br />
such sway over the family.”<br />
She was designed to look similar<br />
to Maria Felix and other formidable<br />
Mexican actresses from the ’30s<br />
and ’40s. “We have the<br />
white shock in her hair.<br />
We wanted her dress to<br />
be corseted so that she<br />
Unkrich<br />
feels tightly wound,”<br />
Unkrich says. “We gave<br />
her big shoulder pads so that she<br />
would be physically formidable and<br />
also have a sense of history.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> team behind the film,<br />
which is based on the Dia de los<br />
Muertos (Day of the Dead) tradition,<br />
also centered Mama’s look<br />
on a Victorian aesthetic, using the<br />
works of Mexican engraver Jose<br />
Guadalupe Posada, including his<br />
famous La Catrina, which featured a<br />
skeleton woman in period garb.<br />
Alanna Ubach (Girlfriends’ Guide<br />
to Divorce) was cast to voice<br />
Mama. “<strong>The</strong>re’s such a richness to<br />
the sound of Alanna’s voice,” adds<br />
Unkrich. When she was cast, the<br />
director didn’t know the part would<br />
require singing, but, luckily, “it<br />
turns out she’s a great singer.”<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
71<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
‘I NEVER IMAGINED I<br />
COULD BE KOBE BRYANT’<br />
Two men in transition — a 38-year Disney animator who’d worked on <strong>The</strong> Little Mermaid and<br />
Beauty and the Beast and an NBA great — found common ground and a shared new purpose<br />
with animated short nominee Dear Basketball By Glen Keane, as told to Mia Galuppo<br />
Ihad left Disney after nearly<br />
40 years there, and since<br />
then I had been focusing on<br />
personal, expressive films.<br />
Kobe had seen this film I did for<br />
Google, Duet, and he contacted one<br />
of the executive producers, and she<br />
set up a meeting. He came in to<br />
our tiny studio in West <strong>Hollywood</strong>,<br />
which is just in a duplex, and it<br />
was so surreal. He drives up in a<br />
big black Suburban, and he is just<br />
in our neighborhood. Kobe Bryant!<br />
Kobe loves animation; he is an<br />
animation geek. So he walked<br />
in and was standing in our little<br />
dining room — but it is actually<br />
our story room — and he looked<br />
around at the drawings<br />
and storyboards<br />
and little things<br />
on the wall, and I’m<br />
Keane thinking, “Oh boy,<br />
here it comes.” And<br />
he says, “This is perfect. This<br />
is what I want.” We crowded into<br />
my little office in the back and<br />
connected over things we had in<br />
common. For me, it was leaving<br />
a career at Disney, which was so<br />
much a part of me, and for Kobe it<br />
was leaving behind the Lakers.<br />
We talked about doing something<br />
together but didn’t know<br />
exactly what it would be. Before<br />
Kobe retired, he wrote this<br />
letter, “Dear Basketball,” and he<br />
called me and asked me if I<br />
would be interested in animating<br />
it. He goes, “I have my friend John<br />
Williams who is going to do the<br />
music.” And I go, “Oh, that would<br />
be really wonderful.”<br />
Right after his last game [in<br />
2016], where he scored 60 points<br />
and my son and I were in our little<br />
studio screaming our heads off,<br />
he texted and said, “Let’s do this.”<br />
I told Kobe, “You’ve got the worst<br />
basketball player on earth animating<br />
you.” He said that it was<br />
OK because everything I would<br />
learn about basketball was going<br />
to come through studying him. So<br />
Kobe came over, and we downloaded<br />
YouTube’s “Top 20 Kobe<br />
Bryant Plays” and stop-framed<br />
through every one while Kobe<br />
talked about what was happening<br />
on the court. My mentor — one<br />
of Disney’s Nine Old Men — Ollie<br />
Johnston told me, “Glen, don’t<br />
animate what the character is<br />
doing — animate what the character<br />
is thinking.” So we talked<br />
Toon Contenders<br />
GARDEN PARTY<br />
A gang of frogs<br />
at a luxurious<br />
villa uncover the<br />
human owner’s<br />
whereabouts.<br />
NEGATIVE SPACE<br />
An often-away<br />
father bonds<br />
with his son by<br />
teaching him<br />
how to pack.<br />
LOU<br />
In this Pixar short,<br />
a creature made<br />
of lost-and-found<br />
items attempts<br />
to mentor a bully.<br />
REVOLTING RHYMES<br />
Roald Dahl’s<br />
darker take on<br />
Snow White, Red<br />
Riding Hood and<br />
more fairy tales.<br />
about what was going on on the<br />
inside. Kobe has an incredible<br />
emotional memory of how he was<br />
feeling during the plays. Any time<br />
you are animating, you are living<br />
in the skin of your character.<br />
For me, I’ve been a mermaid<br />
and a beast, but I never imagined<br />
I could be Kobe Bryant.<br />
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 &<br />
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<br />
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.<br />
Real-Life<br />
Action<br />
Several of this<br />
year’s live-action<br />
short nominees<br />
were inspired by true<br />
events, while others<br />
tackle complicated<br />
relationships<br />
By Rebecca Ford<br />
DEKALB ELEMENTARY<br />
Inspired by a real 911 call during a school shooting<br />
in Atlanta, the film follows a man who enters an<br />
elementary school with a semiautomatic rifle.<br />
THE ELEVEN O’CLOCK<br />
This Australian short is set during a session<br />
between a psychiatrist and a patient (who is<br />
convinced he is the doctor).<br />
MY NEPHEW EMMETT<br />
A 64-year-old African-American man tries to<br />
protect his 14-year-old nephew, Emmett Till, from<br />
two white men who invade his home.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
72<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
Academy<br />
Sci-Tech<br />
Awards<br />
Feb. 10<br />
Beverly<br />
Wilshire Hotel<br />
A VFX MASTER ISSUES A WARNING<br />
Jonathan Erland, this year’s recipient of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, worries that<br />
the overuse of visual effects doesn’t always serve storytellers By Carolyn Giardina<br />
C<br />
inema is going through massive<br />
changes,” acknowledges visual<br />
effects technologist Jonathan Erland, who<br />
will receive the Gordon E. Sawyer Award,<br />
an Oscar statuette, at the Academy’s<br />
Scientific and Technical Awards on Feb. 10<br />
at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. “But then,<br />
100 years ago things were technically in a<br />
state of chaos, and it’s interesting that<br />
100 years later they are in a state of chaos.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> innovator himself personally<br />
has witnessed many of those changes. <strong>The</strong><br />
U.K.-born Erland, 78, initially trained as an<br />
actor — he appeared in the 1965 pilot for<br />
TV’s <strong>The</strong> Man From U.N.C.L.E. — but soon<br />
transferred into effects work. He was part of<br />
the team that created the Charles Eamesdesigned<br />
audio animatronic puppet theaters<br />
for the I.B.M. Pavilion at the 1964 New York<br />
World’s Fair, and he also worked as a miniatures<br />
model-builder during production of<br />
1977’s Star Wars.<br />
In addition to serving on the Academy’s<br />
board of governors, he was a founding<br />
member of the Academy Science and<br />
Technology Council and has been honored<br />
with two previous Sci-Tech awards.<br />
