What do you do when, in a span of two years, you direct some of the best episodic television as well as one of the most popular television movies of all time? If you’re Randal Kleiser, you graduate to features, where you’re first film, “Grease,” remains, almost four decades later, the highest grossing movie musical of all time. Not a bad start!

Born in Philadelphia, Kleiser headed west to study his chosen craft at the University of Southern California. It was there he met a fellow student named George Lucas. He graduated USC in 1968 and, on the basis of his impressive Master’s thesis film, “Peege,” began his career. After directing episodes of such popular television shows as “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” “The Rookies” and “Family,” he graduated to made-for-television films. His first, “Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway,” starred former “Brady Bunch” star Eve Plumb as a girl who, feeling her home life is tough, runs away to the big city where she’s soon selling her body. While this is almost happenstance on today’s television it was quite a shocker in 1976. His second film-for-television starred up and coming “Welcome Back, Kotter” star John Travolta as “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.” Based on a true story, the film earned three Emmy nominations, winning one. It also became a favorite of fans, thanks to Travolta’s performance and Paul Williams’ song, “What Would They Say,” which Travolta sang. Travolta and Kleiser would reunite the next year when the young star appeared opposite Olivia Newton-John in the musical smash “Grease.”

Kleiser, a director with an eye for young talent, followed up with “The Blue Lagoon,” starring Brooke Shields. He then featured Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah in “Summer Lovers” (which Kleiser also wrote) and then teamed up Jamie Lee Curtis and Patrick Swayze in “Grandview U.S.A.” Other films include “Big Top Pee Wee,” “Flight of the Navigator” and “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.” In 1996 Kleiser wrote and directed “It’s My Party,” one of the first major films to address the issue of AIDS (though, in “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,” Travolta’s character, Tod, was born with a deficient immune system, which is not unlike being born with AIDS). “It’s My Party” tells the story of Nick (Eric Roberts), whose most recent blood test reveals that he is HIV positive. Nick decides to go out on his own terms and throws himself a “going away” party.

This year, Kleiser turned to the stage, where his first production, “The Penis Chronicles,” currently plays four times weekly at the Coastal Playhouse, in West Hollywood, California through January 11, 2015. Mr. Kleiser took time out from his schedule to speak with me about working on the stage, the continued magic of “Grease” and a project near and dear to his heart: “The Nina Foch Project.”

Mike Smith: You’re about to finish your first foray onto the stage. How did you get involved with “The Penis Chronicles?”
Randal Kleiser: Tom Yewell was my assistant on “White Fang” and “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid”. He then became my director of development at Disney Studios. After that he moved back East for several years. Last year his friend Greg O’Connor sent me his play, “The Penis Chronicles” and I read it expecting to just give him my comments. I was extremely impressed and immediately wanted to help launch it.

MS: As someone who had worked primarily in television and film, does the role of the director change when it’s live theatre?
RK: The biggest difference is that the control is in the hands of the actors, rather than the director. I’m used to being able to fine tune movie performances, doing multiple takes until we achieve each moment perfectly. There is an excitement about live theater that I haven’t experienced in my movie career. You never know what’s going to happen. Last week we had a power outage during the play and used iPhone flashlight apps to light the actor.

MS: You were able to fund the initial 8-week run of the show through Indigogo. Any thoughts of extending the run?
RK: We are pleased to announce that we are extending until at least January 11th. After that, we aren’t sure. It depends on the public continuing to show up.

MS: What can you tell us about your upcoming film, “B.F.F.?”
RK: That is a project written and directed by young filmmaker Greg Carter. I’m overseeing it in an executive producer capacity.

MS: You went from directing one of the most popular television films of all time (“The Boy in the Plastic Bubble”) to helming the most popular movie musical as a first time feature film director. Why do you think “Grease” continues to find fans after all these years?
RK: I get asked that a lot. It must have been the perfect storm of cast chemistry, a hit Broadway play, the new music, and characters that everyone could identify with.

MS: It’s been almost 20 years since “It’s My Party” was released. These days in Hollywood it’s almost common-place to have major studios producing projects like “Angels in America” and “The Normal Heart.” How hard was it to get “It’s My Party” made?
RK: I wrote it while under a deal at Disney. They were not jumping at making it. Duh. Luckily, John Calley had just taken over United Artists and I went over to see him. I showed him pictures from the actual party that the script was based on and he greenlit the project that day.
I couldn’t have been more thrilled.

MS: Tell us a little about the “Nina Foch Project” and her influence on your career?
RK: Nina Foch was a vital presence in the entertainment industry, at home onstage, on screen, and in the classroom. Her acting career spanned seven decades, including starring roles on the Broadway stage and numerous television appearances from the golden era of live television drama through the most popular series and sitcoms of recent years. She was best known for her performances in classic films, such as “An American in Paris,” “Spartacus,” and “The Ten Commandments.” Her role as Erica Martin in “Executive Suite,” directed by Robert Wise, garnered her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 1955. Nina joined the USC School of Cinematic Arts where she taught for many years, offering the Advanced Seminar in Directing Actors for Film. She worked with – and inspired – many of today’s most successful actors, singers, directors, screenwriters, and producers. After studying with her, I hired her on several occasions to guide me in breaking down scripts I was about to shoot. She would drill me on each moment, each line, each piece of punctuation so that I was ready to shoot only what was necessary to forward the story and ready for any possible question from the actors. My classmate George Lucas put up some funds to shoot a whole semester of her class before her death in 2008. She instilled in me the same thing that motivated her: a desire to transfer the fascination. The Nina Foch Course for Filmmakers and Actors is available in DVD and online form at www.ninafochproject.com.

MS: What, if anything, do you have planned next?
RK: I have four films ready to go and am looking to complete funding on them. All my director friends are in the same boat. We have to become entrepreneurs and do our own projects, rather than wait for the studios to change from only doing sequels, comics and remakes.

Parker Sawyers is co-starring in the upcoming film “Monsters: Dark Continent”, which is a follow-up to the 2010 film “Monsters”. Parker also appeared this year in the film “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit”. Media Mikes had a chance to chat about “Monsters: Dark Continent” with him and what we can expect.

Mike Gencarelli: How did you get involved with “Monsters: Dark Continent”?
Parker Sawyers: I’ve been acting for nearly three years now and try to hit every meeting I am lucky enough to get. I see it as practice. So, “Monsters: Dark Continent” was another meeting to me. Interestingly, I had a short film to shoot 15 minutes after my meeting time and I was so worried about missing the call time, I don’t really remember what I said or did in the room. Whatever it was worked, thankfully.

MG: Were you familiar with the original film prior?
PS: In preparation for the meeting for Monsters: Dark Continent, I watched the original film, Gareth Edwards’ “Monsters”. I was pleasantly surprised as I watched the two central characters develop a relationship amidst such dire conditions. To me, the original film was about humanity and how even in the face of extreme adversity or in their case an alien invasion we would still find love, fight for one another, and even bicker. Perhaps we’re not much more than that.

MG: Give us some background on your character Shaun Williams?
PS: Shaun is a kid from Detroit. I see him as a multi-talented, cool kid who never got “that break”. He is a sportsman, clever and chilled. Though I now live in London, I’m originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, just a few hours away from Detroit. To play a guy from the Midwest with heaps of heart and a laid back attitude was exciting and refreshing. I think the Midwesterners who watch the film will relate to Shaun and his friends; the hustle, the hunger, the decency, the loyalty.

MG: Tell us about where the film was shot and what was the most challenging aspect?
PS: We shot the film in Amman, Jordan and Detroit, Michigan. The people in Amman are some of the most hospitable and warmest people I’ve ever met. It was my second time being there, the first time was to film “Zero Dark Thirty”. I’m itching to return for a vacation. As for a challenge, I’d say the amount of work that needed to be completed by the end of each day, to stay on schedule. But, we worked hard and Tom Green, the director, never made any of us feel rushed. But, of course, we can read a call sheet and we knew we had a limited amount of time. Ultimately, we made it work. Detroit was cool. Talk about smiling through adversity, the people were wonderfully American and hardworking.

MG: How was it going from low-budget indie to big budget action, “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit”?
PS: All jobs are the same to me. Whether it’s working with an Oscar winning director or an up and coming talent like Tom Green, I put forth the same amount of effort. I must say though, the Monsters cast was and still is like a family. We stay in touch, attend each other’s birthdays, and cheerlead whenever possible. I’d never had that experience before.

MG: What else do you have on the cards for 2014?
PS: I’m off to Bulgaria in March to film James McTiegue’s spy thriller, “Survivor”. It’s an amazing script and I’m fortunate to be part of the project. Other than that, it’s pilot season, so non-stop meetings as far as the eye can see!

Rick & Morty, Adult Swim’s hilarious sci-fi animated comedy from Justin Roiland & Dan Harmon (“Community”) released its first season on Blu-ray and DVD last month. To celebrate this release, the creators joined actors Chris Parnell (“Saturday Night Live”) and Sarah Chalke (“Scrubs”) at New York Comic Con where they sat down with the press just prior to taking the stage for their panel.

Rick & Morty follows Rick (Roiland), a belching, misanthropic mad scientist who’s moved into his daughter Beth’s (Chalke) family home, much to the dismay of her husband Jerry (Parnell). Rick drags his poor grandson Morty (also Roiland) off on outrageous science adventures that include other planets, other dimensions and on occasion inside a human body.

What about the show do you think speaks to the audience?

Justin Roiland: I think it’s a bunch of things. It’s the sum of all these parts, like Harmon’s ability to tap into a sort of the more emotional core component. Making characters really relatable and real. And then me, my sort of crazy, insane retro scripting and I don’t know. It’s very strange. It’s a weird sort of perfect storm of creative, I don’t know—

Dan Harmon: The carefree vibe. Like you…it’s nice to feel like you’re watching something that kind of doesn’t care if you’re watching.

Roiland: Yeah, yeah.

