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20:15:28 02/09/12
![Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise Teaser Trailer [HD]](http://static2.channels.com/thumbnails/assets/youtube-com/feeds/167-2215/342395/episodes/_MachinimaTrailer-Kung-Fu-Strike--The-Warrior-s-Rise-Teaser-Trailer--HD---jpg)
Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise Teaser Trailer [HD]
![Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise Teaser Trailer [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z2wI_OHYGHA/default.jpg)
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 20:15:28 02/09/12
Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise Teaser Trailer [HD]
Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise Teaser Trailer [HD] Developer: Qooc Soft Release: Q1/2012 Genre: Action Platform: X360 Publisher: 7sixty Website: kungfustrike.7sixty.com Kung Fu Strike tells the story of General Loh, a warrior struggling to avenge his father's death while around him ancient China spirals out of control due to warring factions that threaten to split the country apart. Will Loh find out who is responsible for his father's death? Can he save his homeland from destruction? And will he ever discover what the mysterious 'Zen Room of Emptiness' is? IF IT'S NEW, YOU'LL FIND IT HERE www.insidegamingdaily.com FOR MORE MACHINIMA, GO TO: www.youtube.com www.youtube.com www.youtube.com www.youtube.com www.youtube.com TAGS: Kung Fu Strike The Warrior's Rise Trailer Teaser official gameplay machinima video game gaming 7sixty qooc soft fighting Microsoft xbox 360 live arcade xbla martial arts From: MachinimaTrailer Views: 240 17 ratings Time: 01:24 More in Gaming
9 Views
23:39:00 01/06/12
RnRTV #271: Ringo Starr Musical, Aretha Engaged, Sinead Married?
[LESS INFO] 9 VIEWS | ADDED 23:39:00 01/06/12
Rock n Roll TV brings you the rock news fast and furious. Hosted by Share Ross. Ringo Starr collaboration with Dave Stewart results in Broadway musical; Aretha Franklin engaged; Velvet Revolver reunites with Scott Weiland for one gig; Adele rider leaked; Sinead O'Connor married, not married, married.
Ex Beatle Ringo Starr has teamed up with Dave Stewart to create a Broadway musical. The pair collaborated on the album Ringo 2012 and had enough extra material left over to write a whole stage show. Ringo says he thinks it will more likely end up as a movie and says he's not telling us anything more about it.
69 year old soul legend and Grammy winner Aretha Franklin has announced her engagement to long term friend Willie Wilkerson. Ironically her last album was titled A Woman Falling Out of Love. Aretha adds… they are looking at a June or July date and that no, she is not pregnant.
Velvet Revolver are reuniting with singer Scott Weiland for a one off gig at the House of Blues. The show will honor their late friend and musician John O'Brien who was found dead at the age of 45 in a hotel room last year. Will it be a full blown reunion? Scott has been working with Stone Temple Pilots on their new album so not sure how a VR reunion would work.
SHORTS:
Keith Richards is said to be doing well after undergoing laser eye surgery to help his deteriorating vision.
Tom Jones is the latest artist to collaborate with Jack White . There will be a one off 7 inch single released of a new version of Tom's hit Jezebel and a cover of Howlin' Wolf's Evil.
Bonnie Raitt is releasing her first album in seven years Slipstream.
Pink Floyd reunion rumors for this summer's London 2012 Olympics have been denied by Dave Gilmour.
Adele's rider was leaked online. The British soul singer stated that North American beer is not acceptable for her or her crew and insisted on 12 bottles of European lager for her tour bus.
WHATEVER:
Justin Bieber got a Jesus tattoo and says he talks to God.
Lindsay Lohan has a new tattoo on her left wrist .. it says Live Without Regrets.
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Sinead O'Connor was married for the 4th time and then ended the marriage with boyfriend, Barry Herridge after 16 days. Whether you believe the story that says Barry was pressured by his friends to not be involved with her or you believe the story that Sinead insisted on taking her husband who is an addiction counselor for a weed run in a sketchy neighborhood where she scored some crack… True love has won. Sinead announced on twitter that they are back together again.
Guitar Rock like Velvet Revolver know all about the importance of good looking hair. At Folica, it's all about the hair. And now you can save 10% with our Folica promo code , too!
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15:00:01 12/06/11
What 'Occupy Our Homes' Could Change
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 15:00:01 12/06/11
Amy Goodman reports on "Occupy Our Homes" for Democracy Now
This week 60 Minutes gave viewers a good look at some of the widespread criminality that created the Wall Street mortgage boom and led to our ongoing financial crisis. They also saw some of the overwhelming evidence of illegal activity on the part of big banks, and were reminded that none of those banks' executives have been prosecuted.
As ugly as the situation is, there is some logic behind the government's actions - and its inactions. They're acting on a tragically incorrect (but internally coherent) set of assumptions that can be summed up in one sentence. It goes something like this:
"To preserve the health of the American economy, banks must be allowed to keep preying on their consumers."
That's it. That's the logic.
But there are two exciting "Occupy" developments this week that could change the equation - "Take Back the Capitol" in the District of Columbia, and Tuesday's "Occupy Our Homes" events around the country. Think of them as complementary actions: One is taking place at the site of our greatest government power. The other is bringing the action to homes where people have been victimized by bankers.
People may not realize it, but there's power in those homes, too.
The Logic of Injustice
Despite their destructive behavior, the people who bailed bankers out and are giving them a free pass for their crimes aren't necessarily evil or corrupt. Well, okay, people like this guy are. But others have merely been so infected by misguided economic thinking that they really believe that the only way to save the economy is to keep shafting consumers and pampering mega-bankers.
The thinking goes something like this: Our largest banks are too big to fail, and since we lack the will or the motivation to break them up or regulate them we must protect them at all costs. We've propped them up with TARP, quantitative easing, and $7.7 trillion in secret Federal Reserve loans, but they're still shaky as hell. If we prosecute any of their executives, their stock prices will fall and they'll collapse again. And they'll take the entire economic system with them.
That leads to some grotesque miscarriages of justice. Nobody at Wells Fargo has been indicted for money laundering, for example, despite the fact that the bank has paid millions to settle charges of laundering cash for the Mexican drug cartels that have murdered more than 35,000 people. As an experienced bank investigator working for the Senate observed, "There’s no capacity to regulate or punish them because they’re too big to be threatened with failure."
The Bailout Nobody Knows
And banks don't just need protection from their own criminality. They also need protection from their own lousy management. Their balance sheets are filled with toxic risks from their long run of incompetence, negligence, and greed. That's where you and I come in. Some powerful folks are afraid the banks will fail if they're forced to write off the bad loans on their books, or to stop profiting from loans sold deceptively or irresponsibly.
TARP may be over, but there's another massive bank rescue going on. Who's funding it? We are. Every time we pay a usurious interest fee on a credit card, we're propping up the banks. Every time we make another month's payment on an underwater mortgage, we're propping them up too. Every time we pay an overpriced consumer loan of any kind, we're making another payment into the consumer-funded bailout that's keeping the big banks afloat.
It would be great if politicians in Washington stopped using American consumers to subsidize banks that shouldn't even exist. But they haven't. That's where "Occupy Our Homes" comes in.
Occupy Our Homes
Tuesday, December 6, has been declared a National Day of Action to Occupy Our Homes . Its goal is to focus attention on the corrupt banking practices that led to the mortgage boom and today's ongoing economic misery for most of the 99 percent.
It's also a day for helping people in our communities who have been victimized by predatory lending, criminal bank forgery, unfair or illegal foreclosure practices, and other bank abuses that victimize the public. Occupy Minnesota has already occupied an illegally-foreclosed home, and plans to do the same thing with another home tomorrow. Here in Los Angeles, where an inspiring victory has already taken place, OccupyLA will help two brave families re-occupy their illegally foreclosed homes .
One of those homes belongs to a three-earner family that includes a gainfully employed woman with cerebral palsy named Ana Wison. Ana's household clearly seems capable of making its mortgage payments, but her bank's foreclosing anyway. And in one of ironies that have become all too common, the bank in quesion is none other than that Mexican drug cartel money-laundering outfit, Wells Fargo.
The Occupy movement hopes to focus the public's attention on people like Ana Wison. In the words of the Dylan song : "Things should start to get interesting right around now."
Demonizing the Victim
Resisting illegal foreclosures is a good first step. It brings attention to Wall Street's criminality, venality, and plain old inhumanity toward the people they call their"customers" - but treat like serfs.
It does something else important: It counteracts the brainwashing, driven by Wall Street and dutifully echoed by the media, which has demonized the victims of bank misbehavior. (We were trying to fight that brainwashing back in 2008, without much luck.) The Occupy movement has already won several battles in that war. If the public's attention can now be focused on people like Ana Wison, that can be a powerful blow against the Wall Street/corporate media "they deserve it" hype.
What about the millions of people who have suffered because of the banks' predatory mortgage lending but aren't behind in payments or in the foreclosure process? We need to re-open the debate about the fairness of forcing any underwater homeowners to pay underwater principal on homes that their banks knew, or should have known, were going to decrease in value. After all, the same conglomeration of banks and corporate media that demonize homeowners as "greedy" and "irresponsible" spent most of the last twenty years convincing people that real estate was a sure-fire investment.
Banks made an extraordinary amount of money off the bubble they created. The total mortgage amount outstanding in this country went from $6.2 trillion in 2002 to $11.9 trillion in 2009, a meteoric rise. And while banks feed off the Federal Reserve's unusually low rates, they've renegotiating very few home loans.
Consumers also owe nearly three quarter of a trillion dollars in credit card debt, much of it being paid at unconscionable rates of 12 percent to 29 percent - while their banks enjoy rates from 0 percent to 3 percent, thanks to the government institutions created by those same consumers.
Occupy Our Homes. Occupy Our Credit Cards. Occupy Our Payday Lending ...
What will happen if consumers stopped blaming themselves? What if they demanded that the banks take responsibility for their irresponsible and/or predatory lending? What if they refused to stop this country's perverse economic role reversal, where customers have become the ATMs while banks keep making the withdrawals?
If 10% of America's homeowners declared a mortgage strike it would rock the banking world. If everybody paying exorbitant credit card interest declared a moratorium on payments all at once, Wall Street would change forever.
Think about it: "Occupy ALL Our Homes." "Occupy Our Credit Cards ... Our Payday Loans ... Our Buy-and-Drive Loans ..." I'm not saying these are necessarily the right tactics, although they very well may be. But what's most important is that we understand that consumers have far more power than we usually realize - provided we act together.
Many of Washington's leaders will cringe at the thought, of course. "That could hurt our biggest banks," they say. It would be tempting to reply, You say that like it's a bad thing. Here's a better response: Then start planning to break them up in an orderly fashion. We're done living a life of indentured servitude just so we can subsidize their greed.
Those are the discussions that we should be having. If powerful people on Wall Street and in Washington aren't worried about Occupy Our Homes , they're not paying attention. But with any luck, they soon will.
______________________
(If you've been a victim of mortgage abuse you can tell your story here . If you want to find an Occupy Our Homes event near you, you can look for one here .)
6 Views
15:48:11 09/07/11
Sarah Kaminsky: My father the forger
[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 15:48:11 09/07/11
Sarah Kaminsky: My father the forger
www.ted.com Sarah Kaminsky tells the extraordinary story of her father Adolpho and his activity during World War II -- using his ingenuity and talent for forgery to save lives. Translated into English by federica bonaldi Reviewed by Thomas VANDENBOGAERDETEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http From: TEDtalksDirector Views: 22017 540 ratings Time: 14:01 More in People & Blogs
3 Views
21:32:49 08/09/11
Dyan De Napoli The Great Penguin Rescue
[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 21:32:49 08/09/11
Dyan deNapoli: The great penguin rescue
www.ted.com A personal story, a collective triumph Dyan deNapoli tells the story of the world's largest volunteer animal rescue, which saved more than 40000 penguins after an oil spill off the coast of South Africa. How does a job this big get done? Penguin by penguin by penguin ...TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at www.ted.com From: TEDtalksDirector Views: 12260 337 ratings Time: 11:44 More in Pets & Animals
0 Views
23:22:47 03/21/11
Pancho And Lefty Willie Nelson And Merle Haggard Guitar Lesson 2
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 23:22:47 03/21/11
website: http://www.realcountryguitar.com/2011/03/how-to-play-poncho-and-lefty-by-willie.html Country T Shirts: http://realcountryguitar.spreadshirt.com/ facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Real-Country-Guitar/152908544739219 Other cool sites http://www.roarnomore.com/ http://therisingseed.blogspot.com/ http://worshipguitarriffs.blogspot.com/ Living on the road my friend Was gonna keep you free and clean Now you wear your skin like iron Your breath's as hard as kerosene You weren't your mama's only boy But her favorite one it seems She began to cry when you said goodbye And sank into your dreams Pancho was a bandit boys His horse was fast as polished steel Wore his gun outside his pants For all the honest world to feel Pancho met his match you know On the deserts down in Mexico Nobody heard his dying words That's the way it goes All the federales say They could have had him any day They only let him hang around Out of kindness I suppose Lefty he can't sing the blues All night long like he used to The dust that Pancho bit down south Ended up in Lefty's mouth The day they laid poor Pancho low Lefty split for Ohio Where he got the bread to go There ain't nobody knows All the federales say They could have had him any day They only let him slip away Out of kindness I suppose The poets tell how Pancho fell Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold So the story ends we're told Pancho needs your prayers it's true, But save a few for Lefty too He just did what he had to do Now he's growing old A few gray federales say They could have had him any day They only let him go so wrong Out of kindness I suppose
1 Views
22:36:40 03/21/11
Pancho And Lefty Willie Nelson And Merle Haggard Guitar Lesson
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 22:36:40 03/21/11
website: http://www.realcountryguitar.com/2011/03/how-to-play-poncho-and-lefty-by-willie.html Country T Shirts: http://realcountryguitar.spreadshirt.com/ facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Real-Country-Guitar/152908544739219 Other cool sites http://www.roarnomore.com/ http://therisingseed.blogspot.com/ http://worshipguitarriffs.blogspot.com/ Living on the road my friend Was gonna keep you free and clean Now you wear your skin like iron Your breath's as hard as kerosene You weren't your mama's only boy But her favorite one it seems She began to cry when you said goodbye And sank into your dreams Pancho was a bandit boys His horse was fast as polished steel Wore his gun outside his pants For all the honest world to feel Pancho met his match you know On the deserts down in Mexico Nobody heard his dying words That's the way it goes All the federales say They could have had him any day They only let him hang around Out of kindness I suppose Lefty he can't sing the blues All night long like he used to The dust that Pancho bit down south Ended up in Lefty's mouth The day they laid poor Pancho low Lefty split for Ohio Where he got the bread to go There ain't nobody knows All the federales say They could have had him any day They only let him slip away Out of kindness I suppose The poets tell how Pancho fell Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold So the story ends we're told Pancho needs your prayers it's true, But save a few for Lefty too He just did what he had to do Now he's growing old A few gray federales say They could have had him any day They only let him go so wrong Out of kindness I suppose
4 Views
21:00:52 12/22/10
Fox host calls out Republicans by name for blocking 9/11 responders bill
[LESS INFO] 4 VIEWS | ADDED 21:00:52 12/22/10
Click here to view this media
At least one Fox News host is willing to hold Republicans accountable for blocking a bill that would provide health benefits to 9/11 first responders.
Fox News' Shepard Smith called out Republicans by name Monday, placing individual responsibility for their successful filibuster of the bill and refusals to come on his show to talk about it.
While Smith noted that they blocked the bill "in lockstep."
"We called a lot of Republicans today, who are in office at the moment," he said. "These are the one who told us no: Sens. Alexander, Barrasso, Cornyn, Crapo, DeMint, Grassley, Kyl, McConnell, Sessions, Baucus, Gregg, and Inhofe."
In addition, Sens. Bunning, Coburn, Ensign, Graham, Hatch, and McCain failed to respond to his request at all.
"I'm not really surprised, but what is your take? Why does no one want to talk about this?" Smith asked former Republican Gov. of New York George Pataki.
"I can't tell you why they didn't come on and talk about it but I do believe that it's important that the Senate act and I hope they act before they break," Pataki said.
House Resolution 847, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, would provide $7 billion in benefits to workers that responded to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Many of those workers are now experiencing health problems such as cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease.
For his part, Smith seems to be the exception at Fox News, where only one other personality has gotten angry about the 9/11 first responders bill -- but he neglected to mention that Republicans were the reason for its failure.
"Shame, embarrassment, outrage, anger, all are proper reactions to the conduct of our Senators, who will now find one excuse after another to explain away the fact that they have turned their back on American heroes," Peter Johnson Jr. said last week. "Heroes whose only sin was to expect nothing for their service and were then promised the world by politicians who couldn't take enough pictures with them."
While other mainstream media outlets have yet to cover 9/11 responders during their nightly news coverage of the lame duck session, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart devoted his final show of the year to the subject.
Stewart noted that the only network that fully covered the topic was Al-Jazeera.
"Our networks were scooped with a sympathetic Zadroga Bill story by the same network Osama bin Laden sends his mix-tapes to!" he exclaimed. "This is insane!"
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Edit: Today Shep Smith called out Tom Coburn (R-OK) for vowing to block the bill until the next session, for no real reason other than personal pique. > SHEPARD SMITH: He is the man who is vowing to slow this down or block it, so that the necessary funding for the illnesses of the first responders who made it to Ground Zero to try to save lives on the day that America changed -- remember? This is the Senator who is vowing to block it so that it doesn't make it through. Sen. Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma.
1 Views
04:59:39 12/04/10
Video: Cyclists demand safer conditions
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 04:59:39 12/04/10
an albuquerque family mourns... and, new at 10... a biking community is outraged about another cyclist killed in traffic. prominent attorney and unm professer tim vollmann's death yesterday--- after being hit by a garbage truck--- has many avid bike riders calling for immediate attention to the dangers of the road. eddie garcia joins us with the story. bicyclists i spoke with knew vollmann and consider his death a major loss to the community... they say especially considering this time of year - it's time to think of others when you're on the ro. the vollmann family tells us the biggest tragedy about their father's death is the the time they won't ever be able to spend with him. he's going to miss out on the traveling that him and my mom had planned. bicycle coalition president doctor diane albert says this should be a wake-up call to all motorists who drive new mexico roads. there's an anonymity and a feeling of empowerment that you can pretty much do whatever you want in your car and you can get away with it. but often with many bicycle involved crashes - the cyclist suffers the brunt. jennifer buntz who is most known for setting up ghost bike memorials around town says the biking infrastructure at the intersection of comanche and i-25 iinadequate - and that plays a role as well. this should be more than five feet this bike lane and that way if somebody fell over they'd have a cushion they'd have some buffer. during our interview cyclists came to honor vollmann and shared the same complaints about the road. this is a sketchy spot ...the whole road up the way is just kind of frightening and the bike lane disappears right when you get to the freeway you just have to ride in the gutter there's just no other option you have to engage traffic. all agree driver and bicyclist attention is necessary. if we could all be more attentive and more aware of our surrounding as we go down the road, no matter what vehicle we're in - we will all be safer. they hope getting out the word will help save other families from the pain the vollmann's now have to live with. he just gave to everybody, everybody i know has stories of tim volmann and what he did for them. albuquerque police tell me the driver of the garbage truck most likely will not face any charges - they believe vollmann some how lost control on this dangerous stretch of road
21 Views
01:33:49 11/03/10
Due Date Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifian
[LESS INFO] 21 VIEWS | ADDED 01:33:49 11/03/10
Due Date Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis This 1sr Look brought to you by Stevn Samblis www.icPlaces.com
THE IDEA
From director Todd Phillips, “Due Date” stars Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis as two unlikely companions thrown together on a road trip that turns out to be as life-changing as it is outrageous.
Downey plays Peter Highman, an expectant first-time father whose wife's due date is only days away. As he hurries to catch a flight home to Los Angeles from Atlanta to be at her side for the birth, his best intentions go completely awry when a chance encounter with aspiring actor and disaster-magnet Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) leads to the two of them being tossed off the plane and placed on a no-fly list...while Peter's luggage, wallet and ID take off without him.
With no alternatives in sight, Peter is forced to hitch a ride with Ethan and his canine traveling companion on what turns out to be a cross-country road trip that will destroy several cars, numerous friendships and Peter's last nerve.
The comedy “Due Date” also stars Michelle Monaghan (“Made of Honor”), Juliette Lewis (“The Switch”) and Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx (“Ray”).
Directed by Todd Phillips (“The Hangover”), the film is produced by Phillips and Dan Goldberg (“The Hangover,” “Old School”), from a screenplay by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland and Adam Sztykiel & Todd Phillips, story by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland. Thomas Tull, Susan Downey and Scott Budnick serve as executive producers.
“Due Date” reunites Phillips with key members of his filmmaking team from “The Hangover,” including director of photography Lawrence Sher, production designer Bill Brzeski, editor Debra Neil-Fisher, composer Christophe Beck and costume designer Louise Mingenbach.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
“If you're going to travel with me to Los Angeles I have to give you a couple of guidelines. Number one: don't ask me a single question.” - Peter Highman
“It's a simple idea—two mismatched guys forced to go on a road trip together,” declares “Due Date” director and co-writer Todd Phillips. “Robert Downey Jr. is Peter Highman, an architect on his way back to L.A. from a business trip in Atlanta. He's on a tight schedule because his wife is expecting their first child and the date is all set. Everything is fine until he gets tangled up at the airport with a wannabe actor named Ethan Tremblay, who somehow gets the both of them booted off the plane and grounded for the foreseeable future.”
At that point, “simple” flies right out the window.
Stranded without cash, credit, ID or time, Peter finds himself in the galling position of having to hitch a ride home with a guy he'd rather take a swing at—Ethan. The person he holds responsible for his predicament in the first place is now behind the wheel of a rental car and offering him the passenger seat.
