Tag: Jessica Chastain (11-20 of 25)

Jan 10 2013 10:39 PM ET

Critics' Choice Awards: 'Argo,' 'Silver Linings Playbook' big winners

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Image Credit: Keith Bernstein

At least the critics still love him! On the same day he was snubbed of an Oscar nomination, Ben Affleck took home the Best Director award at the Critics’ Choice Awards for Argo, which also won Best Picture.

The rest of the honorees — held by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the largest critics group in the country — were made up of newly-minted Oscar nominees like Daniel Day-Lewis (Best Actor for Lincoln), Jessica Chastain (Best Actress for Zero Dark Thirty), Anne Hathaway (Best Supporting Actress for Les Misérables) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Best Supporting Actor for The Master).

The cast of Silver Linings Playbook won the Ensemble award, and Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Quvenzhané Wallis received Best Young Actor/Actress.

Judd Apatow, the writer-producer-director of This is 40, won the somewhat tongue-in-cheek Louis XIII Genius Award for “an unprecedented demonstration of excellence in the cinematic arts.”

Movie fans, meanwhile, were invited to vote for their favorite film franchise for this year’s awards, and they chose Twilight over the likes of Batman, Harry Potter, James Bond, and Star Wars.

Check out the full list of winners below:  READ FULL STORY »

Dec 19 2012 01:49 PM ET

Is 'Zero Dark Thirty' pro-torture? And if so, is it telling a lie?

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Image Credit: Jonathan Olley

A couple of weeks ago, when the heat over Zero Dark Thirty and the issue of torture was already percolating (it still hasn’t come close to full boil — that will happen when conservative commentators start to defend the movie and the liberal Academy Awards machine starts to have doubts about it), I began to frame a few thoughts about where, exactly, the film stood, and one of the things that occurred to me was the possibility that Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, the director and screenwriter, didn’t understand their own movie. I figured I probably wouldn’t float that theory, since it seemed presumptious and more than a little absurd. But now I don’t have to engage in a lot of speculative critical guesswork, since Bigelow and Boal have officially gone on the record. The notion that Zero Dark Thirty is pro-torture, says Boal, is “preposterous.” Adds Bigelow: “The point was to immerse the audience in this landscape, not to pretend to debate policy. Was it difficult to shoot? Yes. Do I wish [torture] was not part of that history? Yes, but it was.” READ FULL STORY »

Dec 11 2012 02:30 PM ET

'Zero Dark Thirty' premiere: Kathryn Bigelow and co. address waterboarding controversy

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Image Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Zero Dark Thirty is an Oscar frontrunner, but what would Oscar season be without a dash of politics? In the taut thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow depict the American use of waterboarding leading to a suspect revealing crucial information. But the New Yorker has cast doubt on the veracity of that specific scene, citing government officials who claim that waterboarding — a controversial tactic that many consider torture — played no role in yielding useful evidence in that situation or ultimately helped the C.I.A. locate bin Laden’s hideout.

Boal, a former journalist, has defending the decision, arguing that “it’s a movie, not a documentary,” and the film’s main principals stood behind their work at last night’s Los Angeles premiere. “We had to compress a very complicated debate and a 10-year period into two hours,” Boal said. “It doesn’t surprise me that people bring political agendas to the film but it doesn’t actually have a political agenda. Its agenda is to tell these people’s stories in the most honest and factual way we know how, based on a ton of interviews and research.” READ FULL STORY »

Dec 10 2012 04:24 PM ET

'Zero Dark Thirty': Jessica Chastain talks about filming controversial interrogation scenes

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Image Credit: Jonathan Olley

As difficult as Zero Dark Thirty‘s much-discussed interrogation scenes are to watch, they were much harder to film. Jessica Chastain, who stars as a tough-minded C.I.A. agent named Maya who’s hunting Osama bin Laden, says that those sequences — which feature waterboarding and other rough tactics — were so emotionally grueling that at one point she had to take a break to go cry behind a building. “It was all super-tough to shoot, but the interrogation scenes were the toughest, because I don’t like confrontation and we were filming in an active Jordanian prison on the outskirts of Amman,” Chastain writes in an essay in EW’s upcoming Best & Worst issue. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 10 2012 12:22 PM ET

Controversy builds over 'Zero Dark Thirty' interrogation scenes

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Image Credit: Jonathan Olley

Kathryn Bigelow’s hunt-for-bin Laden movie Zero Dark Thirty (out in select theaters Dec. 19) doesn’t flinch when it comes to depicting various “enhanced interrogation” tactics, including waterboarding and other hard-to-watch techniques. In the film, C.I.A. agents Maya (Jessica Chastain) and Dan (Jason Clarke) engage in extended harsh sessions in order to extract crucial information that eventually leads to Osama bin Laden’s location.

