Rolling Stone interviews Fleetwood Mac: New Music, New Tour, Rumours etc

via glooce

 

Few expected the reunion of Fleetwood Mac's classic Seventies lineup back in 1997, and even fewer could have predicted it would still be going strong in 2013. On April 4th, in Columbus, Ohio, the band begin a North American tour with a set list that will include new songs. And on Tuesday comes the release of expanded editions of Rumours, their multi-platinum, career-defining disc from 1977.

"After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to work out, no new chapters to be written. But that is not the case," singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham tells Rolling Stone.

Buckingham, drummer Mick Fleetwood and singer Stevie Nicks recently gathered for interviews in a huge, wood-paneled room at the Village Recorder, a legendary recording space in West Los Angeles. More than three decades earlier, the band spent 13 months there making the 1979 double album Tusk, the surprisingly experimental follow-up to Rumours.

At the interview Nicks and Buckingham held hands, Fleetwood sitting beside them as votive candles flickered around the room. (Bassist John McVie stayed home, and former singer-keyboardist Christine McVie has been retired to the English countryside since 1998.)

Q: Rolling Stone's cover story about the making of Rumours featured a photo of you all in bed together. Were the stories of romantic turmoil true?

Stevie Nicks: They're all true. [Laughter]

Lindsey Buckingham: That really was a lot of the appeal of Rumours. The music was wonderful, but the music was also authentic because it was two couples breaking up and writing dialogue to each other. It was also appealing because we were rising to the occasion to follow our destiny. So you had to live in denial, you had to learn to compartmentalize your emotions and do what needs to be done. It brought out the voyeur a little bit in everybody.

Nicks: Most people, when they break up, you don't see each other for a while. You hope that you don't run into that person ever at that point. In our situation, the breakups were going on, and we had to go to work the next day. It was very hard. You had to walk in with your head high and an open heart. We had to be very focused, and we knew that because no matter how hard it was on us – and it was awful – we still wanted to make a great record. Nobody was going to say, OK, I'll just quit.

You knew you were going to the studio at 2 [p.m.], and you knew you would be there until 3 or 4 in the morning. And you couldn't sit there at the board and glare at your ex-partner. You had to be a grownup. Even though there were a thousand people around us saying to do this or do that, we still had to gather together as a fivesome and say, "We're not going to let this beat us."

Q: When you do the Rumours songs now, do any of those original feelings ever come back?

Buckingham: Oh, I hope not.

Nicks: I think the original feelings do come back. They take me right back to where we were. The songs morph a little bit every time we do them. Instrumentally, they morph. "Gold Dust Woman" is sometimes Indian. Sometimes it's just rock & roll. It travels, and all these songs do that. To me, they are always exciting. I never feel bored when we burst into one of our big hit songs, because what they were all written about was so heavy that they could never be boring.

Q: What is it like to look closely at Rumours again so many years later?

Nicks: We've been waiting a long time to put this out. If you were a Fleetwood Mac fan, you get to hear the songs turn into the songs without a lot of overdubbing. It's very simple. When I listen to it, I think if I was 20 years old, I would definitely want to be in that band. There is something strangely timeless about it that makes you feel like it was just recorded last year. I now know why I went to Lindsey and said, "I think we should give this a chance. This is a really good band." It's quite an interesting group of crazy people that managed to meld their styles together.

Mick Fleetwood: The cause and effect of that album was so humongous – not only for us as musicians, but what it did and what it allowed for the journey. It was the start of something for sure – the enormity of everything we were faced with and were going to go through, and the opportunities, and the opportunities maybe blown and then retrieved. Now we're sitting here excited about going out and playing. This album wasn't the trigger for us doing this, but it's quite a story.

Nicks: It's pretty great that it's coming out at the same time.

Fleetwood: I'm glad it is. It wasn't planned that way at all.

Nicks: There's a lot of great stuff on it, and a lot of creepy, weird stuff that never got on an album – just cool stuff, little minute things, little snippets of stuff that's really intriguing.

Q: Since it is coming out at the same time as your tour, will it affect your set list at all?

Nicks: There are a lot of songs on Rumours that are in the set no matter what. I think what will happen is we'll end up talking about it onstage. Most of those songs are in our set anyway. We'll just end up telling stories and talking about how these things happen. It's always fun to share that with your audience.

Q: Fleetwood Mac's reunion in 1997 for The Dance live album was fairly unexpected, but you've managed to stay together ever since. How did that happen?

Nicks: The Dance was very strong, and I think it really opened up our eyes. We had been apart for a long time. I absolutely did not think Fleetwood Mac was coming back at that point. Then all of a sudden it was, and it was like, all our plans were canceled, everything was flipped over, and Fleetwood Mac was coming back.

Buckingham: I took off in '87 because –

Nicks: You quit.

Buckingham: [Nods] I quit because things were getting a little too crazy, and I wanted to try to get my feet back on the ground. We did Clinton's inauguration in '93, and that was sort of the catalyst and had a delayed reaction. I think by the time you cut to '96, when we contemplated doing The Dance, there had been enough time where we all settled down as people. The craziness that existed in '87 and '88 was gone. We were – for all intents and purposes – adults. I think the time apart helped us appreciate each other. The group has always been a group of people you can say maybe didn't belong in the same band together, but it's the synergy that makes it so magical. We were able to see that more clearly.

Q: Lindsey had hesitated in the past to come back, so did something get resolved?

Buckingham: There were a number of false starts where I was trying to make solo albums. They would get constantly folded into group efforts. In retrospect I can say fair enough that you call yourself a band member and you've got to step up to the plate when the need arises. So that was an issue I had for a number of years that has come and gone. I am more appreciative of the fact that we know each other, we've been through so much together and we are really family.

Nicks: What else happened is I went into rehab on December 12th, 1993 and came out on the 27th of January – 47 days to come off of Klonopin. I nearly died. And I think one of the reasons that Lindsey left is because I was very, very high on this horrific tranquilizer. I didn't even make it to most of the recording sessions for [1987's] Tango in the Night. I was sick. And I think he was horribly worried that I was going to die. That's one of the reasons you [turns to Buckingham] wanted to quit. We had this huge tour and it was booked. We were at Chris' house and [Lindsey] stood up and said "I quit," and I – being so high and so messed up – just raged across the room and I wanted to kill him.

