It's an honour for me to be an affiliate with the official fansite of Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Joseph Gordon-Levitt.org. Some screencaps that I've taken from the deleted scenes of the "Brick" DVD extra-disc have been added tothe "Brick" gallery, courtesy of Lee.
"Witherspoon plays the wife of an American-Egyptian chemical engineer who disappears after boarding a flight from Cape Town. She gradually learns that her husband is suspected of being a terrorist, and has been “rendered” by the CIA to a North African country, evidently Morocco. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the CIA analyst charged with overseeing her husband’s interrogation, who becomes troubled by the morality of what he and the US government are doing. [...] According to the most recent survey by the film-trade paper The Hollywood Reporter, Witherspoon, who is 31, is now America’s highest-paid actress, outstripping Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie. She has been able to command a salary of $15m a movie for the past four years, since the twin successes of the first Legally Blonde film and the romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama. Her status was cemented when she won a best-actress Oscar in March2006 for her spirited performance as June Carter Cash, singer and long-suffering wife of the country legend Johnny, in Walk the Line.
Today, on the stage, she seems distant and distracted. Of course, everyone in the room knows there have been tabloid rumours, in the past few weeks, that Witherspoon and Gyllenhaal, who have been discreetly placed some distance apart on the stage, have been seeing each other.Everyone also knows that she filed for divorce from her actor husband, Ryan Phillippe, at the end of last year.
Whatever I may be reading into her demeanour, Witherspoon certainly gives off almost nothing of the super-perky, relentlessly optimistic effervescence that she has imprinted on the public mind through her spot-on performances as the upwardly mobile Southern debutante Elle Woods in the Legally Blonde movies. That Southern-belle pedigree is no Hollywood fabrication: Witherspoon comes from a wealthy Tennessee family (her father is a surgeon) that is descended from one of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence. [...]One of the things I’m keen to explore with her is the fact that she has built her astonishingly successful career mainly by playing women, such as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, who seem to have an absolute sense of their own destiny, a dead-on certainty about who they are and who they want to be. That seems to be very much who Witherspoon is herself, incredibly focused and goal-orientated, with a very Southern, and conservative, sense of the life she has always wanted – a life she quickly made for herself after she arrived in Hollywood, becoming wealthy beyond anyone’s dreams, married to a Hollywood dreamboat, with whom she has two adorable children.
In Rendition, on the other hand, she plays a woman who is having to deal with events that are out of her control. However determined she may be, there’s nothing she can do to persuade the US government, which won’t even acknowledge that it has kidnapped her husband, to let him go. I ask Witherspoon how she found it to play a character swimming helplessly in a world she couldn’t control. “It was difficult,” she admits. “It was really challenging playing that bewilderment and confusion and isolation. She doesn’t know what she is dealing with. She is so disorientated, and she also has the burden of being pregnant, which is limiting in itself, and the inherent vulnerability in that. It was hard, sad, alienating and isolating.”
Witherspoon acknowledges that she has always been incredibly driven, and has felt a deep need to prove herself to other people. Even now, after rising to the top of the pay charts, with an Oscar under her belt, she says she feels that she is “underestimated”. “I honestly don’t know where that comes from. As a child, I made great grades in school and had some friends – not a lot of friends, but a significant number – and, I don’t know, I’ve always felt this need to accomplish and push myself further. And I don’t feel like people really have any idea what I am capable of.” It’s a sad answer, but it makes me realise how hard it must have been for her, especially as a woman in Hollywood, to achieve what she has. She agrees. “I don’t ever rest on anyone’s ideas of what they’re going to do for me – I never have,” she says. “My mother impressed that on me at a very early age. If you want something done, do it yourself. I have operated under that sensibility for a very long time.” Of course, it wouldn’t be surprising if Witherspoon were depressed, as most people are when coping with divorce. I thought she had been brave to acknowledge, in a recent interview in an American magazine, that about a month after her marriage ended, she found herself sitting in her car in a car park, unable to get out. And, as I say goodbye, I can’t help looking back at a young woman who does seem trapped, like a beautiful, sad princess, in the tower of a magnificent dream castle she has built for herself. But perhaps I just caught her on a bad day". Source: Entertainment.timesonline.co.uk
"[...] "So, Reese and Jake, you didn't meet making the movie?"