Harmon: So it’s kind of that energy that a new project has an opportunity to have that’s just like ‘alright let’s just—’

Roiland: And maintaining that is tricky. You know we’re trying to continue to maintain that. I mean I love stuff where at the end of the episode, Rick’s like [dropping into the scientist’s voice] ‘Member back in the first act of the episode when you did this?!’ It’s like you know, fuck it. It’s a TV show. We all know what we’re watching. We’re watching a TV show. I just love that kind of stuff. Just not giving a shit. The end of MeeSeeks is a great example you know where he’s just like…’Hey!’—he’s waving at the camera— ‘Alright! See you guys next week! Fuck!’ You know, whatever, like ‘I don’t give a fuck is my new catchphrase!’ All that shit. I don’t know I think that just lends a very loose kind of…it just let’s everyone who’s watching go like—Well then there’s the people who go ‘Does Rick know he’s on a TV show? Is this like some sort of master plan?’ But no, it’s just us having fun and being loose and allowing ourselves to do that kind of stuff. And who knows, I don’t know if that’s the secret ingredient. I think there’s a lot of things that added together make the show really connect with people.

One standout character of the first season was Mr. Meeseeks, a loud blue guy that exists solely to complete one task set by the human who summons him into creation. He spends most of the episode trying to teach Jerry a better golf game. The cast even brought a lifesize Meeseeks along with them to NYCC!

What was the origin of Mr. Meeseeks? 

Roiland: Uh, we were breaking a story, Harmon was on tour for Harmontown, he was out of the room and I remember like we had some story…I don’t remember what the fuck the story was, but I was just like this fuckin’ sucks and I was like ‘We gotta have fun with this! And [dropping a Mr MeeSeeks-like squawk] I’M MR. MEESEEKS! I’M MR. MEESEEKS!’ and I just started doing that. [Series writer Ryan] Ridley got all mad at me and I was like ‘I’M MR MEESEEKS LOOK AT ME!’ And then I don’t know if it was until [Harmon] came back—I think we came up with like the conceit of the Meeseeks but then Harmon came back and really helped us fine tune the story with Jerry and the golfing and all that stuff kind of was after [Dan] got back because I remember [him] being in the room and the whole like wiggle at the end. When [Jerry] finally lands the putt and they all disappear. But it was really just like out of my frustration of us really banging our heads against the wall of the other story that was just lame and we couldn’t get it…And Ridley was all pissed. But then he kind of came around. But then there’s a lot of stuff in that episode…that’s verbatim, like ‘I’m Mr Boobybuyer—I’ll buy your boobies!’ that’s all Ridley kind of angrily pitching ‘OH WHY DON’T WE JUST, I’M MR BOOBYBUYER!?…I’M THIRSTY SLIPPERY STAIR, BLAHBLAH’ And I’m just like ‘That’s perfect! Type it up!’…Now I’ve found that when Ridley gets upset and angrily pitches things spitefully, I’m like ‘Pay attention, guys…this could be good to put in the show.”

What would you make your own personal Meeseeks do for you?

Sarah Chalke: Your own wish granting Meeseeks…

Chris Parnell: Wow. I guess to make me a lot of money, maybe you know?

Chalke: Yeah

Parnell: Just a lot of money.

Chalke: Then you don’t work and the Meeseeks goes out to work for you

Parnell: Well I still probably want to work because it comes with a certain sense of self-worth…you know…but yeah to have a lot of money. I’d buy a nicer house and put my kid through college. What would your Meeseeks do?

Chalke: Probably a lot of neck massages. They’d take over the barista duties of the household. Which are about 13 to 14 a day, so it’s a heavy job. So, barista Meeseeks.

My personal favorite episode, Rixty Minutes, had Rick showing the family a remote control that not only flipped channels, but show programming from entirely alternate universes, many of which were ab-libbed voice work by Roiland.

Lauren Damon: Were there any additional alternate universe scenes in Rixty Minutes that were cut?

Roiland: The production plan for that episode is so different from the normal production pipeline because we’ll write and the break the—I guess you could call it the B-Story, the A-Story, whatever the narrative is—and then we try to keep that relatively tight and small. A third of the overall episode run length and then all the sketches are just experimental. It’s just like, I’ll go in the booth and just riff and improv shit. Harmon will be on the other side…But yeah, it’s weird, it’s a huge strain on the team, you know.

Harmon: Was there ones that we cut?

Roiland: We cut a Seinfeld one. It was just like Seinfeld—Unrelated Seinfeld and he’s like [twisted Jerry Seinfeld whine] ‘What’s the deaaaaaaaal with Chinese BONES….Whhhhhhy do they taste so goooooood?’

Harmon: Yeah, it was a universe where all of Seinfeld observations were just totally unrelatable.

Roiland: Like ‘What’s the deal with HUGE cocks? WHY do they taste so good in my mouth?!’ And then Rick’s like ‘Jeez, uhhh, Seinfeld’s really—’

Harmon: ‘This universe’s Seinfeld, his observations aren’t really resonant…’

Roiland: But then the audience is just exploding in laughter [Morty’s voice] ‘Oh, boy they really like it though!’ But that got cut…we might have put that on the DVD as a cut, deleted scene. That pitch was probably better than what—if it’s on the DVD you’ll be like okay, I see why they cut this. A lot more got cut for this new one, I really cast a wide net. And our poor storyboard guys boarded way more than they needed to board. But anyways…

If you could travel to any of the Rick & Morty worlds, where would you go?

Chalke: Uhhh, planet Squanch

Parnell: That’s a good answer. Pluto. I wouldn’t mind going to Pluto. That’s one that comes up this season. Jerry goes to Pluto.

Do you ever have to ask the writers what the hell is going on when the shows really offbeat?

Chalke: I mean every time you read the script, it’s one of the funnest jobs for that reason. Like you get the script and you’re so psyched to see where it goes and I laugh out loud when I’m reading it so the jokes are crazy. That’s the fun part of it, you get to see all these different ways a character can go. Like we go to a different dimension in the second season. They have us go to other planets as well, so that was cool and different and I got to be…like our characters but in a different dimension. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say what so for that you got to try totally different voices. I was like a Warrior who talked like this [Deep roaring] ‘JERRY!’

How much is ad-libbed for you guys?

Chalke: Most is the scripts. I mean the scripts are genius, mostly it’s the script. But if something happens or comes up and I ad libbed that Beth was a burper like her father, so we throw some burps in there. One of my few talents is burping on cue.

Are you ever surprised by how much vitriol Justin can get in just saying “Jerry”?

Parnell: [laughs] Uh, no. But it’s fun, it’s fun to hear it. I mean—I don’t know if he does Rick and Morty at the same time, I kind of think he does, I mean I’ve seen him do it. In person. But it’s just, you know, it’s amazing to watch. And then also they get so many great guest voices, you know? Sometimes you can kind of pick out who it is…

Season one set up so many crazy things, are we going to follow up with them in season 2? Like the League of Ricks? And that evil morty? Does the continuity exist?

Roiland: It’s sprinkled throughout the season.

Harmon: A little goes a long way. I mean it’s like I have a lot—I come to the table with a lot of gun-shyness from Community because I feel like Community’s fanbase became so rewardable and was so thankful for continuity in the show and I never like to do inside stuff. Meaning that you would have to have seen something previous in order to get it, I always try to painstakingly avoid doing that but I felt like over five years, Community—because of the intense relationship the fans had with the show—it actually got branded as being more ‘inside’ than I ever strove for it to be. And so now I’m in the writer’s room in this new show and  we got Mr. Meeseeks, we got the Council of Ricks, we got a billion things that we just shot out you know and so the question ultimately becomes do we revisit that stuff? I tend to be the guy that says no, not yet. Just let’s show some restraint and then we’ll be rewarded for it later. And not that Justin’s like ‘NO let’s do everything again’ but he’s a little less convinced that it would destroy the show than I am. Somewhere in between there what happens is little sprinkles here and there.

Roiland: Yeah, we don’t want to jump the shark, so to speak, too quickly in the show in terms of giving away too much of Rick’s backstory and going back to all the things we’ve kind of established in season one—

Harmon: I will say we spent a great deal of time in the writer’s room this year revisiting a major thing from season one and ultimately it was all wasted time. I mean it might be spoilers for season three for me to talk about what we were doing…but I will say it was like four or five weeks of us talking about ‘Okay, the finale’s gonna be when we do this…’ and we ended up going this isn’t working. It’s sort of like the second Dungeons of Dragons episode of Community was cursed from the beginning because it’s like to decide that you’re just going to do something again, you better really have your shit together…Ultimately stories tell themselves. It’s already hard to do that. But if they’re fighting you because you decided that you know what a story is better than the story knows, than you’re really screwing yourself.

Did any of you have an older relative like Rick making a bad influence on your lives?

Roiland: Not a huge bad influence. Maybe a little bit. I think I’m a lot like him and I’m gonna die at a young age like he did…

Harmon: I had a great grandpa who died a hermit. He lost all his money in the stock market and then he made it all back but he never trusted banks after that. So he lived in a corrugated tin hut out in some land in Wisconsin. He was rich again but it was all cash under his mattress! And he was a theology major and like he was the only other Harmon who went to college I think.

Roiland: [Rick voice] ‘DAN! DAN! C’mere I got cash under my mattress!!’

Harmon: But I never got to meet him, he was my great grandpa. The first time I saw him was in a coffin. I think Rick is just a symbol of all our mental illnesses.

Roiland: Rick’s a weird combination of me and Dan. Depending on what episode you’re watching, it’s more Dan or more me.

Rick & Morty is out on Blu-ray & DVD and you can check out their full NYCC panel at Adult Swim’s YouTube page.

Steven Quale is best known for directing “Final Destination 5”. He was also second unit director with James Cameron on “Avatar” and “Titanic”. His latest film is the tornado action film “Into the Storm”. Steven Quale took out some time to chat about the film and the challenges he faced.