When I came out of rehab, I did a small three-month tour, and I got through it. I was going to be OK, and everyone knew I was going to be OK. And I think that's when Lindsey thought Fleetwood Mac could go on, because his beloved ex-girlfriend was not going to die. She was going to make it.

Q: So everything since then has been different from what it was before?

Buckingham: It's still evolving, and that's the beauty of it too. I've known Stevie since high school. We were a couple for many, many years, and we've been a musical couple forever. After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to work out, no new chapters to be written. But that is not the case – there are new chapters to be written. It's quite extraordinary.

Q: You have some history in this studio.

Buckingham: We recorded Tusk in Studio D.

Nicks: Thirteen months. We were here a lot.

Q: That was right after Rumours, so you had a lot of freedom.

Buckingham: That was my line in the sand, the Tusk album. It was clearly an undermining of what was expected of us.

Nicks: It was the opposite of Rumours.

Buckingham: It was an undermining of upholding the brand, which we now represented. It was also an undermining of what a lot of groups find themselves doing, which is painting themselves into a corner by doing only what's expected of them. It was a stand for art and for spontaneity and for the left side of the palette. It certainly did not perform commercially in the same way, nor would we have necessarily expected it to. It was a double album, for one thing. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when Warner Bros. put that on in their boardroom and listened to it for the first time. Over time it has been vindicated as a piece of work. It has become a darling for the indie bands, or at least the mentality of what that represents.

Nicks: Studio D was covered with Polaroids and shrunken heads and angel wings, and all of our stuff was in there. You walked into that room and there were big massive tusks on each side of the board, and the board was called Tusk. All of those songs – "Save Me a Place," "Sara" – it became something so beautiful and so ahead of its time. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall too when they played it, because they had to be horrified. I was a little horrified myself over that 13-month period, but it was an experience. We were going to the top of the mountain, and it was very spiritual. And again, we were having serious relationship problems during Tusk, but when we went into that studio and saw those tusks, and all the amazing stuff we collected and brought in every day, we became part of a world that was fantastic.

Q: What are your current recording plans?

Buckingham: When Stevie was on the road, and not long after her mom had passed away, Mick, John and I got together and we cut a bunch of tracks, and they turned out great. They were all done in Stevie's keys. They were done with her in mind. Subsequently, Stevie and I have gotten together, and she's sung on two of those. There's also another track that dates back to [pre-Fleetwood Mac project] Buckingham-Nicks that Stevie and I built up from scratch. There's a lot of stuff there. Some of this we will do in the show. We're not pushing it. We're just going to wait and see what everybody wants to hear.

source 2

Michael Pitt in BULLET MAGAZINE INTERVIEW AND PICS

via glooce

 

 

Michael Pitt’s American Psyche

by Murphy Cameron

Photography by Jeff Bark

He might look like an angel, but Michael Pitt’s career has been built on a foundation of brutal violence, premeditated attacks, and heartless executions. So it’s surprising to hear that the actor, writer, model, musician, artist, and pugilist considers himself a pacifist—especially when he’s tearing into a slab of red meat.

MICHAEL PITT woke up this morning in the Brooklyn brownstone he shares with his fiancée, model Jamie Bochert, and their cat, Crackhead. He rode the subway into midtown Manhattan, where he sat in on a writers’ meeting for a new film he’s doing. After four or five hours of that, the 31-year-old actor went to Union Editorial to talk to the editors of another movie he’s working on. Then Pitt headed to Mendez Boxing for 12 rounds of sparring. From the gym, he made his way to the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, where he stopped by his recording studio and art workspace to add to an 8′x8′collage comprised of Native American prints. To top it all off, Pitt slugged through a three-hour work session with Mike Cahill, the director of Another Earth. Now he’s sitting across from me at a French restaurant in Williamsburg, unremarkable but earnest in its bourgeois-bohemian rusticity.

Pitt looks relaxed, his face free of the pugnacious, punked-up expression he wears in many of his films. Shrouded in layers of black, a loose tuque swallowing most of his head, the notoriously press-averse actor acknowledges that skeptics are sometimes cynical when it comes to his wide-ranging non-film projects. “It’s difficult,” he says, cutting into a medium-well steak. “It’s not that common right now, but it is the future. Patti Smith has talked about it—how people thought she couldn’t be a writer because she was in rock and roll. Well fucking read her book.”

Although he’s almost always writing, recording, editing, painting, and training, Pitt is best known for his film and television characters—most notably and recently Jimmy Darmody on HBO’s Martin Scorsese–produced prohibition blowout Boardwalk Empire. Darmody was a conflicted and ambitious bootlegger who murdered men and once bedded his own mother before dying at the hands of his former mentor, Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), during the rain-soaked finale of last year’s second season.

It’s been a year since Pitt’s departure from the show, and he’s clearly moved on. Already in the works is an adaptation of adventurer Jack Black’s memoir You Can’t Win, a period piece set in the underground world of 1920s prostitution and vagrancy. Pitt stars in the film, which he also produced and co-wrote. He’ll soon start shooting a mafia drama called Rob the Mob, in which he’ll share the screen with Broadway breakout Nina Arianda. “It’s the true story of a Bonnie and Clyde–type couple, who, in the ’90s, decided to rip off Italian social clubs. It started a war within the mafia and the FBI used that commotion to get everyone to rat each other out. It fucking killed the whole thing—it was the mob’s last hurrah.”

In the course of his still-young career, Pitt has worked with some very provocative filmmakers: Larry Clark, Bernardo Bertolucci, Gus Van Sant (twice), Michael Haneke, and Martin McDonagh—the Oscar-winning playwright with whom he collaborated on the recently released film, Seven Psychopaths. (“Stanley Kubrick,” he deadpans when asked if there’s anyone he would die to work with.) But despite—and maybe because of—his many art-house triumphs, the name Michael Pitt hasn’t hit the Hollywood marquee, which is exactly how he wants it.