Erland welcomes the newest technologies,<br />
citing developing laser projectors that<br />
enable high-dynamic-range imagery as<br />
well as the potential for variable frame rates<br />
that give the cinematographer a broader<br />
range of creative tools. But<br />
he also issues a warning —<br />
today’s movies use too many<br />
razzle-dazzle visual effects<br />
Erland<br />
too indiscriminately. “<strong>The</strong><br />
VFX world, which is capable<br />
of some quite extraordinary accomplishments<br />
in terms of putting images on the<br />
screen, is suffering somewhat from what<br />
I would call the commodification of VFX,” he<br />
says. “So you see films with a lot of VFX in<br />
which the VFX are not necessarily advancing<br />
the storytelling. That’s a shame. It’s<br />
more effective when a very powerful art<br />
form like VFX is being used to enhance the<br />
storytelling process.”<br />
Fresh off Star<br />
Wars in 1977,<br />
Erland (center)<br />
and fellow<br />
model makers<br />
Paul Houston<br />
(left) and<br />
Lorne Peterson<br />
created<br />
spaceships for<br />
TV’s Space<br />
Academy.<br />
HOW DINOSAURS LED<br />
TO CREATING GOLLUM<br />
<strong>The</strong> wizardly Joe Letteri, busy with all those<br />
Avatar sequels, will be honored with the<br />
Visual Effects Society’s George Melies Award<br />
King Kong. <strong>The</strong> Lord of the Rings’ Gollum. Avatar’s<br />
Neytiri. <strong>The</strong> Planet of the Apes’ Caesar. <strong>The</strong>se are just<br />
some of the iconic digitally created characters that have<br />
been brought to the screen with the help of Joe Letteri,<br />
four-time Oscar winner, Weta Digital’s senior VFX supervisor<br />
and <strong>2018</strong>’s recipient of the Visual Effects Society’s<br />
Georges Melies Award.<br />
In fact, it was the opportunity to play a role in creating<br />
the tragic Gollum that brought Letteri, 60, to Peter<br />
Jackson’s <strong>The</strong> Lord of the Rings. He had worked as a CG<br />
artist on 1993’s Jurassic Park, where, he explains, “I became<br />
interested in what made something like a dinosaur look<br />
realistic — some of that was the detail that you see in the<br />
dinosaur skin. I also started learning about cinematography<br />
and lighting.” Seeing those creatures come alive onscreen,<br />
he realized the next step was to use similar techniques<br />
to create a character, and “Gollum was the<br />
perfect opportunity to do that.”<br />
While Gollum started with Andy Serkis’<br />
performance capture, the challenge for Letteri<br />
was “creating a facial performance that would<br />
believably convey human expressions. I had<br />
never had to work with a character that was so<br />
humanlike, delivering a compelling performance<br />
onscreen right next to other actors.”<br />
His work on Avatar took it all one step further,<br />
since performance capture was combined<br />
with virtual production while the actors were<br />
effectively working with digital sets, allowing<br />
director James Cameron to shoot as if he were<br />
filming a live-action movie. On the upcoming<br />
Avatar sequels, the process has become “more<br />
integrated than anything we have been able<br />
to do in the past and is a much more realistic<br />
representation of being in that world,” says<br />
Letteri. “That’s great for the actors, great for the director,<br />
and it’s great for us because we know what the film is<br />
that we’re trying to make.”<br />
Having set the bar more than once, Letteri admits that<br />
it now keeps getting raised higher. “If you could do one<br />
Gollum, you must be able to do a whole planet full,” he<br />
notes. “Figure out how to do something new, and it quickly<br />
expands into having to do lots of them. That’s still hard to<br />
do; it’s still a very artist-dependent medium.” — C.G.<br />
16th Visual<br />
Effects<br />
Society<br />
Awards<br />
Feb. 13<br />
<strong>The</strong> Beverly<br />
Hilton<br />
Lifetime<br />
Achievement<br />
Award<br />
Jon Favreau<br />
THE SILENT CHILD<br />
A deaf 4-year-old, isolated from the world<br />
and her hearing family, is taught sign language<br />
by a caring social worker.<br />
WATU WOTE: ALL OF US<br />
<strong>The</strong> Kenya-set tale follows bus passengers who<br />
are attacked by a terrorist group demanding the<br />
Muslim passengers identify the Christian onboard.<br />
Letteri<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
73<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
Film<br />
Black Panther<br />
Ryan Coogler’s Marvel Comics entry<br />
dazzles with smartly staged action, magnetic<br />
performances, genuine suspense and<br />
a bracing sense of novelty By Todd McCarthy<br />
With uncanny timing, Marvel has taken its<br />
superheroes into a domain they’ve never inhabited<br />
before — and is all the better for it.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re’s no mistaking you’re still in the<br />
Marvel universe here, but Black Panther sweeps<br />
you off to a part of it you’ve never seen: a<br />
hidden lost world in Africa defined by royal<br />
traditions and technological wonders that<br />
open up refreshing dramatic, visual and casting<br />
possibilities. Getting it right where other<br />
studios and franchises — they know who they<br />
are — get it wrong, Marvel and Disney have<br />
another commercial leviathan, although it’ll be<br />
interesting to see how it plays in certain overseas<br />
markets where industry traditionalists say<br />
black-dominated fare underperforms.<br />
Producer Kevin Feige and the Marvel brain<br />
trust introduced Black Panther into their<br />
superhero mix in 2016’s Civil War: Captain<br />
America with the intention of spinning yet<br />
another franchise around him. This seems<br />
like a natural idea now, but in July 1966, when<br />
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby birthed the character<br />
in Fantastic Four No. 52, he was the first black<br />
superhero to appear in American comics.<br />
Although director/co-writer Ryan Coogler<br />
(Fruitvale Station, Creed) sets his framing<br />
action in Oakland, California, the film’s<br />
heart lies in Africa. In one of the tale’s<br />
beguiling inventions, the land of Wakanda<br />
keeps the world away by posing as one of<br />
the planet’s poorest countries and restricting<br />
visitors. In fact, it possesses advanced<br />
technology and has a gleaming metropolis<br />
that coexists with natural wonders on<br />
par with anything in the world. What makes<br />
this possible is a mined substance called<br />
OPENS Friday, Feb. 16 (Disney)<br />
CAST Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan,<br />
Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright<br />
DIRECTOR Ryan Coogler<br />
Rated PG-13, 135 minutes<br />
vibranium, a source of power akin to nuclear<br />
that Wakanda keeps to itself.<br />
<strong>The</strong> novelties of the society are fun to behold,<br />
the streets full of life, the inhabitants happy.<br />
But this enlightened land remains a monarchy,<br />
and, with his father’s death, T’Challa (Chadwick<br />
Boseman) becomes king in a spectacular<br />
coronation ceremony. <strong>The</strong>re to support him are<br />
his mother, Ramonda (Angela Bassett); sister<br />
Shuri (Letitia Wright), a scientist who’s next<br />
in line for the throne; chief counsel W’Kabi<br />
(Daniel Kaluuya), head of security for a tough<br />
border tribe; mentor Zuri (Forest Whitaker),<br />