Though clearly not his best option, it's Peter's only option.
At first grateful for the company, Ethan soon learns that his tightly wound traveling companion is not going to be any fun at 20 Questions, nor generally receptive to the concept of going with the flow. Meanwhile, Peter realizes he's just joined forces with a guy who can casually ruin his life in more ways than he could ever imagine.
“If there really was somebody like Ethan around, he'd have been strangled in his sleep long ago,” Downey attests. “He's like a laser beam that focuses on the one thing that will drive you crazy the most, the kind of guy who will eat a whole plate of waffles before mentioning he's allergic to waffles. I'm sure a lot of people know someone like this, someone who is perfectly wired to activate all of their irritation buttons.”
Granted, Peter has a short fuse to begin with. “He's kind of an edgy, controlling, judgmental guy with some anger-management issues. And who better to help him explore those issues than Ethan Tremblay? High-strung as he is normally, Peter is now facing the birth of his first child and is thrown into this nightmare, so it's all amped up,” Downey adds.
Ethan, by comparison, gives new meaning to the term laid-back. Zach Galifianakis, who stars as the human lightning rod for trouble, observes, “Nothing affects him, no insult seems to penetrate. Ethan lives in his own head. He has no talent, and he's on his way to Hollywood to capitalize on that. These two guys meet through a series of unfortunate circumstances that are entirely Ethan's fault, to which he is completely oblivious. And every bad thing that happens from that point on is Ethan's fault. Everything.”
Says Phillips, “People always cite chemistry in these kinds of movies. They say it's the chemistry between the two lead actors that make it work. I believe what makes ‘Due Date' work is anti-chemistry; it's two guys with zero connection and zero rapport, constantly butting heads, that generates both the tension and the comedy.”
Dan Goldberg, who has produced all of Phillips' feature films since their 2000 collaboration on the hit comedy “Road Trip,” says, “The ride develops its own momentum as one thing after another happens to impede their progress.”
At the same time, their cross-country trek takes Peter and Ethan on another, more unpredictable journey than what they face geographically—one that leads them to discover as much about themselves as each other.
Provided that they survive it.
Scott Budnick, an executive producer on the film, says, “There's real emotional substance to the story and real issues, and Robert and Zach do a phenomenal job in delivering both the humor and the emotional stakes. My favorite comedies are always the ones that have heart.”
As infuriating as Ethan can be, whether mismanaging his funds, missing potty breaks or launching their car off an overpass, Phillips concedes he has his good points, citing “honesty, innocence and a humanity that makes you connect with him and root for him despite it all. Ethan is a complex character. He has just lost his father, who was his best friend, and is having a tough time dealing with that. There's an underlying desperation in everything he does and an eagerness to please to the point where just making friends means trying too hard.”
“A lot of what he does is to avoid being lonely,” says Galifianakis.
Peter, on the other hand, may come across like a self-assured, aggressive control freak but, says Phillips' “Due Date” screenwriting partner Adam Sztykiel, “You sense that his behavior comes from an emotional place and from issues he has yet to work out, that are revealed in the story. Not far beneath the alpha male posture is his own vulnerability and how terrified he is to be responsible for a child.”
“As a parent,” Downey offers, “I know the big question is how are you going to manage and protect something that you have no experience with?”
Playing on that theme were screenwriters Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, who also have story credit on “Due Date.” “Peter's comfort zone is when he's in control. And everything that happens in this movie is about losing control; from his inability to get back home to the larger issue of his impending fatherhood—and whether or not he's ready for it,” Cohen says.
“We wanted to put him into a situation where he had to travel across the country with someone who was effectively a child,” adds Freedland.
Not that it would lessen Peter's pain, stress and frustration if he knew it might be pain, stress and frustration with a purpose. Still...
“When I read the script, I was moved,” recalls executive producer Susan Downey. “It's so funny and yet so human. You want a comedy to have that grounding, in the way that you want a drama to have some humor. In ‘Due Date,' though his experience with Ethan, Peter finds his human side and gets ready for the birth of his own child. It's about him becoming a man before becoming a father.”
“Guess who's got the Subaru Impreza? Me! Guess who's got the winning personality? Me! What do you have? You have a nice hairline. Fine. You have a strong jaw. But I gotta tell you, mister, your personality needs some work.” - Ethan Tremblay
Despite the “anti-chemistry” Phillips had in mind for their characters, Galifianakis and Downey generated some genuine positive chemistry from the start.
Downey vividly recalls their first meeting. “I was in Venice, California, and some weird guy walks by and says, ‘Hi, I think I'm doing a movie with you.' And I was thinking, ‘I might have to punch this guy.' Then I realized, ‘Oh my God...that's Zach.'
“Later, he came over for dinner so we could talk about the script,” Downey continues. “I asked if he had any dietary restrictions and he sent me a note detailing everything he'd need, like bottled water flown in from Barstow. It's one of my favorite things. I read it to people at parties.”
“We kind of took care of each other on the set—very different from what was going on in the movie. We'd talk every morning about how to make a scene work. It was great. Funny how hanging out with a legitimate actor raises your game,” Galifianakis returns.
“I always respond to projects based on the casting potential,” says Phillips. “I immediately start seeing a movie from the standpoint of casting it. For ‘Due Date,' I knew that if I could get Robert and Zach we could go full out.”
Phillips marks his second collaboration with Galifianakis on “Due Date,” following the comedian's breakout starring role in last year's international blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” that became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. He says, “Zach and I click because he knows I really get his humor, which can be pretty outrageous.”
In “Due Date,” however, Galifianakis creates a character that calls for a great deal of subtlety. Notes Budnick, “Every little nuance of personality and each detail—the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he thinks—Zach has figured out how Ethan Tremblay would do these things and it's reflected in every single moment he's on screen.”
At the same time, there is a core of unpredictability to the performance. “Zach brings a sense of spontaneity and danger and I think comedy is best with an undercurrent of danger so that you never know exactly what's going to happen or what someone will say or do. In that sense, he's the perfect comedic actor,” says Phillips.
And “Due Date” gives him a worthy antagonist in Downey.
“Not only is Robert a world-class actor but he's naturally funny. I wouldn't think of casting Robert Downey Jr. as anyone's straight-man,” says Phillips. “In ‘Due Date' there is no straight-man because they're both screwed up in their own ways. And the beauty of Zach and Robert playing off each other is that they're both funny but their humor comes from such different places and their styles are so different that you're not mining the same vein.”
Downey, Galifianakis, Phillips and Sztykiel “took the script apart and put it back together,” says Goldberg. “Every day there were new things that touched me and made me laugh. I believe ‘Due Date' audiences will see aspects of Robert and Zach that they haven't seen before and things that will surprise them. As a filmmaker, I'm always looking for that.”
It's a philosophy and a process that Phillips respects. “So much of comedy happens on the day you shoot,” he says, and offers the example of the airplane luggage bin scene. “It just happened as we were looking at the seating and the overhead bin and realized how that could bring them really close in a small space. Zach said, ‘What if I rub up against him while I'm reaching into the bin?' And I said, ‘What if you pull your shirt up first to wipe your glasses so it's just your bare stomach?' Comedy isn't math; it's jazz.”
Says Robert Downey Jr., “I start every day thinking here's what will happen if you do it by the book and here's what can happen if you bend yourself over backwards and forwards again and try to invite the unimagined into the situation. The set had energy like a living being; it was evolving all the time. And what's great and so funny about Todd is that sometimes, with him, it's so wrong, it's right.”
That point of view resonates with Galifianakis, who admits to being right alongside the director in appreciating “the inappropriate,” adding, “Todd and I have the same sense of humor. We like stuff that has a bit of a taboo element—things that are funny specifically because you're not supposed to laugh at them. As a stand-up comic, I love it when audiences laugh before they realize maybe they shouldn't have, and then start to question themselves.
“That's not to say that you can't be offended by something Todd or I do in a film,” he continues with mock concern. “I'm often offended by the things I do in movies.”
“You'd better check yourself before you wreck yourself.” - Ethan
“What I like about road trip movies is that essentially your characters are working without a net. You just throw them out into the elements and say, ‘Deal with it,'” says Phillips. “You don't have the support system of friends and family. People come in and out of your life for intense but fleeting moments.”
To help facilitate that, ‘Due Date' features a stellar supporting cast of characters who offer Peter and Ethan a range of memorable and often thought-provoking encounters along the way.
The first of these is Heidi, a freelance medical supplier with questionable parenting skills, tracked down by Ethan at her Birmingham home to restock his supply of “glaucoma medication.” It's one of many detours that takes them miles out of their way.
Heidi is played by Juliette Lewis, in her third screen role for Phillips. Lewis was touring in London with her band when the director called. “We worked it out so that between London and Helsinki I made a pit stop in a place I didn't even know existed—Las Vegas, New Mexico—for a couple of days, to play a pot dealer,” she recounts. “When Todd calls it's a game of trust. I don't know the role, I don't know what he wants me to do, but I know it's going to be good and it's going to be funny.”
Oscar® winner Jamie Foxx, who recently starred with Downey in “The Soloist,” comes aboard in the role of Peter's old college buddy, Darryl, now living in Dallas.
“It was a real coup to get Jamie to come in as Peter's friend—and, according to Ethan, possibly the real father of his soon-to-be-born child,” says Robert Downey Jr., alluding to yet another way in which Ethan manages to get under Peter's skin.
Within minutes of entering Darryl's home, Ethan spots a few photos, asks a few questions, adds two and two, and comes up with five. “He learns that Darryl is very close with Peter's wife and jumps to all kinds of conclusions. Then, he plants the seed of doubt in Peter's mind,” says Phillips.
“Darryl comes into the picture to do these guys a favor and it's all great...until it's not. Then things get very weird, very fast,” Foxx says of the ensuing scene that lands Peter and Ethan back on the pavement. “Working with Robert, Zach and Todd, you'd never know what to expect, but you could always count on it being a crazy, creative, collaborative experience.”
The travelers also run afoul of an ill-tempered Western Union clerk, played by Danny McBride; a paragon of Airport Security, played by Grammy Award-winning hip hop producer/musician and actor Rza; and an exceptionally indifferent TSA agent, played by Matt Walsh, the ER doc from “The Hangover.”
Meanwhile, back home anxiously awaiting Peter's return is his wife, Sarah, played by Michele Monaghan, reuniting with Downey for the first time since they teamed in the 2005 comedy thriller “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
“Sarah is just about 8 months and 29 days pregnant with her first baby and obviously very anxious,” Monaghan offers. “Her husband is not only m.i.a but is also traveling cross- country with a wild man whose only concern is if she has any ‘recommendations for someone who could give him a perm'?!? Clearly, the baby's arrival looks more promising than daddy's.”
“Sonny, stop. Sonny...No. Stop. Good boy.” - Ethan
Before circumstances force these two to share a rental car, Ethan already has a traveling companion: a French Bulldog named Sonny, who becomes the pair's third wheel and a point of calm amidst the escalating mayhem.
The role of Sonny, though indisputably male, was played almost entirely by a young female Frenchie trained by Mark Harden, of Boone's Animals for Hollywood.
The introduction of a dog into the script came about as Phillips sought to further ratchet up the tension between his two leads and decided that one of them should be a dog person and the other...not so much. After perusing renowned animal trainer Boone Narr's company website, he spotted what he was looking for in Bodie, an adult male French Bulldog with the big ears and wide-eyed comical expression typical of the breed.
Unfortunately, at 26 pounds, Bodie was too heavy to be constantly toted around on one arm, so, with only weeks before filming started, Harden launched a full-scale and very specific search for a six-to-10-month-old, cream-colored, slightly undersized French Bulldog. He first tried the rescue agencies, then tapped into a nationwide network of breeders before finding someone who had a full-grown female weighing in at 15 pounds.
Though Galifianakis jokes that Sonny was trained to fall asleep at the word ‘action,' Harden takes no credit for the animal's relaxed demeanor, conceding, “She's just a very settled and well-adjusted dog. She doesn't get worked up. I think she just learned early on that most of her scenes were going to take awhile and she might as well catch a nap.”
Galifianakis, who bonded with his canine co-star despite an allergy to dogs, says, “I was kind of envious at her ability to fall asleep at work. And she snores like me.”
But as much as the camera loved Sonny, there was one special trick she just couldn't manage, that required a one-day command performance from Bodie.
Harden carefully describes how the trick serendipitously made its way into the story. “French Bulldogs are unable to groom themselves in certain areas as other dogs do. I don't know if it's a combination of their short neck and wide shoulders, but they can't twist backwards.”
Consequently, some of them use their paws, “a natural behavior that Bodie spontaneously offered in front of Todd at that first meeting, while we were talking,” the trainer recalls. “As soon as he saw it, there was no turning back. He said, ‘Oh my God, can you train him to do that?”
“Am I okay? Do I look okay? I have a broken arm. I have three cracked ribs. I have seven stitches in my armpit. Does that answer your question? - Peter
“I love physical comedy,” says Phillips, who happily extends the parameters of physical comedy in “Due Date” to include a multi-vehicle freeway chase, an end-over-end car flip and a shoot-out with some seriously t'd-off border security agents.
“For me,” Phillips continues, “It's fun to include shocking moments that make you say, ‘Whoa, where did that come from?' We shot the car sequence in Las Cruces, New Mexico. They let us break through the overpass and land on the road below. We closed the highway for several days to prepare and execute it but, frankly, you never know how a stunt is going to land, so we set up four or five cameras and let it happen. The car flipped back up on its wheels, but we were prepared for it to do anything.” Filming “Due Date” was a road trip in itself. Location shooting began in and around Atlanta and moved generally westward with the story, touching upon Dallas and the Texas interior and various locations in New Mexico, including Las Vegas and Santa Fe, which the filmmakers covered from a base of operations in Albuquerque, before touching down in California.
“The way the script breaks down, they have to get across the country. in a couple of days so you really need to take the southern route, which is not as long as the northern, so it makes sense in terms of driving time,” says production designer Bill Brzeski.
A separate helicopter unit covered the Grand Canyon for a key scene with Peter and Ethan perched on its rim, overlooking the Colorado River snaking its way through, far below. Between takes, busloads of visitors from all over the world arrived to tour the area and there was some concern on the part of the crew that they might forget to watch where they were going once they caught sight of Downey and Galifianakis.
The film's opening airport scenes were a combination of several elements. The plane cabin mockup was constructed on Stage 11 at Warner Bros. Studios; the curb where Peter's and Ethan's cars pull up was shot at Ontario Airport in California; and the screening area and other terminal interiors were built inside the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
Other practical locations in Georgia included a construction site in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood; a Waffle House and portions of Highway 27 in Bremen; various locations along I-75 and I-675, GA-route 20 and the Metropolitan Parkway; the Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville; the 1010 Condos on Atlanta's historic Peachtree Street; and a recently closed rest stop along I-985.
Darryl's home in Dallas was an amalgam of exteriors captured in Buckland, Georgia, and interiors shot in Encino, California. “You're never really anywhere you're supposed to be,” Brzeski says. “Las Vegas, New Mexico was built around the turn of the century and doesn't look like what you'd expect to see in New Mexico. There's a lot of Victorian architecture that doesn't match the typical Santa Fe look so buildings can substitute for almost any American small town, be it Texas or Ohio. We used it as Alabama for Heidi's house.”
The southwestern city also provided the site for one of the film's larger set pieces; a checkpoint at the U.S./Mexico border that was constructed on a bridge spanning a portion of Route 25 in Las Vegas, under which Brzeski and his team formed an encampment of Federali trailers based on actual Mexican Customs vehicles. Interiors of the office and a trailer, as well as a gimbal rig that figures into the action, were built on stage and another rotating rig, dubbed “car-on-a-spit” by one crew member, was designed for the scene in which Peter and Alan take their rented Subaru for a real spin.
All this action takes its toll on the luggage-deprived Peter, forced to spend the entire journey in one increasingly rumpled, torn, stained and slept-in suit. For costume designer Louise Mingenbach, that meant maintaining 20 versions of the suit in five basic stages of deterioration. “Definitely, the story evolves through Peter's clothes,” she says.
With Ethan's wardrobe she was able to have more fun, brainstorming with Galifianakis, who, she says, “has no vanity. Some actors want to look beautiful all the time but that's not Zach. He will wear whatever works for his character, even if it's acid-washed jeans two sizes too small.”
“I really like to look bad in movies,” Galifianakis agrees. “Originally Ethan was dressed like a hippie but I wanted him to be more arty—or, what he would think is arty. He has a perm, he has his dance shoes and his really bad tight jeans and the scarf as an accessory; he wants to be an actor and this is how he thinks actors dress.”
“Due Date” marks Mingenbach's fifth collaboration with Phillips, who says, “I have a great team. I've worked with essentially the same people throughout my career. We write some crazy thing and then I turn to my guys and say, ‘Can we pull this off?'”
Among those previous colleagues rejoining the director on “Due Date” were cinematographer Lawrence Sher, editor Debra Neil-Fisher and composer Christophe Beck.
Scott Budnick points out, “‘Due Date' marks the 10-year anniversary of ‘Road Trip,' Todd's first movie and my first job out of college. We filmed ‘Road Trip' from September to December 1999, and ‘Due Date' from September to December of 2009.”
For Phillips, it's a genre full of possibilities.
“I've been in some strange situations on the road,” confesses screenwriter Sztykiel, a Los Angelino who identified in some ways with Peter. “Here's a guy who's a little sheltered and doesn't have exposure to the 3,000 miles that exist east of his home, and it was fun to force him out of his bubble. It's uncomfortable, but you come away with a better sense of your place in the world. My advice for travelers? Go to the bathroom. Make sure your traveling partner has gone to the bathroom. Don't spend all your money on illegal substances. Don't say ‘bomb' on an airplane. Don't open your car door in traffic. Pretty simple stuff.” Sure. In hindsight.
“There's something about a road trip that brings out the extremes of human reactions and emotions,” says Phillips. “It's a great opportunity for surprises and for people to learn things about themselves or each other that they'd never see if they weren't being pushed to their limits, or having to make the kinds of quick, instinctive decisions you have to make on the road.”
At the same time, the road itself can be almost incidental. “No matter where we are in ‘Due Date,' no matter what's kind of chaos they're going through,” he concludes, “it all comes down to these two guys working out their issues.”
ABOUT THE CAST
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. (Peter Highman), a two-time Academy Award® nominee, earned his most recent Oscar® nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, for his work in Ben Stiller's comedy hit “Tropic Thunder.” His performance as Kirk Lazarus, a white Australian actor playing a black American character, also brought him Golden Globe, BAFTA Award and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® nominations. Downey was honored with his first Oscar® nomination, in the category of Best Actor, for his portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough's acclaimed 1992 biopic “Chaplin,” for which he also won BAFTA Award and London Film Critics Awards and received a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Earlier this year, Downey received another Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the title role of the 2009 hit “Sherlock Holmes,” under the direction of Guy Ritchie. Downey returns to the role of the legendary detective in a new Sherlock Holmes adventure, currently slated for release in December 2011.
In summer 2008, Downey received praise from critics and audiences for his performance in the title role of the blockbuster hit “Iron Man,” under the direction of Jon Favreau. Bringing the Marvel Comics superhero to the big screen, “Iron Man” earned more than $585 million worldwide, making it one of the year's biggest hits. Downey reprised his role in the successful sequel, which was released this past spring. He returns to the role in Josh Whedon's upcoming actioner “The Avengers,” which teams Iron Man with other Marvel Comics superheroes.
Downey's other recent films include “The Soloist,” opposite Jamie Foxx; “Charlie Bartlett”; David Fincher's “Zodiac,” alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo; Richard Linklater's “A Scanner Darkly,” with Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson; “Fur,” opposite Nicole Kidman in a film inspired by the life of revered photographer Diane Arbus; and “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.” He also shared in a SAG Award® nomination as a member of the ensemble cast of George Clooney's true-life drama “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and in a Special Jury Prize won by the ensemble cast of “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” presented at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
Downey's long list of film credits also includes “Gothika”; “The Singing Detective”; Curtis Hanson's “Wonder Boys”; “U.S. Marshals”; Mike Figgis' “One Night Stand”; Jodie Foster's “Home for the Holidays”; “Richard III”; Oliver Stone's “Natural Born Killers”; Robert Altman's “The Gingerbread Man” and “Short Cuts,” sharing in a Golden Globe Award for Best Ensemble for the latter; “Heart and Souls,” “Soapdish,” “Air America,” “Chances Are,” “True Believer,” “Less Than Zero,” “Weird Science,” “Firstborn,” and “Pound,” in which he made his debut under the direction of Robert Downey Sr.
On the small screen, Downey made his primetime debut in 2001 when he joined the cast of the series “Ally McBeal.” For his work on the show, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television and a Screen Actors Guild Award® for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
On November 23, 2004, Robert Downey Jr. released his debut album, “The Futurist,” on the Sony Classics label. The album, containing eight original songs, showcased his singing talents.
Downey and his wife, Susan, just formed Team Downey, a production company based at Warner Bros.
ZACH GALIFIANAKIS (Ethan Tremblay) moved to New York City after failing his last college course by one point at North Carolina State University. He got his start performing his brand of humor in the back of a hamburger joint in Times Square, graduating to doing stand-up at night in clubs and coffee houses in the city. While working as a bus boy, he got his first acting job on the NBC sitcom “Boston Common.”
Galifianakis' breakout role came in Todd Phillips' blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. He will reunite with Phillips and cast-mates Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Justin Bartha in “The Hangover 2,” slated for a 2011 release.
He also stars in “It's Kind of a Funny Story,” which premieres at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival and opens this fall. Recently, he also co-starred with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd in Jay Roach's comedy “Dinner for Schmucks.” Galifianakis' additional film credits include the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced hit “G-Force”; the indie feature “Youth in Revolt,” with Michael Cera, Steve Buscemi and Ray Liotta; a cameo in Jason Reitman's Oscar®- nominated film “Up in the Air”; “What Happens in Vegas,” with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher; and the critically acclaimed true-life drama “Into the Wild,” from director Sean Penn.