What interested you in this story and joining as Director?
Steven Quale: What attracted me to “Into the Storm” is being able to take the audience right into the center of a tornado. To experience what it is like to see and hear the unimaginable power that a tornado can unleash. I also wanted to explore how different people react to such an extreme event.

What is it like directing actors with the added distraction of extreme weather elements?
SQ: It was a real challenge to get a performance with all the distracting noises of the wind machines and rain towers. The loud noise of the equipment made communication very difficult and I had to rely on hand signals. One advantage to all the wind and rain is that it gave the actors something real to play against when shooting with green screens.

How is “Into the Storm” different from previous tornado movies?
SQ: “Into the Storm” benefits from the advances in visual effects over the years so the tornados look much more realistic. It also differs from other tornado movies in that we are not just following storm-chasers – we have a diverse group of unrelated people who are thrust together during the adversity of the storm and we get to experience how each of the different people react under the pressure of the storm.

You have an extensive background in visual effects. Tell us about what went into making this film look and feel real.
SQ: The most important thing to make this film look real was weeks and weeks of extensive research. I studied every single video of any severe weather and tornado footage I could find. Every major type of tornado was based on actual footage of real tornados. In addition to the visuals I insisted on having the sound feel as real as possible and that is where academy award winning sound supervisor Par Hallberg shined with his amazing soundscape. You really feel like you are in a tornado with the rumbling sound.

Did the film require practical effects in addition to visual effects?
SQ: The films visual effects work so effective because they are a mix of practical physical effects such as wind machines and rain towers combined with the digital tornados and debris. For the last half of the film, almost every shot required rain and wind machines. We dropped a real truck in close proximity with Richard Armitage.

What special features can we expect to see on the Blu-ray / DVD?
SQ: The Blu-ray/DVD for “Into the Storm” will have several behind the scenes features showing how we were able to realistically recreate the weather conditions of a tornado. It also has a segment where world famous storm chaser Reed Timmer explains all of the types of tornados in or film and how they compare to the real ones that he has chased.

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In The Theory of Everything, filmmakers were faced with the daunting task of bringing to the screen the true story of iconic astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Rather than focusing upon his much documented scientific accomplishments however, James Marsh’s film took the unique route of delving into his personal story, specifically into the relationship with Hawking’s first wife, Jane. I was able to sit down with the people behind this touching film during a recent New York press day including actors Eddie Redmayne (who plays Hawking), Felicity Jones (Jane), director James Marsh and writer, Anthony McCarten.

The first step in bringing The Hawking’s story to the screen was taken by writer Anthony McCarten, who like many people first encountered Stephen’s work in 1988 with his book, A Brief History of Time. “I think maybe ten million people bought the book and we all realized this was an extraordinary person” McCarten said, “Not only for the profundity of his ideas but just the nature of the man. This person with this compromised body, almost unable to use a single voluntary muscle. Able only to speak with a computer and yet telling us how the universe began, the nature of time itself…I thought somebody’s going to do an extraordinary movie about this guy at some point, never thinking I’d have any role in it.”

In 2004 however, McCarten came upon Jane Wilde Hawking’s autobiography, Traveling to Infinity—My Life with Stephen, and was inspired by a new perspective on Stephen Hawking’s life. “I don’t know what page it was I reached” he said of Jane’s work, “but it was something to do with the unorthodox love story that was unfolding in this book and I thought if you matched that to an already extraordinary story of Stephen, oh my god, you could do something quite unprecedented here.” McCarten took this inspiration all the way to Jane’s doorstep in Cambridge to offer his services in adapting her story to the screen.  It began the years of work McCarten was to undertake on this screenplay. On working with Jane, McCarten added: “I will always be grateful for the fact that she didn’t turn this nutcase away and she let me come in, made a sandwich for me. We had a little glass of sherry and I presented this triple helix of a movie which is a love story but it’s also a horror story—of the physical decline of Stephen—and finally, it’s a story of physics. And she went as far as to say ‘look, I’ll let you write the script, but no promises’. And so I wrote the script and she liked it, she was reassured, she thought I might have the requisite sensitivity to deal with a delicate story like this. And so she let out a little bit more rope. Never giving me the option to her work, but ‘you can go a little further, let’s see what you do with the next step’. And that went on for eight years. Little more rope, going back to her. We became friends. Her book went out of print and I got it republished so I supported her too.”

Felicity Jones described her research into playing Jane as a “ a full frontal attack on understanding who this woman was” and also took the time to meet with her. “As soon as I met [Jane],” the actress said, “my job became so much easier. She is such an extraordinary woman. And there was something about her instantly that I loved, that she had this combination of something very ladylike—very sort of fifties ideal of what a woman is, she has this way of presenting herself that’s almost quite queenly. The way she moves, the voice she uses. So I worked with a dialect coach, a music and a movement coach to get the physical properties, so to speak, of who this woman was. But at the same time there’s a really core strength to her. There’s a formidable determination to her. And I loved this contrast between this very ladylike exterior but with this toughness underneath.”

Jane also helped Jones with very tangible research for her time with Stephen, Jones remembered “after talking with each other and she showed me photographs of her and Stephen when they first met, she really was very just open, and brought down clothes that she’d loved wearing when they were meeting. And I remember I’d been just talking to Jane for a few hours and then Eddie [Redmayne] came around and I answered the door in Jane’s coat. Already there was an empathy between us. So I think what was important to Jane was to show the less glamorous sides of Stephen Hawking’s life. That their fame is one thing, but there was a whole support structure that was very intricate and complicated. And I was always just a champion of that story for her.”

Beyond the emotional drama of the Hawking’s life, Eddie Redmayne was tasked with the difficult challenge of portraying Stephen’s physical decline after being diagnosed with motor-neuron disease at a very young age. On researching the role, Redmayne said “I went to an ALS clinic in London called The Queens Square Neurology Clinic for every week or two for four months. And with the specialists there… was introduced to people and families suffering from ALS and was invited to some of their homes. So trying to get a real sense of what the disease was but also the emotional ramifications of it on families. Also specifically taking photos of Stephen when he was younger. Because there’s no documentary material really before the eighties. It was trying to work what his specific physical decline had been. So by showing the specialist, she would see photos of…Stephen holding Jane’s hand and go ‘Ok, so by the way he’s holding the hand, you can see his hands have gone by this year…’ So then trying, then with the choreographer, trying to find a way of putting that into my body.”

I asked Eddie what specific changes he made in his performance of the young Hawking pre- and post-diagnosis. “What was interesting was where the disease starts,” Here, the actor got up to offer a physical demonstration, “Like the problem with ALS is often people are diagnosed because you fall. Like and because you’ve got foot drop which often is the first thing to go and your knee compensates by [Redmayne moves his knee forward without his foot landing] you don’t even realize your foot’s gone—so if your foot’s stopped working, your knee will just walk a bit higher and you won’t even realize your foot’s gone. And it’s only when you’re running one day that you’ll catch it and fall. But then you’ll go to ER and most doctor’s will go ‘Oh, you’ve bruised you up…off you go again!’ It takes a really astute doctor to know wait, let me just check you know what’s going on. And so the problem with it, one of the problems with ALS, is no one knows when it starts. So it was a choice I had to make in the film which was I think he has it at the beginning of the film. Like it’s already manifest in him. So things like, I don’t know if you saw, when I was dancing with Jane, that’s the hands had gone. The feet you know, are slightly…so those I tried to introduce that beforehand so there’s a slight feeling in his head throughout those early part that something is slightly awry. But it manifests itself also in a kind of you know that…scientist sort of not uber-dextrous thing. But I wanted to make it sort of more specific to that. But after the diagnosis, he did go into a kind of melancholia, and listen to a lot of Wagner…but I was trying for him even then to be finding the positive. Attempting to anyway. Until Jane comes in and really bolsters him.”

In the advanced stages of Hawking’s disease, and therefore further into the film, only the facial muscles remain for voluntary motion, which required even more concentration from the actor. He discussed his preparation as “A lot of sitting in front of the mirror with an iPad with Stephen on documentaries trying to recreate basically…But the reality is, what I find the sort of irony, all the complication is that everything about film acting is you know, the camera’s here [Eddie frames his face], and you kind of do less…And what’s weird is the bit where he moves the least, is that it was the most physically exhausting and energized. Because it’s not just that you’re sitting there doing nothing. Actually these muscles [again framing his face]…you know you’re [monitoring] your breath, the pace at which you blink happens, how quickly your eyes…so actually it was at the end of those scenes that you come out exhausted. And the interesting thing was trying to take all of the energy of all the usual palette of colors—as human beings—and trying to channel those into those few muscles that you can use. Because when you meet Stephen, even though he can move very little, he has the most expressive and charismatic face I’ve ever met. And that was something that was important to attempt.”

Director James Marsh spoke about how he came to cast Redmayne in the Hawking role: “Eddie was the first person I met. Eddie had just a given physical resemblance to Stephen, he’s the same kind of body shape when Stephen was a young man, same kind of coloring. And that’s not why I cast him, but it was helpful to say well, that’s one thing. Eddie’s a brilliant actor and I think the film proves that. And as a film actor, this is the first time I think he’s really been able to soar and be given the material that can show what he can do. So I met him. He was the first actor and only actor I met, actually. I didn’t meet any other actors. I’d talked with other actors. Once I met Eddie, I knew I wanted him to do it. So it proved…you know I think it was a great choice.” He further praised the young actor for the dedication he showed in portraying Hawking’s physical hardships, adding “Eddie had done so much preparation, it was so internalized, these different stages of disability that he’d mastered by the time that we got to film that I never ever had to wait or give him more time. That was extraordinary that he could do that and that didn’t slow us down. It was just amazing that he just had this available. And he would switch from one to the other and there it was. Incredible, really.”