the king’s spiritual leader; and the Dora Milaje,<br />
an independent-minded security force comprising<br />
shaven-headed women, notably its best<br />
fighter Okoye (Danai Gurira) and rebellious<br />
Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o).<br />
<strong>The</strong>n there’s M’Baku (Winston Duke), who<br />
is opposed to T’Challa’s technological beliefs<br />
and challenges him to a mano-a-mano slugfest
PANTHER: COURTESY OF MARVEL STUDIOS. JOHNSON: JB LACROIX/WIREIMAGE. NANJIANI:TAYLOR HILL/GETTY<br />
IMAGES. DESCHANEL: AXELLE/BAUER-GRIFFIN/GETTY IMAGES. FALLON: NOAM GALAI/WIREIMAGE.<br />
Boseman’s<br />
Black Panther<br />
defends<br />
Wakanda from<br />
adversaries<br />
seeking its<br />
most precious<br />
natural<br />
resource.<br />
that takes place in a lagoon located between<br />
towering brown rocks and a cliff you don’t want<br />
to fall off.<br />
Does this sound like your everyday Marvel<br />
film so far?<br />
It certainly doesn’t look like one. Along<br />
with the color of nearly everyone’s skin, there<br />
are vistas, costumes and settings that keep<br />
the images popping off the screen, even though<br />
this Marvel offering is not in 3D.<br />
Black Panther also sets itself apart via an<br />
ideological divide between two camps within<br />
the Wakandan leadership. <strong>The</strong> royals and<br />
traditionalists, including T’Challa, insist that<br />
vibranium must remain exclusively in their<br />
own possession, as it’s been the secret of their<br />
success since time immemorial. A minority<br />
believes that this extraordinary substance<br />
should be shared with the world, or at least<br />
with their struggling African neighbors, in<br />
the interest of the common good. It’s a potent<br />
political dispute that will presumably continue<br />
to inform the series in further episodes.<br />
In the meantime, a deliciously nasty bad<br />
guy, a white South African gangster named<br />
Klaw (Andy Serkis, in a role he introduced three<br />
years ago in Avengers: Age of Ultron), is keen to<br />
get his hands on some vibranium himself. That<br />
leads the story to South Korea for a prolonged<br />
sequence heavy on chases and tough-guy action<br />
but rather more conventional than the rest of<br />
the film.<br />
But the most challenging threat to<br />
Wakandian stability comes from another mercenary,<br />
an imposing African named Erik<br />
Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan). Convinced<br />
that vibranium should be available to all people<br />
(and that he should profit by dispensing it),<br />
this intimidating wannabe usurper challenges<br />
the king to a duel in the watery arena — one for<br />
which he cannot wear his Black Panther armor.<br />
Much intense drama and action follow;<br />
there’s a real and sustained sense of jeopardy<br />
for the kingdom, and the fighting significantly<br />
involves the female warriors, who are<br />
very cool indeed. Just as he staged the boxing<br />
in Creed with intensity and invention, Coogler<br />
handles the more extensive physical faceoffs<br />
here with freshness and brio, building to<br />
a tensely stirring climax. For such an actionpacked<br />
modern film, it’s surprising how little<br />
blood figures into this combat epic. A brief<br />
return to Oakland at the end brings things<br />
full circle, while the usual Marvel post-credits<br />
teaser reminds us that its next offering will<br />
be Avengers: Infinity War (coming May 4), in<br />
which T’Challa/Black Panther also appears.<br />
<strong>The</strong> actors are all seen to very good advantage.<br />
Boseman certainly holds his own, but<br />
there are quite a few charismatic supporting<br />
players here eager to steal every scene they can<br />
— and they do, notably the physically imposing<br />
Jordan, the radiant Nyong’o and especially<br />
Wright, who gives each of her scenes extra<br />
punch and humor.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
75<br />
THR’S SOCIAL CLIMBERS<br />
A ranking of the week’s top actors, comedians<br />
and personalities based on social media engagement<br />
across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and more<br />
This<br />
Week<br />
Last<br />
Week<br />
Actors<br />
1 ↑ I 2 I Dwayne Johnson<br />
A week after Millie Bobby<br />
Brown ended Johnson’s<br />
nine-week run at No. 1, he<br />
regains the top spot with<br />
the week’s most liked<br />
Instagram post by an actor:<br />
A Jan. 28 video of him<br />
playing “<strong>The</strong> Entertainer”<br />
on a floor piano with his feet<br />
got 3 million favorites.<br />
2 ↑ I 4 I Kevin Hart<br />
3 ↑ I 8 I Deepika Padukone<br />
4 ↓ I 1 I Millie Bobby Brown<br />
5 ↑ I 7 I Will Smith<br />
6 ↓ I 3 I Dove Cameron<br />
7 ↓ I 6 I Jennifer Lopez<br />
8 ↓ I 5 I Priyanka Chopra<br />
9 ↑ I 11 I Gal Gadot<br />
10 ↓ I 9 I Noah Schnapp<br />
11 ↑ I 13 I Finn Wolfhard<br />
12 ↑ I 16 I Zendaya<br />
13 ↑ I - I Chris Hemsworth<br />
14 ↑ I - I Tom Holland<br />
15 ↓ I 12 I Hugh Jackman<br />
16 ↑ I 18 I Cara Delevingne<br />
17 ↑ I 25 I Zooey Deschanel<br />
Deschanel follows her<br />
chart debut (No. 25, Jan. 31)<br />
by jumping to No. 17 with a<br />
654 percent boost in<br />
Facebook shares (mostly<br />
reshares of videos, photos<br />
and memes she had already<br />
posted). She added 413,000<br />
Instagram favorites after<br />
showing off her new haircut.<br />
18 ↑ I - I Bella Thorne<br />
19 ↑ I - I Reese Witherspoon<br />
20 ↑ I - I Vanessa Hudgens<br />
21 ↓ I 19 I Ansel Elgort<br />
22 ↑ I 23 I Lily Collins<br />
23 ↓ I 10 I Jack Dylan Grazer<br />
24 ↑ I - I Shay Mitchell<br />
25 ↑ I - I Hailee Steinfeld<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong><br />
This<br />
Week<br />
This<br />
Week<br />
Last<br />
Week<br />
10 ↓ I 7 I Bill Maher<br />
Last<br />
Week<br />
Comedians<br />
1 ←→ I 1 I Kevin Hart<br />
2 ←→ I 2 I D.L. Hughley<br />
3 ←→ I 3 I Joe Rogan<br />
4 ↑ I 6 I Colleen Ballinger<br />
5 ↑ I - I Adam Sandler<br />
6 ↑ I - I Martin Lawrence<br />
7 ↓ I 4 I Marlon Wayans<br />
8 ↓ I 5 I Mike Epps<br />
9 ↑ I - I Kumail Nanjiani<br />
Nanjiani’s Jan. 29 tweet<br />
that art, music, movies and<br />
books “have always been<br />
political. Keep your ‘Keep<br />
your politics out of BLANK’<br />
bs outta my face” garnered<br />
him a 16 percent increase<br />
in retweets and was the<br />
week’s most-engaged-with<br />
tweet by a comedian.<br />
TV Personalities<br />
1 ↑ I 10 I Jimmy Fallon<br />
A 406 percent gain in<br />
Facebook post likes allows<br />
the Tonight Show host to<br />
reach No. 1 on the chart for<br />
the first time. One of his top<br />
posts was a clip of Fallon,<br />
as the character Peter,<br />
singing Journey’s “Don’t<br />
Stop Believin’ ” while<br />
heckled by Will Ferrell.<br />
2 ↑ I 6 I Gordon Ramsay<br />
3 ↑ I 5 I Mike Rowe<br />
4 ↑ I 9 I Jake Tapper<br />
5 ↓ I 3 I Mike Huckabee<br />
6 ↓ I 4 I Tamera Mowry<br />
7 ↑ I - I Tyra Banks<br />
8 ↓ I 2 I Joanna Gaines<br />
9 ↓ I 7 I Chris Hayes<br />
10 ↓ I 1 I Chelsea Handler<br />
Data Compiled By<br />
Source: <strong>The</strong> week’s most active and talked-about entertainers on<br />
leading social networking sites Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram,<br />
Twitter and YouTube for the week ending Jan. 31. Rankings are based<br />
on a formula blending weekly additions of fans as well as cumulative<br />
weekly reactions and conversations, as tracked by MVP Index.