On the small screen, Galifianakis just started the second season of the HBO comedy “Bored to Death,” with Jason Schwartzman and Ted Danson. In addition, he hosted the critically acclaimed VH1 talk show “Late World with Zach,” and also wrote and starred in “Dog Bites Man” for Comedy Central.
Zach also has an internet talk show entitled “Between Two Ferns.” He has interviewed such guests as Steve Carell, Natalie Portman, Conan O'Brien and Charlize Theron.
When not filming, Galifianakis lives on his farm in North Carolina.
MICHELLE MONAGHAN (Sarah Highman) most recently starred to great critical acclaim in the independent film “Trucker,” which world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. She received the Best Actress Awards from the San Diego Film Critics Society, Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival and Vail Film Festival. Monaghan also served as executive producer on the film.
She will next been seen in Sofia Coppola's “Somewhere,” “Source Code,” opposite Jake Gyllenhaal for director Duncan Jones and “Machine Gun Preacher,” opposite Gerard Butler for director Marc Forster.
Monaghan made her feature film debut in “Perfume,” directed by Michael Rymer, then played Richard Gere's secretary in Adrian Lyne's “Unfaithful.” She followed with supporting roles in Fred Schepisi's “It Runs in the Family,” with Michael Douglas; “Winter Solstice,” with Anthony LaPaglia; Paul Greengrass' “The Bourne Supremacy”; and Doug Liman's “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”
It was her starring role in “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer, which brought Monaghan to the attention of audiences around the world. She also received rave reviews for her performance in the film, directed by Shane Black. Next, Monaghan joined Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand in “North Country” for director Niki Caro. She then starred in “Gone Baby Gone,” with Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman; “The Heartbreak Kid,” opposite Ben Stiller; “Mission: Impossible III,” with Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman for director J.J. Abrams; opposite Patrick Dempsey in the romantic comedy “Made of Honor”; and in D.J. Caruso's hit thriller “Eagle Eye,” alongside Shia LaBeouf.
JULIETTE LEWIS (Heidi) received Best Supporting Actress Oscar® and Golden Globe nominations for her layered performance as adolescent Danielle, opposite Robert De Niro, in Martin Scorsese's thriller “Cape Fear.”
She reunites with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having previously collaborated on “Old School” and “Starsky & Hutch.”
Lewis was most recently seen alongside Hilary Swank, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver and Sam Rockwell in the independent drama “Conviction,” which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and opened in October. Prior to that, Lewis appeared in the romantic comedy “The Switch,” alongside Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman and Patrick Wilson. She also starred alongside Orlando Bloom, Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney in Ruffalo's directorial debut, “Sympathy for Delicious,” which took home the US Dramatic Special Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Last year, she played roller derby girl Dinah Might opposite Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Jimmy Fallon and Eve in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, “Whip It.”
Among Lewis' many other films are Gary Marshall's “The Other Sister”; “Evening Star,” with Shirley MacLaine; Quentin Tarantino's vampire tale “From Dusk Till Dawn,” opposite George Clooney; the sci-fi actioner “Strange Days,” alongside Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett; Nora Ephron's comedy “Mixed Nuts,” opposite Steve Martin and Adam Sandler; Oliver Stone's controversial “Natural Born Killers”; “What's Eating Gilbert Grape,” with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio”; “Romeo Is Bleeding”; “Kalifornia”; Woody Allen's “Husbands and Wives”; “Crooked Hearts” and “National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation,” with Chevy Chase.
At 12, Lewis landed her first leading role in the Showtime miniseries “Home Fires.” At 16, her performance in the critically acclaimed longform “Too Young to Die?” led to film roles. Lewis' other television credits include Showtime's “My Louisiana Sky,” for which she received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special, and Mira Nair's HBO film “Hysterical Blindness,” alongside Uma Thurman and Gena Rowlands. She also had recurring roles in several series.
In addition to film and television, Lewis's music career continues to evolve. Her third studio album, Terra Incognito, was released in fall 2009.
JAMIE FOXX (Darryl) won an Academy Award® for Best Actor in 2005 for his portrayal of the legendary Ray Charles in the Taylor Hackford-directed biopic “Ray.” Foxx also won a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award®, a BAFTA Award, and an NAACP Image Award, as well as numerous critics' association awards, and shared in a SAG Award® nomination received by the film's ensemble cast.
Also in 2005, Foxx garnered Oscar®, Golden Globe Award, SAG Award®, BAFTA Award, and Image Award nominations, in the Best Supporting Actor category, for his work in Michael Mann's dramatic thriller “Collateral,” in which he starred with Tom Cruise. That same year, Foxx also earned Golden Globe Award and SAG Award® nominations and won an Image Award for Best Actor in a Television Movie for his portrayal of condemned gang member-turned-Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stan “Tookie” Williams in the FX Network movie “Redemption.”
Foxx has a number of films upcoming, including the Seth Gordon-directed comedy “Horrible Bosses”; F. Gary Gray's action thriller “Kane & Lynch,” opposite Bruce Willis; and the comedy “Skank Robbers,” which he also wrote and is producing. His recent film credits also include Garry Marshall's hit ensemble romantic comedy “Valentine's Day,” the thriller “Law Abiding Citizen,” Joe Wright's drama “The Soloist,” the thriller “The Kingdom” and Bill Condon's screen adaptation of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls.” Foxx also executive produced the film “Life Support,” starring Queen Latifah, which closed the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
Foxx's big-screen break came in 1999 when Oliver Stone cast him as a star quarterback in “Any Given Sunday.” In 2001, he co-starred with Will Smith in Michael Mann's acclaimed biopic “Ali.” His additional film credits include Michael Mann's “Miami Vice,” with Colin Farrell; Sam Mendes' Gulf War drama “Jarhead,” with Jake Gyllenhaal; “Stealth”; Antoine Fuqua's “Bait”; “Booty Call”; “The Truth about Cats & Dogs”; and “The Great White Hype.”
Foxx first came to fame as a comedian. After spending time on the comedy circuit, he joined Keenan Ivory Wayans, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans and Tommy Davidson in the landmark Fox sketch comedy series “In Living Color.” In 1996, he launched his own series, “The Jamie Foxx Show,” which was one of the top-rated shows on The WB Network during its five-year run. Foxx also served as co-creator and executive producer, and directed several episodes. His first HBO Comedy Special, “Jamie Foxx: I Might Need Security,” premiered in February 2002.
In addition to his acting success, Foxx has also achieved a thriving music career. His first album, Unpredictable, topped the charts in late 2005 and early 2006 and spawned the NBC special “Unpredictable,” in which he performed with such artists as Mary J. Blige, Common, Snoop Dogg, The Game and Angie Stone. He has been nominated for eight Billboard Music Awards, three Grammy Awards, a Soul Train Music Award, and two American Music Awards, winning for Favorite Male Artist. Foxx's latest album, 2008's Intuition, debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 chart and spawned the chart-topping single “Blame It.” Foxx recently wrapped up his “Blame It Tour” in support of the album. On January 31, 2010 Jamie Foxx and T-Pain's “Blame It” won in the category of Best R%B performance by a duo/group with vocals at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
TODD PHILLIPS (Director/Screenwriter/Producer) most recently directed and produced the 2009 blockbuster hit comedy “The Hangover,” starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha. The film became the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time and won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical. He is currently in production on the much-anticipated sequel, “The Hangover 2,” which reunites the cast.
Phillips started his career as a documentary filmmaker, inspired by humor taken from everyday reality and the belief that the truth is often stranger than fiction.
His first film, “Hated,” portrayed the revolting antics of extreme punk rocker G.G. Allin and became an instant underground sensation. It was released in the summer of 1994 and went on to become the highest grossing student film of its time.
He followed that in 1998 with “Frat House,” a documentary that he produced and directed for HBO's popular “America Undercover” series. “Frat House” premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary features. The unflinching exposé of life in fraternities created a public controversy that eventually caused the film to be shelved by HBO. Phillips still hopes to release it in the future.
After meeting producer Ivan Reitman at Sundance, Phillips made his crossover to features with 2000's “Road Trip,” which established him as a new force in comedy. He simultaneously produced and directed “Bittersweet Motel,” a documentary on musical cult phenomenon Phish.
In one way or another, Phillips' films explore the nature of male relationships, and in doing so he has worked with some of Hollywood's biggest comedic actors, writing and directing such films as “Old School” in 2003, “Starsky & Hutch” in 2004, and “School for Scoundrels” in 2006. Phillips was nominated for a 2006 Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
DAN GOLDBERG (Producer) marks his fifth film collaboration with Todd Phillips on “Due Date.” Previously, he served as producer on Phillips' “Old School,” “Road Trip,” “School for Scoundrels” and most recently, “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time. Goldberg will next produce “The Hangover 2” with Phillips, releasing in 2011.
Goldberg also produced the outrageous comedy “Howard Stern's Private Parts” and the animated comedy adventure “Space Jam,” starring Michael Jordan, and was an executive producer on Ivan Reitman's romantic adventure “Six Days Seven Nights,” starring Harrison Ford.
His screenwriting credits include the classic comedies “Stripes” and “Meatballs,” both of which he also produced; “Feds,” which he also directed; and the enduring cult favorite “Heavy Metal.”
ALAN R. COHEN & ALAN FREEDLAND (Screenwriters, Story) are best known as Emmy Award-winning writers from the Fox animated show “King of the Hill” and often referred to as “the Alans.”
Among numerous other writing and producing credits, the duo also co-created the Comedy Central cult hit “Kid Notorious,” starring Robert Evans. They are currently co- executive producers on Seth MacFarlane's “American Dad.”
Prior to “Due Date,” the Alans wrote feature scripts for various studios. They currently have several television and film projects in development, including the feature comedy “The Reunion,” for producer Brian Grazer.
A George Washington University graduate, Cohen originally hails from Pittsburgh and worked for several years as a reporter in The Baltimore Sun's Washington, D.C. bureau.
Freedland graduated from the University of Michigan. He grew up in the Detroit area and worked in advertising in Chicago.
ADAM SZTYKIEL (Screenwriter)'s most recent writing credit was the comedy “Made of Honor,” starring Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan.
He is currently working on a film adaptation of the best-selling memoir “The Game” by Neil Strauss, and has numerous other film and television projects in development.
Sztykiel is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
THOMAS TULL (Executive Producer), Chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures, has achieved great success in the co-production and co-financing of event movies. Since its inception in 2004, Legendary Pictures has teamed with Warner Bros. Pictures on such hits as Bryan Singer's “Superman Returns”; Zack Snyder's “300” and “Watchmen”; and Christopher Nolan's “Batman Begins” and award-winning phenomenon “The Dark Knight,” which earned in excess of $1 billion worldwide.
More recently, this highly successful partnership produced Ben Affleck's “The Town”; Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster “Inception”; the worldwide hit “Clash of the Titans”; Todd Phillips' “The Hangover,” which is the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time; and Spike Jonze's “Where the Wild Things Are.” Legendary's upcoming releases include Bryan Singer's “Jack the Giant Killer,” Todd Phillips' “The Hangover 2,” and Zack Snyder's “Sucker Punch.” Legendary is also developing a number of promising film projects in-house, including “Warcraft,” “Godzilla,” “Gravel,” “Paradise Lost,” and a sequel to “300.”
Before forming Legendary, Tull was President of The Convex Group, a media and entertainment holding company headquartered in Atlanta, on whose Board of Directors he also served.
SUSAN DOWNEY (Executive Producer) is a principal partner of Team Downey, the production company she formed with her husband, Robert Downey Jr. A prolific film producer, she has collaborated with some of the industry's most noted talents on films ranging from action blockbusters to dramas to comedies to horror thrillers.
Downey also produced the global hit “Sherlock Holmes,” which opened on Christmas Day 2009 and grossed more than $516 million worldwide. Directed by Guy Ritchie, the film starred Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong in an action adventure mystery that brought Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective to the big screen as never before. She is currently producing the sequel, which again stars Downey Jr. and Law under the direction of Ritchie.
Downey also recently served as an executive producer on the action hit “Iron Man 2,” which earned more than $620 million at the worldwide box office. The follow up to “Iron
Man” reunited director Jon Favreau with returning stars Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, and also starred Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson.
Previously, Downey held the dual posts of Co-President of Dark Castle Entertainment and Executive Vice President of Production at Silver Pictures. Joining Silver Pictures in 1999, she oversaw the development and production of feature films released under both banners, including “Thir13en Ghosts” and “Swordfish.”
In 2002, she made her producing debut as a co-producer on “Ghost Ship” and then co- produced the 2003 release “Cradle 2 the Grave.” Downey went on to produce the features “Gothika” and “House of Wax,” and also served as an executive producer on the critically acclaimed comedic thriller “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.”
Downey later produced Neil Jordan's acclaimed psychological drama “The Brave One,” starring Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard; Guy Ritchie's widely praised crime comedy “RocknRolla,” starring Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Idris Elba, Chris Bridges and Jeremy Piven; the horror thriller “Orphan,” starring Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard; and the thriller “Whiteout,” starring Kate Beckinsale. She was also an executive producer on the Hughes brothers' post-apocalyptic drama “The Book of Eli,” starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
Prior to her tenure at Dark Castle and Silver Pictures, Downey worked on the hit films “Mortal Kombat” and “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.”
Downey is a graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinema- Television.
SCOTT BUDNICK (Executive Producer) is Executive Vice President of Production for Green Hat Films, overseeing the development and production of a varied slate of projects including the upcoming “Project X,” set for release in 2011. He most recently executive produced the blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time.
Budnick began his entertainment career in local casting while at Emory University in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Upon graduation, he relocated to Los Angeles, serving as casting assistant on Todd Phillips' “Road Trip” and then as associate to the director on “Old School,” starring Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Jeremy Piven. Budnick served associate producer on Phillips' following films, “Starsky & Hutch,” starring Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller and “All The King's Men,” starring Sean Penn and Jude Law, which Phillips executive produced; and was co-producer on “School for Scoundrels,” starring Billy Bob Thornton.
LAWRENCE SHER (Director of Photography) reunites with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having previously collaborated on the Golden Globe-winning blockbuster comedy “The Hangover.” His work will next be seen in Greg Mottola's sci-fi comedy “Paul,” with Jason Bateman and Seth Rogan, and David Frankel's comedy “The Big Year,” based on Mark Obmascik's book and starring Owen Wilson, both releasing in 2011.
Sher's other recent credits include “I Love You, Man,” “Trucker,” “The Promotion,” “Dan in Real Life,” “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Chumscrubber.”
He worked as director of photography on several smaller films and music videos earlier in his career, coming to the fore in 2001 with the award-winning independent film “Kissing Jessica Stein,” followed by director Zach Braff's “Garden State.”
Born and raised in New York City, Sher studied economics at Wesleyan University where, in his junior year, he turned an interest in still photography into a fascination with motion pictures. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles and began his career as a camera assistant.
BILL BRZESKI (Production Designer) previously collaborated with Todd Phillips on the 2009 Golden Globe Award-winning blockbuster comedy “The Hangover,” for which he received an Art Director's Guild Award nomination for Excellence in Production Design. Brzeski re-teams again with Phillips for “The Hangover 2,” releasing in 2011.
Brzeski's other recent credits include “Flipped,” which reunited him with Rob Reiner, having previously served as production designer on Reiner's “The Bucket List”; and re- teaming with Rob Minkoff' on “The Forbidden Kingdom,” having previously worked on the director's groundbreaking CGI movie “Stuart Little” and its sequel, “Stuart Little 2.” Some of the designer's additional credits include “Deck the Halls,” “Blue Streak,” James L. Brooks' Oscar®-winning “As Good As It Gets” and “Matilda.”
Brzeski received his undergraduate degree from Miami University and his MFA in Design from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Originally interested in designing for the ballet and opera, he began his career in the theatre before moving to Los Angeles from New York City and designing more than 800 episodes of television series.
Brzeski also designs commercial spaces, most notably the award-winning Susina Bakery in Los Angeles.
His production design workshops at graduate and undergraduate levels have been hosted by New York University School of the Arts, Miami University, Clemson University and Loyola University Film School.
DEBRA NEIL-FISHER (Editor) re-teams with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having served as editor on his blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” the number one R-rated comedy of all time. The film won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and Fisher was honored with an Eddie Award by the American Cinema Editors for Best Edited Feature Film.
Among Neil-Fisher's other feature credits are the hit comedies “Baby Mama,” “Semi- Pro,” “Role Models,” “You, Me and Dupree,” “Without a Paddle,” “Saving Silverman,” and two hugely successful Austin Powers films, “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” and “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” She has collaborated three times with director Donald Petrie on “Just My Luck,” “Welcome to Mooseport” and “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.” Her work also extends to other genres, including the dramas “Fried Green Tomatoes,” “The War” and “Up Close and Personal,” as well as the thrillers “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” and “Dr. Giggles.”
In 1991 Neil-Fisher won a CableACE Award for her work on TNT's telefilm “Heat Wave,” for director Kevin Hooks. Among her earlier television credits are “The Amy Fisher Story,” “The Case of the Hillside Strangler” and the TNT thriller “Breaking Point.”
LOUISE MINGENBACH (Costume Designer) marks her fifth project with director Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” a collaboration that began on the feature film “Starsky & Hutch,” followed by “School for Scoundrels” and the 2008 telefilm “The More Things Change...” In 2009, her designs were seen in Phillips' mega-blockbuster “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest R-rated comedy of all time.
The upcoming actioner “Battleship,” based on the classic board game, reunites Mingenbach with Peter Berg, with whom she worked on “Hancock,” starring Will Smith.
Mingenbach also designed costumes for the 2009 action epic ““X-Men: Wolverine.” Previously, she earned a Saturn Award and a Costume Designers Guild Award nomination for her work on Bryan Singer's “X-Men.” She has teamed with Singer on four other films, including the 1995 thriller “The Usual Suspects,” “X2,” “Apt Pupil” and “Superman Returns,” as well as the pilot for “House M.D.”
Mingenbach's additional feature credits include the Farrelly Brothers' “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Spanglish,” “The Rundown,” “K-PAX,” “Gossip,” “Permanent Midnight,” “Nightwatch,” “The Spitfire Grill” and “One Night Stand.”
CHRISTOPHE BECK (Composer) previously collaborated with Todd Phillips on “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical.
He has composed scores for 50 feature films and nearly 20 television shows. With more than 15 years of experience, Beck has scored a wide array of projects, including such action films as “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” “The Sentinel” and “Elektra”; the comedies “Date Night,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “The Pink Panther” and “Bring It On”; and such dramas as “We Are Marshall,” “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “Year of the Dog”; as well as the Davis Guggenheim documentary, “Waiting For Superman.”
Beck most recently composed music for the comedies “Death at a Funeral,” starring Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence and Tracy Morgan; “Date Night,” with Steve Carell and Tina Fey; “Hot Tub Time Machine,” starring John Cusack; and Chris Columbus' fantasy adventure “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”
His additional credits include “All About Steve,” “The Greatest,” “What Happens in Vegas,” “Phoebe in Wonderland,” “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising,” “Saved!,” “American Wedding” and “Just Married.”
Beck began his scoring career on the Canadian television series “White Fang,” and from there went on to score three seasons of the hit television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition.
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Due Date Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifian
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THE IDEA
From director Todd Phillips, “Due Date” stars Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis as two unlikely companions thrown together on a road trip that turns out to be as life-changing as it is outrageous.
Downey plays Peter Highman, an expectant first-time father whose wife's due date is only days away. As he hurries to catch a flight home to Los Angeles from Atlanta to be at her side for the birth, his best intentions go completely awry when a chance encounter with aspiring actor and disaster-magnet Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) leads to the two of them being tossed off the plane and placed on a no-fly list...while Peter's luggage, wallet and ID take off without him.
With no alternatives in sight, Peter is forced to hitch a ride with Ethan and his canine traveling companion on what turns out to be a cross-country road trip that will destroy several cars, numerous friendships and Peter's last nerve.
The comedy “Due Date” also stars Michelle Monaghan (“Made of Honor”), Juliette Lewis (“The Switch”) and Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx (“Ray”).
Directed by Todd Phillips (“The Hangover”), the film is produced by Phillips and Dan Goldberg (“The Hangover,” “Old School”), from a screenplay by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland and Adam Sztykiel & Todd Phillips, story by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland. Thomas Tull, Susan Downey and Scott Budnick serve as executive producers.
“Due Date” reunites Phillips with key members of his filmmaking team from “The Hangover,” including director of photography Lawrence Sher, production designer Bill Brzeski, editor Debra Neil-Fisher, composer Christophe Beck and costume designer Louise Mingenbach.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
“If you're going to travel with me to Los Angeles I have to give you a couple of guidelines. Number one: don't ask me a single question.” - Peter Highman
“It's a simple idea—two mismatched guys forced to go on a road trip together,” declares “Due Date” director and co-writer Todd Phillips. “Robert Downey Jr. is Peter Highman, an architect on his way back to L.A. from a business trip in Atlanta. He's on a tight schedule because his wife is expecting their first child and the date is all set. Everything is fine until he gets tangled up at the airport with a wannabe actor named Ethan Tremblay, who somehow gets the both of them booted off the plane and grounded for the foreseeable future.”
At that point, “simple” flies right out the window.
Stranded without cash, credit, ID or time, Peter finds himself in the galling position of having to hitch a ride home with a guy he'd rather take a swing at—Ethan. The person he holds responsible for his predicament in the first place is now behind the wheel of a rental car and offering him the passenger seat.
Though clearly not his best option, it's Peter's only option.
At first grateful for the company, Ethan soon learns that his tightly wound traveling companion is not going to be any fun at 20 Questions, nor generally receptive to the concept of going with the flow. Meanwhile, Peter realizes he's just joined forces with a guy who can casually ruin his life in more ways than he could ever imagine.