Before either star can respond, their exasperated director, Gavin Hood, dramatically yells, "No!"
A master of comic timing during the entire hour, Gyllenhaal waits for the laughs to subside before adding the obvious, "Wow, that was rough." Meanwhile, Witherspoon points out, "I've actually known Jake for years," but her voice is lost in the giggles.
And that was that on the subject. As Witherspoon's first major film since her Oscar-winning performance in "Walk the Line" the actress admitted it was the story structure of "Rendition" that she found most intriguing.
"I think the challenge of doing an ensemble piece is that your story line is so short that every scene you are doing is sort of a pivotal moment in that character's journey," Witherspoon says. "So, everything was sort of heightened and very dramatic."
More daunting, though, was an in-your-face scene with the Laurence Olivier of American film, Meryl Streep.
"Definitely, the ride to work that day was nerve-racking," Witherspoon says. "But, she was wonderful. She's completely intimidating, completely professional, had a thousand ideas. She definitely makes the film, um, I dunno, what am I trying to say, Peter?"
"She makes the film better," Saarsgard deadpans as the crowd chuckles.
Exactly. And while Witherspoon was dealing with the specter of Streep, Gyllenhaal's role as a young CIA analyst trying to justify the torture of a man under his watch became increasingly hard to research. Most CIA agents he spoke to off the record would only give technical information and not the emotional background he needed for his character. So, in a way, the Oscar-nominated actor from "Brokeback Mountain" went the Cliffs Notes route -- he watched other movies on CIA agents. "'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,' which is a merging of the alcoholic and the spy," Gyllenhaal recalls. "And then also, 'The Good Shepherd,' actually. Which I think, just a little shout-out to Matt Damon, that's a pretty incredible performance. More about, the less he does then the more he does -- and that's the kind of performance that I look up to. So, I just tried to copy it."
And once again, the "serious" movie's press conference is filled with laughter at the brazen honesty of Gyllenhaal's comment. The whole day is recapped with Sarsgaard's sarcastic zinger to his co-star, "Nice."
Today it's my birthday, Weirdos, and I feel a bit mellancholic thinking I'm in the thirty-something group, although my mind belongs to a bored teenager. This evening I'll take a "Sacher" chocolate cake and I'll drink "rosado" wine or cava. This is gonna be a bohemian evening.
"The role of Linda Ferrin was initially played by Bijou Phillips. Her scenes needed to be re-shot but Phillips was not available due scheduling conflicts, so the role went to Clea DuVall".
Bijou Phillips has starred in movies as "Tart", "Bully" (2001) "Havoc" (2005), "Hostel: Part II" (2007), etc. and she made her debut album 'I'd Rather Eat Glass', produced by Talking Heads and Modern Lovers guru Jerry Harrison. It was released in 1999.
"New Line could have made the press conference for the dour thriller "Rendition" a two-drink-minimum affair. Jake Gyllenhaal demonstrated better comic timing than we see in the average studio comedy.
A sample for you: Director Gavin Hood was ranting about the potential of film, Hollywood's hunger for money and why we need more movies like "All the President's Men". It was well intentioned, and Hood should totally be a guest lecturer on college campuses. But he went on a wee bit too long about his idealistic visions of a Hollywood in which studios forget about their coffers.
That's when Gyllenhaal put an arm around him—the arm was key—and made a crack about Hood's next project...Wolverine.
It was seriously hysterical. Jake made his director blush like a freshman boy in speech class. So, why won't Jake put that swift wit to use on camera?
"His family is just very serious," says one Beverly Hills-agent type. "They want to see their kids in smart films with a political angle. And their family is obviously close."
An interesting theory, but I'm more inclined to think good comedy scripts just aren't that easy to come by. And if you have a sense of humor, as Jake clearly does, then you're not gonna sign the dotted line just because your agent tells you to. In essence, he needs another "The Good Girl".
That's why a brilliant, sophisticated comedy writer—like Woody Allen, Mike White, Julie Delpy or Nicole Holofcener—should pen a script for Jake. We've seen him be serious so much, and we're getting more with Rendition and the far-off Brothers. But I don't think he'll make a Brokeback-style impression on audiences until he makes us laugh.