But now some people are questioning the film’s treatment of those scenes. In a column in yesterday’s New York Times, Frank Bruni pointed out that the idea that those sorts of tactics produced crucial information is “hardly a universally accepted version of events,” noting “many experts’ belief that torture is unnecessary, yielding as much bad information as good.” And in this week’s New Yorker, former New York Times war correspondent Dexter Filkins writes that the film “appears to have strayed from real life. According to several official sources, including Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the identity of bin Laden’s courier, whose trail led the C.I.A. to the hideout in Pakistan, was not discovered through waterboarding.” READ FULL STORY »

Aug 21 2012 09:10 PM ET

'Lawless' red-band trailer: Booze, bullets, blood, and bosoms! -- NSFW VIDEO

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Before the Internet, it was nearly impossible to get a true sense of what a hard-R rated movie was like from its trailer, which the MPAA insists must be palatable for all audiences. But thanks to the proliferation of the online red-band trailer — which can only be shown in a movie theatre before R-rated movies, and even that rarely happens — we can get a far more accurate idea of what’s in store for a movie like, say, the upcoming Depression-era thriller Lawless, starring Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, and Jason Clarke as the bootlegging Bondurant brothers. And indeed, the new red-band trailer makes clear the film, which opens Wed., Aug. 29, is chockablock with confrontations both savage and sexy. Check it out below:  READ FULL STORY »

May 7 2012 09:10 PM ET

Casting Net: Arnold Schwarzenegger gets gritty in 'Ten.' Plus: 'Maleficent' fills out its cast

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Image Credit: Mike Marsland/WireImage.com

• Arnold Schwarzenegger continues his streak of gritty action films, signing on to star in the thriller Ten, Open Road Films announced today. David Ayer (Street Kings, End of Watch) will direct the script by Skip Woods (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, A Good Day to Die Hard), which follows a team of crooked DEA agents who start getting mysteriously executed after a dirty drug raid. Schwarzenegger’s role in the film is unclear, but we’re guessing it’s light on introspective soliloquies.

• Disney’s Maleficent is filling out its cast around Angelina Jolie‘s title sorceress: Harry Potter alums Imelda Staunton and Miranda Richardson, Another Year‘s Lesley Manville, Control‘s Sam Riley, Made in Dagenham‘s Kenneth Cranham, and The Secret Life of the American Teenager‘s India Eisley (as a younger version of Jolie’s Maleficent) are joining Elle Fanning and Sharlto Copley in the live-action fairy tale, to be helmed by first-time feature director Robert Stromberg. [THR, Variety]

• Brendan Gleeson and Abbie Cornish will star in An Ordinary Man, a drama about a war criminal on the run and his maid. Brad Silberling (Moonlight Mile) will direct. [Deadline]

• Juliette Lewis has signed onto The Days of Mary, a remake of the Oscar-winning Federico Fellini film Nights of Cabiria. Producer Brad Michael Gilbert (The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond) will direct the English-language adaptation, which he scripted with Meg McGarry. [Variety]

• Rory Culkin (Scream 4) and Matt Czuchry (CBS’s The Good Wife) will costar in Gabriel, an indie drama about a mentally ill teenager (Culkin) and his older brother (Czuchry). First time feature director Lou Howe will helm the project from his script. [Variety]

• And finally, some non-casting casting news: Jessica Chastain (The Help) announced on her Facebook page that she won’t be starring in Iron Man 3. “My schedule is jammed packed and I can’t fit anything else in,” she wrote. “The press announced my possible attachment far too soon. I know many of you wanted me to be involved, and I’m so sorry to disappoint you. Hopefully there’ll be another Marvel film in my future.” Public service announcement: This is a good reminder that any time you read someone is “attached to” or “in talks for” or “negotiating for” or “eyeing” or “circling” a project — here or anywhere else — it may be a far cry from that actor having signed a contract to take on the role. [Facebook]