“If there really was somebody like Ethan around, he'd have been strangled in his sleep long ago,” Downey attests. “He's like a laser beam that focuses on the one thing that will drive you crazy the most, the kind of guy who will eat a whole plate of waffles before mentioning he's allergic to waffles. I'm sure a lot of people know someone like this, someone who is perfectly wired to activate all of their irritation buttons.”
Granted, Peter has a short fuse to begin with. “He's kind of an edgy, controlling, judgmental guy with some anger-management issues. And who better to help him explore those issues than Ethan Tremblay? High-strung as he is normally, Peter is now facing the birth of his first child and is thrown into this nightmare, so it's all amped up,” Downey adds.
Ethan, by comparison, gives new meaning to the term laid-back. Zach Galifianakis, who stars as the human lightning rod for trouble, observes, “Nothing affects him, no insult seems to penetrate. Ethan lives in his own head. He has no talent, and he's on his way to Hollywood to capitalize on that. These two guys meet through a series of unfortunate circumstances that are entirely Ethan's fault, to which he is completely oblivious. And every bad thing that happens from that point on is Ethan's fault. Everything.”
Says Phillips, “People always cite chemistry in these kinds of movies. They say it's the chemistry between the two lead actors that make it work. I believe what makes ‘Due Date' work is anti-chemistry; it's two guys with zero connection and zero rapport, constantly butting heads, that generates both the tension and the comedy.”
Dan Goldberg, who has produced all of Phillips' feature films since their 2000 collaboration on the hit comedy “Road Trip,” says, “The ride develops its own momentum as one thing after another happens to impede their progress.”
At the same time, their cross-country trek takes Peter and Ethan on another, more unpredictable journey than what they face geographically—one that leads them to discover as much about themselves as each other.
Provided that they survive it.
Scott Budnick, an executive producer on the film, says, “There's real emotional substance to the story and real issues, and Robert and Zach do a phenomenal job in delivering both the humor and the emotional stakes. My favorite comedies are always the ones that have heart.”
As infuriating as Ethan can be, whether mismanaging his funds, missing potty breaks or launching their car off an overpass, Phillips concedes he has his good points, citing “honesty, innocence and a humanity that makes you connect with him and root for him despite it all. Ethan is a complex character. He has just lost his father, who was his best friend, and is having a tough time dealing with that. There's an underlying desperation in everything he does and an eagerness to please to the point where just making friends means trying too hard.”
“A lot of what he does is to avoid being lonely,” says Galifianakis.
Peter, on the other hand, may come across like a self-assured, aggressive control freak but, says Phillips' “Due Date” screenwriting partner Adam Sztykiel, “You sense that his behavior comes from an emotional place and from issues he has yet to work out, that are revealed in the story. Not far beneath the alpha male posture is his own vulnerability and how terrified he is to be responsible for a child.”
“As a parent,” Downey offers, “I know the big question is how are you going to manage and protect something that you have no experience with?”
Playing on that theme were screenwriters Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, who also have story credit on “Due Date.” “Peter's comfort zone is when he's in control. And everything that happens in this movie is about losing control; from his inability to get back home to the larger issue of his impending fatherhood—and whether or not he's ready for it,” Cohen says.
“We wanted to put him into a situation where he had to travel across the country with someone who was effectively a child,” adds Freedland.
Not that it would lessen Peter's pain, stress and frustration if he knew it might be pain, stress and frustration with a purpose. Still...
“When I read the script, I was moved,” recalls executive producer Susan Downey. “It's so funny and yet so human. You want a comedy to have that grounding, in the way that you want a drama to have some humor. In ‘Due Date,' though his experience with Ethan, Peter finds his human side and gets ready for the birth of his own child. It's about him becoming a man before becoming a father.”
“Guess who's got the Subaru Impreza? Me! Guess who's got the winning personality? Me! What do you have? You have a nice hairline. Fine. You have a strong jaw. But I gotta tell you, mister, your personality needs some work.” - Ethan Tremblay
Despite the “anti-chemistry” Phillips had in mind for their characters, Galifianakis and Downey generated some genuine positive chemistry from the start.
Downey vividly recalls their first meeting. “I was in Venice, California, and some weird guy walks by and says, ‘Hi, I think I'm doing a movie with you.' And I was thinking, ‘I might have to punch this guy.' Then I realized, ‘Oh my God...that's Zach.'
“Later, he came over for dinner so we could talk about the script,” Downey continues. “I asked if he had any dietary restrictions and he sent me a note detailing everything he'd need, like bottled water flown in from Barstow. It's one of my favorite things. I read it to people at parties.”
“We kind of took care of each other on the set—very different from what was going on in the movie. We'd talk every morning about how to make a scene work. It was great. Funny how hanging out with a legitimate actor raises your game,” Galifianakis returns.
“I always respond to projects based on the casting potential,” says Phillips. “I immediately start seeing a movie from the standpoint of casting it. For ‘Due Date,' I knew that if I could get Robert and Zach we could go full out.”
Phillips marks his second collaboration with Galifianakis on “Due Date,” following the comedian's breakout starring role in last year's international blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” that became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. He says, “Zach and I click because he knows I really get his humor, which can be pretty outrageous.”
In “Due Date,” however, Galifianakis creates a character that calls for a great deal of subtlety. Notes Budnick, “Every little nuance of personality and each detail—the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he thinks—Zach has figured out how Ethan Tremblay would do these things and it's reflected in every single moment he's on screen.”
At the same time, there is a core of unpredictability to the performance. “Zach brings a sense of spontaneity and danger and I think comedy is best with an undercurrent of danger so that you never know exactly what's going to happen or what someone will say or do. In that sense, he's the perfect comedic actor,” says Phillips.
And “Due Date” gives him a worthy antagonist in Downey.
“Not only is Robert a world-class actor but he's naturally funny. I wouldn't think of casting Robert Downey Jr. as anyone's straight-man,” says Phillips. “In ‘Due Date' there is no straight-man because they're both screwed up in their own ways. And the beauty of Zach and Robert playing off each other is that they're both funny but their humor comes from such different places and their styles are so different that you're not mining the same vein.”
Downey, Galifianakis, Phillips and Sztykiel “took the script apart and put it back together,” says Goldberg. “Every day there were new things that touched me and made me laugh. I believe ‘Due Date' audiences will see aspects of Robert and Zach that they haven't seen before and things that will surprise them. As a filmmaker, I'm always looking for that.”
It's a philosophy and a process that Phillips respects. “So much of comedy happens on the day you shoot,” he says, and offers the example of the airplane luggage bin scene. “It just happened as we were looking at the seating and the overhead bin and realized how that could bring them really close in a small space. Zach said, ‘What if I rub up against him while I'm reaching into the bin?' And I said, ‘What if you pull your shirt up first to wipe your glasses so it's just your bare stomach?' Comedy isn't math; it's jazz.”
Says Robert Downey Jr., “I start every day thinking here's what will happen if you do it by the book and here's what can happen if you bend yourself over backwards and forwards again and try to invite the unimagined into the situation. The set had energy like a living being; it was evolving all the time. And what's great and so funny about Todd is that sometimes, with him, it's so wrong, it's right.”
That point of view resonates with Galifianakis, who admits to being right alongside the director in appreciating “the inappropriate,” adding, “Todd and I have the same sense of humor. We like stuff that has a bit of a taboo element—things that are funny specifically because you're not supposed to laugh at them. As a stand-up comic, I love it when audiences laugh before they realize maybe they shouldn't have, and then start to question themselves.
“That's not to say that you can't be offended by something Todd or I do in a film,” he continues with mock concern. “I'm often offended by the things I do in movies.”
“You'd better check yourself before you wreck yourself.” - Ethan
“What I like about road trip movies is that essentially your characters are working without a net. You just throw them out into the elements and say, ‘Deal with it,'” says Phillips. “You don't have the support system of friends and family. People come in and out of your life for intense but fleeting moments.”
To help facilitate that, ‘Due Date' features a stellar supporting cast of characters who offer Peter and Ethan a range of memorable and often thought-provoking encounters along the way.
The first of these is Heidi, a freelance medical supplier with questionable parenting skills, tracked down by Ethan at her Birmingham home to restock his supply of “glaucoma medication.” It's one of many detours that takes them miles out of their way.
Heidi is played by Juliette Lewis, in her third screen role for Phillips. Lewis was touring in London with her band when the director called. “We worked it out so that between London and Helsinki I made a pit stop in a place I didn't even know existed—Las Vegas, New Mexico—for a couple of days, to play a pot dealer,” she recounts. “When Todd calls it's a game of trust. I don't know the role, I don't know what he wants me to do, but I know it's going to be good and it's going to be funny.”
Oscar® winner Jamie Foxx, who recently starred with Downey in “The Soloist,” comes aboard in the role of Peter's old college buddy, Darryl, now living in Dallas.
“It was a real coup to get Jamie to come in as Peter's friend—and, according to Ethan, possibly the real father of his soon-to-be-born child,” says Robert Downey Jr., alluding to yet another way in which Ethan manages to get under Peter's skin.
Within minutes of entering Darryl's home, Ethan spots a few photos, asks a few questions, adds two and two, and comes up with five. “He learns that Darryl is very close with Peter's wife and jumps to all kinds of conclusions. Then, he plants the seed of doubt in Peter's mind,” says Phillips.
“Darryl comes into the picture to do these guys a favor and it's all great...until it's not. Then things get very weird, very fast,” Foxx says of the ensuing scene that lands Peter and Ethan back on the pavement. “Working with Robert, Zach and Todd, you'd never know what to expect, but you could always count on it being a crazy, creative, collaborative experience.”
The travelers also run afoul of an ill-tempered Western Union clerk, played by Danny McBride; a paragon of Airport Security, played by Grammy Award-winning hip hop producer/musician and actor Rza; and an exceptionally indifferent TSA agent, played by Matt Walsh, the ER doc from “The Hangover.”
Meanwhile, back home anxiously awaiting Peter's return is his wife, Sarah, played by Michele Monaghan, reuniting with Downey for the first time since they teamed in the 2005 comedy thriller “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
“Sarah is just about 8 months and 29 days pregnant with her first baby and obviously very anxious,” Monaghan offers. “Her husband is not only m.i.a but is also traveling cross- country with a wild man whose only concern is if she has any ‘recommendations for someone who could give him a perm'?!? Clearly, the baby's arrival looks more promising than daddy's.”
“Sonny, stop. Sonny...No. Stop. Good boy.” - Ethan
Before circumstances force these two to share a rental car, Ethan already has a traveling companion: a French Bulldog named Sonny, who becomes the pair's third wheel and a point of calm amidst the escalating mayhem.
The role of Sonny, though indisputably male, was played almost entirely by a young female Frenchie trained by Mark Harden, of Boone's Animals for Hollywood.
The introduction of a dog into the script came about as Phillips sought to further ratchet up the tension between his two leads and decided that one of them should be a dog person and the other...not so much. After perusing renowned animal trainer Boone Narr's company website, he spotted what he was looking for in Bodie, an adult male French Bulldog with the big ears and wide-eyed comical expression typical of the breed.
Unfortunately, at 26 pounds, Bodie was too heavy to be constantly toted around on one arm, so, with only weeks before filming started, Harden launched a full-scale and very specific search for a six-to-10-month-old, cream-colored, slightly undersized French Bulldog. He first tried the rescue agencies, then tapped into a nationwide network of breeders before finding someone who had a full-grown female weighing in at 15 pounds.
Though Galifianakis jokes that Sonny was trained to fall asleep at the word ‘action,' Harden takes no credit for the animal's relaxed demeanor, conceding, “She's just a very settled and well-adjusted dog. She doesn't get worked up. I think she just learned early on that most of her scenes were going to take awhile and she might as well catch a nap.”
Galifianakis, who bonded with his canine co-star despite an allergy to dogs, says, “I was kind of envious at her ability to fall asleep at work. And she snores like me.”
But as much as the camera loved Sonny, there was one special trick she just couldn't manage, that required a one-day command performance from Bodie.
Harden carefully describes how the trick serendipitously made its way into the story. “French Bulldogs are unable to groom themselves in certain areas as other dogs do. I don't know if it's a combination of their short neck and wide shoulders, but they can't twist backwards.”
Consequently, some of them use their paws, “a natural behavior that Bodie spontaneously offered in front of Todd at that first meeting, while we were talking,” the trainer recalls. “As soon as he saw it, there was no turning back. He said, ‘Oh my God, can you train him to do that?”
“Am I okay? Do I look okay? I have a broken arm. I have three cracked ribs. I have seven stitches in my armpit. Does that answer your question? - Peter
“I love physical comedy,” says Phillips, who happily extends the parameters of physical comedy in “Due Date” to include a multi-vehicle freeway chase, an end-over-end car flip and a shoot-out with some seriously t'd-off border security agents.
“For me,” Phillips continues, “It's fun to include shocking moments that make you say, ‘Whoa, where did that come from?' We shot the car sequence in Las Cruces, New Mexico. They let us break through the overpass and land on the road below. We closed the highway for several days to prepare and execute it but, frankly, you never know how a stunt is going to land, so we set up four or five cameras and let it happen. The car flipped back up on its wheels, but we were prepared for it to do anything.” Filming “Due Date” was a road trip in itself. Location shooting began in and around Atlanta and moved generally westward with the story, touching upon Dallas and the Texas interior and various locations in New Mexico, including Las Vegas and Santa Fe, which the filmmakers covered from a base of operations in Albuquerque, before touching down in California.
“The way the script breaks down, they have to get across the country. in a couple of days so you really need to take the southern route, which is not as long as the northern, so it makes sense in terms of driving time,” says production designer Bill Brzeski.
A separate helicopter unit covered the Grand Canyon for a key scene with Peter and Ethan perched on its rim, overlooking the Colorado River snaking its way through, far below. Between takes, busloads of visitors from all over the world arrived to tour the area and there was some concern on the part of the crew that they might forget to watch where they were going once they caught sight of Downey and Galifianakis.
The film's opening airport scenes were a combination of several elements. The plane cabin mockup was constructed on Stage 11 at Warner Bros. Studios; the curb where Peter's and Ethan's cars pull up was shot at Ontario Airport in California; and the screening area and other terminal interiors were built inside the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
Other practical locations in Georgia included a construction site in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood; a Waffle House and portions of Highway 27 in Bremen; various locations along I-75 and I-675, GA-route 20 and the Metropolitan Parkway; the Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville; the 1010 Condos on Atlanta's historic Peachtree Street; and a recently closed rest stop along I-985.
Darryl's home in Dallas was an amalgam of exteriors captured in Buckland, Georgia, and interiors shot in Encino, California. “You're never really anywhere you're supposed to be,” Brzeski says. “Las Vegas, New Mexico was built around the turn of the century and doesn't look like what you'd expect to see in New Mexico. There's a lot of Victorian architecture that doesn't match the typical Santa Fe look so buildings can substitute for almost any American small town, be it Texas or Ohio. We used it as Alabama for Heidi's house.”
The southwestern city also provided the site for one of the film's larger set pieces; a checkpoint at the U.S./Mexico border that was constructed on a bridge spanning a portion of Route 25 in Las Vegas, under which Brzeski and his team formed an encampment of Federali trailers based on actual Mexican Customs vehicles. Interiors of the office and a trailer, as well as a gimbal rig that figures into the action, were built on stage and another rotating rig, dubbed “car-on-a-spit” by one crew member, was designed for the scene in which Peter and Alan take their rented Subaru for a real spin.
All this action takes its toll on the luggage-deprived Peter, forced to spend the entire journey in one increasingly rumpled, torn, stained and slept-in suit. For costume designer Louise Mingenbach, that meant maintaining 20 versions of the suit in five basic stages of deterioration. “Definitely, the story evolves through Peter's clothes,” she says.
With Ethan's wardrobe she was able to have more fun, brainstorming with Galifianakis, who, she says, “has no vanity. Some actors want to look beautiful all the time but that's not Zach. He will wear whatever works for his character, even if it's acid-washed jeans two sizes too small.”
“I really like to look bad in movies,” Galifianakis agrees. “Originally Ethan was dressed like a hippie but I wanted him to be more arty—or, what he would think is arty. He has a perm, he has his dance shoes and his really bad tight jeans and the scarf as an accessory; he wants to be an actor and this is how he thinks actors dress.”
“Due Date” marks Mingenbach's fifth collaboration with Phillips, who says, “I have a great team. I've worked with essentially the same people throughout my career. We write some crazy thing and then I turn to my guys and say, ‘Can we pull this off?'”
Among those previous colleagues rejoining the director on “Due Date” were cinematographer Lawrence Sher, editor Debra Neil-Fisher and composer Christophe Beck.
Scott Budnick points out, “‘Due Date' marks the 10-year anniversary of ‘Road Trip,' Todd's first movie and my first job out of college. We filmed ‘Road Trip' from September to December 1999, and ‘Due Date' from September to December of 2009.”
For Phillips, it's a genre full of possibilities.
“I've been in some strange situations on the road,” confesses screenwriter Sztykiel, a Los Angelino who identified in some ways with Peter. “Here's a guy who's a little sheltered and doesn't have exposure to the 3,000 miles that exist east of his home, and it was fun to force him out of his bubble. It's uncomfortable, but you come away with a better sense of your place in the world. My advice for travelers? Go to the bathroom. Make sure your traveling partner has gone to the bathroom. Don't spend all your money on illegal substances. Don't say ‘bomb' on an airplane. Don't open your car door in traffic. Pretty simple stuff.” Sure. In hindsight.
“There's something about a road trip that brings out the extremes of human reactions and emotions,” says Phillips. “It's a great opportunity for surprises and for people to learn things about themselves or each other that they'd never see if they weren't being pushed to their limits, or having to make the kinds of quick, instinctive decisions you have to make on the road.”
At the same time, the road itself can be almost incidental. “No matter where we are in ‘Due Date,' no matter what's kind of chaos they're going through,” he concludes, “it all comes down to these two guys working out their issues.”
ABOUT THE CAST
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. (Peter Highman), a two-time Academy Award® nominee, earned his most recent Oscar® nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, for his work in Ben Stiller's comedy hit “Tropic Thunder.” His performance as Kirk Lazarus, a white Australian actor playing a black American character, also brought him Golden Globe, BAFTA Award and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® nominations. Downey was honored with his first Oscar® nomination, in the category of Best Actor, for his portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough's acclaimed 1992 biopic “Chaplin,” for which he also won BAFTA Award and London Film Critics Awards and received a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Earlier this year, Downey received another Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the title role of the 2009 hit “Sherlock Holmes,” under the direction of Guy Ritchie. Downey returns to the role of the legendary detective in a new Sherlock Holmes adventure, currently slated for release in December 2011.
In summer 2008, Downey received praise from critics and audiences for his performance in the title role of the blockbuster hit “Iron Man,” under the direction of Jon Favreau. Bringing the Marvel Comics superhero to the big screen, “Iron Man” earned more than $585 million worldwide, making it one of the year's biggest hits. Downey reprised his role in the successful sequel, which was released this past spring. He returns to the role in Josh Whedon's upcoming actioner “The Avengers,” which teams Iron Man with other Marvel Comics superheroes.
Downey's other recent films include “The Soloist,” opposite Jamie Foxx; “Charlie Bartlett”; David Fincher's “Zodiac,” alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo; Richard Linklater's “A Scanner Darkly,” with Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson; “Fur,” opposite Nicole Kidman in a film inspired by the life of revered photographer Diane Arbus; and “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.” He also shared in a SAG Award® nomination as a member of the ensemble cast of George Clooney's true-life drama “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and in a Special Jury Prize won by the ensemble cast of “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” presented at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
Downey's long list of film credits also includes “Gothika”; “The Singing Detective”; Curtis Hanson's “Wonder Boys”; “U.S. Marshals”; Mike Figgis' “One Night Stand”; Jodie Foster's “Home for the Holidays”; “Richard III”; Oliver Stone's “Natural Born Killers”; Robert Altman's “The Gingerbread Man” and “Short Cuts,” sharing in a Golden Globe Award for Best Ensemble for the latter; “Heart and Souls,” “Soapdish,” “Air America,” “Chances Are,” “True Believer,” “Less Than Zero,” “Weird Science,” “Firstborn,” and “Pound,” in which he made his debut under the direction of Robert Downey Sr.
On the small screen, Downey made his primetime debut in 2001 when he joined the cast of the series “Ally McBeal.” For his work on the show, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television and a Screen Actors Guild Award® for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
On November 23, 2004, Robert Downey Jr. released his debut album, “The Futurist,” on the Sony Classics label. The album, containing eight original songs, showcased his singing talents.
Downey and his wife, Susan, just formed Team Downey, a production company based at Warner Bros.
ZACH GALIFIANAKIS (Ethan Tremblay) moved to New York City after failing his last college course by one point at North Carolina State University. He got his start performing his brand of humor in the back of a hamburger joint in Times Square, graduating to doing stand-up at night in clubs and coffee houses in the city. While working as a bus boy, he got his first acting job on the NBC sitcom “Boston Common.”
Galifianakis' breakout role came in Todd Phillips' blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. He will reunite with Phillips and cast-mates Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Justin Bartha in “The Hangover 2,” slated for a 2011 release.
He also stars in “It's Kind of a Funny Story,” which premieres at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival and opens this fall. Recently, he also co-starred with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd in Jay Roach's comedy “Dinner for Schmucks.” Galifianakis' additional film credits include the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced hit “G-Force”; the indie feature “Youth in Revolt,” with Michael Cera, Steve Buscemi and Ray Liotta; a cameo in Jason Reitman's Oscar®- nominated film “Up in the Air”; “What Happens in Vegas,” with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher; and the critically acclaimed true-life drama “Into the Wild,” from director Sean Penn.