Pitt was 14 when he started taking the bus to New York from his home of West Orange, New Jersey. On one occasion, he hitched a ride with a friend who’d been studying acting at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts, where Pitt ended up crashing a Bill Bartlett lecture. “He was one of my angels,” Pitt says of the actor, director, and teacher. “Basically, Bill told me, ‘I can’t teach you how to act. I can show you what I know, but you should get the fuck out of acting class and just go do it.’ That’s oversimplifying it, but it was really valuable advice.”

Although West Orange is an upper-middle class suburban community, Pitt encountered his share of tribulations growing up. He hopped between high schools and juvenile detention centers before dropping out at 16. Pitt eventually moved to New York, where he became another struggling kid dabbling in crust-punk homelessness and cheap communal living, with the hope, like so many before him, of somehow subsisting on music, acting, or art. “I sort of bummed around Manhattan when I didn’t really have an address,” he says. “I moved to Brooklyn for financial reasons. Then I learned that there were a lot of people in the same financial situation that I was in.” He’s lived in Brooklyn ever since, physically and spiritually detached from Hollywood’s hollow industrial heart.

Paychecks from discerningly chosen acting parts in independent films aren’t exactly meaty, so Pitt occasionally subsidizes his income with high-end, high-paying fashion gigs, as he did last year when he became the face of Prada’s Spring/Summer 2012 ad campaign. “I’ve done stuff like that to support specific artistic endeavors,” he says. “It’s one of the big reasons I’ve been able to pay rent in New York. Fashion, for all its vanity and superficiality, actually raises a lot of money for organizations and supports many artists. I did the Prada campaign because, one, they asked me, and two, because they really know how to make a fucking suit.” Pitt has also worked with Yves Saint Laurent, another brand that somehow bolsters his already airtight artistic integrity.

Read the rest of the interview @ the source  2

Kristen Stewart & Garrett Hedlund talk about the movie adaptation of On the Road

via glooce

There's traffic from Silver Lake. That's why Kristen Stewart and Garrett Hedlund, the stars of On the Road, are late to the Benedict Room of the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. We're as psychically far from Jack Kerouac's Beat gospel as you can get: fidgeting under crystal chandeliers in a $400-per-night hotel, with guests in comfy white robes riding gilded elevators and maids pushing breakfast trays of eggs Hollandaise and medicine ball–sized avocados.

The journey from scroll to screen has been an equally strange odyssey.


Since Kerouac published his sex-, drugs- and satori-searching novel in 1957, false starts and "unfilmable" rumors have lengthened its odds of adaptation.


The author once sought Marlon Brando to play Dean Moriarty, the book's infamous thief/wildman and Kerouac's trim-hipped "Western Kinsman of the Sun" (Kerouac assured he could handle the narrator/protagonist Sal Paradise, based on himself).
( Collapse )

Two decades later, Francis Ford Coppola acquired the rights and famously struggled to bring the book to life, with actors Colin Farrell, Ethan Hawke, Brad Pitt and Billy Crudup variously attached as male leads. We were one German investment group away from On the Road as proto-slacker parable.


A decade later, aided by several European and Latin American co-financiers and Walter Salles, director of The Motorcycle Diaries, the $25 million adaptation premiered to mixed reviews at May's Cannes Film Festival.


The local unveiling occurred during November's AFI Fest at Grauman's Chinese Theatre with an afterparty at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. There was an electro-funk mash-up DJ, a shadow light projection for Shellback Caribbean Rum and the dull iridescence of a thousand iPhones and bald agent scalps. No whiskey was served.


It's two days after that Hollywood night on a weatherless Southern California Monday morning. Early November. 9:17 a.m.


With silver eyes and wine-dark hair, Kristen Stewart is sitting in front of me and we're not talking because Hedlund still hasn't shown up and what small talk can you make with the 22-year-old, tabloid-tormented star of Twilight. In person, she's pretty but severe, as though her face is all elbows.


When her co-star finally arrives, Stewart offers a sisterly hug with a sense of relief that suggests she's acutely aware of how awkward it is to be interviewed by people who know every uncomfortable (and possibly spurious) facet of your existence.


Hedlund is her opposite. If Stewart is shy and pallid, and balsamic salad-thin, Hedlund is broad-shouldered, farmer-tanned and blond.


The 28-year-old Midwesterner has the loquacious confidence and aw-shucks ambition of a young congressional chief of staff.


As a movie star, he is in the Armie Hammer–as-Winklevii mold. She is an L.A.-born goth locker pinup for kids who define old-school as before Instagram arrived on Droid phones.


The question before them is: What is On the Road even supposed to mean when you can Google Earth and Yelp your way across the heartland?


"I think [the Internet] gives people the urge to travel to further and more remote locations to get their kicks ... to find lands that are untouched by human hand," Hedlund says, with slang indicative of the time he spent researching the Beat muse Neil Cassady, Kerouac's model for Moriarty.


There was the cast's three-week Beat boot camp, which included Skype tutorials from an old Kerouac colleague about the proper way to break Benzedrine capsules with beer bottles.


In order to get into the spirit of the book, Hedlund estimates that he filled up about 100 notepads on multiple treks across the country's surviving backroads.


Stewart was originally cast at 17 to play Mary Lou, née Luanne Henderson, the sexualized child bride worshipped and scorned by Moriarty and Paradise.


"I'm 100 percent nostalgic for times that I haven't lived in ... when there was less insignificant stimulation," Stewart says, tapping her foot with nervous energy, jangling the copper bangles around her wrists, folding her T-shirt with her hands and mostly looking down.


"If you're not watching a TV show or downloading something, you're bored," she adds. "Back in the day, there was less to do, people had to use their minds."


Stewart speaks infrequently and with caution, cognizant that even her most banal sentences are parsed with vice presidential scrutiny, or at least NBA All-Star. After all, most basketball franchises can't sell merchandise like Team Edward.


Hedlund, whose previous big credit was Tron: Legacy, handles most of the talking — staying true to the dynamic of the film.


"I've always romanticized the late '40s and '50s — the cars, jazz, the open roads and lack of pollution," he says, business-casual in a navy blue dress shirt, the top button unbuttoned; his chest is nearly hairless. "Now there are more vehicles, less hitchhikers, more billboards and power lines and stuff.