Of course, bringing the true story of two living people to the screen, we all wondered whether the Hawkings had in fact screened the film or participated at all in the production. As it turns out, Marsh said “on the second day Stephen Hawking and Jane came to set which raises the stakes…even further.” Redmayne recalled the dramatic entrance Hawking made on his visit: “when he came on set which was on about day two, it was a big fireworks part, a big May Ball. And there was this moment—the producers…could afford like three gos at the fireworks so everyone was a bit tense like oh, we gotta get it right. Then on cue, he arrived, his sort of famous silohuette with his nurses. And then uplit by his computer screen. So literally he has this sort of spotlight and on cue the fireworks went off and it was like the greatest entrance!”

While Redmayne only saw Stephen on his way into a screening of the finished project, writer McCarten got the full range of the real people’s reactions: “[Jane] said she was floating on air. Stephen, when the lights came up and nurse wiped a tear from his cheek, and he said ‘Broadly true.’ And Lucy, the daughter when she saw it—and she had like fifty kleenexes lying beside her—said ‘That was my life.’ So I’m confident that it was emotionally authentic. It’s not exactly the way they lived it but we captured…something of how it felt to live that life.”

The Theory of Everything is currently in limited release.

Kal Penn is known best for his roles in the “Harold and Kumar” film series and TV with “How I Met Your Mother” and “House”. He recently took a break from acting to take a job as the Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement working with President Obama. His latest film “Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain”, which is a fictional adaptation of the Union Carbide chemical spill disaster of 1984 was made back in 2009 and finally getting a release on November 7th. Kal recently took some time to chat with Media Mikes to discuss his film and what we can expect.

Mike Gencarelli: What was it about “Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain” that made you returning to acting?
Kal Penn: I had a hard time trying to describe the film, while I was shooting it. Friends of mine asked me why I wanted to do this movie and I said that I felt that the script was very powerful. I knew that when I read the script it really appealed to me and it was like nothing I had worked on before. It was a fictional adaptation of something that had actually happened. I sat down with the director and asked him why he wanted to make it? He grew up not too far from where the disaster actually took place. There have been some documentaries about it and some articles and books but no one has ever done a feature length fictional adaption about it. At the time we made it, it was 25 years after the disaster. Plus the fact that Martin Sheen was doing it. So selfishly as an actor I couldn’t say no.

MG: With your position at the White House, when did you do this film?
KP: I took a sabbatical from acting from 2009 to 2011 and had the chance to work in the White House. I knew that I was going to leave during that second year to come back to acting. This movie actually split that time. It was shot in 2009 and it was the last thing I worked on before I went off to the White House. After I came back to acting, I did the last season of “How I Met Your Mother” and I got a call about “Bhopal” and was told that that it was still wrapping up post production. They said that there was a lot of special effects in the last 15 minutes of the film and that I was going to be needed to come in and do some ADR, as they worked on their final edits. As of about six months ago, we knew that there was going to be a release date and they secured distribution.

MG: Tell us about your character Motwani and how you prepared?
KP: I did a bunch of research and read up a lot on the disaster. I spoke with the writer to find out what percentage of the character was fictionalized and adapted and what was real. My character as it turned out was one of the aspects that was largely fictionalized. The way that Ravi (Kumar) wrote the character was a lot broader. So my first question to him was that should I call the journalist that my character was loosely based on and try and talk to him. He told me “No, I want your character to be much broader from the start of the film”. He is this sort of larger than life gossip columnist that no one in town trusts because he keeps writing nonsense because it will sell newspapers. But over the course of the film, he is trying to warn the town of an impending gas leak in this factory and of course, nobody believes him. I thought it was a really layered role and a very well-developed character. So I mostly relied on the writer a lot instead of the historical context.

MG: What was it like shooting on location in India?
KP: It was awesome. I had only shot in India once before and that was for “The Namesake”. This movie we shot in Hyderabad and Mumbai. It is very different to shoot there. Kind of the biggest shocker for me was that actors would work on a couple of movies at the same time. They are shooting Monday and Tuesday on one movie and a second one on Thursday. It is a bit chaotic but in a really cool different way. It was a good learning experience. It also makes it a more dynamic environment when shooting on location.

MG: Do you think/hope that the film will bring more awareness to the event?
KP: My biggest hope going into the movie, even before we shot it, was that we do justice to the events that happened. It is an incredibly complex series of events and there are still people alive today that are living with the effects of what happened. Neither Union Carbide nor Dow Chemical ever actually apologized for what happened. It is also still not cleaned up in fact and the factory is still lying there empty. So if a fictional adaptation can get the conversation started and maybe even helps these people, then yeah I think that is great. But even beyond that, we did a screening in New York and it was interesting to hear people leave the screening that didn’t know that this was based on a true story. It really sparked some great conversations.

MG: You have done a mix of film and TV within genres of comedy and drama; do you have a personal preference?
KP: I love doing both. I hope that I am lucky enough to continue doing both. My fans have been really kind to me and I love them for it. To be able to go and do a stoner movie and then turn around and play a doctor is awesome. That is what I love about being an actor, I really enjoy playing all different kinds of characters. If I can continue to do that then I will be one happy person.

MG: Do you think we will ever see the return of Harold and Kumar?
KP: I would be happy to do as many as they will let me do. I would do “Harold and Kumar 58” when I am 102 years old [laughs]. Kumar is so much cooler than I will ever be in real life.

It’s the classic story of being in the right place at the right time. Newly moved to California in 1961, Tippi Hedren appeared in a television commercial that caught the eye of one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in history: Alfred Hitchcock. “Hitch” tracked Ms. Hedren down and cast her as Melanie Daniels in his classic film “The Birds.” She worked with him again alongside Sean Connery in “Marnie.” More than five decades later she continues to work, both on screen and in her continuing fight to stop the breeding of big cats through her THE ROAR FOUNDATION. And talent runs in the family. Her daughter, Melanie Griffith, is an Oscar-nominated actress and her granddaughter, Dakota Johnson, will star in the highly anticipated film version of “50 Shades of Grey.”

As she prepared for her upcoming appearance in Omaha this week at a charity screening of “The Birds” Ms. Hedren took some time to speak with me about the event and her foundation.

Mike Smith: You’re originally from Minnesota. Will this be your first visit to Nebraska?
Tippi Hedren: Not at all. I’ve been there before and I’m looking forward to returning and taking part in the festivities.

MS: How did you get the name “Tippi?”
TH: My father gave it to me. My baptismal name is Nathalie Kay Hedren and that was quite much for a little tiny girl. My father, who was of Swedish descent, started calling me “Touksa,” which is a Swedish term of endearment apparently. It went from Touksa to Tippi. And that’s the story!

MS: What do you think it is about “The Birds” that makes it a “must see” film more than 50 years after it was released?
TH: That movie has a life of its own! But when you do a Hitchcock film you know it’s going to be good but this has just been outrageous. One decade after the other. People like to be afraid and when you can be made afraid of something that you see every day that makes it even better.

MS: As with a lot of the screenings in Omaha, the artist Nicolosi has designed a special United States Post Office envelope to commemorate the event. Have you seen it yet?
TH: No, I haven’t.
MS: It’s a beautiful piece of work. I know you’re going to like it.
TH: I can’t wait to see it.

MS: Your daughter, Melanie, is a movie star in her own right and your granddaughter is about to star in what will surely be one of the most popular films of 2015. Have you ever felt the need, or have they ever asked you, for any advice on how to deal with Hollywood?
TH: Not really. I’ve never felt the need to talk with them. As a family we certainly respect each other’s talent but we’ve never given each other advice.

MS: “The Birds” was your film debut. Do you approach a film role the same today as you did back then?
TH: No. You have to understand that “The Birds” was a unique experience. For someone who had always wanted to be an actress, this was like Cinderella. I was chosen for the part because of a commercial I had done. I had been a model for the Ford Agency in New York City in the 1950s but the 1960s brought along the television and, of course, the television commercial. Commercials were financially lucrative, so much so that I was able to take three months off and travel around the world. Apparently Mr. Hitchcock became interested in me after seeing me in a commercial for a product called Sego, which was a diet drink. It was a commercial with a story line, not just a product plug. He asked Universal to find the girl in the commercial. Lo and behold, I had just moved back to California with Melanie and…
MS: Wow! Perfect timing.
TH: Perfect.

MS: Tell a little about your work with big cats.
TH: I’ve been rescuing big cats…lions and tigers…since 1972. This has become a major, major part of my life. I feel very strongly that these animals should not be bred and born in the United States to be sold as a pet or for financial gain. I’m very busy trying to get my second federal bill passed to stop the breeding. It’s titled the “Big Cats and Public Safety Protection Act” and I hope your readers will look it up and write to their senators and congressmen to stop the breeding.

For more information on how to support Miss Hedren’s bill, go to https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/1998

Kevin Greutert is the director of the films “Saw VI”, Saw 3D: The Final Chapter” as well on editor on the entire “Saw” franchise. His latest film is called “Jessabelle” and is a ghost story set in Louisiana. Media Mikes had a chance to chat with Kevin about the film and what we can expect.

Mike Gencarelli: How was it going from directing “Saw 3D” to a film like “Jessabelle”?
Kevin Greutert: I was very eager to step away from the “Saw” franchise. I loved doing those movies but I wanted to get on with something different and really work with characters that are more developed and have more dramatic texture going on. When this script crossed my desk, I was super excited. It felt like a real breath of fresh air. We made it for a lot less money and a lot less time than most of the “Saw” movies. So in that regard, there was some different challenges as well. There are times when you what to put a camera or lights somewhere but it just isn’t possible. But It was absolutely worth it since the story is so good and the actors and crew were such a pleasure to work with. They made it so easy.