On the small screen, Galifianakis just started the second season of the HBO comedy “Bored to Death,” with Jason Schwartzman and Ted Danson. In addition, he hosted the critically acclaimed VH1 talk show “Late World with Zach,” and also wrote and starred in “Dog Bites Man” for Comedy Central.
Zach also has an internet talk show entitled “Between Two Ferns.” He has interviewed such guests as Steve Carell, Natalie Portman, Conan O'Brien and Charlize Theron.
When not filming, Galifianakis lives on his farm in North Carolina.
MICHELLE MONAGHAN (Sarah Highman) most recently starred to great critical acclaim in the independent film “Trucker,” which world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. She received the Best Actress Awards from the San Diego Film Critics Society, Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival and Vail Film Festival. Monaghan also served as executive producer on the film.
She will next been seen in Sofia Coppola's “Somewhere,” “Source Code,” opposite Jake Gyllenhaal for director Duncan Jones and “Machine Gun Preacher,” opposite Gerard Butler for director Marc Forster.
Monaghan made her feature film debut in “Perfume,” directed by Michael Rymer, then played Richard Gere's secretary in Adrian Lyne's “Unfaithful.” She followed with supporting roles in Fred Schepisi's “It Runs in the Family,” with Michael Douglas; “Winter Solstice,” with Anthony LaPaglia; Paul Greengrass' “The Bourne Supremacy”; and Doug Liman's “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”
It was her starring role in “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer, which brought Monaghan to the attention of audiences around the world. She also received rave reviews for her performance in the film, directed by Shane Black. Next, Monaghan joined Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand in “North Country” for director Niki Caro. She then starred in “Gone Baby Gone,” with Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman; “The Heartbreak Kid,” opposite Ben Stiller; “Mission: Impossible III,” with Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman for director J.J. Abrams; opposite Patrick Dempsey in the romantic comedy “Made of Honor”; and in D.J. Caruso's hit thriller “Eagle Eye,” alongside Shia LaBeouf.
JULIETTE LEWIS (Heidi) received Best Supporting Actress Oscar® and Golden Globe nominations for her layered performance as adolescent Danielle, opposite Robert De Niro, in Martin Scorsese's thriller “Cape Fear.”
She reunites with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having previously collaborated on “Old School” and “Starsky & Hutch.”
Lewis was most recently seen alongside Hilary Swank, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver and Sam Rockwell in the independent drama “Conviction,” which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and opened in October. Prior to that, Lewis appeared in the romantic comedy “The Switch,” alongside Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman and Patrick Wilson. She also starred alongside Orlando Bloom, Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney in Ruffalo's directorial debut, “Sympathy for Delicious,” which took home the US Dramatic Special Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Last year, she played roller derby girl Dinah Might opposite Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Jimmy Fallon and Eve in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, “Whip It.”
Among Lewis' many other films are Gary Marshall's “The Other Sister”; “Evening Star,” with Shirley MacLaine; Quentin Tarantino's vampire tale “From Dusk Till Dawn,” opposite George Clooney; the sci-fi actioner “Strange Days,” alongside Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett; Nora Ephron's comedy “Mixed Nuts,” opposite Steve Martin and Adam Sandler; Oliver Stone's controversial “Natural Born Killers”; “What's Eating Gilbert Grape,” with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio”; “Romeo Is Bleeding”; “Kalifornia”; Woody Allen's “Husbands and Wives”; “Crooked Hearts” and “National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation,” with Chevy Chase.
At 12, Lewis landed her first leading role in the Showtime miniseries “Home Fires.” At 16, her performance in the critically acclaimed longform “Too Young to Die?” led to film roles. Lewis' other television credits include Showtime's “My Louisiana Sky,” for which she received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special, and Mira Nair's HBO film “Hysterical Blindness,” alongside Uma Thurman and Gena Rowlands. She also had recurring roles in several series.
In addition to film and television, Lewis's music career continues to evolve. Her third studio album, Terra Incognito, was released in fall 2009.
JAMIE FOXX (Darryl) won an Academy Award® for Best Actor in 2005 for his portrayal of the legendary Ray Charles in the Taylor Hackford-directed biopic “Ray.” Foxx also won a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award®, a BAFTA Award, and an NAACP Image Award, as well as numerous critics' association awards, and shared in a SAG Award® nomination received by the film's ensemble cast.
Also in 2005, Foxx garnered Oscar®, Golden Globe Award, SAG Award®, BAFTA Award, and Image Award nominations, in the Best Supporting Actor category, for his work in Michael Mann's dramatic thriller “Collateral,” in which he starred with Tom Cruise. That same year, Foxx also earned Golden Globe Award and SAG Award® nominations and won an Image Award for Best Actor in a Television Movie for his portrayal of condemned gang member-turned-Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stan “Tookie” Williams in the FX Network movie “Redemption.”
Foxx has a number of films upcoming, including the Seth Gordon-directed comedy “Horrible Bosses”; F. Gary Gray's action thriller “Kane & Lynch,” opposite Bruce Willis; and the comedy “Skank Robbers,” which he also wrote and is producing. His recent film credits also include Garry Marshall's hit ensemble romantic comedy “Valentine's Day,” the thriller “Law Abiding Citizen,” Joe Wright's drama “The Soloist,” the thriller “The Kingdom” and Bill Condon's screen adaptation of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls.” Foxx also executive produced the film “Life Support,” starring Queen Latifah, which closed the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
Foxx's big-screen break came in 1999 when Oliver Stone cast him as a star quarterback in “Any Given Sunday.” In 2001, he co-starred with Will Smith in Michael Mann's acclaimed biopic “Ali.” His additional film credits include Michael Mann's “Miami Vice,” with Colin Farrell; Sam Mendes' Gulf War drama “Jarhead,” with Jake Gyllenhaal; “Stealth”; Antoine Fuqua's “Bait”; “Booty Call”; “The Truth about Cats & Dogs”; and “The Great White Hype.”
Foxx first came to fame as a comedian. After spending time on the comedy circuit, he joined Keenan Ivory Wayans, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans and Tommy Davidson in the landmark Fox sketch comedy series “In Living Color.” In 1996, he launched his own series, “The Jamie Foxx Show,” which was one of the top-rated shows on The WB Network during its five-year run. Foxx also served as co-creator and executive producer, and directed several episodes. His first HBO Comedy Special, “Jamie Foxx: I Might Need Security,” premiered in February 2002.
In addition to his acting success, Foxx has also achieved a thriving music career. His first album, Unpredictable, topped the charts in late 2005 and early 2006 and spawned the NBC special “Unpredictable,” in which he performed with such artists as Mary J. Blige, Common, Snoop Dogg, The Game and Angie Stone. He has been nominated for eight Billboard Music Awards, three Grammy Awards, a Soul Train Music Award, and two American Music Awards, winning for Favorite Male Artist. Foxx's latest album, 2008's Intuition, debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 chart and spawned the chart-topping single “Blame It.” Foxx recently wrapped up his “Blame It Tour” in support of the album. On January 31, 2010 Jamie Foxx and T-Pain's “Blame It” won in the category of Best R%B performance by a duo/group with vocals at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
TODD PHILLIPS (Director/Screenwriter/Producer) most recently directed and produced the 2009 blockbuster hit comedy “The Hangover,” starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha. The film became the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time and won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical. He is currently in production on the much-anticipated sequel, “The Hangover 2,” which reunites the cast.
Phillips started his career as a documentary filmmaker, inspired by humor taken from everyday reality and the belief that the truth is often stranger than fiction.
His first film, “Hated,” portrayed the revolting antics of extreme punk rocker G.G. Allin and became an instant underground sensation. It was released in the summer of 1994 and went on to become the highest grossing student film of its time.
He followed that in 1998 with “Frat House,” a documentary that he produced and directed for HBO's popular “America Undercover” series. “Frat House” premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary features. The unflinching exposé of life in fraternities created a public controversy that eventually caused the film to be shelved by HBO. Phillips still hopes to release it in the future.
After meeting producer Ivan Reitman at Sundance, Phillips made his crossover to features with 2000's “Road Trip,” which established him as a new force in comedy. He simultaneously produced and directed “Bittersweet Motel,” a documentary on musical cult phenomenon Phish.
In one way or another, Phillips' films explore the nature of male relationships, and in doing so he has worked with some of Hollywood's biggest comedic actors, writing and directing such films as “Old School” in 2003, “Starsky & Hutch” in 2004, and “School for Scoundrels” in 2006. Phillips was nominated for a 2006 Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
DAN GOLDBERG (Producer) marks his fifth film collaboration with Todd Phillips on “Due Date.” Previously, he served as producer on Phillips' “Old School,” “Road Trip,” “School for Scoundrels” and most recently, “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time. Goldberg will next produce “The Hangover 2” with Phillips, releasing in 2011.
Goldberg also produced the outrageous comedy “Howard Stern's Private Parts” and the animated comedy adventure “Space Jam,” starring Michael Jordan, and was an executive producer on Ivan Reitman's romantic adventure “Six Days Seven Nights,” starring Harrison Ford.
His screenwriting credits include the classic comedies “Stripes” and “Meatballs,” both of which he also produced; “Feds,” which he also directed; and the enduring cult favorite “Heavy Metal.”
ALAN R. COHEN & ALAN FREEDLAND (Screenwriters, Story) are best known as Emmy Award-winning writers from the Fox animated show “King of the Hill” and often referred to as “the Alans.”
Among numerous other writing and producing credits, the duo also co-created the Comedy Central cult hit “Kid Notorious,” starring Robert Evans. They are currently co- executive producers on Seth MacFarlane's “American Dad.”
Prior to “Due Date,” the Alans wrote feature scripts for various studios. They currently have several television and film projects in development, including the feature comedy “The Reunion,” for producer Brian Grazer.
A George Washington University graduate, Cohen originally hails from Pittsburgh and worked for several years as a reporter in The Baltimore Sun's Washington, D.C. bureau.
Freedland graduated from the University of Michigan. He grew up in the Detroit area and worked in advertising in Chicago.
ADAM SZTYKIEL (Screenwriter)'s most recent writing credit was the comedy “Made of Honor,” starring Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan.
He is currently working on a film adaptation of the best-selling memoir “The Game” by Neil Strauss, and has numerous other film and television projects in development.
Sztykiel is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
THOMAS TULL (Executive Producer), Chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures, has achieved great success in the co-production and co-financing of event movies. Since its inception in 2004, Legendary Pictures has teamed with Warner Bros. Pictures on such hits as Bryan Singer's “Superman Returns”; Zack Snyder's “300” and “Watchmen”; and Christopher Nolan's “Batman Begins” and award-winning phenomenon “The Dark Knight,” which earned in excess of $1 billion worldwide.
More recently, this highly successful partnership produced Ben Affleck's “The Town”; Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster “Inception”; the worldwide hit “Clash of the Titans”; Todd Phillips' “The Hangover,” which is the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time; and Spike Jonze's “Where the Wild Things Are.” Legendary's upcoming releases include Bryan Singer's “Jack the Giant Killer,” Todd Phillips' “The Hangover 2,” and Zack Snyder's “Sucker Punch.” Legendary is also developing a number of promising film projects in-house, including “Warcraft,” “Godzilla,” “Gravel,” “Paradise Lost,” and a sequel to “300.”
Before forming Legendary, Tull was President of The Convex Group, a media and entertainment holding company headquartered in Atlanta, on whose Board of Directors he also served.
SUSAN DOWNEY (Executive Producer) is a principal partner of Team Downey, the production company she formed with her husband, Robert Downey Jr. A prolific film producer, she has collaborated with some of the industry's most noted talents on films ranging from action blockbusters to dramas to comedies to horror thrillers.
Downey also produced the global hit “Sherlock Holmes,” which opened on Christmas Day 2009 and grossed more than $516 million worldwide. Directed by Guy Ritchie, the film starred Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong in an action adventure mystery that brought Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective to the big screen as never before. She is currently producing the sequel, which again stars Downey Jr. and Law under the direction of Ritchie.
Downey also recently served as an executive producer on the action hit “Iron Man 2,” which earned more than $620 million at the worldwide box office. The follow up to “Iron
Man” reunited director Jon Favreau with returning stars Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, and also starred Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson.
Previously, Downey held the dual posts of Co-President of Dark Castle Entertainment and Executive Vice President of Production at Silver Pictures. Joining Silver Pictures in 1999, she oversaw the development and production of feature films released under both banners, including “Thir13en Ghosts” and “Swordfish.”
In 2002, she made her producing debut as a co-producer on “Ghost Ship” and then co- produced the 2003 release “Cradle 2 the Grave.” Downey went on to produce the features “Gothika” and “House of Wax,” and also served as an executive producer on the critically acclaimed comedic thriller “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.”
Downey later produced Neil Jordan's acclaimed psychological drama “The Brave One,” starring Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard; Guy Ritchie's widely praised crime comedy “RocknRolla,” starring Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Idris Elba, Chris Bridges and Jeremy Piven; the horror thriller “Orphan,” starring Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard; and the thriller “Whiteout,” starring Kate Beckinsale. She was also an executive producer on the Hughes brothers' post-apocalyptic drama “The Book of Eli,” starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
Prior to her tenure at Dark Castle and Silver Pictures, Downey worked on the hit films “Mortal Kombat” and “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.”
Downey is a graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinema- Television.
SCOTT BUDNICK (Executive Producer) is Executive Vice President of Production for Green Hat Films, overseeing the development and production of a varied slate of projects including the upcoming “Project X,” set for release in 2011. He most recently executive produced the blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time.
Budnick began his entertainment career in local casting while at Emory University in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Upon graduation, he relocated to Los Angeles, serving as casting assistant on Todd Phillips' “Road Trip” and then as associate to the director on “Old School,” starring Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Jeremy Piven. Budnick served associate producer on Phillips' following films, “Starsky & Hutch,” starring Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller and “All The King's Men,” starring Sean Penn and Jude Law, which Phillips executive produced; and was co-producer on “School for Scoundrels,” starring Billy Bob Thornton.
LAWRENCE SHER (Director of Photography) reunites with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having previously collaborated on the Golden Globe-winning blockbuster comedy “The Hangover.” His work will next be seen in Greg Mottola's sci-fi comedy “Paul,” with Jason Bateman and Seth Rogan, and David Frankel's comedy “The Big Year,” based on Mark Obmascik's book and starring Owen Wilson, both releasing in 2011.
Sher's other recent credits include “I Love You, Man,” “Trucker,” “The Promotion,” “Dan in Real Life,” “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Chumscrubber.”
He worked as director of photography on several smaller films and music videos earlier in his career, coming to the fore in 2001 with the award-winning independent film “Kissing Jessica Stein,” followed by director Zach Braff's “Garden State.”
Born and raised in New York City, Sher studied economics at Wesleyan University where, in his junior year, he turned an interest in still photography into a fascination with motion pictures. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles and began his career as a camera assistant.
BILL BRZESKI (Production Designer) previously collaborated with Todd Phillips on the 2009 Golden Globe Award-winning blockbuster comedy “The Hangover,” for which he received an Art Director's Guild Award nomination for Excellence in Production Design. Brzeski re-teams again with Phillips for “The Hangover 2,” releasing in 2011.
Brzeski's other recent credits include “Flipped,” which reunited him with Rob Reiner, having previously served as production designer on Reiner's “The Bucket List”; and re- teaming with Rob Minkoff' on “The Forbidden Kingdom,” having previously worked on the director's groundbreaking CGI movie “Stuart Little” and its sequel, “Stuart Little 2.” Some of the designer's additional credits include “Deck the Halls,” “Blue Streak,” James L. Brooks' Oscar®-winning “As Good As It Gets” and “Matilda.”
Brzeski received his undergraduate degree from Miami University and his MFA in Design from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Originally interested in designing for the ballet and opera, he began his career in the theatre before moving to Los Angeles from New York City and designing more than 800 episodes of television series.
Brzeski also designs commercial spaces, most notably the award-winning Susina Bakery in Los Angeles.
His production design workshops at graduate and undergraduate levels have been hosted by New York University School of the Arts, Miami University, Clemson University and Loyola University Film School.
DEBRA NEIL-FISHER (Editor) re-teams with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having served as editor on his blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” the number one R-rated comedy of all time. The film won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and Fisher was honored with an Eddie Award by the American Cinema Editors for Best Edited Feature Film.
Among Neil-Fisher's other feature credits are the hit comedies “Baby Mama,” “Semi- Pro,” “Role Models,” “You, Me and Dupree,” “Without a Paddle,” “Saving Silverman,” and two hugely successful Austin Powers films, “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” and “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” She has collaborated three times with director Donald Petrie on “Just My Luck,” “Welcome to Mooseport” and “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.” Her work also extends to other genres, including the dramas “Fried Green Tomatoes,” “The War” and “Up Close and Personal,” as well as the thrillers “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” and “Dr. Giggles.”
In 1991 Neil-Fisher won a CableACE Award for her work on TNT's telefilm “Heat Wave,” for director Kevin Hooks. Among her earlier television credits are “The Amy Fisher Story,” “The Case of the Hillside Strangler” and the TNT thriller “Breaking Point.”
LOUISE MINGENBACH (Costume Designer) marks her fifth project with director Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” a collaboration that began on the feature film “Starsky & Hutch,” followed by “School for Scoundrels” and the 2008 telefilm “The More Things Change...” In 2009, her designs were seen in Phillips' mega-blockbuster “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest R-rated comedy of all time.
The upcoming actioner “Battleship,” based on the classic board game, reunites Mingenbach with Peter Berg, with whom she worked on “Hancock,” starring Will Smith.
Mingenbach also designed costumes for the 2009 action epic ““X-Men: Wolverine.” Previously, she earned a Saturn Award and a Costume Designers Guild Award nomination for her work on Bryan Singer's “X-Men.” She has teamed with Singer on four other films, including the 1995 thriller “The Usual Suspects,” “X2,” “Apt Pupil” and “Superman Returns,” as well as the pilot for “House M.D.”
Mingenbach's additional feature credits include the Farrelly Brothers' “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Spanglish,” “The Rundown,” “K-PAX,” “Gossip,” “Permanent Midnight,” “Nightwatch,” “The Spitfire Grill” and “One Night Stand.”
CHRISTOPHE BECK (Composer) previously collaborated with Todd Phillips on “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical.
He has composed scores for 50 feature films and nearly 20 television shows. With more than 15 years of experience, Beck has scored a wide array of projects, including such action films as “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” “The Sentinel” and “Elektra”; the comedies “Date Night,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “The Pink Panther” and “Bring It On”; and such dramas as “We Are Marshall,” “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “Year of the Dog”; as well as the Davis Guggenheim documentary, “Waiting For Superman.”
Beck most recently composed music for the comedies “Death at a Funeral,” starring Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence and Tracy Morgan; “Date Night,” with Steve Carell and Tina Fey; “Hot Tub Time Machine,” starring John Cusack; and Chris Columbus' fantasy adventure “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”
His additional credits include “All About Steve,” “The Greatest,” “What Happens in Vegas,” “Phoebe in Wonderland,” “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising,” “Saved!,” “American Wedding” and “Just Married.”
Beck began his scoring career on the Canadian television series “White Fang,” and from there went on to score three seasons of the hit television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition.
9 Views
20:15:07 04/22/10
The Losers -starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoë Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Oscar Jaenada and Jason Patric
[LESS INFO] 9 VIEWS | ADDED 20:15:07 04/22/10
An explosive action tale of betrayal and revenge, “The Losers” centers around the members of an elite Special Forces unit sent to the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission. But the team—Clay, Jensen, Roque, Pooch and Cougar—soon find that they have become the target of a deadly double cross, instigated from the inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max.
Making good use of the fact that they are now presumed dead, the group goes deep undercover in a dangerous plot to clear their names and even the score with Max. They are joined by the mysterious Aisha, a beautiful operative with her own agenda, who is more than capable of scoring a few points of her own. Working together, when they’re not arguing amongst themselves, they have to stay one step ahead of the globetrotting Max—a ruthless man bent on embroiling the world in a new high-tech global war for his own benefit. If they can take down Max and save the world at the same time, it’ll be a win-win for the team now known as The Losers.
“The Losers” stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan (“Watchmen”) as Clay; Zoë Saldana (“Avatar,” “Star Trek”) as Aisha; Chris Evans (the “Fantastic Four” films) as Jensen; Idris Elba (“Obsessed”) as Roque; Columbus Short (“Stomp the Yard”) as Pooch; Oscar Jaenada (“Che: Part Two”) as Cougar; and Jason Patric (“In the Valley of Elah”) as Max.
Sylvain White (“Stomp the Yard”) directed the film from a screenplay by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, based upon the comic book series written by Andy Diggle, illustrated by Jock and published by DC Comics/Vertigo. “The Losers” is produced by Joel Silver, Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster, with Steve Richards, Andrew Rona, Sarah Aubrey and Stuart Besser serving as executive producers and Richard Mirisch co- producing.
The behind-the-scenes creative team was led by director of photography Scott Kevan (“Stomp the Yard”), production designer Aaron Osborne (“Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang”), editor David Checel (“Stomp the Yard”), visual effects supervisor Richard Yuricich (“Orphan”), and costume designer Magali Guidasci (“Zombieland”). The music is by John Ottman (“Orphan,” “Valkyrie”).
Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Dark Castle Entertainment, a Weed Road Pictures production, “The Losers,” to be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. The film has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for scenes of intense action and violence, a scene of sensuality, and language.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Anyone else would be dead by now.
“The Losers have fun while they kick butt.” Director Sylvain White succinctly sums up the appeal of the ex-special forces unit that comes to the big screen from the pages of the popular DC/Vertigo comic book series, by the team of writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock.
As a fan of the original comics, White wanted to capture the same irreverent style in the film “The Losers.” He relates, “When I read the comics, the first thing that really struck me was the sense of humor Diggle and Jock were able to inject into a very action- driven story. It was such good source material, and I wanted to stay true to it by reflecting that tone in the movie.”