"People wrote wonderful long letters that took months to receive, and now everything is email. "


Both reiterate the idea that the book's timelessness is immutable. Even though a contemporary Kerouac could have seen Cassady's conquests on Facebook, the actors point out that young people will always be hypnotized by the amphetamine prose and intoxicating ideas of freedom and rebellion.


"Anybody that wants to walk out that door and leave home for a few months and rely on themselves instead of fate might have some interesting stories to tell," Hedlund says.


"I don't think there's ever going to be a point when there aren't a group of people who have varied expectations of what they want from fate. You gravitate toward those people and you do things you couldn't do alone," Stewart, also a big Henry Miller fan, adds. "That's why the book has never been not popular amongst people pushing and running after something."


We talk for a little while about the characters, their models, jazz, their Beat reading list. Inside the Actors Studio stuff — none of it is very interesting, and neither is entirely unaware of that. Then Stewart's publicist whisks her out and she says "nice to meet you" with more sincerity than she needs to.


Hedlund talks a little more about his road trips and research. But what really stands out isn't one of his own stories but one from Salles, the director, via Hedlund, about a pilgrimage to the Bay Area to meet Beat poet and Kerouac comrade Lawrence Ferlinghetti.


"They were on the streets of 'Frisco and they looked over and there's cars and traffic jams, and all these billboards and signs and advertisements and bright lights," Hedlund says, jabbing at why On the Road's ideas are indelible yet inimitable. "Then Ferlinghetti pointed and said, 'See ... there is no more way."

source 2

2013 Grammy Nominee Kelly Clarkson beams in London with Happiness-Interview videos

via glooce

Kelly Clarkson flashes a smile for the camera as she arrives at the ITV Studios in London on Wednesday, December 5. The singer is currently overseas on a promo tour for her current release, Greatest Hits: Chapter One. Clarkson filmed an appearance on the talk show Loose Women the morning before the nominees for the 2013 Grammys were announced, adding 3 more nominations to her list of accomplishments. Her album Stronger is up for Best Pop Vocal Album, while the smash title track is up for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance (as well Song of the Year for songwriters Jorgen Elofsson, David Gamson, Greg Kurstin and Ali Tamposi).

Loose Women Interview


Performing "Because of You" and slaying it as usual


Source 1
Source 2
Source 3

source 4

Leonardo Dicaprio,Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington cover VIBE MAGAZINE-Full Interview

via glooce

VIBE: Before Django was even completed, the screenplay and the trailer received criticism from black people who objected to the treatment of slavery, suggesting it is not serious. It is a spaghetti western not a heavy drama like, say, Roots or The Color Purple. Were you prepared for this type of scrutiny?

LEONARDO DICAPRIO: We knew there was going to be controversy. The question is: What is not a realistic depiction? I would argue that it is. It is Quentin's re-creation; this character doesn't exist. There's nobody that is documented to do what Jamie's character has done at the time. But the documentaries I saw went even further.

   

JAMIE FOXX: Put it this way: I completely understand what you're saying. 'Cause as black folks we're always sensitive. As a black person it's always racial. I come into this place to do a photo shoot and they got Ritz crackers and cheese. I'll be like, ain't this a bitch. Y'all didn't know black people was coming. What's with all this white shit? By the same token, if there is fried chicken and watermelon I'll say ain't this a bitch? So, no matter what we do as black people it's always gonna be that. Every single thing in my life is built around race. I don't necessarily speak it because you can't. But the minute I leave my house, I gotta put my other jacket on and say, ‘‘Hey, Thomas, Julian and Greg.” And I gotta be a certain person.

DICAPRIO: Thomas, Julian and Greg?

VIBE: Those are white people.

FOXX: No some of those people are black. But when I get home my other homies are like how was your day? Well, I only had to be white for at least eight hours today, [or] I only had to be white for four hours. Everything we do is that. When you're talking about the script, of course it's going to be controversy. I remember talking to Tyler Perry about it. [In Perry's very serious voice] ‘‘Ah man, the script, man. Have you read it?” When I finally read it, I called Tyler and we had a conversation. I said, ‘‘I got a different take on it than you did.” And we shared. And I called Tyler while we were shooting it. I said, ‘‘Do you know that Quentin Tarantino knows all of your shit on TV. I don't even watch all of your shit.” He said, ‘‘Really?” The difference is the Quentin Tarantino Effect. I ran into Spike Lee at the BET Awards. You know Spike, he'll let you have it whether it's good, bad or ugly. And he said, ‘‘I'm not going to say anything bad about this film. It looks like y'all are getting it

KERRY WASHINGTON: This is not a doc. This is a Quentin Tarantino film. But I remember there was this one moment in the script where Jamie's character was put in an awful crazy medieval metal mask. I said, ‘‘That's some sick thing Quentin thought up.” And when I went to the production office to meet about my wardrobe, I saw into the research office. Twenty photos of real masks like that. It made me sad. I realized as much as my degrees and everything I've read on slave narratives [should have informed me], I didn't even know that they wore masks like that, that people did that to us. It took a Tarantino movie for me to know that that's not some crazy thing out of his imagination. That's how it went down.

VIBE: Leonardo, you’re playing the bad guy, finally. Now doesn’t that feel good?

DICAPRIO: Of course, playing a bad guy opens you up to not having as many rules or restraints. I think actors have gravitated to that because it frees you up in a way. It takes you to the darkest place of where you are as a person and lets you indulge in that and give in to that and be as horrible as you possibly can without the conflicting side of what's good and what's right. This is the first legit bad guy I've ever had to play, and it is a fucking horrible [character]; the worst display of humanity I've ever read in my entire life. Not even just because of who he was and the racism, but because he is just the most self-indulgent bastard I've ever read.

WASHINGTON: Everybody went to a place they've never been before. Samuel Jackson went into the trailer and came out every day looking like an entirely different human being.
DICAPRIO: When Sam showed up all the volumes were like, ‘‘Oh shit; I gotta say this louder.” He left a charge in our ass.

VIBE: Kerry, you played opposite Jamie in Ray as his wife. This time, you go back in time to play his wife again. How did your previous work together figure in here?