Making Her Directorial Debut and<br />
Winner of the NEXT Innovator Prize at Sundance!<br />
Congratulations to our Friend and Client<br />
Jordana Spiro<br />
and the entire Night Comes On cast and crew<br />
We can’t wait to see what’s NEXT<br />
www.pragermetis.com<br />
New York | Los Angeles | London<br />
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM<br />
25th ANNIVERSARY LOS ANGELES DINNER<br />
THURSDAY, MARCH 1<br />
PLEASE JOIN US TO COMMEMORATE the Museum’s 25th anniversary and<br />
to honor VERA and PAUL GUERIN, their family, and the memory of LILLY and<br />
NATHAN SHAPELL Z”L as they receive the National Leadership Award.<br />
RECEPTION 6 p.m. DINNER 7 p.m.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Beverly Hilton<br />
Media Sponsor<br />
Tickets are $500 per person and sponsorship and tribute opportunities are<br />
available. For more information, contact the Museum’s Western Regional Office<br />
at 310.556.3222 or western@ushmm.org.<br />
RSVP at ushmm.org/events/<strong>2018</strong>-la-dinner.<br />
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Washington, DC 20024-2126 ushmm.org/campaign
Backlot<br />
Innovators, Events, Honors<br />
Canada<br />
Spotlight<br />
How Canada Became a Springboard for Female<br />
Directors Multiple government initiatives are pushing for<br />
gender parity in the film business by 2020 By Etan Vlessing<br />
JOLY: AMANDA EDWARDS/GETTY IMAGES.<br />
C<br />
anadian Prime Minister Justin<br />
Trudeau proudly displayed his progressive<br />
bona fides three years<br />
ago when he announced that his 30-member<br />
Cabinet would be the country’s first<br />
to represent men and women equally, 50-<br />
50. When asked by a journalist why, he<br />
made global headlines with his blunt reply:<br />
“Because it’s 2015.”<br />
Roughly a year later — and well before<br />
the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements —<br />
Telefilm Canada, the powerful, well-funded<br />
film financing arm of the Canadian government,<br />
followed Trudeau’s lead and unveiled<br />
its own ambitious drive to achieve gender<br />
parity in the film sector by 2020. <strong>The</strong> goal<br />
was clear: <strong>The</strong> agency would choose which<br />
films to finance based on whether projects<br />
were directed by, or revolved around, women<br />
(among other criteria).<br />
<strong>The</strong> initiative already is having an effect:<br />
A 2017 Telefilm study shows a 27 percent<br />
increase in agency-backed projects directed by<br />
women since 2015.<br />
And it’s not just Telefilm: <strong>The</strong> National Film<br />
Board of Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting<br />
Corp. and the Canada Media Fund also have<br />
unveiled plans to achieve gender parity by 2020.<br />
But with its deep pockets — the agency<br />
invests around $100 million annually<br />
in homegrown filmmaking<br />
— Telefilm is leading the way.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re are systemic barriers to<br />
Joly funding,” says Federal Heritage<br />
Minister Melanie Joly, a close ally<br />
of Trudeau. “We believe that we should, as a<br />
feminist government, have a clear commitment<br />
to overcome these barriers.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> practical initiatives from Telefilm<br />
include its Talent to Watch program, formerly<br />
Illustration by Dan Woodger<br />
the Micro-Budget Production Program.<br />
Telefilm renamed and revamped the 5-yearold<br />
micro-budget program in November<br />
with a mandate to back 50 first-time and,<br />
where possible, female-led features annually,<br />
with investments capped at $120,000 for<br />
each movie.<br />
That in turn led organizers to consider<br />
how they could help maintain a young filmmaker’s<br />
momentum in the industry after<br />
completion of that all-important first project.<br />
So, also in late 2017, Telefilm unveiled its<br />
Fast Track program, which assures $500,000<br />
in second-feature financing for filmmakers<br />
producing internationally recognized<br />
first features.<br />
To promote female voices and visions,<br />
Telefilm, when considering funding for projects<br />
of equal value — determined by such<br />
factors as the script, talent attached and the<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
77<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
Backlot<br />
production team — between a male or female<br />
applicant, is favoring projects directed and/or<br />
written by women.<br />
“We want to create a path to success,” says<br />
Telefilm executive director Carolle Brabant.<br />
“We want to reward the success of the first<br />
features by having emerging directors make<br />
their second film.”<br />
Take Werewolf, writer-director Ashley<br />
McKenzie’s debut feature about youth and drug<br />
addiction in a small Nova Scotia mining town.<br />
<strong>The</strong> indie received microbudget financing<br />
from Telefilm and became a critical hit on the<br />
film festival circuit after bowing at Toronto<br />
and screening at Berlin.<br />
Now McKenzie is eyeing possible Fast Track<br />
financing as she develops her second feature.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re’s a gap for filmmakers to take<br />
the next step after their first feature,” she<br />
says, adding that Telefilm has helped to<br />
shorten the time she and her producer Nelson<br />
MacDonald need to secure financing for their<br />
sophomore effort.<br />
Brabant says Canada’s push for gender parity<br />
has helped alter long-standing perceptions<br />
in an industry where female filmmakers have<br />
become accustomed to discouraging barriers<br />
to the industry. “It has made women realize,<br />
‘Well, it can happen,’ ” she says.<br />
“It’s comforting to know you can get your<br />
foot in the door,” adds Sonia Boileau, who<br />
leveraged Telefilm investment for her debut<br />
feature, Le Dep, to develop her second film,<br />
Rustic Oracle, about an 8-year-old Mohawk girl<br />
searching for a missing sister.<br />
<strong>The</strong> push for gender parity has implications<br />
beyond Canada. Jordan Canning, who<br />
HOW CANADA’S GENDER-<br />
EQUALITY INITIATIVES<br />
ALREADY ARE PAYING OFF<br />
In a little over a year, female-led projects<br />
backed by Telefilm have more than doubled<br />
50<br />
45<br />
40<br />
35<br />
30<br />
25<br />
20<br />
15<br />
10<br />
5<br />
44%<br />
17%<br />
Films directed<br />
by women<br />
Canada<br />
Spotlight<br />
46%<br />
22%<br />
Films written<br />
by women<br />
2017<br />
2015<br />
In November<br />
2016, Telefilm<br />
introduced<br />
its initiative<br />
to improve<br />
gender parity.<br />
Source: Telefilm<br />
Canada, Women in<br />
View on Screen<br />
directed more than a dozen short films before<br />
completing her first and second features, We<br />
Were Wolves and Suck It Up, respectively, says<br />
Telefilm’s Talent to Watch and Fast Track<br />
programs can help open doors in the U.S. and<br />
other foreign markets.<br />
“Once you have two features, you’re hopefully<br />
at a level where you can access funding<br />
in different countries and team up with international<br />
co-producers,” she says.<br />
With the various gender-parity initiatives<br />
gaining steam, insiders say the lure of financing<br />
is also leading filmmakers to rethink<br />
projects from the conception point. “In the<br />
general community at large, people are just<br />
hungry to attach women to projects and slates,<br />
because it’s smart from a tactical viewpoint.<br />
I’d do the same,” says Molly McGlynn, whose<br />
debut feature, Mary Goes Round, was produced<br />
through Telefilm’s Talent to Watch program.<br />
Toronto-based director Michelle Latimer says<br />
the initiatives help female filmmakers avoid<br />
“going up against the old guard.” After the<br />
success of her documentary short film Nucca,<br />
which screened at Sundance and Toronto,<br />
Latimer nabbed a yearlong filmmaking<br />
fellowship with Laura Poitras’ (Citizenfour)<br />
documentary unit Field of Vision.<br />
“[Telefilm] is democratizing the way we<br />
secure film financing, and it’s particularly<br />
good for younger filmmakers who can’t go<br />
the regular financing route,” Latimer says.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Canadian film sector is also focusing<br />
on hiring more women in key positions<br />
throughout the industry. Jane Tattersall,<br />
senior vp at Sim Post Toronto, who supervised<br />