MG: Did you enjoy working in a more slow burn type of horror?
KG: The “Saw” movies were so energy fueled. I love making movies that are as physically engaging as possible. You say slow burn but I hope it isn’t too slow [laughs]. I have been told that this movie has a really amazing pace to it. It is not a movie that is throwing stuff at the screen the entire time. I think the most fun scenes in the film are the really quiet scenes that rely on the tiniest sound to trigger a scare or you see a shadow move in the background. To get to play with that kind of aspect instead of arms getting chopped off felt great and it felt really great on the set. There were no sets for this film, it was all shot in an isolated plantation. You can hear the night birds and there were alligators everywhere. So it was great to do a quiet ghost story.

MG: Like with the “Saw” franchise, you also edited “Jessabelle”; tell us about that aspect?
KG: It is interesting, I enjoy editing a lot but there are challenges to doing both. Directing a film is like climbing Mount Everest. It is really hard and takes all of your resources. By the time you finish, you really just want to go to the Caribbean and spent a month decompressing. By editing the film myself as well, I am climbing Everest and once I reach base camp, I have to turn around and do it again. It is that hard. There is no time to waste and you need to get right back into it. If there is any problem with the footage, it is on you. If I am editing someone else’s film and if something didn’t come out right or they failed to shoot a scene or get a shot, I can say “Man, those guys screwed up” [laughs]. That being said, I still felt pretty good when we got this film in the can. There were no reshoots needed or anything. So the hardest part of editing this film was actually all the stuff that I had to leave on the cutting room floor. Sarah Snook does every take different and they were all great. I am only person in the world who will see how these scenes could have been. These are tough decisions to see something so good and not be able to use it because something else was slightly more appropriate. That is a challenge but it is still very exciting as a filmmaker.

MG: That tub scene is quite effective; tell us about shooting that?
KG: Yeah, the bathtub scene was a tough one. Basically, we had to figure out how to create the sensation that the tub was filling up with swampy, oily, disgusting water. We had to find a place to shoot it. We were in this abandoned three story mansion. The only room we could do it was on the second floor, so in the dining room underneath, we had to build a giant 4×4 super structure to keep the tub from failing through the floor. It was probably our biggest shoot day. We had to have condor cranes at the windows with different lights and rain effects. We had a hot filled with water ready to make sure the girls didn’t freeze to death. Then on the very last day of shooting I had wanted to get a few more shots in the bath tub, so we had to set it all back up again. I thank the crew because it was a tough thing to do.

MG: Did you ever feel limited by the PG-13 rating?
KG: I always wanted this movie to actually be PG-13. When you put an R rating on a horror movie, people have expectations that this movie is going to deliver gore and blood etc. This is a very scary movie but not scary because of violence. It is scary due to its psychological situations. With that said, when we did submit the film to the MPAA, we did get back an R rating several times and we had to make a few adjustments. But for most people, if you would see both versions side by you probably wouldn’t be able to notice anything major missing.

MG: I liked the locations which created a lot of atmosphere in the film; tell us about where it was shot?
KG: From the day that I first read the script to the day that we started shooting, it was not a long time. First order of business was to cast it and simultaneously with that was to find a place to shoot it. Originally we drove all over Louisiana trying to find the right place. We would up in North Carolina and thought it looked more like Louisiana than Louisiana [laughs]. We originally found a great house and shortly after we were told that this guy James Wan was using it for a film called “The Conjuring” [laughs]. James is good friend of mine though and we found another place and ended up working in the same town at the same time as them. In the plantation we found, no one has ever made a movie there before and no one had lived there for decades. The last inhabitant was an old schizophrenic man. The walls were completely covered with strange drawings. It felt like a true haunted house. When you see the film it looks like a very derelict building but we cleaned it up a lot [laughs]. It was really a great place. When they go through the swamps, it was all the real thing. We had alligators following us around. It was wonderful.

MG: What can you tell us about your next film, “Visions”?
KG: That film is also produced by Jason Blum. I am currently editing it. It is a wife that buys a winery to overcome a tragedy. Her husband is also trying to sustain an agricultural business during a drought and the wife is pregnant. She starts to experience some very mysterious hauntings in the house. I don’t want to say too much but it has one of the best third acts that I have ever seen. I read the script for the first time back in 2008 and called everyone to get this film made. It took a while but it is great and I can’t wait for it to be released.

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Photo Credit: 2014 Stuck Film Group, LLC.

Malek Akkad is the son of Moustapha Akkad, who is know for producing all eight “Halloween” films in the original series up until his death in 2005. Malek took over the reign with the recent reboot of “Halloween” with Rob Zombie and is continuing his father’s legacy. Malek is making his directorial debut with the suspense thriller “Free Fall”, which stars Sarah Butler (“I Spit on Your Grave”) and Malcolm McDowell (“Rob Zombie’s Halloween”). Media Mikes had a chance to chat about the film with him, along with the recently released “Halloween: The Complete Collection” Blu-ray box set and the future of the franchise.

Mike Gencarelli: Tell us about what made you take the jump from producer to director with “Free Fall”?
Malek Akkad: My intended focus when I came out of film school was to do direct. I was doing a lot of music videos, commercials and trying to get up and running in that career. I was a production manager on a couple of shows. My path just took me more on the side of producing and then I started working with my father. In this business, you have to take it where it comes from. So I did spend a few years working in the producing gig, which I do love. My passion is just being in production in general. But I did want to get back into directing, so this was a good opportunity and we had some time between other projects. We came across this script and it felt like it would be a run ride to take.

MG: What made you decide to tackle a suspense thriller instead of horror?
MA: For one thing, I thought the horror genre would be the obvious route to go and I wanted to tackle something that would be outside of the realm that I was comfortable in. Plus I didn’t want to get pigeonholed as “the horror guy”. I found this script and thought the writer was able to really flip the head on a few genre key elements, which I liked. It was also a script that I was able to use some themes that I wanted to address. So it worked on a lot of levels.

MG: You know you seriously just took elevators to a whole new level here, right?
MA: Oh great, awesome! I am great to hear that. Every time I get into an elevator now, I am thinking that karma is going to get me [laughs].

MG: Was it always planned to reunite with “Halloween” star Malcolm McDowell?
MA: He was just perfect for this role. We had worked together twice before and he is just a joy to work with. He also fit the character perfectly actually, so it was an honor that he agreed to do this with me. It is also great to be able to work with actors that you are comfortable with. It was great to work with him once again.

MG: Let’s talks about the “Halloween: The Complete Collection”; how involved were you with this release?
MA: It was a hurdle of getting all the involved parties together. In this franchise, there has been so many different distribution companies and production entities. The first thing to tackle was getting everyone on the same page. Between Shout! Factory and Anchor Bay, they really did a great job in doing that. With the behind-the-scenes material, I think that Shout! Factory really did a great job in putting together a lot of new material. Then we had to go to Miramax and dig up the old elements for “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers”. So I definitely had an involvement but most of the credit needs to go to Shout! Factory for putting together a great package that the fans have really been responding to.

MG: Why do you think the idea of Michael Myers is still so effective after all these years?
MA: There are so many answers to that. With horror genre, going back to the great Universal Monsters, is filled with just such hardcore fans. People just love to go in and have that controlled sense of fear. There is enough fear in the world that people can’t control. So if you can spend two hours and you know you are somewhat safe, I think that is something cathartic in that. I think all that feeds into what this franchise has become. Of course, it all goes back to the amazing classic from John Carpenter.

MG: Any progress updates for the next “Halloween” film in the franchise?
MA: Yeah, we are working on one right now. We are due a new draft any day now. We are working really hard to take it to the next level and keep the fans as happy as we can. I think we have a really fun pick and getting everyone involved and on the same page and behind one storyline takes longer than you would think. I think we have finally cracked something that we really liked and we are going to have some announcements very soon!

Photo by Dean Karr

Joseph Bishara is the amazing composer for horror films like “Insidious”, “The Conjuring” and most recently “Annabelle”. He is also probably the cause of a few of your nightmares since he played great characters like Lipstick-Face Demon in “Insidious” and Bathsheba in “The Conjuring”. Joseph took out some time to chat with Media Mikes again about his new film “Annabelle” and what we can expect.

Mike Gencarelli: From your role of Lipstick-Face Demon in “Insidious” to Bathsheba in “The Conjuring” to your latest role in “Annabelle”; what do you enjoy most about getting to play these roles?
Joseph Bishara: I like being able to look through the eyes of these characters, and getting to have a different perspective and take on the film. It’s seeing the scenes unfold from the inside. They were all very interesting characters to explore.

MG: We got to learn about your character in “Insidious” and “The Conjuring” but not much in “Annabelle”, give us some background on your role?
JB: It’s the demon that’s attached to the doll. When discussing the character with James (Wan), his take described it more specifically, as Lorraine Warren would explain as a “latching demonic”.

MG: Which of the three was the most challenging for you?
JB: I would have to say “The Conjuring” because it was the most time I was on set and also the longest to get into the makeup. “Insidious” was challenging also but it was different because it was more guerrilla filmmaking, where we had to make do with what we had to work with.

MG: How does it feel like to give a grown man nightmares with these roles?
JB: [laughs] That’s a good thing. I won’t apologize for anyone losing sleep, everyone needs to have nightmares.

MG: You not only have roles in the above-mentioned films but you also are the composer delivering spin-tingling scores; what do you enjoy most about working in this genre?
JB: It’s the genre that I feel most comfortable in, and with the directors that I have worked with I have been given a lot of freedom to take the scores in the directions I wanted. Horror is always a favorite of mine and I just really enjoy creating in that space.

MG: “Insidious” is easily one of the best horror scores in recent years; how do you approach a score when you are working with the film?
JB: When I start on a score, I just start hearing it in my head often from the moment it starts being discussed. I can’t really explain it but if the project is right, ideas will just come. It’s finding what the language is and isn’t, and then speaking it.

MG: What can we expect from you in terms of role and composer in “Insidious: Chapter 3″?
JB: I can’t say much just yet, but Leigh did an excellent job with it and brings a bit of a different flavor. Hopefully you’ll lose more sleep.