WASHINGTON: I couldn't have done this movie without Jamie. The trust factor. I think there is something beautiful about the fact that the film is about a husband and wife being reunited after being separated. And the audiences also get to see us being reunited. I think there is poetry in that. But the places we had to go emotionally I would not be able to go with an actor that I didn't respect, admire, trust and love. Even days when we weren't working it was good to know you had that person in your corner.

VIBE: What does that mean on set, for someone to be in your corner as an actor? How does that look in action?

FOXX: I got my foot on Samuel Jackson, and he said, ‘‘Now kick me. I'm gonna roll off this motherfucker.” I said, ‘‘What?” It's Samuel Jackson. Anybody else I would have gone in. He said, ‘‘Nah, nah, motherfucker bring that shit.”

DICAPRIO: Quentin Tarantino is a great filmmaker. But what he does better than everyone is he brings people together. He is a man that is very specific about his vision. There are certain things you just can't fuck with. There are certain things in telling his story he knows exactly what he wants. You have to create a situation in which you feel free to speak your mind or change things up. I am at my best–I think actors are at their best, when they are involved and feel the ownership of that character. He's that unique combination of knowing the path or journey he wants to go on, but is able to go off and improvise.

WASHINGTON: He's also not afraid to hire people who are really good at what they do. If you look at this cast, it takes a life of its own. I remember we did this one scene at this dining room table and we thought it was going to go one way and Sam and Leonardo took it to this other level. We were like, ‘‘Okay, we need to rethink the next 30 pages of the script. This is a different movie now.”

FOXX: They changed the trajectory. He got a standing ovation after one of his speeches. I'm sitting there watching it going like, ‘‘This changes the movie.”

WASHINGTON: I suddenly find myself about to cry in a moment that was not supposed to be a moment at all.

VIBE: Looks like the screenplay for Django Unchained is on the path to an Oscar nomination. All of you obviously loved it, but was there anything in the screenplay that made you think twice?

DICAPRIO: For me, the initial thing obviously was playing someone so disreputable and horrible whose ideas I obviously couldn't connect with on any level. I remember our first read through, and some of my questions were about the amount of violence, the amount of racism, the explicit use of certain language. It was hard for me to wrap my head around it. My initial response was, ‘‘Do we need to go this far?” Quentin pushes the envelope, you know, much like Inglourious Basterds was about World War II, a heightened reality. His depiction or retelling of that time. This is his retelling of this era. But my immediate question was, ‘‘Are we going too far?”

VIBE: How did you overcome that?

DICAPRIO: Samuel Jackson was like, ‘‘You can't pull any punches, none of this can be sugar coated.” He felt that a lot of this stuff had not been portrayed accurately. Even though this is a very isolated story about one man who defies the odds as a slave, however realistic that would have been at that time period, to him it was about really showing for the first time the horrific atrocities that haven't really been shown in this manner before. He told me, ‘‘If you're going to do this, you have to go all the way.” The further you go, the more people are going to embrace it for being accurate, certainly about what was going on.

VIBE: Is there anything in your life that can prepare you for playing a wicked slave master?

DICAPRIO: The thing that made him click for me was some of the conversations I had with Quentin during the writing process about things like Phrenology. Because I wanted him to be able to have a sort of scientific approach to how he operated. And Phrenology at the time was a bogus study of the skull and human emotions and feelings, where they came from. A lot of the plantation owners and scientists used that at the time to promote the idea of slavery staying as it was. And it was a completely made-up, bullshit science. But that sort of thing elevated the character. He bought into his own bullshit. He was so encompassed in this world that he actually had a scientific plausible explanation for doing what he did. The sequences we did, especially near the end, were horrific. So you had to cut your emotions off to do your job as an actor.

FOXX: What was great is it turned into this family where everybody has each other's back or you would fall apart. There were certain points where my man [Leonardo] would be like, ‘‘Buddy, how could this happen?”

WASHINGTON: We've had weeks when we weren't sleeping. Texting each other at three in the morning, like, ‘‘Yo, what are we going to do?” We would have scenes where we would be in it-in it-in it–Cut! You okay, you okay? Then you turn around and go right back in it.

VIBE: What would you text each other at three in the morning? 

WASHINGTON: I can't sleep. Me neither. Laughs.

FOXX: What we were doing was an acrobatic routine with the highest degree of difficulty. You land perfectly, it's all 10s. You don't land it, you don't get into it, you never know what the judge will give you. Every slither of this film, we thought about it. And what was great about Quentin Tarantino is he welcomed our thoughts. And like most directors this is his baby. We had to make sure we were respectful, but we also had to make sure he could trust us. For example, there was a rape scene. Obviously that's a dynamic moment. Like, I told him, black people watch a movie different that white folks. When you watch Inglourious Basterds, Jewish people have a more quiet response. [Whispers] ‘‘I can't believe they did that.” When black people don't like something it's like: [louder] ‘‘Ay dawg, why Olivia Pope went down like that. That shit is fucked up.” What I wanted to say and what we all knew was art is one thing and art is an acquired taste.

WASHINGTON: We didn't want this story to get lost in the art.

FOXX: The way [Django] protected her, I get it. The way Quentin shot the scene still gives you the dynamic of what happened without the graphicness of us, me–Jamie Foxx, Eric Bishop–seeing Kerry Washington. Because there are certain things that we watch as black people that if we don't agree with it, we not only turn off the movie but we turn off that person. When we feel like the character was compromised by the white establishment.

VIBE: Kerry, you had to go from playing a slave, a piece of property, to a political power player (Olivia Pope) in Scandal. How do you give both of these black female characters their due?

WASHINGTON: It was really weird. We all had to shift to our next characters much more quickly than we thought we would because this movie was a never-ending process. I felt like when I went back to play Olivia Pope, I didn't know how to walk in heels any more because I've been running barefoot in the woods for six months. I didn't know how to stand like her. I didn't know what it was like to wear pants anymore. It was really interesting. It was like having to go two centuries in two days and what those two centuries meant as a black woman. To be from somebody who wasn't even considered a human being in our constitution to arguably one of the most powerful women in the country because she put the president where he is. It fucked with my head a little bit.