the sound editing on Hulu’s <strong>The</strong><br />
Handmaid’s Tale, says she’s hiring more women<br />
as mixers and editors in a traditionally maledominated<br />
business.<br />
“I’m not being idealistic or doing favors,”<br />
she says. “It’s much more selfish — the workplace<br />
is more interesting and more normal<br />
when you have a mix of women and men.”<br />
Marjolaine Tremblay, VFX producer and<br />
supervisor at Rodeo FX, insists that the<br />
Canadian industry needs to allow women to<br />
move from management and backroom jobs<br />
to active creative roles, including overcoming<br />
technical VFX challenges.<br />
“I have a great employer now that believes<br />
in all of my skill sets and supports me all the<br />
way,” says Tremblay.<br />
Another point of emphasis for Minister<br />
Joly is creating a healthy environment in<br />
the Time’s Up era. To that end, she says the<br />
Canadian industry now has a zero-tolerance<br />
policy for workplace harassment.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> #MeToo movement for us is clearly a<br />
fundamental change of culture,” she says. “It’s<br />
changing the way people will interact with<br />
each other and make sure there’s more respect<br />
between men and women, and ensuring the<br />
entertainment-sector workplace, as all workplaces,<br />
is much safer.”<br />
T<br />
he Baltimore of 1962 is<br />
meticulously re-created<br />
in Guillermo del Toro’s<br />
multi-Oscar-nominated sci-fi<br />
romance <strong>The</strong> Shape of Water.<br />
From an iconic, neon-lit diner<br />
to an ornate movie theater, the<br />
film revels in Americana from<br />
another age, making the fact<br />
that it was shot in and around<br />
Toronto all the more<br />
impressive. <strong>The</strong> film<br />
marks del Toro’s<br />
third collaboration<br />
Dale with producer —<br />
and Toronto native<br />
— J. Miles Dale and is the director’s<br />
fourth consecutive feature<br />
to be shot in Canada. Dale talked<br />
to THR about why the Mexican<br />
auteur now calls Toronto home<br />
and the Oscar odds for Shape<br />
of Water.<br />
Toronto hosted shoots for earlier<br />
Oscar best picture winners like<br />
TURNING A<br />
TORONTO SUBURB<br />
INTO STOCKHOLM<br />
<strong>The</strong> Ethan Hawke thriller Stockholm<br />
chronicles the real-life 1973 bank heist<br />
in the Swedish capital that produced the<br />
term “Stockholm Syndrome” — shorthand<br />
to describe when captors and captives<br />
form an unusual bond.<br />
With a modest budget of $10.5 million,<br />
Canadian co-producer Nicholas Tabarrok<br />
effectively cobbled together numerous<br />
BTS: COURTESY OF FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES. SHAPE: KERRY HAYES/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. DALE: BARRY<br />
KING/GETTY IMAGES. STOCKHOLM: COURTESY OF DARIUS FILMS. WAPEEMUKWA, FOROUGHI: COURTESY OF<br />
SUBJECT. MCLEOD: COURTESY OF JIVE PR + DIGITAL. ENGLISH: COURTESY OF GAT PR. SANCHEZ: LAURENT GUERIN.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
78<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
‘ You Don’t Have to Go<br />
Anywhere Else’<br />
Shape of Water producer<br />
J. Miles Dale on why<br />
del Toro shoots in Canada<br />
Chicago and Spotlight. What’s<br />
different with <strong>The</strong> Shape of Water?<br />
With Chicago, there were no<br />
Canadian designers on that. And<br />
even Spotlight, it wasn’t a heavy<br />
design movie. On <strong>The</strong> Shape of<br />
Water, other than the cinematographer<br />
and a couple of special<br />
effects and makeup artists, every<br />
single person from the production<br />
and costume designers, the<br />
sound team, the editor — they’re<br />
all Canadian. It tells the world:<br />
“We can play with anybody now.<br />
Our top people are right up<br />
there. You don’t have to go anywhere<br />
else.”<br />
Does that mean you and del Toro<br />
will make all your future movies<br />
in Toronto?<br />
<strong>The</strong> script will always tell you<br />
what it needs to be. If you need to<br />
do something on a mountain,<br />
you can’t do that here. If you’re<br />
stranded in the Pacific, you<br />
can’t do that here. But for anything<br />
that’s set in an East Coast<br />
Left: Dale (left) on the set of Shape of Water<br />
with del Toro. Above: the film’s stars, Richard<br />
Jenkins and Sally Hawkins.<br />
American city or some generic<br />
countryside like the Midwest, you<br />
can definitely do it here.<br />
Why has Toronto become del Toro’s<br />
filmmaking base?<br />
Ever since he did Pacific Rim,<br />
Guillermo has been here. He lives<br />
here and his family lives here.<br />
He’s really embraced the community,<br />
and he really feels<br />
he’s found a filmmaking home<br />
in Toronto. I think he likes the<br />
Canadian sensibility.<br />
Any word on your next project<br />
with him?<br />
I think he’d like to take a short<br />
break from directing. We have<br />
a couple of feature projects that<br />
we’re producing together. He’s<br />
also writing something for himself<br />
to direct, maybe next year.<br />
He’s going to stay prolific. He can’t<br />
really slow down.<br />
How do you feel as the Oscars<br />
approach?<br />
We’ve had a nice run so far. If it<br />
ended today, that would be fine.<br />
We’re going to the BAFTA Awards<br />
in London, where we led the nominations.<br />
And two weeks after that,<br />
there’s the Oscars. So these last<br />
couple of laps should be very interesting.<br />
We’re definitely feeling a<br />
lot of love right now, so hopefully<br />
that continues. — E.V.<br />
CANADIAN<br />
DIRECTORS TO<br />
WATCH<br />
WAYNE<br />
WAPEEMUKWA<br />
Wapeemukwa,<br />
27, won the<br />
best Canadian<br />
first feature<br />
prize at the 2017 Toronto<br />
film fest with his debut,<br />
Luk’Luk’I. “Walking away<br />
from TIFF with the best<br />
first feature prize confirmed<br />
for my cast, crew<br />
and me that we were<br />
on the right track,” he says.<br />
SADAF<br />
FOROUGHI<br />
Born in Iran,<br />
Foroughi,<br />
41, studied in<br />
France and<br />
settled in Montreal before<br />
writing and directing Ava,<br />
a coming-of-age drama<br />
that won the FIPRESCI<br />
critics prize at Toronto<br />
in 2017.<br />
SHELAGH<br />
MCLEOD<br />
After<br />
establishing a<br />
career as an<br />
actress on U.K.<br />
TV, McLeod, 57, recently<br />
wrapped production on<br />
her debut feature,<br />
the Richard Dreyfuss- and<br />
Colm Feore-starring<br />
thriller Astronaut, shot just<br />
north of Toronto.<br />
JACKIE<br />
ENGLISH<br />
After a string<br />
of acting<br />
credits,<br />
including CBS’<br />
Beauty and the Beast,<br />
English broke into the<br />
feature world with<br />
Becoming Burlesque, a<br />
Toronto-set drama about<br />
a young Muslim woman<br />
who embraces the world<br />
of burlesque dancing.<br />
subsidies and incentives available north of<br />
the border to make the film happen.<br />
<strong>The</strong> heist flick was shot mostly in<br />
Hamilton, Ontario, allowing the producers<br />
to nab the province’s 10 percent tax credit.<br />
That’s in addition to a separate incentive<br />
that refunds 21.5 percent of qualified<br />
Ontario production expenditures.<br />
As a co-production with Sweden, the<br />
film tapped subsidies in both countries<br />
thanks to the casting of Swedish actors,<br />
including Noomi Rapace. Tabarrok won’t<br />
say how much financing came from<br />
← Hawke was the only castmember to shoot scenes in the real city of Stockholm.<br />
79<br />
Sweden, but Ontario Media Development<br />
Corp. chipped in $440,000. Telefilm<br />
Canada also invested at the script stage.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Hamilton locations were so effective<br />
that Hawke was the only actor to<br />
travel to the real Stockholm to capture<br />
exterior shots.<br />
“Stockholm would not have been possible<br />
without the support of Telefilm,<br />
provincial and federal tax credits and the<br />
OMDC,” Tabarrok says. “It’s nearly impossible<br />
to finance a film this size without the<br />
support of government incentives.” — E.V.<br />
JASON AND CARLOS<br />
SANCHEZ<br />
Allure, the debut feature<br />
written and directed by<br />
Jason, 36, and Carlos, 41,<br />
Montreal-based still<br />
photographers turned<br />
filmmakers, stars Evan<br />
Rachel Wood as a house<br />
cleaner with a dark past.<br />
Samuel Goldwyn Films<br />
plans a mid-March U.S.<br />
release. — E.V.