For more info, check out his official sites: www.jbishara.com and www.voidrecordings.com

New York born, Gerrit Graham grew up in the Midwest and began his acting career at the age of eight in a stage production of “Winnie the Pooh.” He was the manager of the Columbia Players at Columbia University and it was while he attended school that he began his association with filmmaker Brian De Palma.

Among his best known roles are Beef in “Phantom of the Paradise” (recently released on Blu-ray), the overly superstitious Jeff in the classic comedy “Used Cars” and Franklin on the animated hit “The Critic.”

As he prepared for his recent appearance at this years Chiller Theater Expo Mr. Graham took some time out to answer some questions about his long and continuing career.

Mike Smith: You began your film career by appearing in three early Brian De Palma films. How did that relationship come about?
Gerrit Graham: I was a sophomore at Columbia University in NY, and was the head of the Columbia players, the college theatre company. One day I got a phone call from a guy who said that he had been the former head when he was there, and he was trying to make a film and he was hoping that the players could give him some help for rehearsal space, wardrobe, etc. He also mentioned that he was looking for two or three experienced actors, preferably in comedy. He had hoped to find someone in the Fine Arts Department. He gave me an address and said to send any interested actors to see him. I asked his name and he said “Mr. Brian De Palma”. Instead of sharing the address, I went down myself to see him. I spent the next three or four afternoons in the producer’s apartment, his name was Chuck Hirsch. I met with a variety of actors and eventually got the role, which was for the film “Greetings,” De Palma’s first feature film. It got a real release and ended up being a hit. A year later I got a call from Brian saying that he was making a sequel to “Greetings,” which was “Home Movies.” He offered me a role, which I of course accepted. We continued working together for many years because we trusted each other.

MS: How did you come to be cast as Beef in “Phantom of the Paradise?” My understanding is that you were originally slated to play Winslow?
GG: No, I was originally hired to play Swan. Then Paul Williams, who would become an Oscar winner and at the time was a very popular songwriter in LA had a agreed to play the Phantom in exchange for doing the music score. Paul then decided that he didn’t want to play the Phantom and instead wanted to play the villain. This meant that William Finley, a good friend of Brian De Palma’s, could play the Phantom, which was written by Brian for Finley. This meant I couldn’t play Swan anymore and Brian said he had another role; a character called “Capt. Beef”. I asked Brian what this character was like, and he said “a rock and roll star”. So that sounded like a lot of fun to me. A Sha-Na-Na type character was something that sounded like fun to me. It turned out that was not what he wanted. He flew me out from NY to meet with Paul Williams and the two of them kept making this Beef character seem more like Little Richard. “What do you want,” I said? They said “flamboyant”, which at the time in Hollywood meant “gay”. So I did a few lines in the Beef accent and lisp, and they loved it, burst into laughter and said, “that’s it!” That’s how the character was born.

MS: Are you as superstitious as Jeff, your character in “Used Cars?”
GG: No. I have a few superstitions that I do, like not walking under ladders, but that’s just common sense because you don’t want anything to fall on your head from the ladder.

MS: I’ve read that you actually did shoot the cars during the television commercial. Is that true? What kind of precautions did you have to take? (NOTE: In the film, Mr. Graham’s character films a car dealer commercial in which he takes a shotgun to the high prices posted on the windshields. The scene ends when he exclaims “Is this a 1974 Mercedes 450SL for $24,000? That’s too fucking high!” He then pushes a plunger and blows the car to pieces.)
GG: I did the shooting with blanks in the shot gun, then they brought in a stunt double who was a trained guns man. He did the scene shooting real shells at the car. I was standing there watching him, and all the other scenes were me.

MS: When’s the last time you were in a red car?
GG: I actually had a red car when I was about 22 years old. I had a red Saab Station Wagon. It was a good car! Since then I may have rented a red car or two, but nothing bad has ever happened.

MS: You’ve done both comedy and drama. Do you have a preference?
GG: No, not really. They are two different arrows in my quiver. Each are enjoyable in their own ways and have their own rewards. It just happens that I’ve done more comedy, but that wasn’t by choice. It just happened!

MS: Same question, film versus television. Preference?
GG: TV is just another arrow in my quiver as well. It depends on what kind of TV show it is. A half hour comedy or an hour long drama are a bit different. An hour long TV show is more like a film, because you shoot out of sequence. A half hour TV show is nice because you shoot in sequence from beginning to end. Other than the fact that they spend a lot more money making a film than a TV show, the work is pretty much the same. The end result is just a question of how good it turned out.

MS: You have a couple of Disney writing credits. How did that come about?
GG: I had a writing partner, and we just decided to try to write stuff to see if we could sell anything. I had made films with a producer named Phil DeGuere. He had done a number of shows, including the new “Twilight Zone” series. My partner and I pitched Phil stuff that we wrote, and we ended up writing three episodes of “The Twilight Zone.” At that point, my brother had joined as a third writer, and we continued to write. I honestly can’t remember how we got connected to Disney. We contributed extra material to “The Little Mermaid” and some other Disney films. We also wrote “Prince and the Pauper,” which was Mickey Mouse’s first feature in a great number of years.

MS: You’ve done a lot of animated voice work. Is that type of performing easier or harder than actually being on screen?
GG: It’s easier, because you don’t have to shave! There’s no make up, and you can do endless takes if necessary, without cutting, stopping, or changing scenery or wardrobe. My best known animated work is played Franklin on “The Critic.” That was a lot of fun! I got to work with a lot of really funny people and some microphones. We struggled with trying to keep each other from cracking up during recordings.

MS: What are you working on next?
GG: I’m working on finding work! Preferably, voice over work.

Photo Credit: Rob Fenn

Grammy nominated musician, Rob Zombie has written and directed films like “House of 1000 Corpses”, “The Devil Rejects”, “Halloween (2007)”, “Halloween II (2009)” and “The Lords of Salem”. He is currently working on his next film “31”, which is a crown-funded project. The campaign currently ends on Halloween, so if you want to see Rob Zombie’s most brutal film get made head over to RZ-31.com and back it. Media Mikes had a chance to chat again with Rob to discuss the project, fear of clowns and what we can expect.

Mike Gencarelli: Last year, when we spoke you mentioned that “The Broad Street Bullies” would be your next film; what happened?
Rob Zombie: It just kept getting bogged down. “The Broad Street Bullies” is a true story, so unfortunately when you try and branch out and do something like that it is hard. I didn’t own the rights to it and I was working with other people. It is hard enough getting these movies made when you are in total control but when you get other people involved it just sort of drags on. So I worked on it for about two years and I felt like I could spend the next five years working on it and it still might not happen. I like making movies. I don’t like just having meetings and telephone calls. I may go back to it later but I might not since sometimes things just drag on forever. I don’t have forever, you know? I like to work and make movies.

MG: How was the idea for “31” born?
RZ: It came about in a very funny way. Last Halloween, I was in Pomona, CA working on this haunted house attraction I did called, “Great American Nightmare”. I was watching people running around being scared by people dressed as clowns with fake chainsaws and stuff. I saw the true terror on some people’s faces…even though they know it is fake, obviously since it is an amusement park. People just can’t stand clowns. So that was stuck in head. Then I was researching something online and I found out that Halloween was the number one day of the year when people go missing, according to the Missing Persons Bureau. I thought “Hmmmm…missing on Halloween?” Then I thought about the clowns and I ended up concocting this crazy idea about people being kidnapped and forced to battle murderous clowns, sort of like “The Most Dangerous Game” but with disgusting clowns. At the time, I was still working on “Broad Street Bullies” and getting bogged down, so I said to my manager that I was getting frustrated with this movie but I have this other ridiculous idea. I told him the idea and he said “I think I can sell that”. So it’s funny you work on something for years and then come up with this crazy idea off the top of your head and suddenly everyone is excited. That is literally how it happened.

MG: I grew up (and still am) scared of Pennywise from Stephen King’s “IT” but what do you think it about clowns that always scares people?
RZ: Clown makeup is weird and doesn’t hide everything. If you have a gross disgusting face, it almost extenuates it. It does hide your features though. If you just take white clown make up and smear it on your face, it really does make it hard to identify somebody. Think about Cesar Romero as the Joker, he was still so Cesar Romero but at the same time totally not. There is something so subtly disturbing about it. If they have a mask or a hood, they are totally covered but there is something so perverted about grease paint on someone’s face. The funny thing is that as children we are supposed to find these disgusting characters in grease paint adorable? Sorry but they are terrifying.

MG: With sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, what made you take your crowd-funding campaign to FanBacked?
RZ: Originally it wasn’t my idea to crowd-fund, my manager came to me with it. We had a few offers from Kickstarter and the others but FanBacked was brand new and they seemed the most enthusiastic. I liked the vibe of how they worked. It was also focused on entertainment and not all over the board. So we thought, let’s give them a shot and it has worked out great.

MG: What can we expect from this game in the film?
RZ: It is going to keep changing since we haven’t shot the movie yet. We start shooting in February. I love claustrophobic self-contained movies. I never make movies like that. I love films like “Dawn of the Dead”, even though in scope it is a big movie but I always loved when they get stuck in the mall. To me it was always so intense. I just love that idea. All my movies haven’t been self-contained but I have always wished that they were. So what can be more terrifying that being locked in this place and people just keep releasing a homicidal maniac to chase you constantly? There is nowhere to go. If you end up killing one of the guys, your only reward is that they release another one. It is like the coliseum, there is no way out. You literally have to kill every lion to survive. What can be worse than that? That was basically the idea. No rest for the wicked.

MG: Any cast in place yet for the film?
RZ: I have lots of people in mind but I haven’t cast anyone yet or spoken to anyone.