DICAPRIO: This is the first time I did three movies back to back like this. I came from doing The Great Gatsby, which is also an American story about money and what that does to the human psychology. That it is the root of evil and what lengths people will go. And I'm doing another movie about money as well. And the effects of money on who Gatsby was, in prohibition he was a guy who got involved with gangsters to become a part of the white aristocracy of the East. And then going to the South, predating that to play somebody who wanted to own his plantation by any means necessary. There's a relationship to all of them that I didn't even realize as I was doing them, but it is a theme subconsciously I was attracted to because it was so prevalent everywhere in this country. That's what this election [was] about at the end of the day. That's what it all boiled down to. I love your view on that and that's wonderful, but how is the fucking economy?

VIBE: Speaking of the election, what is it about Hollywood that makes it a liberals-only club?

FOXX: It's the one-percenters who are actually liberal. We're artists. I'm just here to make jokes and sing and have a good time and make people feel good. When I walk down the street, I don't see anything; I just see folks. I always look at it like this. It's weird to me that we can be in a war and be fighting someone right now with guns and bullets in 2012. It doesn't make sense. That's why I am politically where I am. It doesn't come down to economy.My worry is what is happening to another human.

WASHINGTON: I think our job is to step into somebody else's shoes as actors. So I think we are open to other people's journeys. Because our jobs is to be empathetic. To say, ‘‘How does this person see the world, how does this person think about things?” Our job is to think about the other person. I think that has a lot to do with it.

VIBE: What effect did working on an actual plantation have on you? Especially with the actors in slave costumes and horse and buggies, the genuine look of a slave plantation?

FOXX: For me, it was different. I'm from the South. It's a tough script to read. When you're from California or New York, it's like reading something out of science fiction. How are these people like that.

When President Obama became president in 2008, a blemish on my hometown was the fact that it wasn't on the front page of the newspaper. When they went down to talk to them, they went [country accent] ‘‘Hey listen, we run a newspaper, not a scrap book.” I'm paraphrasing. So I had both of my daughters come down to the plantation, and I walked them through and I said, “This is where your people come from. This is your background.” And I said, “this is more than just a movie for your father.”” My little daughter, I took her into the shack, and I said, ‘‘these are where the slaves stayed.” Every two, three years there is a movie about the holocaust because they want you to remember and they want you to be reminded of what it was. When was the last time you seen a movie about slavery?

WASHINGTON: When is the last time you saw a movie about slavery where a black man frees himself?

FOXX: We read back in the day about Nat Turner and other guys who were not taking it. That's why, when I read the script and we went back to the plantation, there were certain things inside me bubbling up. It was different for a black person who is there. We would play music in between. I don't think Leo was there when we were on shack row.

WASHINGTON: He was in the big house.

[Laughter]

FOXX: They were shooting my side of when he's about to get lashes. Everybody there was just waiting for that moment, all the women on the set were like, ‘‘Wow this is going to be one of the hurdles in the script.” Now what was interesting was Quentin played music in between, which I thought was really cool. A lot of times he played music that kept things light. But that day, I found a piece of music from Fred Hammond, because I wanted that song to play.

VIBE: So this was your soundtrack for that day of shooting?

FOXX: Yeah. I picked Fred Hammond. What happened was Quentin was getting ready to shoot. Kerry's character wants to take the lashes. But the song was, [singing] ‘‘No weapon formed against me shall prosperº” And when that happened, I saw a lady who had never been on a movie set before, and she was there with her kid. And her hand went up, and then I watched Quentin as he was shooting. And his eyepiece filled up with water, and he was like, ‘‘I had no idea.” I said, ‘‘Yeah, man, I know it sounds corny, but those are the ancestors saying you guys are on the right track.”

source 2

Lindsay Lohan Interview with the UK's Daily Mirror

via glooce

It's easy to see why Lindsay Lohan fought so hard to play Elizabeth Taylor in a new drama, as their lives have striking parallels.


Both were hugely successful child stars, have been the subject of unrelenting public scrutiny and had a string of tempestuous love affairs.


But there’s one big difference: the 26-year-old hasn’t found her Richard Burton yet.


She has reportedly dated lots of hunky men, including Bruce Willis, Christian Slater, Colin Farrell and Jared Leto, but she still hasn’t found The One.


Lindsay, who plays Taylor in the TV movie Liz and Dick, says: “I can only imagine what it would be like to have the kind of love that she and Richard Burton had.


“It’s such a wonderful thing. It’s so heartbreaking. Love is scary and I’m yet to find that one person.


"I relate to the fact that Elizabeth Taylor once said, ‘I love being in love.’ I do, too. I love being in love.


“There’s nothing better than that first feeling of being in love, so I look forward to having that at some point.


“Yes, I’ve been in love with people – maybe one or two – but I haven’t really had a true love yet.”

Liz and Dick marks her comeback in front of the cameras after a rocky two years during which she spent three months in rehab at the Betty Ford Center under a court order and was charged with theft of a necklace and probation violation.

She was placed under house arrest wearing a tracking ankle monitor and was later found to have broken the terms of her probation by failing to perform community service.

She was sentenced to 30 days in jail but spent less than five hours there because of overcrowding. She is still on informal probation.

But, she says, she is trying hard to lose the “bad girl” image that has dogged her for so long and she is now concentrating on work.

“I fought to get the role in Liz and Dick because I related to her so much because of her position in the public eye and the media obsession with her, and the ups and downs in her relationships and life. And that’s aside from her love for diamonds!” she laughs.

“We’re both strong-willed and Elizabeth and her mother had a similar bond to the one I have with my mother.

"I learned from Liz that it’s OK to be in love and have heartache. She and Burton loved each other so much it was scary.”

When the role came along she was anxious to start work again and try to restore her reputation.

“I love acting and that’s what I started out doing and it’s unfortunate that people began to know me as a celebrity rather than an actress,” she says. “I can only hope to gain respect back through my work.”

And after so much turmoil she is determined to change her life.

“I care what people think but I am who I am and it’s unfortunate that some of the things that are meant to be kept private have been exposed and if I had the choice I wouldn’t have had it that way.

“I’ve drawn from experiences and from things I’ve seen and grown up with and I don’t want to go back.”

Lindsay believes that part of her problems stemmed from the people around her.

“When you’re filming, you’re part of a family and then when it stops you’re left alone with nothing and it gets lonely and depressing and sad.

