Innholdsfortegnelse for Awards Special 35A - December 16, 2024 i The Hollywood Reporter

A three-and-a-half-hour run time didn’t change the way The Brutalist cinematographer Lol Crawley worked. The low budget (under $10 million), the fact that he had worked with director Brady Corbet before (on 2015’s The Childhood of a Leader and 2018’s Vox Lux) and Corbet’s directorial approach all contributed to a concise way of shooting the film. “I think filmmakers are like, ‘I didn’t know you could do that anymore: shoot on 35mm, have this thematically epic film — but also scale and length of run time with an intermission — for less than $10 million,” Crawley tells The Hollywood Reporter of the A24 release. “It didn’t feel dissimilar to the way that I have worked with Brady in the past, and there was never a discussion about the run time.”…

Richard Gere has been a bona fide movie star for nearly half a century. But he didn’t necessarily set out to be. “I was a little snobbish about movies,” says the youthful 75-year-old. “Certainly, I had a fascination and loved movies. But I also loved being in the theater.” Gere points to his starring role in Sam Shepard’s 1975 play Killer’s Head as a key point in his transition to the big screen. “It was a 30-minute monologue of this cowboy fuck-up who was in the electric chair, and it was his last thoughts before he was electrocuted,” he tells THR in a new episode of the Awards Chatter podcast moderated by Scott Feinberg. “That was a decisive moment for me, of connecting with a more or less contemporary character.…

In the opening scene of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) sobs in bed before hurrying to the window to look upon the shadow of the demon entrancing her, Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard). To track Ellen’s movement from bed to window in one shot involved complicated camera movements that required a bedroom layout “that makes no bloody sense whatsoever,” recounts director of photography Jarin Blaschke. It entailed an L-shaped configuration with a wall that opens on a hinge to accommodate the movements of the camera. Blaschke, who has worked with Eggers on all of his previous feature films, was no stranger to telling a story that takes place largely in darkness. “I learned that we have to have contrast,” he says. “You have to have something near a window [when…

Crafting the script of Sing Sing — about a real-life theater company, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in upstate New York — proved an incredibly delicate needle to thread for screenwriters Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley. “We held the program, and what they were doing, as sacred,” explains Bentley, who adds that the stakes were high. “If we had not done a good job in making this movie, it could have really jeopardized [currently incarcerated people’s] ability to function in prisons.” In this scene, a dress rehearsal for RTA’s upcoming new play, the film’s protagonist, based on the real-life figure John “Divine G” Whitfield (played by Colman Domingo), has a breakdown onstage after learning his parole appeal has been denied.…

There are so many folkloric tales around the songwriter and recording artist Sky Ferreira, it can be hard to know where to begin. Maybe it’s how she moved to New York from Los Angeles at 15 to model, sing and act in homage to her idol Madonna. It could be all the fame she gained as a teenager for self-releasing tracks on MySpace, an early viral pop star. Perhaps it’s how she spent childhood holidays with Michael Jackson because her grandmother was his hairdresser. Or it might be the music battles. Ferreira’s sophomore album (Masochism, fittingly) has been delayed for nine years with no release date in sight. A titanic war has played out with Capitol Records — a conflict so intense and stifling, someone paid to fly a plane…

Gladiator II entered the box office arena Nov. 22, and theatergoers gave it a thumbs-up, with a global haul of $368.6 million to date. The sequel stars Paul Mescal as Lucius, son of the Roman general Maximus and heir to an emperor, who through a twist of fate is enslaved as a gladiator. Director Ridley Scott told THR before the film’s release that it’s “the best thing I’ve ever made,” which is no small claim — its predecessor captured five Oscars in 2001. Russell Crowe starred in the original as Maximus Meridius, whom Emperor Marcus Aurelius chooses as his successor, charged with returning the empire’s power to its people. But when Aurelius informs his son, Commodus (a sniveling Joaquin Phoenix), the latter murders his father before the decision is made…

“A startling omission, but in a way an inspiring reminder. Gordon [Willis, famously snubbed by the Academy many times] was truly pushing the boundaries on that movie, and despite it not being recognized the year it came out, it would go on to have far-reaching resonance — a reminder to always challenge what we think a cinematic image can be.”…

“Everything comes back to Chalet Girl,” says Felicity Jones. The Brit is giggling in the private bar of a Soho hotel in central London festively decorated with bright red baubles and mistletoe ahead of the holidays. The 41-year-old — now a seasoned, Academy Award-nominated actor — is talking about the difficulty of her breakout role in Phil Traill’s 2011 frilly, snow-clad rom-com. “There was so much partying on that film, but I’d always just have to leave early because I knew that I’d have a day of snowboarding ahead of me,” Jones tells The Hollywood Reporter, unexpectedly. “And doing it with a headache was so much harder.” The experience laid the groundwork, she explains, for a career marked by technically demanding performances. Her other most challenging project? The very differently…

Biographical movies by their very existence aim to unpack, to reveal, to make transparent. Everything, in other words, that Bob Dylan has tried to avoid in his 60-plus years in the cultural spotlight. That made James Mangold’s job in A Complete Unknown — about Dylan’s early years ahead of his bombshell switch to electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival — very tricky. As the Timothée Chalamet film prepares to roll out on Christmas Day — and as Dylan himself weighs in (“Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me,” he recently tweeted) — THR caught up with Mangold, who wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, for his thoughts on the enigmatic music man. Let’s…