MG: You have said that this will be your most brutal film; any fears of it being censored for its theatrical release?
RZ: Sometimes you have different goals with movies. The goals for “The Lords of Salem” was not to be violent, gory and brutal. The goal of it was to make a slow paced, psychedelic head trip. With “31”, I just wanted to make something that is just so dirty and nasty…that is the goal. Then after you worry about the ratings board, because you can’t predict that they are going to do. If you try and censor yourself in advance, they will find something else. I am just going to make it as fucked up as possible and we’ll figure out a way to get it passed the MPAA. The unrated version then will live on forever, so that is all that matters.

MG: We have three days to go before Halloween and the end of the campaign; what can you tell fans who are looking to back this project?
RZ: We can really use everyone’s help. Even if you can’t donate money, just getting word out is very helpful. Anything helps. People twittering about it on their own is just as helpful as somebody backing it with money. That was always the goal from the get-go. Horror movies have always been a very fan driven industry. When the corporate world gets involved, they always ruin it. I wanted this to be fan involved. So if you want to back this go to RZ-31.com and keep spread the word!

Eduardo Sánchez is best known for co-directing and writing the found footage horror flick “The Blair Witch Project”. Since then he has given the horror genre some great films like “Altered” and “Lovely Molly” and even crossed over into TV with the BBC America series “Intruders”. His latest film is a real labor of love and easily his best film to date called “Exists”. It is a Bigfoot creature feature like no other. Eduardo took out some time to chat with Media Mikes again about his kick-ass Bigfoot film and what we can expect.

Mike Gencarelli: What made you want to do a film about Bigfoot?
Eduardo Sánchez: I grew up in the 70’s and Bigfoot was my “Avengers”. It was my monster growing up. It scared the crap out of me but at the same time it also fascinated me. I mean, this creature lives in the woods? Daniel (Myrick) and I were inspired by the Patterson–Gimlin film, “The Legend of Boggy Creek” and the TV series “In Search Of” and without those there wouldn’t have been “The Blair Witch Project”. I have wanted to make a Bigfoot movie for a long time. The movie “Harry and the Henderson” made Bigfoot a punchline, even though I laughed myself. There is still this part of me that wants to show this kick-ass Bigfoot that is scary and fucks shit up and not in a cartoon way. It doesn’t have super human strength, it is just a strong big ass animal. This is the like the third Bigfoot project that we have tried to get off the ground and we finally got it financed. I have been looking for THIS version of Bigfoot since I was a kid. It is a guy in the suit but he is cool, fast, strong and smart. It is my sort of my love letter to Sasquatch. I owe that whole culture so much and I really wanted to do right by it.

MG: I love that you kick off the action and suspense right from the start of the film with no bullshit!
ES: Thanks dude! I mean, we all know who the main character of the movie is. You can’t delay man. You can’t. That is how I felt. I wanted to see it just as bad as the audience did. I wanted to get to the creature fast and get right into the good stuff.

MG: Tell us about how you created your Bigfoot, which looks fantastic?
ES: I had an idea that I could bring a really cool Bigfoot to life. Most importantly, I thought I could do it without the use of CGI. Not that I am against CGI but Bigfoot needs to real man. I basically just went balls to the wall to try and create something that has never been seen before or at least in a long time. I knew we would need to have a kick-ass creature. We first got WETA, the guys who did “The Lord of the Rings”. We had a connection to them through our producer, Mark Ordesky. They came in and did some design work for us. When it came time to build the suit, we called our friends at Spectral Motion. They have done a bunch of films with us and we are like family. They finished up the design and built this crazy suit. Let me tell you man, at the end of the movie we get close to this character and it really holds up. So we were all excited.

MG: Brian Steele is a man who knows how to become a monster; how did he get involved?
ES: Spectral Motion are the ones that pitched me on having the right person in the suit. They brought up Brian Steele. It’s funny because Brian actually played the role of Harry in the “Harry and the Hendersons” TV series. So he was just perfect man and it really worked out. When the suit was done, we went to LA and were going to see it on Brian for the first time. So we shot this little test movie and once we saw it man…it just blew us away man. A couple of times during shooting, we would all look at easy other and just say that we couldn’t believe that we were making a Bigfoot film. We had to pinch ourselves to make sure it was real.

MG: Tell us about the use of GoPro cameras in the film?
ES: You can’t really do a found footage film these days without the use of GoPros since they are so ubiquitous. Everyone has got them today. If they are out in the woods and shooting them these guys doing all this crazy shit then we figured we would have to use GoPros. We haven’t worked with them before this and it was before the new ones came out, so we were using the Hero2 model. It definitely had some limitations but we are very happy with the way it turned out. There is a lot times where it is supposed to be a GoPro also and we are shooting with a 5D or something like that. I just love that you can run and hide and that camera is just shooting non-stop. I love that.

MG: How did you shoot the house tumble scene?
ES: I can’t really discuss the budget, but we didn’t really have a lot of money. Obviously the Bigfoot suit was where most of our money went. But our effects guys were just great. They shot all the outside stuff and it going over the cliff. Then the inside stuff, we literally took the same trailer and put it on a gimbal, between two stands, put some silly stunt people in there [laughs] and just shook it up man, like a clothes dryer! You are always nervous asking stuntmen to do certain things but they really had a lot of fun with this and nobody got hurt, which is good. While they were spinning, we just put a bunch of cameras in there and then we just cut it together with a bunch of different angles. I think it came out really well.

MG: What was your biggest challenge on this film?
ES: It really was figuring out the creature like where the creature looked good and where it didn’t work out and then just trying to keep that sensibility throughout and not letting it get out of control. A lot of times you get a really good effect and the movie just shows it to death. But if you are going to do a Bigfoot movie man…you got to show the fucking monster. You can’t cheat the audience. This was one of my main goals…to show this creature. But we focuses on how to do this right and not let the audience get tired of seeing this creature. I never forgot that this was a guy in a suit and we shoot it with that in mind. People were just having so much fun though and we really have a great team. This film was a labor of love for a lot of people.

MG: What do you have in the cards next?
ES: Absolutely man! I have been getting into some TV recently. I just did the show on BBC America called “Intruders”. I directed the first four episodes of that and I loved it. It was such a great experience. Gregg (Hale) and I are actually trying to get a TV show of our own going. We are close. I think we have the right idea from the reactions we have been getting. It is just a matter of getting everything pitched to the right people. Then we also have like five features right now that are currently in various stage of development. We are about to get a green light on one of them very shortly. So 2015 seems like it is shaping up to be a very busy year, which is great.

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The Soska Sisters cconsisting of Jen & Sylvia Soska are film directors are literally taking over the horror genre. After their short film “Dead Hooker in a Trunk”, they made the fantastic and original horror film called “American Mary” then quickly following that they were brought us to work with WWE on the horror sequel “See No Evil 2”. They also have a segment in the upcoming “ABCs of Death 2”. Media Mikes had a chance to chat with the “Twisted Twins” to chat about “See No Evil 2” and their upcoming projects.

Mike Gencarelli: I just want to start that I loved “American Mary”; it was original, very smart, ballsy and really fucking gory. I honestly reminded me why I love horror movies. Going from that film to “See No Evil 2” with WWE’s Kane; what was that like?
Sylvia Soska: That is a hell of a compliment. Thank you for saying that. That project is very much a part of who Jen and I are. After that film, we took many studio meetings to get the next film made, but all anyone wanted to see was Katharine Isabelle with us as a sexy doctor or surgeon or torturer and it was really depressing. When WWE and Lionsgate approached us to make the film, we read the script and got super excited, but didn’t think there was a chance in hell that we would get hired. It was so much of a dream project, but it happened. Then we started to collaborate on the story, hire the cast, and it just kept getting better. We only make films that we, as fans, would want to see; See No Evil 2 is that kind of film.
Jen Soska: We are the fan directors. We love horror movies so much and I do hope you can tell on every frame of our movies. We want to make a horror film in each sub genre of horror. To have the opportunity to create our own masked man horror icon was incredible. I feel the first film was more of a prequel and this is Jacob’s true first film. The first film had Jacob under the command of his fanatic religious mother. In this film we recreate Jacob’s look, theme music, and array of weapons. It’s a tremendous honor and I still can’t believe we got such an incredible opportunity that so few directors ever have.

MG: What was your biggest challenging tackling that film?
SS: It should have been much more difficult but we were spoiled by our cast and crew. Let me tell you a little thing about the crew you can get in Vancouver – seasoned professionals that work year around on everything from major blockbuster productions, to some of the best genre televisions series we have ever seen, and the darling independent gems. You get this crew and you get peace of mind because they are so good. Almost the entire cast were child actors, so not only was the level of talent very high in our performers, but we had a team that could pull off this very ambitious film very masterfully.
JS: For me, the biggest challenge was making something that was true to the original and respected the fans who loved that film while building on that film’s missed opportunities. It’s hard to come
into an existing franchise and make changes. Every franchise has key parts to it. You don’t want to come into something like, Hellraiser, and take out the lament configuration. Just like with Jacob.
There were untouchable elements, but we had a lot of room to play around with the character and story and kills and almost everything.

MG: Tell us about what it was like working on “ABCs of Death 2” and your segment “T is for Torture Porn”?
SS: It was something we’ve been wanting to make since the open entry contest on the first one. I watch a lot of porn, I love it. I think in horror there are interesting issues you can tackle because it’s not like you’re just preaching at people – you have one foot in reality and one in the fantastical. T is for Torture Porn is a commentary on unwanted sexual violence and degradation with a very angry reaction to that with how the short ends. But there’s still a laugh to it all, wait til the after credits scene – it’s the end of our segment.
JS: A tremendous honor! I loved the first ABCs of Death. I really wanted to be in it, but we saw T is for Toilet (the entry for the 26th slot open to all directors) and it was perfection. We wanted to make Torture Porn all the way back then but we put it on the back burner. We didn’t even expect them to do a sequel. I’m so happy they did and absolutely honored that Ant invited us on.