“I was being hounded a lot and didn’t know what to do and didn’t want to listen to anyone. At the age when I would have been in college I was in Los Angeles living by myself and I didn’t have the best people with the best intentions around me.

“It’s hard for me to say ‘no’ to someone I love and I really don’t like to notice the bad in people and I’ve had to work on that because not everyone has your best interests at heart.

“When you reach a certain point of fame, people are willing to do whatever you ask them to do and are afraid to say no.

“That has a lot to do with living in excess and if you don’t have the right people around you then you’re never going to learn when to stop.”

Lindsay was upbeat and friendly when we talked in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Lively and quick-witted with a bright sense of humour, she talked frankly and openly about her life and problems despite the fact her publicists had ruled out any personal questions.

She was wearing a vintage blue dress, one of hundreds she keeps in storage units around LA.

“I was working and travelling a lot and living in different hotels and I didn’t want to bring everything with me so you end up buying more and then it comes home and people send you things.

“It just piles up and up and you want to keep getting the new thing so you end up having way too much,” says Lindsay, who once confessed to having spent £75,000 in one shopping spree.

“My garage is not a garage, it’s a closet,” she laughs. “I love clothing. It’s so expressive and whatever you wear on a certain day tells the story of who you are.”

Despite the fame and fortune life isn’t easy for Lindsay. Wherever she goes she is hounded by paparazzi and her troubled home life and anguished relationship with her father have come under almost constant scrutiny in the gossip columns and fan magazines.

She has been in showbusiness since she was three years old, when she was the first red-haired child signed by the Ford model agency.

Raised in Long Island, New York, she was sometimes thrust into the role of protector of her younger sister and two brothers from the antics and aggression of her father, a former Wall Street trader who was jailed for a series of offences.

Divorced from Lindsay’s mother Dina, Michael Lohan’s problems include alleged drug abuse, attempted assault, a fraud case, felony driving charges and a restraining order. He also tried to claim some of Lindsay’s earnings.

The actress made her film debut in 1998 playing twins in the remake of The Parent Trap and became a teenage star, thanks to roles in Freaky Friday and Mean Girls.

Her last movie was a small part in Machete two years ago but now she is back, with Liz and Dick, and has just finished two more films.

“I said to everyone I was working with, ‘Just keep me on set’ because that’s where I’m happiest and I lost that feeling for a while.

"Now I have it back I don’t want to give it up. I just want to keep making films. That’s my focus.

“I know that I’m a really good actress and I know I’ve had my faults. But knowing that and knowing that I love what I do has kept me going.”


Source 2

Halle Berry on The Wendy Williams Show Video

via glooce

Full Selena Gomez Glamour interview and a new pic from Wizards movie filming

via glooce

 

Selena Gomez is a Woman of the Year because… “She’s giving back to people who need help, because of her own life experience…. She’s the exception to so many rules. ” —singer and friend Taylor Swift

Here are six of our favorite moments from our interview with Selena Gomez. To read the full story, pick up the December issue of Glamour on newsstands November 6, or download the digital issue now.

On looking back at how her mom raised her and if she feels grateful…
“[Nods] Uh-huh! I definitely didn’t appreciate it when I was little. I was frustrated that my parents weren’t together, and never saw the light at the end of the tunnel where my mom was working hard to provide a better life for me. I’m terrified of what I would have become if I’d stayed there. I’m sure I’d have two children by now. But I love the people, and I’m glad I grew up there. It’s because of [my mom] that I can do things on my own. I like being professional. I like showing up on time. I like being good to people, and I know that I’m reflecting her at the end of the day.”

On her most eye-opening moments as UNICEF’s youngest-ever U.S. ambassador…
“When I went to Ghana with my mom and my stepdad for UNICEF. That entire trip was life changing. There were kids playing with plastic bottles—they got a bunch of rubber bands and put the bottles together and made a soccer ball—and that was their entertainment; they were so happy! If you think how we live our lives here, we need so much to keep us entertained, and we expect so much. And these kids want an education so badly. I mean, I hated homework, and they want it; it’s amazing. I also participated in the Global Poverty Project’s Live Below the Line campaign, where I lived on $1.50 a day for a week—such a cool experience.”

On if she feels like she is talking to two engaged fan bases at once (her own and boyfriend Justin Bieber’s)…
“Yeah, and I adore his fans. I would never, ever want to disrespect them. You know, I get it: I was obsessed with Jesse McCartney growing up! He was my world. My high school crush. So I respect it, and if anything, I admire it.”

On if her 15-year-old self would be surprised at what her life looks like now…
“Yeah, because I was so scared and so shy back then. I mean, I grew up in one of the biggest high schools in the world, and that’s the Disney Channel. Everybody was falling in love with each other or not liking each other, and it was exhausting…and I was the shy one in the corner. And now I’m so opinionated, and I don’t have time for the cattiness. I have good people around me, and I’m glad I’m at the place I’m in. I wish I was there back then.”

On not letting negativity affect her…
“If I had let all of the negative stuff affect me, I don’t think I would be satisfied with the person I am now. That’s what I tell my fans: If you’re miserable with everything going on in school, that is so not going to matter the moment you leave. My mom always told me, “Just turn the other cheek and keep moving forward.” That’s something I’ve always done, and now I look back and I have no regrets.”

On if she ever has time to see best friend Taylor Swift and boyfriend Justin Bieber and if they text constantly to stay in touch…
“Basically! I actually did talk to Taylor last week, and we were like, “I don’t even remember the last time I saw you,” which is really unfortunate. But if it gets too dire, I fly to Taylor or I fly home or I fly to Justin.”


Source 1, 2, 3

Demi Lovato: I'm Bringing The Sound of Real Music Back [With My New Album]

via glooce

When we met up with Demi Lovato in New York City earlier this month, we had no idea what she'd look like when we arrived. Of course we're very familiar with her work but she's become such a hair chameleon this year we weren't sure we'd recognize her. We quickly discovered the 20-year-old is going through a blond phase — with bangs, no extensions — when we were brought in to meet her as she sat barefoot curled up on a couch.

