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- “My voice isn’t an instrument I can just hang up on a hook.” — Audra McDonald
- “You can’t be on top all the time. It isn’t natural.” — Olivia de Havilland
- “If I don’t feel it, I can’t play it.” — James Cotton
- “I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.” — Lena Horne
- “But man has always succeeded in rising again.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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Category Archives: Movies
“I think I’m a character actress in a leading lady’s body, but the industry doesn’t really see me that way.” — Sanaa Lathan
It’s her birthday today. Sanaa Lathan is most definitely a “character actress in a leading lady’s body.” It’s what makes her work so strong. She is very beautiful, and she is also fluid, funny, unconventional in her responses (this makes … Continue reading
“I’ve been very lucky, considering what I look like and what I do.” — James Gandolfini
Like a lot of people, he first came on my radar through the extraordinary scene in the motel room with Patricia Arquette in True Romance (“you gotta lotta heart, kid.”) The moment I always remember, the moment that struck me … Continue reading
“I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said, ‘I want to be left alone.’ There is all the difference.” — Greta Garbo
It’s her birthday today. She is a difficult subject, not just because she was a private woman, but because her onscreen persona was so fluid, mercurial, hard to grasp. Her gestures could be operatic and swanlike (watch Grand Hotel), but … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged drama, Greta Garbo, H.D., historical drama, silent films, Sweden
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“I swear my next project is going to be something really simple and focused and minimal.” — Baz Luhrmann
It’s his birthday today. “I think what I’m saying is, when you get to where I am in your journey, you just have to start to accept that there’s something inside you that you’ve been trying to get out and … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day, Theatre
Tagged Australia, Baz Luhrmann, Ewan McGregor, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman, The Great Gatsby
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This Could Be A Total Bust, or Mickey Rourke Inside The Actor’s Studio, by Brendan O’Malley
My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He maintained a blog for many years (he doesn’t blog anymore) -in 2020 I posted links to his 50 Best Albums essays, as well as all of his music … Continue reading
“I’ve always felt that work – learning from people who know more than I know – is what keeps you going.” — Lauren Bacall
It’s her birthday today. This was the magazine cover that started it all. Howard Hawks was looking for a protege, a girl he could mold into his perfect idealized woman – the ideal foil for the men in those fabulous … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Howard Hawks, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, To Have and Have Not
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If the Hollywood Reporter says it…
… you know it must be truet: First look at my Frankenstein book in the Hollywood Reporter! With four images, giving a glimpse of the beautiful design of this thing. Oscar wrote the introduction. I wrote the rest. all images: … Continue reading
Frankenstein and the Tiffany & Co. blue boxes
Tiffany & co. has only donated jewelry to four films, one of which is Frankenstein. The news has now broke of the collaboration, and Mia Goth was wearing a Tiffany necklace on the red carpet in Venice. Here’s an indepth … Continue reading
“Reach out, take a chance, get hurt even, play as well as you can.” — Hal Ashby
It’s his birthday today. One of the leading lights of the New Hollywood, bringing fresh energy into a landscape that was busy cracking-apart, and holding on tightly to old stable familiar forms. He believed in the crack-up. He helped the … Continue reading
“The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.” — Keanu Reeves
In 1987, Interview did a small profile on Keanu Reeves because River’s Edge had dropped and he was the hot new thing. I saved that profile all these years because something about him really struck me, then and now. (To … Continue reading