Producer Joel Silver agrees. “The great thing about ‘The Losers’ is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, which originated with the comics, of course. But much of that attitude also came from the screenwriters, Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, who brought so much to the table, and a lot came from Sylvain, who delivered a strong, visual cinematic style that I think feels fresh and hip and cool.”
Producer Akiva Goldsman was already familiar with Sylvain White’s work from the director’s feature film debut, “Stomp the Yard,” a drama centered around a step- dancing competition. “And yet,” Goldsman says, “there was a construct to the dancing in it that made it very much like martial arts, which spoke to the style he wanted to bring to this movie. Sylvain has a really good eye and a terrific sense of character and action. When he showed us what he wanted to do with ‘The Losers,’ we were all impressed.”
Employing his graphic arts background, White had created a full storyboard for the film that told the producers all they needed to know. “Sylvain came in and gave us a dazzling presentation,” recalls producer Kerry Foster. “He was so passionate and had such a clear vision for the movie that we knew he was the perfect choice to direct it.”
White says he not only drew inspiration from the original comic books but also from the screenplay. “It had a light tone paired with very gritty, visceral action. That can be a very difficult balance to maintain, but Peter and Jamie did it perfectly.”
James Vanderbilt, who collaborated with Peter Berg on the screenplay for “The Losers,” notes, “I was raised on Joel Silver movies like ‘Die Hard,’ ‘Lethal Weapon’ and ‘48 Hrs.,’ and that is my favorite type of action film—where there are real emotions, but not everything is so dire all of the time. The stakes are high, but the characters seem to be having a good time...and we have a good time with them.”
“The Losers are fun; you want to hang out with them,” White affirms. “They are not superheroes, they are real guys; in fact they’re underdogs who find themselves in what I would say is an extreme situation.”
“We’re not soldiers anymore. We’re fugitives.”
Despite what they are called, “The Losers” started out as anything but. Rather, they were an elite black ops unit, who were called upon for only the most perilous missions.
But in the jungles of Bolivia, while on a secret mission to eliminate a powerful drug and arms dealer, they are betrayed by a shadowy government operative named Max, who has his own reasons for wanting them eliminated...and almost succeeds.
“They’re left for dead and left taking the blame for the innocent lives that were lost on their mission,” White remarks. “Now they have to find their way back into the U.S. and redeem their names.”
Being presumed dead does have its advantages. But, although no one may be looking for them, five “dead men” can’t exactly walk back into the country without drawing unwanted attention. They need help and they find it in an unlikely source: Aisha, who is as beautiful as she is mysterious. Before they can reclaim their lives, however, they will have to deal with Max.
Each member of the team—Clay, Roque, Jensen, Pooch and Cougar—has a specialty that makes him individually strong. Together, they are unstoppable...or so they hope.
CLAY – OPERATIONAL CONTROL
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is Clay, The Losers’ man in command, whose entire identity had been wrapped up in being a soldier. After the team is betrayed, however, he is forced not only to fight for his country and his men but also his name.
Morgan offers, “His rank is colonel and that had defined him. Without that he has to question who he is, but he still has to lead this ragtag group. The leadership thing came naturally to me. It helped that I’m older than most of the guys in this movie, so I immediately wanted to kick their butts anyway,” he deadpans.
“Clay is a hardened man, but he has a definite sense of humor and I loved the dry wit of the script,” Morgan continues. “That can be difficult for a writer to capture on the page and a tricky thing for an actor to deliver. But I’m pretty sarcastic in real life,” he smiles. “In fact, I tend to be even a little dryer than Clay, so that worked well for me in playing the part.”
Sylvain White says he was sure Morgan was the right man for the role even before he actually met him. “He pulled up on his Harley and I knew instantly he was the guy. He’s got this very cool, mature energy about him, a kind of old soul quality that makes him a born leader. Jeffrey is very likeable, very approachable, but there is also a bit of a dark edge to him, which was something he was able to layer very well into the character of Clay as he spirals down into his obsession to take revenge on Max.”
“Jeffrey is that great combination of a tough guy with a heart of gold,” adds Goldsman about the actor, who played a very different kind of soldier in “Watchmen,” the film adaptation of the acclaimed DC Comics graphic novel. “He’s handsome and rugged and can appear dangerous, but at the same time be kind and sensitive. It’s a very mercurial quality that is hard to deliver, but he absolutely did.”
JENSEN – COMMUNICATIONS & TECH
Chris Evans plays Jensen, the team’s computer wizard, who can hack anything—or into anything—that comes his way. Even under cover on the other side of the world, he manages to keep up, via computer, with the standings of his niece’s 8-and- under soccer team, The Petunias.In terms of the family dynamic of the team, he is kind of the kid,” Evans admits. “He gets into mischief and cracks jokes at inappropriate times, but he cares about this group of people and loves what he does. He’s quick with a smile and has limitless energy. I enjoy playing guys like that because you can’t help but bring some of that attitude home with you.”
“Jensen is the geek with a gun,” White laughs. “Every character has moments of comic relief, but Jensen is probably the funniest guy in the movie. Chris had a ball with that because he is a genuinely funny person and was able to bring his own natural humor to the role. He is such a great guy to be around; he was always making us laugh, and that’s basically who Jensen is.”
“Chris was a wonderful addition to ‘The Losers’ cast,” Goldsman says of Evans, who is already a favorite of comic book genre fans for his role in the “Fantastic Four” movies and has just been announced as the new “Captain America.” “He is not only a talented and appealing actor, he also has the same sort of charm as Jensen, which is very engaging.”
ROQUE – DEMO & TACTICAL
Idris Elba plays Roque, an explosives expert, whose personal weapon of choice is a knife...the bigger the better. Roque has been Clay’s brother-in-arms for years, although Clay’s dogged determination to exact revenge on Max, at any and all costs, is now causing friction between the two old friends. “Roque is a no-nonsense type of character,” the actor observes. He’s a straight talker, very to the point. He’s an experienced soldier who’s not very emotional about the job; he just gets it done.”
White remembers, “When I first met with Idris, he told me about his ideas for how he could bring facets to the character of Roque because his story takes an unpredictable turn. He is an amazing actor; I knew he had the capacity to make his arc believable and yet surprising.”
“I liked the character of Roque, and that I had enough room to make it my own,” says Elba, who adds that there were other elements that appealed to him about the project. “The script was great—funny with a lot of larger-than-life action. And I’ve worked with Joel Silver before and am a fan of his movies, so that was another draw.”
“Idris is one of those go-to actors,” notes Silver who previously worked with the actor on “RocknRolla” and “The Reaping.” “I always know he’s going to give a great performance, no matter what the role. He can do drama, he can do comedy, he can do action, and there’s all of that in this movie. This is my third film with him, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
POOCH – TRANSPORTATION & HEAVY WEAPONS
Columbus Short takes on the role of Pooch, the group’s transportation expert, who “can rig, wire, fly, drive or commandeer any vehicle, and gets to shoot some pretty sweet weapons,” states Short.
Pooch also has the most personal motivation for wanting to return home. Short explains, “Pooch’s wife is about to have their first baby, and he desperately wants to get back in time to see his child be born. It makes Pooch kind of the heart of the group and adds to the guys’ individual reasons for wanting to clear their names.”
Short’s motivations for taking the role involved both the script and the director. “The storyline was great and the writing was very clever and witty; I laughed out loud reading some of the dialogue and I loved the action,” he comments.
The actor says he also appreciated the opportunity to reunite with Sylvain White, who had directed him in “Stomp the Yard,” which marked his first leading role. “Sylvain is a very collaborative director; he gave me the freedom to discover things about my character that weren’t necessarily in the dialogue. I couldn’t imagine a better experience than working with him again on this movie.”
White states, “I knew Columbus was perfect for Pooch from the get-go; I didn’t even have to think about it. When I read the script for ‘The Losers,’ I felt that the character was the emotional anchor of the team. He’s the family man and the kind of guy you want as a friend. And Columbus has a very warm soul and this sweet innocence about him that makes you care about him the second you meet him, so I pictured him as Pooch right off the bat.”
COUGAR – LONG-RANGE ELIMINATIONS
Spanish actor Oscar Jaenada is cast as Cougar, the unit’s crack sniper, who can hit any target with a steady hand, a cool eye and a quiet calm. “I loved playing a character who is more about sight than sound, more visual than verbal,” Jaenada offers. “Cougar may be the quiet type, but he’s always there watching out for his team. He’s the strong, silent guy in the movie.”
“Cougar is the mystery man of the crew,” says White. “I met Oscar and thought he was incredible; he has such an expressive face and an amazing presence. We needed someone who could act with his eyes, and that’s Oscar. He brought the character of Cougar to life in a way not many people could have.”
Kerry Foster emphasizes, “Oscar was such a boon to the cast. He enjoyed the idea of playing the guy who doesn’t need to speak to get his point across. He came in from Spain and wasn’t able to arrive until the day before we started shooting, and I think the other guys were sad to see him because he was clearly the coolest of the bunch,” Foster teases. “But he’s just the sweetest man and everybody loved working with him.”
“It’s pretty much a suicide mission.”
Despite their individual and combined skills, The Losers need help to sneak back into the U.S. undetected. That’s where Aisha comes in. Zoë Saldana plays the woman who proves to be either a formidable ally or a dangerous enemy...or both. It’s hard to know whose side she’s really on—other than her own—but Clay is about to learn she usually comes out on top.
“Aisha appears to them out of nowhere just when the guys think there is no hope for them to get back home,” says Saldana. “She makes them an offer that sounds too good to be true, but it’s also an offer they can’t refuse: she’ll get them back into the country, but then they have to deliver Max. They decide to take her up on it, but there is mistrust from the beginning because they don’t know what this woman is hiding up her sleeve,” the actress smiles.
White, who had been a fan of Saldana’s even before her recent roles in the sci-fi blockbusters “Avatar” and “Star Trek,” recalls, “When we started discussing the role of Aisha, I instantly thought of Zoë. She has remarkable acting chops, but she also has the physicality the role demanded. Aisha is not the lady in distress; quite the contrary, she’s the badass who actually rescues the men. She’s very capable, very strong and very determined, and Zoë brought her own genuine strength to her performance. She also happens to look very much like the character in the comic book, so we were thrilled when she said yes.” Joel Silver adds, “Zoë is beautiful and sexy and exciting—all the things Aisha needed to be. We wanted Aisha to be a match for the guys and then some. She’s tough, smart, opinionated and able to mix it up, and everything we expected of the character, Zoë delivered to the role.”
“You know that if we do this, we are waging a war against the Central Intelligence Agency.”
The man who targeted The Losers—and who is now their target—is Max, a shadowy and ruthless government operative, who is now operating by his own set of rules to keep America on top. And if a few billion dollars end up in his pocket along the way, even better.
Jason Patric, who plays the role of Max, affirms, “He has his own manifesto and a twisted sense of patriotism that I thought was funny and even a little topical today. Max has a bit of a swagger and an overconfidence, which I think he uses to hide the fact that he’s been beaten down in the past. But I just tried to have fun with it.”
“Max was probably the trickiest part to cast,” White asserts. “We wanted to cast against type, and Jason has never played a true bad guy in a movie before. He came in with some great ideas for the role, and I thought he would help me create a unique character who is different from other villains we’ve seen. He brought this quirkiness to his performance that I think really sets it apart.”
“Jason was terrific,” Foster agrees. “He made Max menacing and eccentric and funny all at the same time. He’s a villain you love to hate.”
As do all self-respecting villains, Max also has a henchman named Wade, because, as Patric says, “Every bad guy should have a thug.”
Wade is played by Holt McCallany, who offers, “Wade is a former special ops soldier, a very competent guy who has now kind of gone over to the dark side. He took all the skills he learned in the Special Forces and become a soldier of fortune. He’s a guy who’s essentially a mercenary. What makes him dangerous to The Losers is that he knows these guys. He knows their history and what they’re capable of...and what a threat they are.”
Judging by appearances, you can also tell what Wade is capable of. “You know Wade could physically take Max out any time he wanted to,” White allows. “But Max is smart enough and manipulative enough to have Wade following his orders, no matter how outrageous they are. Holt played the character with just the right balance of fear, loathing and respect.”
“CIA, NSA, Special Forces... We’re not them.”
Before the main cast of “The Losers” could portray a Special Forces unit they had to learn to behave like one. Former Navy SEAL Harry Humphries, who has served as the military advisor on a wide range of films, recently including “Iron Man” and “Transformers,” was the film’s military advisor and “training officer.” Humphries relates, “I come from the Special Operations community and I feel a great responsibility to them, so it was very important to me that the actors, who obviously didn’t have any prior tactical experience, look correct onscreen.”
He and his team put the cast of “The Losers” through a rigorous training regimen. “I didn’t try to turn them into total ninjas overnight,” says Humphries, “but I looked at what they would be required to do in the script and concentrated on those skill sets, like proper weapons handling, dynamic room entry, fire and cover, etc. They were all excellent students. I was very impressed.”
The actors had equal praise for their trainer. “Harry was a great instructor,” Idris Elba states. “He taught us quite a few tactical maneuvers. He made sure we looked realistic, especially handling the gear and the weapons.”
Columbus Short concurs, “Before I got there, I would not have known the first thing about dismantling or brandishing any sort of weapon. Now I feel like a weapons specialist. We were trained in the protocols known by every Special Forces operative in the world. It was very cool.”
Since Oscar Jaenada was still in Spain at the time, Humphries sent a trainer based in Europe to teach the actor the rudiments of being an expert sniper. Humphries notes, “A former British SAS (Special Air Services) Operative named Tony Smith went down to see Oscar in Madrid and just immersed Oscar for a week in the mental and physical requirements of precision rifle shooting.”
“It was very important for me to learn how to act like a real sniper,” Jaenada says. “Tony taught me the right way to hold the rifle and I also had to learn about precision and patience—when to know the perfect moment to take the shot.” Armorers Michael Papac and Vincent Flaherty worked closely with Humphries to select and supply the right weapons to use in each scene, including Cougar’s mammoth- scoped rifle, the Knights Armament SR-15.
Chris Evans points out that the most important thing he learned about the Special Forces was “I am not cut out to be one, that’s for damn sure,” he laughs. “We were out in the jungle doing those scenes, and I’m like, ‘I need water...I need a chair...I’m sweating...I’m tired...There’s mud, and bugs are biting me...’ We’ve got a whole team of ex-Navy SEALS consultants who never even break a sweat, and I’m wondering when lunch is.
Oh yeah, that’s not for me.
“But seriously,” Evans adds, “it was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had making movies. Where else would a guy like me get Navy SEAL training? It was fantastic.”
One important aspect of the actors’ training was learning to work together as a unit, which they all agree came naturally. “There is a shorthand between those guys, a special camaraderie, and I think we captured that,” says Jeffrey Dean Morgan. “Within one or two days, we realized it had fallen into place as far as us all feeling like one team...with Sylvain White as the maestro.”
White remarks, “The first time the cast was all assembled as a group they immediately bonded, and it was pretty clear that they had great chemistry between them. That’s the kind of thing you can’t really predict or bank on, so when it happens, you feel really fortunate. And I think it makes a big difference on the screen, too.”
“Welcome back to the land of the living.”
The action of “The Losers” unfolds around the world—from the jungles of Bolivia to New Mexico, from Mumbai to Dubai, and from Miami to Houston to Los Angeles, with various points in-between. Despite the diversity of the settings, the filmmakers were able to accomplish almost all of the principal photography on the island of Puerto Rico.
“We looked at quite a few places,” White recounts, “but when we got to Puerto Rico, we saw that the islandhas a great infrastructure and different locales. It was very convenient because we could ‘cheat’ a variety of terrains within a relatively small distance.”
“It was staggering what we found when we came to Puerto Rico to scout,” Foster confirms. “There is a city, obviously gorgeous beaches, a close approximation of a desert, and a rainforest that was ideal to double for Bolivia. It’s a beautiful island and the people could not have been more wonderful.”
Filming on Puerto Rico, the filmmakers also took advantage of the dramatic backdrop of the Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest radio telescope. Jason Patric shot his first scenes there and, in the process, discovered something about himself. “I didn’t realize I have a lack of fondness for heights, but I do now,” the actor reveals. “It was a pretty daunting way to begin.”
To craft the look of the film, production designer Aaron Osborne first went to the source: the original comic books. “What I noticed is that they used two or three colors to represent the tone of each setting, so I really tried to enhance that.”
“Every chapter of the comic books is a new environment distinguished by different color palettes,” White observes. I really wanted to do that in the movie as well—where every time we are in a new city or country, the aesthetic of the film changes completely, so there is no homogeneous look. It’s very eclectic.”
White collaborated with Osborne and cinematographer Scott Kevan to break down the images of the scenes. “We charted the whole movie with certain color schemes for each location and different shades as we moved from day to night,” Osborne explains. “We were quite meticulous about it.”
Color also came into play in the work of costume designer Magali Guidasci, who deviated from tradition by dressing the main protagonist, Clay, mostly in black, while the villain, Max, mainly wore white or light pastels. “Clay is a black-and-white type of guy,” she says, “so he wears a black suit and white shirt—another type of uniform in its own way, make no mistake. Max is always in a very light color, if not pure white. We first see him in a white suit and black tie, as if to appear the opposite of Clay.”
Form followed function with Cougar’s trademark cowboy hat, which was the perfect accoutrement for a sniper whose eyes needed to be shielded from the deflecting glare of the sun. His clothes are in muted colors to allow him to fade into the background and he wears gloves with the trigger finger cut out. Function was also important in costuming Zoë Saldana as Aisha, in clothes that Guidasci describes as “simple and athletic. She wears boots where she can conceal extra weapons, but no heels for that lady. She needs to be agile—able to jump and kick ass.”
In keeping with Jensen’s fun-loving nature, the character wore a collection of T- shirts that were as colorful as his personality. The idea of the T-shirts began with the one Petunias shirt he wears to support his niece’s soccer team. Guidasci offers, “Then Sylvain came up with the idea for Jensen to have a different funny T-shirt for almost every scene. Some we found and some were created by our graphic designer, Eduardo Gomez, and we also tried to make some of them subtly apropos to the moment.”
Osborne notes that the filmmakers adopted the term “Loser style,” which did not refer to the clothes of the characters but rather their surroundings. He elaborates, “Let me put it this way: anything we built in ‘Loser style’ either got burned, destroyed, shot up or blown apart.”
For certain sets, where the action was going to be explosive, Osborne and his crew consulted with special effects coordinator John P. Cazin, as well as stunt coordinator and second unit director Garrett Warren. Clay’s hotel room in Bolivia was the most obvious example of a set that was literally designed to be demolished.
“My first thought was, ‘Oh, we’re building a motel room...no big deal,’” admits Osborne. “But we had to design layer-by-layer, working everything out with John regarding the special effects, since we were going to burn down the entire room, and also with Garrett on the stunts, because people were going to be thrown around and putting their fists through the walls. So what seems to be a normal motel room was actually planned to the utmost detail. Every piece of furniture had to be replicated several times over because we were either going to burn it or smash it.”
The motel room is destroyed over the course of an all-out brawl between Clay and Aisha, who, surprisingly, is more than a match for her larger opponent. “The fight scene between Clay and Aisha was amazing to create,” says Warren, who had recently worked with Saldana on “Avatar.” “They were both consummate professionals: Jeffrey is up for anything and Zoë has a dancer’s physicality and loves doing stunts. We just pulled out all the stops.”
“The thing I loved about the way Garrett designed the fight is that he made it very playful,” Saldana comments. “When Clay and Aisha meet, you think they’re about to hook up for a steamy scene and they end up kicking the crap out of each other. There’s something sexy about a woman who can hold her own against a man, especially when they find each other irresistible.”
“It was pretty hot,” Morgan agrees, though not necessarily referring to the attraction between the characters. “The flames in that room were real, so filming that scene really stood out for me.”
Hot and steamy proved to the watchwords for the entire cast and crew while working in tropical Puerto Rico. “It’s a beautiful place, but the heat and humidity were unrelenting,” Morgan attests. “Add a black suit and about 60 pounds’ worth of guns and gear, and it made filming the action scenes a special challenge. You can’t drink enough water because no matter where or when you’re shooting, you’re drenched in sweat. But the good news is you’re bound to lose a lot of weight,” he grins.
In planning the stunt sequences, Warren says, “I got my team together and we brainstormed to come up with some interesting, fun ways to shoot. I talked Sylvain into letting us fly him above one action scene on wires and he actually held the camera to film one of our guys doing Parkour-style moves, running and jumping over these large containers. That was a lot of fun...at least for us.”
White also worked with Scott Kevan to film the action from a perspective that brings moviegoers right into the fray. The director emphasizes, “We want the audience to experience certain pivotal moments through the eyes of the characters. It’s about positioning the camera inside the action and staying as close as possible to the actors. Sometimes it’s limiting, and other times it opens brand new doors. It was a fine line, but I think we were able to find a good combination.”
He continues, “I’m very proud of the action in this film, but what I think shines through the most is the fun tone and the great characters. I think ultimately that’s what I want to leave the audience with—having had a good time with ‘The Losers’...and wanting to do it again.”
ABOUT THE CAST
JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN (Clay) starred last year in the action thriller “Watchmen,” Zack Snyder’s controversial big screen adaptation of DC’s seminal graphic novel. Morgan played Edward Blake, a.k.a. The Comedian, whose murder sets off a potentially explosive investigation and reunites his former costumed colleagues, the Minutemen. Also in 2009, Morgan starred in Ang Lee’s independent feature “Taking Woodstock.”
Morgan is currently at work on the crime thriller “The Fields,” in which he and Sam Worthington star as detectives investigating several unsolved murders in Texas. In November, he stars in the remake of the action hit “Red Dawn,” playing a U.S. Special Forces soldier who helps the teenage rebels, known as the Wolverines, fight back against enemy forces that have invaded the United States. Prior to “Red Dawn,” Morgan filmed the suspense thriller “The Resident,” opposite Hilary Swank, his former co-star from “P.S. I Love You,” in which he played her prospective love interest.