"It's crazy," Lovato tells omg! about life as a blonde. "I never ever thought that I would go blond, but I'm having fun with it." As for the bangs, I just feel like myself again. It reminds me of being 15 again — when I was doing 'Camp Rock.' I don't know how long I'll keep them, but for the meantime it just makes me feel like myself."

After a difficult few years, which included a much publicized stint in rehab for emotional issues, including cutting and an eating disorder, feeling like herself is an amazing thing. And on "X Factor," she seems right at home as she sits alongside Cowell, Britney Spears, and L.A. Reid critiquing aspiring singers. While the cranky Cowell — who is 33 years her senior — could be an intimidating person to go head-to-head with, Lovato seems undaunted when it comes to facing off against her boss. "I love messing with him," Lovato laughs. "He's really funny and I have a lot of fun working with him. But someone has to put him in his place. I mean — you can't come to the United States from England and make fun of all of us! I have to stand up for my country."

Something else Lovato is taking a stand against is bullying. She recently partnered up with Secret deodorant for their Mean Stinks campaign, which is an effort to bring an end to girl-on-girl harassment. "Well, it's not a surprise," she says of her involvement. "I've talked a lot about my past experiences. Most of my issues stemmed from the trauma of being bullied when I was 12 years old. I've also known people who have taken their lives because of bullying. It's something I never want to see happen again. So if I can put an end to it, I'm going to do anything I can to stop it."

Part of the campaign involves girls painting their pinky nails blue in a sort of pinky swear promise to end bullying, which led to a conversation about the celebrity nail art trend. Lovato says she's not a fan. "I don't like nail art," she says. "I used to be obsessed — I'd have a cupcake on one finger and leopard on the other. These days I'm a pretty simple girl when it comes to nails. I either wear clear polish, black or dark red — that's it." So we won't see her next album cover painted on her index finger? "I leave that to Katy Perry," she smiles.

Speaking of her next album, Lovato is hard at work on her fourth one, which will be out next year. What can people expect? "I'm bringing the sound of real music back," she previews, sharing that she has three or four songs completed. "I think Adele does a great job — they are catchy pop songs, but it's real music and there are instruments. I want to bring a lot of that back. There's going to be some fun, light-hearted songs with kind of a throwback sound. But I say one thing and then I spend like a month in the studio and it ends up being totally different, so I don't know," she laughs.

So how does Lovato find time to balance all her projects with maintaining a healthy lifestyle post-treatment? "I make time," Lovato says, sounding much older than her years. "I'm a really dedicated person. And I know that if I work really, really hard now, I can get to the place that I want to be in my career so that maybe in a couple years — or whenever I make it to that level — I can take a break." What would she do? "Travel the world. Spend a ton of time with my family. Maybe start a family," she says, shooting out ideas fast and furiously before quickly adding, "Years and years down the road."

Sounds like after a rocky road, she's got things figured out.

Source 2

Nene Leakes talks about The New Normal on The Wendy Williams Show

via glooce

Stephen Colbert talks about grief, fear, and Jon Stewart in rare serious interview with 'Playboy'

via glooce

In an instance when you really should read it for the articles, Playboy magazine’s November issue features a rare serious interview with Stephen Colbert, as opposed to “Stephen Colbert,” the political pundit caricature he plays on his satirical late night show, The Colbert Report.
It’s not often we see Stephen Colbert as the real Stephen Colbert, but he’s shaken off his character twice this month: First for Oprah, and now for Playboy.

Colbert explained to the magazine his reasoning for not staying in character for the interview: “If I’m doing a talk show or an interview like this, or pretty much anything where I can’t control the context, I’m loath to do the character. Because outside the context of the show, you have to be okay with the clang of [that character] against reality.”

In the interview, Colbert talked about his childhood love of science fiction, his visit to the set of The Hobbit, the death of his father and two brothers when he was 10 years old, and his friendship with Jon Stewart. You can check out the full interview online here, but we know you PopWatchers are busy folks what with all that pop culture consumption you have to do, so here’s a look at the highlights: 

On how he encourages his guests to play along on the show: “[The 'Stephen Colbert' character] is willfully ignorant of what you know and care about. Honestly disabuse him of his ignorance and we’ll have a good time. All they have to do, as my guest producer Emily Lazar says, is talk to him as though he’s a harmless drunk at the next bar stool.”

On what he’s truly afraid of: “Accidentally driving my boat into a pillar with loved ones onboard.”

On grief: “The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size. It is not the size of you. It is its own size. And grief comes to you. You know what I mean? I’ve always liked that phrase ‘He was visited by grief,’ because that’s really what it is. Grief is its own thing. It’s not like it’s in me and I’m going to deal with it. It’s a thing, and you have to be OK with its presence. If you try to ignore it, it will be like a wolf at your door.”

On getting into science fiction as a teenager: “In some ways it was about escape. I think there’s absolute truth in escaping the reality of your present predicament. And that can just be about being young. It doesn’t have to be tragedy. There’s a tragedy to being 13. Things are changing. Friends are changing. Your body is changing. You need to escape that. My additional emotional crises don’t necessarily explain my interest in it.”

On his friendship with Jon Stewart: “I’m an ardent admirer of his. I would say the thing that has kept me from being as good a friend to Jon as I would like is just that I am such a fan. I am gobsmacked by his abilities. But that being said, we go out to dinner, and we sometimes pick up the phone just to say, ‘How are you?’ Or, ‘Do you mind if I tell you how I am? I had a s—-y week.’”

On comedy: “Ultimately it’s an athletic endeavor. You have to be able to just hit the backhand. You can’t think about all the pieces of it. You can’t think about your swing. You just have to do it. Reading someone else’s deconstruction of what I do, all it does is put me in my head. On nights when the show goes particularly well, I am not aware of its fluidity. A lot of nights I’m just worried that I’m not going to be as good as the script in front of me.”

On extending his contract with Comedy Central through 2014: “I try not to think about it in terms of years. You can’t do 161 shows. It can’t be done. All I can do is today and tomorrow and have some idea of what we’re doing next week. That’s all I can worry about. I have a script for today, I have probably half a script for tomorrow, and that’s as far down the road as I ever look. I know the mechanism of my show, and I know how it works. There’s a joy in that.”

source 2