Backlot<br />
BAFTA<br />
SO HOW IS THREE<br />
BILLBOARDS BRITISH?<br />
W<br />
ith Stephen Fry having<br />
given up his hosting<br />
duties after a record<br />
12 editions, BAFTA has turned<br />
to arguably an even bigger British<br />
national treasure for its latest<br />
awards ceremony: Joanna Lumley,<br />
who will be taking the reins<br />
Feb. 18 at London’s famed Royal<br />
Albert Hall. Ahead of the biggest<br />
film awards outside the U.S.,<br />
Lumley explains why she won’t be<br />
making any political gags, how<br />
the British equivalent of #MeToo<br />
might look on the night and<br />
whether her most famous onscreen<br />
character — Absolutely Fabulous’<br />
champers-guzzling Patsy — will<br />
be making an appearance.<br />
Do you have any nerves about<br />
stepping into Stephen Fry’s welltrodden<br />
BAFTA shoes?<br />
Stephen is a huge friend of<br />
mine. I shall do my level best to<br />
fit into those huge shoes. He’s<br />
such a consummate, easy, welcoming,<br />
darling host, but we’re<br />
different. So I shan’t copy him,<br />
because you can’t do that. I’ll just<br />
do my best to be me and make<br />
everyone welcome.<br />
Has he given you any tips?<br />
He said something terribly funny<br />
but very true: Nobody has ever<br />
complained that an awards ceremony<br />
is too short. He also told<br />
me to remember that our job is as<br />
host. We’re not the main entertainment;<br />
we are literally the host.<br />
We’re the silken strands that join<br />
people together.<br />
Do you think this will be a newer,<br />
revamped BAFTAs with you at<br />
the helm?<br />
I don’t really want it to change.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re’s something quite serious<br />
about all this. We’re the British<br />
academy, and the Oscars are the<br />
American academy, so this is the<br />
senior prefects’ table.<br />
Any particular hosting style you<br />
like and might try to emulate?<br />
I do a lot of awards ceremonies, so<br />
I’m used to the whole easing people<br />
on, easing people off, mopping<br />
their tears. But I’m not a stand-up<br />
‘ My Part Is to Be<br />
Quite Dignified’<br />
Joanna Lumley plans her<br />
BAFTA takeover By Alex Ritman<br />
comic. I’m not a satirist. I’m not<br />
a political commentator. People<br />
know me because I’ve been banging<br />
around the block for 100<br />
years, so why would I be someone<br />
completely different?<br />
You’ve already said you<br />
won’t be pulling out any<br />
Weinstein gags. How<br />
about Trump? Brexit?<br />
I’m not really going to do any<br />
heavy political commentary,<br />
because for people who do come<br />
up and have something to say, it’s<br />
absolutely up to them. It’s their<br />
night, it’s not mine. My part is to<br />
be quite dignified, but if everyone<br />
else wants to put their pants on<br />
their head and scream, that’s fine<br />
by me.<br />
How do you think the #MeToo<br />
movement seen at the Golden<br />
Globes will translate to the BAFTAs?<br />
It’s going to be so interesting. I<br />
noticed at the SAG Awards all<br />
the girls were in gorgeous dresses.<br />
So maybe the Golden Globes<br />
British<br />
Academy Film<br />
Awards<br />
Feb. 18<br />
Royal Albert Hall<br />
was the [only] night of wearing<br />
black to protest. I’ll just see<br />
whether people are still feeling<br />
enough of it to warrant it going<br />
on or feeling that we’ve got to<br />
look to the future. We all<br />
know … it’s all out in the<br />
open now. <strong>The</strong> Golden<br />
Globes have made everyone<br />
so aware of it.<br />
How about yourself, will you be<br />
wearing black?<br />
I don’t think so. But let’s put it like<br />
this: I won’t be wearing shocking<br />
pink. I want to look like a dignified<br />
host. But I do think I’m going<br />
to look pretty fab, not showy.<br />
Any temptations to give Patsy a<br />
brief whirl onstage, perhaps brandishing<br />
a glass of champagne?<br />
Well, I know I won’t be allowed a<br />
glass of Bolly onstage, but sometimes<br />
Patsy creeps through. She<br />
doesn’t mean to, but sometimes<br />
she just has to have a word. I’ll<br />
try to keep her under control for<br />
the night!<br />
Martin McDonagh’s Midwestern<br />
drama is up for a best Brit BAFTA<br />
At the 2017 BAFTA Awards, the outstanding<br />
British film honor went<br />
to Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, a gritty<br />
human tale about a carpenter from<br />
the north of England and his nearexcruciating<br />
struggle to navigate the<br />
U.K.’s bureaucratic benefits system<br />
after having a heart attack. In other<br />
words, extremely British.<br />
This year, among a crop of equally<br />
British titles sits a rather unusual entry.<br />
<strong>The</strong> nomination of Three Billboards<br />
Outside Ebbing, Missouri, despite<br />
director Martin McDonagh’s burgundy<br />
British passport, has caused a little confusion<br />
in the U.S. Not only is the film’s<br />
main cast almost exclusively American,<br />
but it also was shot in North Carolina,<br />
is based on a real-life American story<br />
and even includes the words “Ebbing,<br />
Missouri” right there in the title. How,<br />
exactly, is this film British?<br />
<strong>The</strong> answer can be found in BAFTA’s<br />
myriad list of rules and regulations.<br />
To qualify for the outstanding<br />
British film category, the rules state<br />
that a film must “have significant<br />
creative involvement by individuals<br />
who are British (U.K. passport holders<br />
or permanent resident in the U.K. for<br />
at least 10 years up to and including<br />
the eligibility period).”<br />
Alongside McDonagh, Three<br />
Billboards was produced by the British<br />
duo of Graham Broadbent and Peter<br />
Czernin for their Blueprint Pictures<br />
(headquartered on London’s Great<br />
Portland Street), with half the funding<br />
coming from Film4, the movie arm of<br />
U.K. network Channel 4.<br />
“A film like this — which doesn’t<br />
look remotely British — does seem<br />
to crop up each year,” admits one<br />
industry insider.<br />
As it happens, last year there were<br />
two: American Honey (backed by<br />
Film4 and the British Film Institute) and<br />
Under the Shadow (which was in Farsi<br />
but produced by U.K.-based Wigwam<br />
Films). And in 2016, the winner was<br />
Brooklyn, named after the borough but<br />
produced by Brits, written by a Brit and<br />
backed by BBC Films. — A.R.<br />
Woody Harrelson (left) and Sam Rockwell in<br />
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.<br />
LUMLEY: MATT HOLYOAK/BAFTA/CAMERA PRESS/REDUX. THREE: MERRICK MORTON/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
80<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
SJIWFF29 • OCTOBER 17–21, <strong>2018</strong><br />
ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA<br />
WOMENSFILMFESTIVAL.COM
Backlot<br />
Awards<br />
Watch<br />
‘ I Found My Voice While She Found<br />
Hers’ Liz Hannah and Josh Singer on<br />
penning Katharine Graham’s story By Rebecca Ford<br />
L<br />
iz Hannah wrote the screenplay for <strong>The</strong> Post with the hope that<br />
she’d get an agent. Instead, the 32-year-old screenwriter saw<br />
her spec script turned into a movie directed by Steven Spielberg<br />
and starring Meryl Streep as <strong>The</strong> Washington Post publisher Katharine<br />
Graham. <strong>The</strong> timely ’70s-set drama has been nominated for the best picture<br />
Oscar, and Hannah and her co-writer, Josh Singer (who won the<br />