MG: Are you ever afraid of taking it too far or offending the audience?
SS: Ha ha, from some of the not happy with it reviews, maybe I should have? Naw, art is to make people feel things. It’s to spurn a reaction. Anything that one person loves, another person will hate it.
JS: In the immortal words of one of my favorite comedians ever, John Cleese, “some people deserve to be offended.” It’s just art and art should make you question things and leave an impression on you. It should get you thinking. I’m not a fan of senseless violence or cruelty to animals, but I think that violence and the obscene have a place in art for sure. Though somewhat controversial, MARTYRS and A SERBIAN FILM are superb films. They use their violence, gore, and more upsetting parts as a commentary.

MG: What do you love most about the horror genre?
SS: Everything. Being scared gets me excited, it makes me feel alive. It’s a thrill.
JS: What’s not to love? I feel horror chose us from a very young age. I can’t remember a time I didn’t love it. It’s exciting and fun. You ever go to a Horror Convention? If you haven’t, treat yourself. They are the happiest places on Earth filled with the sweetest people. Horror brings out the best in people.

MG: We ever going to see you both directing a romantic comedy?
SS: I thought American Mary was a romantic comedy. Jen and I are in love with this script written by Josh Murray, this extremely crass female-centric Christmas comedy. I bet you didn’t see that coming, eh? But that’s how we pick our projects – if we would want to see this movie, we would make that movie.
JS: Dammit, I thought SEE NO EVIL 2 was a romance movie! Well, to me, it totally is. I’d love to tackle any genre. I’m not into labels. Some people seem happy to categorize us as “female twin horror directors”, but I just see us as directors. I love film. I love all genres of film. There is no genre we wouldn’t tackle and put a Soska spin on.

MG: You also worked with WWE Studios for “Vendetta”, which is an action films; what can you tell us about that experience?
SS: Vendetta stars Dean Cain, Paul ‘Big Show’ White, and Michael Eklund and it is the most badass film we have ever made. The pure physicality to it, the amazing stunt fights from our Stunt Coordinator, Kimani Smith, and Fight Coordinator, Dan Rizzuto, pushed everything and everyone to the max. You have never seen the cast like this before. It is such a fuck yeah movie. We got our See No Evil 2 team back to pull it off and we really kicked the shit out of ourselves making this gritty crime revenge flick.
JS: It was incredible! It was so nice to have Michael Luisi of WWE Studios be the first to give us an opportunity to do a genre that wasn’t strictly horror. We have stunts and action in all of our films. It was really fun to have so much more of it. Dean Cain is outstanding, a true Hollywood icon. You’ve never seen him like this before, either. I love Dean good, but he’s SO much better bad. And he’s a total badass in Vendetta. Paul “Big Show” Wight is so evil. He plays a lot of comedic roles and the humor here comes from just how bad he is. And he loves it. Eklund is the Canadian Daniel Day Lewis. I just love him. There isn’t anything he can’t do. You hand me a script and I look for the top three roles I can see him in. He’s so capable and versatile. The film is so sexy, and dark. It’s almost a boy version of American Mary.

MG: How is your adaption of “Painkiller Jane” coming along? Is this your next project?
SS: Painkiller Jane is coming along very well. We are on the epic task of finding Jane. She needs to be tough as nails, completely shredded, with a great emotional capacity, and pitch perfect comedic ability. Easy, right? There are a few projects we have in development that are racing to the finish line right now, so I can say 100% sure on anything, but we have a huge focus on making Bob, our monster movie right now. It’s time, we haven’t stop work on it in all this time.
JS: We are filmmaking sharks. If we stop making films, we die. We have several original scripts that we’re pushing forward and have several more films in all stages of development. We’re planning some TV work along with a couple graphic novels, as well, so we honestly never stop. We’re so creative. I love story telling. I’m so blessed to be able to do what we do. With any luck, BOB will be our next one. It’s so very special to us.

MG: Lastly, I just have to ask how does it feel to literally be taking over the horror genre? Very soon, you will be so big that I won’t be able to speak with you again!
SS: Nothing feels like real life to me right now. I am getting to make films I love with my best friend and it’s been years of struggling to get to a point where we feel secure in getting to keep doing this! Thank you for supporting us – otherwise we would be waiting tables still.
JS: Ha ha, OMG, you will ALWAYS be able to talk to us! We still can’t believe people like our stuff. It’s like some sort of weird karma from being so damn unpopular growing up. It’s a profound honor to have people respond to us and our work the way they have. I grew up dressing like movie characters I love. Seeing people cosplay ours or get them tattooed on them is so unreal. Like a dream come true. And all the letters we get mean the world to us. We try to be the role models we would have liked growing up. We’ll always stay the same. Grounded and uber grateful for the influence we have. And we’re only just getting started.

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Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s reality-bending Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) closed the 52nd New York Film Fest this past Sunday. The film which opens on October 17th stars Michael Keaton as Riggan Thompson an actor trying to distance himself from an iconic superhero film franchise by starring and directing his own broadway production. Keaton’s huge cast of co-stars includes Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Amy Ryan, and Andrea Riseborough, all of whom joined the director at a press conference after the film at AMC Lincoln Center.

Much of the film revolves around Riggan’s struggle with his own identity versus his public image. Specifically he’s faced with a particularly vicious theatre critic whose sole objective is  to destroy Riggan’s show with her pen. Michael Keaton however maintained that he keeps himself in the dark when it comes to critics now. “This is where I’m really a dope” laughed Keaton who looked at reviews in his early days but not so much recently.  “I thought originally…you should be courageous and read everything and I did that a couple of times and I thought ‘well I’m not doing that anymore!’  Although he did add “Admittedly if someone says ‘hey you had a got nice review’ I’ll read it. I’m open to making myself feel better!” Addressing an entire auditorium of NYC critics he concluded “I think I’ve been treated basically fairly, I know I’m the wrong person to ask…There’s probably a lot of you out there going “Oh no you haven’t!”

           
British theatre actress Andrea Riseborough, who plays Riggan’s co-star also avoids critical reviews “because [she finds] them debilitating, not because [she doesn’t] respect them” Riseborough added that there’s a certain element of fear when it comes to actors encountering critics, rather than hostility, especially in the world of theatre. “You know, they saw Gambon doing his bit back in the day and now they’re going to come and see me. It makes me just want to shit myself!”
 Zach Galifianakis confidently chimed in “I’ve never had a bad review, so I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about. It sounds familiar. I’ve heard people talk about it. But I’ve never had one” cracking up his cast and the audience.

Naomi Watts compared some of her theatre experience to the unorthodox way Birdman was shot: “I can say, I haven’t done a huge amount of theatre, but just from back in the days when I was studying and you know, doing plays then, a lot of my nightmares revolve around being on the stage; And forgetting my lines, or having the wrong clothes on or no clothes at all. So it is that classic recurring nightmare. A lot in the way this film was shot, with this speed and the high stakes and the technicalities and the dependency on each other and the, also the effects, you know the props and things, the cameras, the lighting and the removing of tables and putting them back, you know all those things sort of created this high level intensity and pressure that felt sort of emblematic sort of how it feels on the stage.”

Soon to be joining Watts in stage experience is Emma Stone, who in November will replace Michelle Williams in the current broadway revival of Cabaret. I asked her how she felt between making this film about a movie star entering Broadway and now actually facing that in reality.
“Well, you know, I did write the character of Sally Bowles and I’m directing the production”  the Amazing Spider-man star laughed, then added  “No, I you know, of course this movie brings up a lot of horrible fears of coming into the broadway community and having a Tabitha [the film’s villainous critic]…it feels very different. But I will say that making this  movie and kind of what we had to contend with, as actors, in making something like this, all of the pieces that Naomi was talking about had to–you know, having the table moving out and needing to rely on each other  the way the company does, I think is incredibly helpful now going into theatre in that way and realizing that you’re you know you operate very much as a unit. We all operate as a unit. And in a lot of films it’s not that way at all. It’s a very separate experience. So yeah, I’m nervous as hell. I’m shitting myself!”

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu elaborated on the challenge he and DP Emmanuel Lubezki faced in shooting Birdman in mainly long contiunous shots. “Basically all the camerawork, all the blocking and all the lighting was pre-assigned in advance, months in advance. So there was no improvisation everything was precise, meticulously…Without the editing everything has to happen in the flow and then so you have to really get everything together…So the difficulty was the point of view–where this camera would be located to tell the story right. Who has to be in frame or not. Who has to be the listener…The challenge of that was that there was no lights, shooting film lights. Everything was practical lights and sometimes it was 360 degrees in tiny cooridors with guys with microphones. So all that thing that they’re talking about–the things moving and the ‘you have to be behind him’ and then you go under the legs of somebody and then crawl over the other side. It was kind of the kids playing a theatre play and the camera going around with this 17mm lens which is a wideshot. So every bit, every line, every open door has to be performed exactly the same…it has to be right.”

Actress Amy Ryan described this process as causing a “happy accident” whereby Keaton’s character had to be laying on a dressing room counter top in order to accommodate the camera manuevers “That was the only place really that worked best for every moving part in the scene, boom operator and [Lubezki], myself, Michael. And now I can’t think of a better choice for that, that’s exactly where he should be in that moment.”

Of course with a past Hulk, a Gwen Stacy and an iconic Batman in the room, the idea of the Superhero Film had to be raised with the cast and although the film is definitely not that, it doesn’t entirely shy away from some CGI effects. Keaton was pleased with this “When the special effects come in, I mean it’s just outta nowehere! And I totally dig it. I go yeah, there’s a little treat…A little megaplex action superhero movie dose for you right there…”
He and Edward Norton previewed some footage at New York Comic Con the evening before.  “Michael and I went over to New York Comic Con last night to do a little panel there,” said Norton, “and in the dark right before we went on I looked at Michael and said ‘do think this is the ultimate bait and switch?’ Can you imagine if you go to this actually thinking it’s a superhero movie?”

Birdman is now in limited theatrical release.

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