His other upcoming films include Mikael Hafstrom’s period drama “Shanghai,” with John Cusack, and the murder mystery drama “All Good Things,” in which he stars with Kirsten Dunst, Ryan Gosling and Frank Langella under the direction of Andrew Jarecki. Morgan’s additional film credits include the independent comedy “Kabluey,” with Lisa Kudrow; the romantic comedy “The Accidental Husband,” opposite Uma Thurman; and a cameo role in David Dobkin’s holiday comedy “Fred Claus.”
Morgan first gained the attention of television audiences with a recurring role in ABC’s smash hit series “Grey’s Anatomy.” His dramatic arc as heart patient Denny Duquette, who wins the heart of Katherine Heigl’s Izzie Stevens in a star-crossed romance, made him a universal fan favorite. He has also had recurring roles on the hit CW series “Supernatural” and on the award-winning Showtime series “Weeds.”
ZOË SALDANA (Aisha) enjoyed a banner year in 2009, starring in back-to-back blockbusters. She capped the year starring as Neytiri in James Cameron’s history- making sci-fi epic “Avatar,” for which Saldana won an Empire Award for Best Actress. The film, which also starred Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver, broke numerous box office records on its way to becoming the highest-grossing motion picture of all time. Among its many honors, “Avatar” won a Golden Globe for Best Picture – Drama and earned nine Oscar® nominations, also including Best Picture.
Earlier last year, Saldana played Nyoto Uhura in the sci-fi action adventure hit “Star Trek,” about the early years of the legendary crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Directed by J.J. Abrams, the film also starred Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Eric Bana.
Saldana will next be seen in the Neil LaBute-directed comedy “Death at a Funeral,” in which she joins an ensemble cast that also includes James Marsden, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Martin Lawrence, Columbus
Short and Luke Wilson.
Born and raised in New York, Saldana first gained attention with her memorable feature film debut in the starring role of Eva in “Center Stage,” directed by Nicholas Hytner. She followed with “Get Over It,” “Crossroads,” “Drumline,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” and Steven Spielberg’s “Terminal,” for which she won a 2004 Young Hollywood One to Watch Award from Movieline magazine. Her additional film credits include “Haven,” “Guess Who” and “Vantage Point.”
In 2009, Saldana graced the cover of ELLE as one of the magazine’s “Top Women in Hollywood.”
CHRIS EVANS (Jensen) stars this August in Edgar Wright’s action comedy “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” with Michael Cera, Anna Kendrick, Jason Schwartzman, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. He also just wrapped production on Adam and Mark Kassen’s drama “Puncture,” in which he stars as a drug-addicted lawyer who takes on a major health supply corporation while battling his own personal demons.
Evans next starts filming opposite Anna Faris in Mark Mylod’s romantic comedy “What’s Your Number?,” about a woman revisiting all her ex-boyfriends in hopes of finding the man of her dreams. This summer, Evans is set to go into production on the action adventure “The First Avenger: Captain America,” in which he will star in the title role of the Marvel Comics superhero, under the direction of Joe Johnston.
Evans is also well known to moviegoers for his role in the hit “Fantastic Four” action adventures. His more recent film credits include Paul McGuigan’s sci-fi thriller “Push,” in which he starred opposite Dakota Fanning; the independent period drama “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond,” written by Tennessee Williams and also starring Bryce Dallas Howard; and David Ayer’s crime drama “Street Kings,” with Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker.
Raised in Massachusetts, Evans began acting in regional theatre before moving to New York, where he studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute. He made a few guest appearances on television series before landing his first feature film starring role in the comedy spoof “Not Another Teen Movie.” His early film work also includes “The Perfect Score,” with Scarlett Johansson, and “Cellular,” with Jessica Biel and Kim Basinger.
In 2005, teamed with Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and Ioan Gruffudd as a group of astronauts who gain individual super powers after being exposed to cosmic radiation in the blockbuster hit “Fantastic Four.” Two years later, he reprised the role of Johnny Storm, a.k.a. The Human Torch, in the summer action hit “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.”
Among Evans’ other film credits are Danny Boyle’s critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller “Sunshine,” with Cillian Murphy and Michelle Yeoh; “The Nanny Diaries,” opposite Scarlett Johansson; the independent drama “London,” opposite Jessica Biel; and Griffin Dunne’s “Fierce People,” with Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland.
IDRIS ELBA (Roque) recently starred in the hit 2009 thriller “Obsessed,” with Beyoncé Knowles and Ali Larter. Elba earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for his portrayal of a married man being stalked by a co-worker. He previously shared in a Screen Actors Guild Award® nomination as a member of the main cast of Ridley Scott’s 2007 true-life drama “American Gangster,” with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.
Elba has several film projects upcoming, including the crime drama “Takers,” with Matt Dillon, Zoë Saldana and Hayden Christensen, and the action adventure “Thor,” in which he stars with Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman under the direction of Kenneth Branagh. He also executive produced and stars in the independent film “Legacy,” which was chosen to close the 2010 Glasgow Film Festival, and has also been selected to screen at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
Elba’s additional film credits include David S. Goyer’s horror thriller “The Unborn”; Guy Ritchie’s “RocknRolla,” as part of an ensemble cast that also included Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton and Tom Wilkinson; and the hit horror thriller “28 Weeks Later,” to name only a few.
On the small screen, Elba had a recurring role last season on the hit NBC series “The Office.” In his native England, he next stars in the title role of the BBC crime drama series “Luther,” set to debut in the UK in May. He first gained attention with his starring role as the de facto leader of a Baltimore drug empire in HBO’s acclaimed original series “The Wire,” for which he received an Image Award nomination. Additionally, he starred in the Channel 4 telefilm “All in the Game,” and gained another Image Award nod for his performance in the HBO movie “Sometimes in April,” as a Hutu soldier who tries to save his Tutsi wife and family during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Elba has also worked on the stage, including leading roles in several plays produced in London. Additionally, in New York, he starred in Sir Peter Hall’s off- Broadway production of “Troilus and Cressida,” receiving rave reviews for his portrayal of Achilles.
COLUMBUS SHORT (Pooch) previously collaborated with director Sylvain White as the star of the 2007 hit “Stomp the Yard,” which topped the box office in its first two weeks in release and brought Short an NAACP Image Award nomination for Best Actor. He more recently won an Image Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the true-life drama “Cadillac Records,” about the birth of rock n’ roll in Chicago, in which Short starred with Beyoncé Knowles, Jeffrey Wright and Adrien Brody. He next stars in the ensemble comedy “Death at a Funeral,” alongside Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Martin Lawrence, James Marsden, Luke Wilson and Zoë Saldana.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Short relocated with his family to Los Angeles at a young age and, by his early teens, had landed work in television commercials. He was a senior at Orange County School of the Arts when he was offered a part in Broadway‘s hit show “STOMP!” He went on to choreograph Britney Spears’ “In the Zone” tour.
Short began his film acting career in 2006 with starring roles in “Save the Last Dance: 2” and the comedy “Accepted,” with Jonah Hill and Justin Long. His subsequent film credits include “This Christmas,” opposite Idris Elba, Regina King and Chris Brown; the horror remake “Quarantine”; the thriller “Whiteout,” with Kate Beckinsale; and “Armored,” with Matt Dillon and Laurence Fishburne. On television, he played the young writer Darius on Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed drama series “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.”
Short is also working behind the camera through his production company, Great Picture Show Productions. He most recently executive produced “Stomp the Yard 2: Homecoming.”
OSCAR JAENADA (Cougar) is an award-winning actor in his native Spain, who is quickly becoming well known in the U.S. In 2005, he starred in the title role of “Camarón: When Flamenco Became Legend,” the true story of Camarón de la Isla. Jaenada earned a number of acting honors, including Spain’s prestigious Goya Award, for his portrayal of the legendary flamenco cantaor. He more recently starred in “Todos Estamos Invitados,” for which he won the Málaga Spanish Film Festival’s Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Toulouse Cinespaña Award for Best Actor.
American film audiences have also seen Jaenada in Jim Jarmusch’s thriller “The Limits of Control,” in which he co-starred with Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton, and Steven Soderbergh’s biopic “Che: Part Two,” starring Benicio Del Toro.
Born and raised in Barcelona, Jaenada later moved to Madrid to pursue his acting career. He started out in the local theatre and also landed roles on television. His breakthrough came in the widely acclaimed 2003 feature “November,” for which he received a Goya Award nomination and won several other awards, including a Toulouse Cinespaña Award for Best Actor.
JASON PATRIC (Max) first gained attention with his starring role in Joel Schumacher’s 1987 comedy thriller hit “The Lost Boys.” He went on to earn critical acclaim for his performances in the drama “The Beast of War,” the erotic thriller “After Dark, My Sweet,” and the crime drama “Rush.”
Patric subsequently starred in Walter Hill’s “Geronimo: An American Legend”; the title role in “The Journey of August King”; Barry Levinson’s “Sleepers”; and Neil LaBute’s “Your Friends and Neighbors,” which was also the first feature Patric produced under the banner of his production company, Fleece.
Patric’s more recent film credits include “Narc,” “The Alamo,” “Expired,” “Downloading Nancy,” “In the Valley of Elah,” and “My Sister’s Keeper.”
On Broadway, Patric starred as Brick in the revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” opposite Ashley Judd. His other theatre work includes productions of Neil LaBute’s “Bash”; “Beirut”; “Out of Gas on Lover’s Leap”; “The Tempest”; “Henry V”; and “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”
3 Views
21:58:58 04/19/10
Unstacking The Deck Ep 04 Censorship
[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 21:58:58 04/19/10
Unstacking the Deck-Episode 4 Censorshipwith Jason Robo and Kyle BeattieIntroduction: Episode 4 of Unstacking the Deck discusses censorship as a mode of political,economic, and social control. Also the hosts cover the best and worst news stories concerning liberty and tyranny in the world. Interview subjects are the hosts themselves for this episode, explaining some of the difficulties in producing a show and discussing plans for future projects and episodes.Word of the Week: Censor -- (Merriam-Webster) Etymology:Latin, Roman magistrate, from censēre to give as one's opinion, assess; perhaps akin to Sanskrit śaṁsati he praises Date: 1526 1 : a person who supervises conduct and morals: as a : an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter b : an official (as in time of war) who reads communications (as letters) and deletes material considered sensitive or harmful 2 : one of two magistrates of early Rome acting as census takers, assessors, and inspectors of morals and conductDocumentary of the Week: The Revolution Will Not Be TelevisedBook of the Week: Our Unfree Press Compiled by: Robert McChesney and Ben ScottHistory Segment: 1996 Telecommunications Act and its repercussions for our media and the information that we all receive and act on daily. Also the host discuss how it has been a series of moves such as this which have brought about a final circumstance where there are 2-5 corporations that run ALL our news media. This has terrible consequences for everyone in society, to read more about this and other acts which have increased censorship, research here. Also here is more information to read.Quote of the Week: "To prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves" -Claude Adrien HelvetiusFreedom Preservation Tip: Exercise your free speech/expression ie. Write to editors, make a tv show, write letters, knock on doors, talk to people daily/social interactions, make music, write poetry, DON'T BE AFRAID TO SPEAK YOUR MIND!!!News Links:Local:Arkley bank failThe House that Arkley builtNorCal Woman To Be Jailed Over Medical PotState:Undercover booze bust at Nob Hill clubThe $10,000 traffic stopGun rights activists take up arms at Baker BeachCalifornia Assembly speaker OKs $132,000 in staff pay hikes, promotionsNational:Huffington Post Sends Ventura Article to Memory HoleWyoming Governor Signs Sovereignty ResolutionRep. Patrick Kennedy: National Media is Despicable Right NowThe Video That Will Put Geithner Behind BarsAP Exclusive: Pentagon gun was from Tenn. policeMassachusetts SJC rules 2nd Amendment does not apply to statesMonica Conyers gets 37 months in prison in Synagro bribery scandalHave You Received Your Unconstitutional Census Form Yet?Campaign stunt launches a corporate 'candidate' for CongressU.S.paediatrician faces 471 sex charges against 103 child patients after police discover 13 hours of video at his surgery At climaxof healthcare talks, Senate employees told to avoid the Drudge report for virus dangers that don't existH1N1 to be included in next years flu shotsHuffington Post Kills Jesse Ventura’s Piece On 9/11 Ventura's edited remnantsFailed Banks May Get State Pension-Fund Backing as FDIC Seeks Cash Reality Reversals Continue: Scientists Now Propose That Ritalin Boosts LearningUS Judge upholds case implicating RumsfeldTo Stop Crime, Share Your GenesVisualizing obamas budget cutsWorlds billionaires gates in second on the fixed list from forbesReality Reversals Continue: Scientists Now Propose That Ritalin Boosts LearningCould Lehman be Ernst & Young's Enron?Congressman Ron Paul returns a whopping $100,000 of his office budget to the US TreasuryVirginia First State to Pass Health Care Freedom Act: 38 States Lining Up Against ObamaCareUtah to Challenge Federal Land Ownership — Henry LambUtah Governor signs into law a bill that claims total state control over firearms and ammunition production and sales within the state'sborders.Colorado State University imposes gun ban, but County Sheriff James Alderdenrefuses to enforce it,DEMINT: White House land grab : Proposal to seize land would favor animalsover Americans“Coffee Party” Founder Is Obama Campaign OperativeFood Security Threat: Goverment Set to Ban Public Fishing, Individual Food ProductionObama sides with MPAA, RIAA, backs ACTAClassmates.com to pay 9.5 over phantom friendsOn Social networks you are who you knowFCC wants you to test your broadband speedsFCC speed tools have 50-85% disparityFormer TSA analyst charged with computer tamperingInternational:Security industry faces attacks it can't stopPhone allows bosses to spy on staffgvnt internet filter live in NZIsrael says `bad options' for Iran getting closerPeople needed to watch for the suns coronal mass ejectionsCIA filled French bread with LSD in experiment during 1950sMan fined over Facebook insult to ex-girlfriendYour Neighbour Is a Terrorist According to talkSport UKLED lights a wireless internet sourceVitamin D better than vaccines at preventing flu, report claimsInternet threatens rare species, conservationists warnChina denounces Google 'US ties'Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels, according to reportChinese granny buried alive by property developersAU Filter vendor skeptical of effectivenessChavez Calls for Net ControlsGoogle 99% likely to leave China, no censorship compromise1 in 3 Killed by U.S. Drone Attacks In Pakistan Are CiviliansUse Cash And Enjoy Privacy? You’re A Terrorist Spy chips hidden in 2.5 MILLION dustbins: 60pc rise in electronic bugs as council snoopers plan pay-as-you-throw taxUK may requires competence test to own dogsBill Gates: Use Vaccines To Lower Population U.N.hypocrisy on women’s rightsGovernment demands thicker chips to help Britain's obesity crisis Bankof America warrants sale raises $1.54 billionPope under fireMuslim women who refused to take 'naked' full-body scan are barred from Manchester to Pakistan flight Themind-reading machine: 'Psychic' computer invented that can tell what you're thinkingAcknowledging Climate-Gate, U.N. to Announce Review of Climate Panel PR MoveUS Senate's top climate sceptic accused of waging 'McCarthyite witch-hunt'Argentinian Couple Shoot Kids, Kill Themselves Over Global Warming Stunning pictures of a solar corona where temperatures around Sun reach 2,000,000c MEPs vote overwhelmingly for an EU Tobin Tax10-year-old child was added to the registry after he called a friend a "gay boy." Israel,Syria pursue nuclear-powered MideastLandslide vote in Iceland renounces debt repaymentSaffron could save your eyesightNewly Discovered Old Russian Folk Remedy Prevents and May Cure CancerThe virtual battles where soldiers can't die: MoD trains Army to fight using sophisticated video games
10 Views
17:46:49 04/11/10
Date Night starring - Steve Carell and Tina Fey
[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 17:46:49 04/11/10
Action-comedy maestro Shawn Levy, the director of the blockbuster “Night at the Museum” franchise, teams up with two of the comedy world’s biggest talents, Steve Carell (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “The Office”) and Tina Fey (“Baby Mama,” “30 Rock,” “SNL”) for an adventure that turns a run-of-the-mill married couple’s date upside down – way upside down, in DATE NIGHT.
Phil (Carell) and Claire Foster (Fey) are a sensible, loving couple with two kids and a house in suburban New Jersey. The Fosters have their weekly “date night” – an attempt at re-experiencing the spice of the dates of yesteryear, involving the same weekly night out at the local Teaneck Tavern. Their conversations quickly drift from barely-date talk to the same chore-chat they have at the dinner table at home. Exhausted from their jobs and kids, their dates rarely end in fore- or any other kind of play, let alone romance.
After seeing two of their best friends – another married couple with kids in suburban New Jersey – split apart from living the same life they themselves lead, Phil and Claire begin to fear what may lie ahead: a state of bland indifference and eventual separation.
In an attempt to take date night off auto-pilot, and hopefully inject a little spice into their lives, Phil decides a change of plans is in order: take Claire into Manhattan to the city’s hottest new restaurant. The Fosters, however, don’t have reservations. Hoping to be seated sometime before the clock strikes twelve, they steal a no-show couple’s reservations. What could it hurt? Phil and Claire are now the Tripplehorns.
The real Tripplehorns, however, it turns out, are a thieving couple who are being hunted down by a pair of corrupt cops for having stolen property from some very dangerous people. Forced on the run before they’ve even finished their risotto, Phil and Claire soon realize that their play-date-for-parents has gone hilariously awry, as they embark on a wild and dangerous series of crazy adventures to save their lives. . . and their marriage.
The ritual “date night” dinner is something all too familiar to most married couples – even directors of blockbuster movies. “I was in the process of making the second Night at the Museum film,” recalls filmmaker Shawn Levy, “and, as is kind of our ritual, once a week, my wife and I go out to dinner.”
At one such dinner, the Levys found themselves sitting at the restaurant they frequented, ordering the same food, talking about the kids, what’s coming up that weekend, who’s going to buy the gift for which birthday party, etc., etc. “In the middle of all that, I said to my wife, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do a movie about a date night, where you just did one thing differently? And, from there, you have an unraveling of everything, to the point of it threatening your life and your marriage, with all kinds of crazy stuff going on. But, in the midst of all that crazy stuff, you end up recapturing the vitality that date night was invented in the first place to preserve.’”
The next morning, Levy came in to his production company office and told his staff, “Okay, we’re going to do a movie called DATE NIGHT, and here’s what it’s about, and let’s get a writer. Let’s go.”
Levy’s search for a writer didn’t take very long. “I had written a small, quirky film, called ‘(Saint) Peter,’ which Shawn had read and fell in love with, recalls screenwriter Josh Klausner. “Shawn was determined to find something for us to work on together. He very graciously took a big chance and had me fly out, and we started brainstorming.”
Levy and Klausner met at Levy’s bungalow on the Fox lot, where they quickly broke the story. “We are both in the same stage of life,” Klausner says. “We both have children and go out on date nights, knowing what they’re supposed to be, but realizing they never end up being that anymore because there are so many other things that get in the way. So we started talking about those experiences.”
“We talked about our marriages,” Levy adds. “And we found that there are certain commonalities in trying to sustain a vibrant, romantic relationship,” and not simply becoming roommates. “It’s the question of in the midst of grownup life, how do you keep couple-hood fresh?”
DATE NIGHT was originally conceived as more of a suburban story centered around a parent-teacher conference night, but quickly evolved into, as Klausner calls it, “the perfect ‘North by Northwest’ setup” of mistaken identity.
“Shawn and I really wanted what spurs on the evening to be something that we all might do,” Klausner continues. “Phil and Claire simply can’t get a seat at a restaurant, and, since nobody’s answering the call for a reservation, they just decide, ‘What’s the harm in taking it?’ And it leads them down the rabbit hole. From there, they end up on the worst night of their lives, which ends up being the best night for their relationship.”
Levy describes the film as being “in the spirit of action comedies I remember fondly, like ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ or ‘48 Hrs.’ DATE NIGHT has a real hybrid tone, because it’s first and foremost a comedy. It also has a hefty dose of action, as well as a lot of heart, because it’s about the things that people deal with in relationships.”
For Levy, DATE NIGHT is a change from the family-friendly hits he’s helmed, like “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Pink Panther” and “Night at the Museum.” DATE NIGHT is more of an adult-skewing comedy,” Levy points out. “In a way, it’s the other side of the movies I’ve done, which have been focused on the child-parent relationships. DATE NIGHT is focused on the marriage side – what happens after the children go to sleep.”
Levy was keen to keep the emotional side of the story intact through the mayhem experienced by the characters. “If you’re making a movie about relationships and being a married couple, it must be more than just funny, because life doesn’t work that way,” the director explains. “This movie has some surprising moments of poignancy.”
“A lot of comedies these days feel like a compendium of gags tied together to follow a narrative story,” notes Klausner. “DATE NIGHT, at its heart, is about marriage and being in love with somebody, but at the same time, life gets in the way. It’s honest, which is something Steve and Tina wanted, too. I’m proud that this movie has preserved that soul.”
When Levy learned that Steve Carell and Tina Fey were hoping to find a project on which they could work together, he knew he had found his DATE NIGHT duo. “We got an early draft of the screenplay to Tina and Steve, who always struck me as the dream pairing for a movie about marriage,” Levy says. “They said, ‘Yeah, we relate to this, we want to do an action comedy that’s also honest about relationships.’ So they said they were in.”