It's an honour for me to be an affiliate with the official fansite of Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Joseph Gordon-Levitt.org.
"Witherspoon plays the wife of an American-Egyptian chemical engineer who disappears after boarding a flight from Cape Town. She gradually learns that her husband is suspected of being a terrorist, and has been “rendered” by the CIA to a North African country, evidently Morocco. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the CIA analyst charged with overseeing her husband’s interrogation, who becomes troubled by the morality of what he and the US government are doing. 
[...] According to the most recent survey by the film-trade paper The Hollywood Reporter, Witherspoon, who is 31, is now America’s highest-paid actress, outstripping Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie. She has been able to command a salary of $15m a movie for the past four years, since the twin successes of the first Legally Blonde film and the romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama. Her status was cemented when she won a best-actress Oscar in March2006 for her spirited performance as June Carter Cash, singer and long-suffering wife of the country legend Johnny, in Walk the Line. 
Everyone also knows that she filed for divorce from her actor husband, Ryan Phillippe, at the end of last year. 
[...]One of the things I’m keen to explore with her is the fact that she has built her astonishingly successful career mainly by playing women, such as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, who seem to have an absolute sense of their own destiny, a dead-on certainty about who they are and who they want to be. That seems to be very much who Witherspoon is herself, incredibly focused and goal-orientated, with a very Southern, and conservative, sense of the life she has always wanted – a life she quickly made for herself after she arrived in Hollywood, becoming wealthy beyond anyone’s dreams, married to a Hollywood dreamboat, with whom she has two adorable children. 
I ask Witherspoon how she found it to play a character swimming helplessly in a world she couldn’t control. “It was difficult,” she admits. “It was really challenging playing that bewilderment and confusion and isolation. She doesn’t know what she is dealing with. She is so disorientated, and she also has the burden of being pregnant, which is limiting in itself, and the inherent vulnerability in that. It was hard, sad, alienating and isolating.” 
Witherspoon acknowledges that she has always been incredibly driven, and has felt a deep need to prove herself to other people. Even now, after rising to the top of the pay charts, with an Oscar under her belt, she says she feels that she is “underestimated”. “I honestly don’t know where that comes from. As a child, I made great grades in school and had some friends – not a lot of friends, but a significant number – and, I don’t know, I’ve always felt this need to accomplish and push myself further. And I don’t feel like people really have any idea what I am capable of.” 
It’s a sad answer, but it makes me realise how hard it must have been for her, especially as a woman in Hollywood, to achieve what she has. She agrees. “I don’t ever rest on anyone’s ideas of what they’re going to do for me – I never have,” she says. “My mother impressed that on me at a very early age. If you want something done, do it yourself. I have operated under that sensibility for a very long time.” 
Of course, it wouldn’t be surprising if Witherspoon were depressed, as most people are when coping with divorce. I thought she had been brave to acknowledge, in a recent interview in an American magazine, that about a month after her marriage ended, she found herself sitting in her car in a car park, unable to get out. And, as I say goodbye, I can’t help looking back at a young woman who does seem trapped, like a beautiful, sad princess, in the tower of a magnificent dream castle she has built for herself. But perhaps I just caught her on a bad day". Source: Entertainment.timesonline.co.uk
"[...] "So, Reese and Jake, you didn't meet making the movie?"
Meanwhile, Witherspoon points out, "I've actually known Jake for years," but her voice is lost in the giggles.
As Witherspoon's first major film since her Oscar-winning performance in "Walk the Line" the actress admitted it was the story structure of "Rendition" that she found most intriguing.
"'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,' which is a merging of the alcoholic and the spy," Gyllenhaal recalls. "And then also, 'The Good Shepherd,' actually. Which I think, just a little shout-out to Matt Damon, that's a pretty incredible performance. More about, the less he does then the more he does -- and that's the kind of performance that I look up to. So, I just tried to copy it."
"ZODIAC" TRIVIA:
"New Line could have made the press conference for the dour thriller "Rendition" a two-drink-minimum affair. Jake Gyllenhaal demonstrated better comic timing than we see in the average studio comedy.
In essence, he needs another "The Good Girl".