Read more:
Casting Net: Joseph Gordon-Levitt developing new ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’ Plus: Sharlto Copley, Nick Frost, Amber Heard
Casting Net: Julia Louis-Dreyfus angling to crush on James Gandolfini. Plus: Elijah Wood, Jon Favreau, Demian Bechir
Casting Net: Michelle Rodriguez back for ‘Fast and Furious’ 6 and ‘Machete Kills.’ Plus: Pierce Brosnan, Steve Coogan, Sharlto Copley

Apr 24 2012 10:14 PM ET

'Lawless' trailer: Tom Hardy and Shia LaBeouf are hard-boiled bootleggers

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Who doesn’t love a good Depression-era moonshiner gangster pic? Previously titled The Wettest County, our first look at John Hilcoat’s film about bootlegger brothers (Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, and Jason Clarke) in Franklin County, Va. features some fabulously outré accents and enough hard-boiled dialogue to turn an ear of corn into whiskey so strong it’d grow hair on a newborn baby’s behind. I’m not entirely sure what that previous sentence is supposed to mean except that I’m already plumb keen on this film. Check out the trailer below: READ FULL STORY »

Apr 23 2012 09:43 PM ET

Casting Net: Jennifer Lawrence circling 'The Glass Castle.' Plus: Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain

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Image Credit: Tammie Arroyo/AP

• Jennifer Lawrence is eyeing the starring role for The Glass Castle, based on gossip columnist Jeanette Walls‘ 2005 family memoir. Lionsgate acquired the rights to the book, and Marti Noxon (I Am Number Four, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is penning the screenplay. The only arrows involved will most likely be verbal. [Deadline]

• Mel Gibson is in serious talks to take on a supporting role in Machete Kills, director Robert Rodriguez‘s sequel to his 2010 grindhouse thriller Machete with star Danny Trejo. [Deadline]

• Speaking of rugged leading men/media lightning rods aiming for a role several slots down on the call sheet, Sean Penn is negotiating to join Ben Stiller‘s remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, for a key supporting part. Stiller is starring in the title role as well as directing, alongside Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Shirley MacLaine, and Patton Oswalt. [Deadline]

• Jessica Chastain is in talks for Iron Man 3, to play a brilliant scientist opposite Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) — possibly a rival for his affections from Gwyneth Paltrow‘s Pepper Potts? [Deadline]

• Toni Collette and Dev Patel have signed onto Defiant, a thriller about honor killing in India. [Deadline]

• Melissa Leo will play Shia LaBeouf‘s mother in the crime romance The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman. Til Schweiger (Inglorious Basterds) has also signed on to play a Serbian gangster. [Deadline, Variety]

• Gina Carano, the one-time American Gladiator and star of this year’s Steven Soderbergh thriller Haywire, is in talks to step aboard Fast & Furious 6. No word on the role, but it will likely involve chamber room tea settings and dense witticisms about oil prices butt kicking. [THR]

Read more:
Casting Net: Taylor Swift nearing noteworthy role as Joni Mitchell, plus Mark Wahlberg, Guy Pearce, Jaden Smith
Casting Net: Penelope Cruz may romance ‘The Counselor.’ Plus: Bradley Cooper, Tony Danza
Casting Net: Gerard Butler going on ‘Manhunt.’ Plus: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Shailene Woodley

Feb 22 2012 03:27 PM ET

Oscars 2012 Behind the Scenes: Casting 'The Help' nominees Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Jessica Chastain

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Image Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Each year, the Oscars recognize A-list talent we regularly see on screen, on the red carpet, and in tabloids. But the Academy Awards also reward those who work behind the scenes: the writers, editors, costume designers, and others who help create trophy-worthy movie magic. This Oscars season, we’ll be toasting those off-screen artists by delving into the hidden secrets that helped create the on-screen magic that we — and the Academy — fell in love with. For more access backstage during this Oscars season, click here for EW.com’s Oscars Behind the Scenes coverage.

Only one film has three acting Oscar nominations this year: Tate Taylor’s The Help. We asked the movie’s casting directors, Kerry Barden and Paul Schnee, to tell us how Best Actress nominee Viola Davis and Supporting Actress nominees Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain each landed their roles. READ FULL STORY »

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