original screenplay Oscar in 2016 for Spotlight), will receive the Writers<br />
Guild of America West’s Paul Selvin Award at the Feb. 11 ceremony.<br />
Both writers spoke to THR about their process and the “high bar” set by<br />
working with Spielberg.<br />
What was it about Graham’s story<br />
that made you want to adapt it?<br />
HANNAH I only had vaguely heard<br />
about her, but I didn’t know<br />
anything about her life. And she<br />
lived one that I felt deserved to be<br />
out in the world. For me<br />
personally, it was about<br />
a woman finding her<br />
voice, finally ignoring all<br />
the naysayers — and even<br />
herself — telling her she<br />
couldn’t do it and standing on her<br />
own two feet. <strong>The</strong> irony is not lost<br />
on me that this is the script I got<br />
noticed on. I found my voice while<br />
she found hers.<br />
How did the two of you collaborate?<br />
SINGER Liz wrote an incredible spec<br />
script, but it wasn’t a shooting<br />
GOLD STAR SCRIBES<br />
A comic book icon, an LGBTQ<br />
activist and two veteran<br />
writers land WGA honors<br />
WGA West<br />
Awards<br />
Feb. 11<br />
Beverly Hilton<br />
draft. With these fact-based dramas,<br />
you want to vet them — send<br />
them out to the world and get<br />
lots of notes, because you want<br />
to get it right. With Spotlight, I<br />
had terrible fear of not getting the<br />
journalism part right.<br />
Plus, the needs of a spec<br />
script and the needs of<br />
a Steven Spielberg film<br />
are slightly different.<br />
Because with a Steven<br />
Spielberg film, you’re going to<br />
get the highest degree of scrutiny<br />
you can possibly get. Fairly or<br />
unfairly, you get held to a pretty<br />
high bar. We had to make this<br />
as accurate as possible within the<br />
context of telling a good story.<br />
HANNAH I had never written a<br />
movie that had been produced<br />
◄ DUSTIN LANCE BLACK<br />
<strong>The</strong> Valentine Davies<br />
Award will recognize the<br />
Milk writer’s work for<br />
the LGBTQ community.<br />
↑ From left: Singer, Spielberg, Hannah,<br />
Tom Hanks and Streep on Jan. 4<br />
at the Palm Springs Film Festival.<br />
before, let alone written a movie<br />
produced and directed by Steven<br />
Spielberg. <strong>The</strong> thing about Josh<br />
is that he’s not only an incredibly<br />
talented writer, he also has an<br />
enormous amount of experience in<br />
the journalism world and in the<br />
political world with Spotlight and<br />
<strong>The</strong> West Wing. We really tackled<br />
it more like a writers room; it was<br />
a very collaborative experience.<br />
Because of the quick timeline, he<br />
was used to working under the<br />
gun and under the pressure that<br />
the first choice is the best choice<br />
and the only choice.<br />
JAMES L. BROOKS<br />
<strong>The</strong> Mary Tyler Moore<br />
Show co-creator<br />
gets the Laurel Award<br />
for screenwriting.<br />
ALISON CROSS<br />
<strong>The</strong> Paddy Chayefsky<br />
Laurel Award goes to the<br />
writer-producer (Roe vs.<br />
Wade, Murder in the First).<br />
What is your worst habit as<br />
a writer?<br />
HANNAH Procrastination. I think<br />
it’s every writer’s worst habit.<br />
But when you’re procrastinating,<br />
you’re still thinking about it.<br />
SINGER My wife, who is a novelist,<br />
makes fun of me for this all<br />
the time: I tend to get lost in<br />
the research. I go on really deep<br />
dives. Lawrence O’Donnell told<br />
me early on that the word<br />
“author” comes from authority.<br />
I am not a huge risk taker, so I<br />
really don’t like writing about<br />
something unless I feel like I’m<br />
quite knowledgeable about it.<br />
Is there one thing you must have<br />
in order to write?<br />
HANNAH Because I’m 90 years old<br />
in a 32-year-old’s body, I have<br />
a heating pad on the back of my<br />
chair. When you’re sitting there<br />
for hours at a time, I don’t care<br />
how comfortable that chair is,<br />
it can get pretty gnarly. So a heating<br />
pad kind of wakes me up.<br />
SINGER I need headphones and<br />
music. I tend to love classical,<br />
but it can be any kind. It really<br />
depends on what I’m working<br />
on. <strong>The</strong>re’s a trick I learned<br />
from my wife: I’ll listen to the<br />
same thing over and over again.<br />
So good Bose headphones with<br />
music to drown out the world.<br />
And then I must have a baseball<br />
cap, because I need blinders.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re’s an<br />
immediate<br />
connection as<br />
a woman,<br />
knowing what<br />
it’s like to be<br />
in a room full<br />
of men and<br />
not have your<br />
voice heard,”<br />
says Hannah<br />
of Graham’s<br />
story (Streep,<br />
center).<br />
LEN WEIN<br />
<strong>The</strong> late comic book icon,<br />
co-creator of Wolverine,<br />
will be honored with the<br />
Animation Writing Award.<br />
SINGER: VIVIEN KILLILEA/GETTY IMAGES FOR PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. POST: NIKO TAVERNISE/20TH CENTURY FOX. BLACK: DAVE BENETT/GETTY IMAGES.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
82<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
PROMOTION<br />
TODAY IN<br />
ENTERTAINMENT<br />
NEWSLETTER<br />
We are excited to announce the appointment of<br />
ASHLEY PARTINGTON<br />
to Vice President of the LA Talent Agency.<br />
WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO A GREAT <strong>2018</strong>!<br />
Get an early brief of what matters<br />
in entertainment now.<br />
Each weekday, delivered to your inbox, executive editor<br />
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highlight what’s news and what’s worth reading from<br />
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James H. Rich, Jr., age 70, of Tarzana, CA, died peacefully<br />
from the complications of cancer on January 20,<br />
<strong>2018</strong> with his loving and devoted wife of almost 44<br />
years, Abigail Crow Rich, by his side.<br />
Jim was born in Pittsburgh, PA, on December 24, 1947,<br />
to James H. Rich and the late Idamae Brody Rich. <strong>The</strong><br />
date of his birth, he would tell everyone, was the result<br />
of his mother falling off a ladder while trying to put a<br />
star on the Christmas tree.<br />
He attended an all-boys prep school, Shadyside Academy,<br />
where, among other activities, he was a member<br />
of the honorary Sargon Society,<br />
and played on the varsity tennis<br />
and football teams. Summers<br />
he hung out at WAMO,<br />
his father’s radio station. After<br />
graduation in 1965, he went to<br />
Syracuse University to study<br />
Communications, where he<br />
lived in the football dorm and<br />
thought he was going to play<br />
until he was positioned in front<br />
of Larry Csonka and Floyd Little<br />
at a practice game and was<br />
flattened.<br />
Always resilient and practical,<br />
he looked around and realized<br />
that not only was it safer<br />
to go into the theater department,<br />
but there were real-live<br />
girls there. And so his show<br />
business career was born.<br />
He transferred to New York<br />
University’s Film School, where<br />
Martin Scorsese was his instructor, and where he created<br />
his award-winning student film, Ginkgo. After<br />
film school, he worked on Sesame Street shorts, commercials,<br />
and industrials in New York, and created his<br />
documentary Earth Day, starring Rod Serling and Pete<br />
Seeger.<br />
In the mid-1970s, he headed to Los Angeles to work<br />
for Bob Stivers Productions and began a career that<br />
spanned almost 50 years. As he advanced from young<br />
production manager to executive producer, he worked<br />
on hundreds of television shows, including Circus of the<br />
Stars, People’s Choice Awards, People’s Court, Superior<br />
Court, Vincent with Leonard Nimoy, John Denver and<br />
the Muppets, Kid Songs, Monty Python Live at the <strong>Hollywood</strong><br />
Bowl, Red Skelton’s Funny Faces, George Burns<br />
in Concert, Enchanted Musical Playhouse with the Osmonds,<br />
Straight to the Heart, A Talent for Murder with<br />
Sir Lawrence Olivier and Angela Lansbury and many,<br />
many others.<br />
ADVERTISEMENT<br />
James H. Rich<br />
1947-<strong>2018</strong><br />
Jim was a member of the Producers Guild of America.<br />
He was the executive vice president of Cable and Syndication<br />
at Centerpoint Productions, where he worked<br />
for Tom Tannenbaum with production partners Guber-<br />
Peters, Blake Edwards, and Grasso-Jacobson. He won<br />
an ACE award in 1983 for Sweeney Todd, which won<br />
seven Emmys. In the early 2000s, he produced three<br />
two-hour specials to promote the opening of Universal’s<br />
theme park in Osaka. <strong>The</strong> specials featured top<br />
Japanese television stars and Universal stars Meryl<br />
Streep, Gene Hackman and Steven Spielberg.<br />
After retiring, he co-founded<br />
<strong>The</strong> Great Beer Company,<br />
brewers of the award-winning<br />
kölsch-style ale, <strong>Hollywood</strong><br />
Blonde. He was a practicing<br />
Buddhist, worked on the campaign<br />
to elect Obama, and volunteered<br />
with an organization<br />
for troubled teens.<br />
Jim loved many things, not<br />
the least of which was walking<br />
the dogs at his beach house<br />
in Ventura, CA, watching<br />
Pittsburgh Steeler games, going<br />
to the symphony and the<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> Bowl with his wife,<br />
talking to his father, and bragging<br />
about his children and<br />
grandchildren.<br />
His life was marked by an<br />
electric spirit, an extraordinary<br />
ability to persevere, a goofy<br />
sense of humor, a quest for<br />
spiritual knowledge, and a generous soul. He is remembered<br />
by friends and admirers as someone who lifted<br />
them up when they needed it, and encouraged them to<br />
be their best and truest selves.<br />
In addition to his wife, Jim is survived by his father,<br />
James H. Rich, of Pittsburgh, PA; his son, Nicholas<br />
James Rich, and daughter-in-law, Cara Delizia Rich of<br />
Tarzana, CA; his daughter, Kit Rich, of Santa Monica, CA;<br />
three grandsons, Hunter Rich, Lucas Rich, and Crosby<br />
Rich; his sister, Kathryn Rich Sherman of Pittsburgh,<br />
PA; and numerous brothers/sisters-in-law, nieces,<br />
nephews and cousins.<br />
His memorial will be held in Tarzana, CA on March 3,<br />
<strong>2018</strong> from noon to 4:00. Family members will commit<br />
his ashes to the sea the following day.<br />
In lieu of flowers, please donate to his favorite charity,<br />
“No Kid Hungry,” (https://www.nokidhungry.org/)<br />
the campaign of the national anti-hunger organization<br />
Share Our Strength.
89 Years of THR<br />
Memorable moments from a storied history<br />
1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003<br />
25 Years Ago, Cool Runnings Was a Gold Medal Hit<br />
For <strong>The</strong> <strong>Hollywood</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong>, 1993’s<br />
Cool Runnings was a “near-perfectly<br />
executed tale” that centered<br />
on “one of the nuttiest and most<br />
inspiring modern sports stories.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Jon Turteltaub film is<br />
the loosely factual tale of the<br />
Jamaican bobsled team that competed<br />
in the 1988 Calgary Winter<br />
Olympics. (Three decades later,<br />
the Pyeongchang Games begin<br />
Feb. 9, and there’s a 25th anniversary<br />
screening of Cool Runnings<br />
a day earlier at the El Capitan in<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong>.) “It’s the timeless<br />
story of the underdog,” says Jeff<br />
Sagansky, who acquired the<br />
script in 1989 when he headed<br />
TriStar Pictures. “And here, the<br />
underdog was going to the Winter<br />
Olympics from a country with<br />
no snow.” As difficult as it was for<br />
Jamaicans to make it to Canada,<br />
so it was for the film to get made.<br />
When Dawn Steel became head<br />
of Columbia Pictures in 1987, she<br />
became aware of the Runnings<br />
script because TriStar was a sister<br />
company. After she left in 1990,<br />
Steel made it the first film she did<br />
under her new production deal<br />
at Disney. “To me, it was Rocky,”<br />
said Steel, who died in 1997. <strong>The</strong><br />
$15 million production ($25 million<br />
today) went on to earn<br />
$155 million worldwide ($263 million).<br />
Along the way, the script<br />
went from a drama at TriStar to a<br />
family comedy at Disney. Hiring<br />
John Candy as the team’s coach<br />
was a key piece of casting. “[Studio<br />
chief] Jeffrey Katzenberg was<br />
the one who said we were going<br />
with John,” says Turteltaub. “Up<br />
until then, we were thinking<br />
‘Olympic coach? Kurt Russell.’<br />
And Kurt ended up playing [Herb<br />
Brooks] in Miracle. I guess he<br />
was born to be an Olympic coach.”<br />
Turteltaub’s most vivid memory<br />
of the shoot was being awakened<br />
at 1 a.m. on location in Calgary<br />
and told by Katzenberg that he’d<br />
be fired unless he could get the<br />
cast to speak in an understandable<br />
Jamaican accent. “He said, ‘If<br />
you can’t make them sound like<br />
Sebastian the Crab in <strong>The</strong> Little<br />
Mermaid, I’ll find a director who<br />
will.’ So the next day I told the<br />
cast I’d be fired if they didn’t start<br />
sounding like Sebastian the Crab.<br />
And they laughed and found the<br />
in-between.” — BILL HIGGINS<br />
↑ 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.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Hollywood</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong>, 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 <strong>February</strong>, March, May, August and September; and five issues in November — with 15 special issues:<br />
Jan. (1), Feb. (2), June (4), Aug. (4), Nov. (3) and Dec. (3) by Prometheus Global Media LLC, 5700 Wilshire Blvd., 5th floor, Los Angeles CA 90036. Subscription rates: Weekly print only, $199; weekly print and online, including daily edition PDF only, $249; online only, $199; digital replica of weekly print, $199.<br />
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BUENA VISTA PICTURES/PHOTOFEST<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
84<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>
PROMOTION<br />
THE SUNDANCE TV ORIGINAL SERIES RETURNS<br />
CANDID ROUNDTABLES WITH TOP FILM TALENT<br />
THE PRODUCERS<br />
From Left: Ridley Scott, Jason Blum, Amy Pascal, Eric Fellner, Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen<br />
with<br />
PRODUCERS FEBRUARY 11<br />
WRITERS FEBRUARY 18<br />
CINEMATOGRAPHERS FEBRUARY 25<br />
ACTORS & ACTRESSES (LIVE AUDIENCE) MARCH 4<br />
CABLE 10AM ET / 7AM PT • SATELLITE 10AM ET / 7AM PT<br />
DISH CHANNEL 126 • DIRECTV CHANNEL 557
4 ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINATIONS<br />
BEST PICTURE<br />
BEST DIRECTOR<br />
JORDAN PEELE<br />
BEST ORIGINAL<br />
SCREENPLAY<br />
JORDAN PEELE<br />
BEST ACTOR<br />
DANIEL KALUUYA<br />
CONSIDER<br />
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY<br />
JORDAN PEELE