While Levy usually takes a break between completing one feature and beginning the next, he found himself prepping DATE NIGHT while editing “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” in order to take advantage of his stars’ availability. “Steve’s and Tina’s series commitments [on, respectively, “The Office” and “30 Rock”] provides only a limited window for feature film work,” Levy explains. “They told us, ‘Look, we want to do this, but we’re free now, and we’re not going to be free in six months – what do we do?’ I said, ‘Well, we make the movie right now!’ I didn’t get a break between films, but I got a comedy with Steve Carell and Tina Fey, who are two of the most intelligent, interesting people working in comedy today. So a lot of my job was to come up with the idea, get the two perfect actors for the movie, and then get the hell out of the way.”
While slight alterations to the script were made to match the stars’ comedic voices, DATE NIGHT was essentially tailor-made for the pair. “It felt like the film was written for them,” says Klausner. Adds Levy: “Three minutes into this movie, you buy Steve and Tina as a married couple. They have a powerful chemistry together. They clicked completely on screen.”
Phil, says Carell, “feels underappreciated by his friends and family, but he sort of keeps that feeling close to his chest. He’s a very loving guy, but he and Claire have reached a plateau in their relationship. He needs to snap himself out of it, if possible. And the night that he and Claire experience together is a defibrillator for their marriage.”
Carell’s comedic skills, along with his ability to stir audiences’ hearts, made him the perfect choice for the role, Levy says. “Steve is super funny, and his chops as an actor are fantastic. He not only carries entire comedy sequences on his back, but three scenes later, he’s moving you to an emotional place with such sincerity and nuance. There’s no end to what he can do.”
Carell says his own date nights, like Phil Foster’s (and Levy’s and Klausner’s), leave much to be desired. “Sometimes the worst part of date night is actually leaving for the date – when you see your babysitter sitting down, getting all cozy, turning on the TV. That sometimes seems much better than the night that lies ahead.”
Fey, like Carell, has the ability to be riotously funny while still portraying the emotional side of her character realistically – to turn down the volume on jokes and simply allow them to happen. For example, in response to a nudge for sex from her husband, Fey’s Claire offers a very normal, ‘Yeah, hang on a minute” moment as she pulls out her dental mouth guard in preparation for sex with her husband, with enough drool to instantly turn off her mate.
“Besides being obviously really pretty and intelligent, Tina has a complete willingness to make an ass out of herself,” says Levy. She’s completely up for goofing on herself and being the butt of the joke, and that’s very charming.”
Fey describes Claire as “a working mom of two kids, who, like almost everyone I know, is just a little worn out by the day-to-day life of raising your kids, getting them out the door, getting them to school, having a job, keeping a house clean. She’s a good person who is just kind of worn into the ground a little bit. I certainly identify with how just physically tiring it is to be a parent and have a job – sometimes it feels like a real effort to just be present for your spouse.”
So which would be scarier – being in a boring marriage or being chased by the mob (both of which the Fosters experience in the film)? “I would say that being married to a person in the mob would be the scariest,” Fey jokes.
Along their night-from-hell journey, Phil and Claire encounter a cavalcade of characters on both sides of the law. Levy’s casting choices for these roles was sometimes unexpected – and always spot-on. His intent was to provide the story with a “Wizard of Oz”-like experience. “You’re with your heroes, but along the way, they’re being affected and changed by the people they meet, and I just thought wouldn’t it be fun if at every turn of the road, you’re surprised all over again by who has suddenly appeared in this movie. And the cast members fit the roles perfectly.”
The surprise apparently wasn’t limited to the audience. “I read the script,” says Fey,” and I thought, ‘Oh, these are really good parts for somebody.’ I never thought we would get this lucky to have that caliber of people in all these different parts.” Having what otherwise would have appeared to be small roles portrayed by big name actors only helps bring them alive, Carell notes. “When you see them acted out, they’re even better than they were on the page.”
And getting high-powered stars to join the DATE NIGHT team wasn’t just a matter of coincidence. “So many people were so keen to find a way to work with Steve and Tina – they just found a way to make it work,” says Levy.
Mark Wahlberg portrays a former real estate client of Claire’s the pair turns to in the middle of the night. “I play a guy named Holbrooke Grant, who is a security expert who Claire and Phil come to for help,” Wahlberg explains. “They just catch Holbrooke at a bad time – he’s with his beautiful Israeli girlfriend.” The pair ends up turning Holbrooke’s night upside down, as well.
Wahlberg had the simplest costume in the entire cast. “There is no wardrobe – just a pair of silk genie pants,” he recalls, noting that he regularly found himself freezing on the air-conditioned set. That the top half of his costume was missing (except for an ample supply of makeup covering Wahlberg’s countless tattoos), was a fact not lost on the female members of the cast and crew. “Mark was shirtless for three or four days,” Fey says, prompting a noticeable increase in the number of women who suddenly had additional tasks to address on set on the days he was on the job. “I had friends texting me, ‘Can I get on the Fox lot and visit you today?’” Fey laughs.
Also coming to the aid of the beleaguered couple is Taraji P. Henson, an Oscar® nominee for her work in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” who plays NYPD Detective Arroyo, who, though she doesn’t exactly believe the Fosters “chased by bad guys” story, begins to become suspicious of a couple of her colleagues. “She’s sort of a hero,” the actress says.
Playing thugs Collins and Armstrong, who are after the Fosters (whom they believe are the Tripplehorns) are Common and Jimmi Simpson. Common is a familiar face to audiences for his role as a murderous cop in “Street Kings” and for his work as a musical artists (his hits include “Love of My Life” and “Testify”). Simpson has made occasional appearances as Lyle the Intern on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
Common describes the duo as “one of the many catalysts to get this mundane couple out of their comfort zone – mainly by shooting guns at them.” The two are essentially hunters, he adds, noting, “I’m the muscle.”
Collins and Armstrong’s formidable boss is gangster Joe Miletto, from whom the Tripplehorns have apparently stolen something of importance that he wants back. The casting of acclaimed actor Ray Liotta as Miletto delighted Carell and Fey. “We were shooting a scene with Ray one night,” recalls Carell, “and Tina looked over and said, ‘I feel like I am in a 3D version of ‘Goodfellas. Ray Liotta is actually walking up and talking to me.’ It was like a ride at a theme park.”
Playing a heavy in a comedy, particularly for actors used to appearing in dramatic films, requires a special knack, one which DATE NIGHT’s group of toughs embraced with gusto.
“It’s really in the writing, so it’s dependent on your commitment to it,” explains Liotta. “If the situation’s just a little more heightened, you’re going to laugh.” Common agrees: “Shawn expressed to us from the beginning – you’ve got to keep it real. The more real it becomes – because you’re playing off Steve and Tina – the funnier it becomes.”
Portraying the “real” Tripplehorns – actually a drug dealer named Taste and his wacky stripper girlfriend, Whippit – are James Franco and Mila Kunis. Despite their different life circumstances, the pair has much in common with the Fosters, being in the same spot in their relationship as their clean-cut counterparts. Notes Josh Klausner: “Whether you’re a drug dealer or a suburban husband, you still feel the pangs of ‘You never look at me the way you used to’ and ‘You don’t have time for me.’ What the two couples are going through is exactly the same,” making the exchanges between the two couples both hilarious and poignant at the same time.
Kunis describes the pair as “very passionate – when they’re angry, they’re very angry, and when they’re happy, they’re madly in love.” Whippit, specifically, she describes as a “psycho, who is very up and down. She goes through three different emotions within two and a half script pages.”
The name “Taste,” Franco says, is left over from an earlier concept of the character – a 6 ft. 7 in. bald man with “TASTE” tattooed on his forehead. “So when they asked me to be in the movie, I said, ‘Well, I’m certainly not that.’” The character’s description was then rewritten, but the name stuck. “I was up for facial tattoos, too,” Franco says with a laugh. “We just went for the cheesy ‘Grim Reaper.’”
Kristen Wiig and Mark Ruffalo play the Fosters soon-to-be-splitting couple friends, Haley and Brad Sullivan. “Their parting brings up the question about getting bored with your spouse and moving on, or just sticking it out,” says Wiig. “I think Haley plants the seeds in Claire’s mind.”
Also taking on key roles are “Gossip Girl’s” Leighton Meester as the Fosters’ babysitter Katy, and “The Dark Knight’s” William Fichtner as district attorney Frank Crenshaw.
All the cast members appreciated Levy’s ability to balance action and comedy, which in turn allowed his actors the freedom to come up with their own gags. “That’s the only way you can afford to have time to play around or to improvise and do extra takes,” notes Fey. “That only happens if everyone – especially your director – really knows what they’re doing.”
For Levy, there’s a method to the potential madness of improv. “Sometimes, after we’d get what I want, Steve and Tina would come to me and say, ‘You know what? Could I get one more take? I’ve got an idea that might lead somewhere.’ Sometimes we couldn’t use it, but more often than not, it was gold and it ended up in the movie,” such as the duo’s restaurant shenanigans game of guessing what’s up with the couple sitting across the way.
“Every person in any field wants to go to work and feel respected for what they do,” says the director. “So when you say to an actor, ‘We’re going to do the script that I’ve written for you, but I want to hear what’s in your head. I actually think that the ideas you come up with might be as legitimate or better than what we scripted,’ it makes your actors feel like partners and collaborators, and not mouthpieces. It makes them feel like part of the creative team, rather than a piece of machinery.”
MEET THE TWINS
While attempting to escape their pursuers, the Fosters “borrow” Holbrooke Grant’s car, the much-too-powerful-for-Phil Audi R8. When Phil inadvertently smashes into a taxi cab, the two vehicles’ bumpers become hopelessly locked together. Nonetheless, the chase continues, the conjoined twin automobiles smashing their way down Manhattan streets.
The complicated sequence came about when Levy and Klausner were brainstorming ideas for a chase scene. Concerned about repeating the oft-used, cliché urban car chase, Klausner recalls, “I remember sitting in a room with Shawn, telling him, ‘You know, do we really have to do a car chase, because how many times have we seen a car chase in these movies? How interesting can that be?’”
Levy then related to his writer a story from his teenage years. “He was just learning to drive, and was trying to park, but he ended up smashing into another car in front of him and getting stuck on that car. His father just drove by and shook his head.” Thus was born the idea of conjoined cars.
But just having two cars barreling down the street wasn’t enough. “Shawn wanted to do something that nobody had ever seen before,” says 2nd unit director and stunt coordinator Jack Gill, who planned and executed the sequence. “Once we got the basic idea of conjoining the cars, we began figuring out not only how to build the cars, but how to make it work comically. I then started adding eccentricities, like spinning them around in circles and having characters fire guns at them.”
Besides having six different cars that, each of which handled a specific aspect of the chase stunts, Gill built a 40 foot frame, upon which the Audi and cab bodies were placed. “So there’s just one rigid frame,” he explains. The stunt driver was situated at the leading end of the conjoined vehicles. “So when the cab is facing forwards, with the Audi ahead of it facing the wrong way, the stunt driver is actually driving from inside the Audi’s trunk, looking out the back so he can see where he’s going and drive around corners.” In addition, for most shots, the rig’s rear wheels – those under the rear end of the conjoined vehicles – could also steer, in the same manner as those of a hook-and-ladder fire truck.
Needless to say, don’t try this at home on your own Manhattan street.
New York City ordinances limited the production to the types of stunts that could be filmed on Manhattan streets. So following a week of night work in New York, the stunt team moved to downtown Los Angeles to complete the sequence.
“We had about six blocks to work with on Broadway, which was great,” Gill recalls. “We needed a long stretch locked down, because when you conjoin two cars together, you’ve got a thing that’s forty feet long – getting it up to speed and shutting it all down can be tough. You can’t just do it in two blocks.” The sequence was filmed with up to six cameras, including a special “balloon cam,” with wheeled buoys on each corner, which allowed the camera to be sent into the path of the speeding car pair and getting hit head-on, without damaging expensive camera equipment.
Carell did actually drive the R8 himself for a number of shots. “We wanted the car to have way too much power for a guy like Phil to handle,” says Gill. “So I asked Audi to disconnect the all-wheel drive, which meant putting all 560 horsepower into the rear wheels.” So what was Carell’s impression? “He said it felt like somebody hitting him in the back of the head with a shovel when he stepped on the gas.”
In one shot, Phil must make his way to the cab while Claire is driving the Audi at high speed. “We did all the transfers across the hood with doubles – that was all real,” notes Gill.
Close-ups of Carell and Fey were done against a green screen set at Twentieth Century Fox. Since the chase acrobatics had already been filmed, besides their scripted lines, Carell and Fey filled in the gaps with their gut-busting ad-libs. “I’d show them footage and explain to them, ‘Here’s what we did last week downtown with the real cars – what do you think?’” Gill says. “And we’d bounce off ideas until something really clicked. And then Shawn was always there to say, ‘You’re right on track here – that’s really funny!’ It really helps when you have a collaboration where everybody can talk ideas out.”
Even with all the excitement, Levy kept the scene’s theme on track. “Once we had the concept of having the two cars stuck together, then we could find a way to thematically tie it in to what the movie’s about, which is this couple that has to learn to communicate to survive,” he explains.
Indeed, even with all that happens to them on this fateful night, the Fosters achieve their goal: to reinvigorate their relationship and reconnect with the love and excitement that brought them together in the first place.
“DATE NIGHT is kind of like a fable,” says Levy. “It takes place over a very short period of time, but in some way, it’s timeless, because it’s a story about a journey two people make in their relationship. And we leave the night feeling like they will go back to their lives and no one except for the people involved that night might ever know what happened. We’ve watched them experience this crazy night, but the real adventure of their married life, now that they’ve found each other again, is just about to begin.”
“They’re comfortable enough again with each other to be able to say ‘Knock it off’ and ‘I love you’ within the same five minutes,” says Steve Carell.
Tina Fey has just one last piece of relationship advice: “Go on a date night and see DATE NIGHT.”
ABOUT THE CAST
STEVE CARELL (Phil Foster) has emerged as one of the most sought-after comedic actors in Hollywood. First gaining recognition for his contributions as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy® Award-winning “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Carell has successfully segued into primetime television and above-the-title status in the film world with equal aplomb.
Carell currently stars as Michael Scott, the pompous and deluded boss of a Pennsylvania paper company, in the Americanized adaptation of Ricky Gervais’ acclaimed British television series “The Office.” Now in its sixth season, the show continues to flourish in ratings and has earned Carell three Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe® nominations for his work on the show, and earned the Golden Globe in 2006. In the last two years, the show has won the Screen Actors Guild Award® for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
Carell opened his first lead feature, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” which he co-wrote with director Judd Apatow, at #1, a spot it remained in for two straight weekends. The surprise hit of 2005 went on to gross more than $175 million worldwide and had #1 openings in 12 countries. The film generated over $100 million in DVD sales in North America alone. On an award level, the film was honored with an AFI Award® named one of 10 Most Outstanding Motion Pictures of the Year and took home Best Comedy Movie at the 11th annual Critics’ Choice Awards®. The film also earned Carell and Apatow a co-nomination for Best Original Screenplay by the Writers Guild Association.
In 2008, Carell starred as Maxwell Smart in the much-anticipated action-comedy “Get Smart,” opposite Anne Hathaway and Alan Arkin. The film grossed over $230 million worldwide. A sequel is due in 2011. He also lent his voice as “The Mayor of Whoville” in Twentieth Century Fox’s animated film “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” based on the children’s book written by Dr. Seuss. Directed by Jimmy Hayward (“Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.”), Carell played opposite Jim Carrey, and helped launch the film as an international success earning over $295 million worldwide.
In 2006, as part of an ensemble, he starred in “Little Miss Sunshine,” which earned an Academy Award® nomination for Best Picture and won the SAG Award™ for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The black comedy also starred Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette. Previous film credits for the actor include “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” “Bewitched, and “Dan in Real Life.” Carell’s feature film breakout role in “Bruce Almighty,” opposite Jim Carrey, led to a sequel starring Carell in 2007, “Evan Almighty.”
Carell recently announced the start of his new production company, Carousel Productions. Carell’s endeavors and successes in acting, writing and producing were an organic segue in the creation of Carousel Productions. Born in Massachusetts, Carell now resides in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Nancy Walls (NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”), whom he met while at the Second City Theater Group in Chicago, where both were members. He is the proud father of a daughter and a son.
TINA FEY (Claire Foster), one of the most visible and popular figures in television today, writes, executive produces and stars in NBC's three-time Emmy Award-winning comedy series “30 Rock,” a workplace comedy which takes place behind-the-scenes of a live variety show. Her performance as head writer Liz Lemon on the fictional “TGS with Tracy Jordan” has earned Fey an Emmy, two Golden Globes, three SAG Awards, and a People’s Choice Award®. This year alone, “30 Rock” won five Emmy Awards and was nominated for many others.
Prior to creating “30 Rock,” Fey completed nine seasons as head writer, cast member and co-anchor of the “Weekend Update” segment on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” Fey is an Emmy winner and two-time Writers Guild Award winner for her writing on SNL, also receiving an Emmy for her spoof of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Since her transition to being in front of the camera, Fey has won much acclaim, including being named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainers of the Year, People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People (three times), and one of Time magazine’s Prestigious Time 100.
Other awards include, in 2008, a Producers Guild Award and a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for “30 Rock.” She has also won two Gracie Awards and a Made in New York Award and has been nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Choice Comedy Actress and a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Fey expanded to feature films in spring 2004 as both a screenwriter and an actress opposite Lindsay Lohan in the hit comedy “Mean Girls,” which earned her a nomination for a Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most recently she starred alongside “Saturday Night Live’s” Amy Poehler in the film “Baby Mama” for Universal Pictures, which exceed the $50 million dollar mark at the U.S. box office. Fey also starred in the Ricky Gervais comedy “The Invention of Lying,” released in 2009.
MARK WAHLBERG (“Holbrooke Grant”) earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his standout performance in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed drama “The Departed.”
Wahlberg’s remarkable film career began with Penny Marshall’s “Renaissance Man” and “The Basketball Diaries” with Leonardo DiCaprio, followed by a star turn opposite Reese Witherspoon in the thriller “Fear.” He has enjoyed playing diverse characters for visionary filmmakers such as David O. Russell, Tim Burton and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Wahlberg’s breakout role in “Boogie Nights” established him as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents. He later headlined “Three Kings” and “The Perfect Storm” with George Clooney, and “The Italian Job” with Charlize Theron. He followed those with “I ♥ Huckabees,” “Four Brothers” and the football biography, “Invincible.” He then appeared in “Shooter,” based on the best-selling novel Point of Impact. Wahlberg reunited with “The Yards” director James Gray and co-star Joaquin Phoenix in “We Own the Night,” which Wahlberg produced.
In 2008, Wahlberg starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening,” and in “Max Payne.” He recently appeared in director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Lovely Bones.” Due out this year is “The Fighter” for director David O. Russell and “The Other Guys,” with Will Ferrell.
Wahlberg is an executive producer on “The Fighter” and “We Own the Night,” as well as on the HBO series “Entourage” and “In Treatment,” which have received six Golden Globe and three Emmy nominations.
Future projects include the new HBO series, “Boardwalk Empire,” with Martin Scorsese and “How to Make it in America,” along with other feature film projects. A committed philanthropist, he founded The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation in 2001 to benefit inner city children and teens.
TARAJI P. HENSON (“Detective Arroyo”) earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress portraying Brad Pitt’s mother in David Fincher’s highly acclaimed “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Most recently, she starred in Tyler Perry’s “I Can Do Bad All By Myself,” which opened to number one at the box office.
For three years, Henson starred as Raina Washington, the youngest female detective on Lifetime’s “The Division.” She was also a regular on David E. Kelly’s “Boston Legal” and had a recurring role on ABC’s “Eli Stone.” Henson appeared in featured roles on “ER,” “Strong Medicine,” “CSI,” “House,” among others.
Henson received rave reviews for her role in Focus Features’ “Talk to Me” opposite Don Cheadle. Henson was named Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Feature Film at the 2005 Black Movie Awards and received the Best Actress nod at the 2006 BET Awards for her performance as Shug in the gutsy drama “Hustle & Flow,” produced by Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Singleton. She received two nominations at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards™ including Best Breakthrough Performance.
Upcoming films include “Karate Kid” opposite Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, which filmed on location in Beijing for Columbia. Henson plays Rainn Wilson’s love interest in the upcoming indie comedy “Peep World,» also starring Sarah Silverman. In the indie drama “Once Fallen,” Henson stars with Ed Harris and Brian Presley. She starred in Sony’s “Not Easily Broken” opposite Morris Chestnut, and opposite Forest Whitaker in “Hurricane Season.” She starred in Tyler Perry’s “The Family That Preys” with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard.
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., the Howard University grad has a strong passion for helping disabled and less fortunate children and reveals, “I always stress to kids to have faith in themselves—the greatest recipe for success is self confidence.”
COMMON (Collins), a Grammy Award® winning artist, made his big screen debut as a musical performer in “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” in 2006. In January 2007, he made his acting debut co-starring opposite Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Alicia Keys and Ryan Reynolds in “Smokin’ Aces.” Since then he’s co-starred opposite Denzel Washington in “American Gangster,” directed by Ridley Scott; David Ayer’s “Street Kings,” starring Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker; and “Terminator Salvation,” directed by McG, starring Christian Bale.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
SHAWN LEVY (Director/Producer) is one of the most commercially successful film directors of the past decade. To date, his films have grossed over 1.5 billion dollars worldwide. Levy has honed his craft, seamlessly weaving comedy and heart into captivating stories that resonate with audiences. His youthfully enthusiastic approach to filmmaking is evident in the storylines and characters he creates – reflecting his joyful intensity for each project at hand.
Levy is currently developing several films to produce through his production company, 21 Laps, which is housed at Twentieth Century Fox. These projects include “The Ten Best Days of My Life” (with Amy Adams), “Neighborhood Watch,” “The Devil You Know” and “How to Talk to Girls” for Fox; “Factracker” for MGM; “The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp” and “The Cutlass Islands” for New Regency, “Men of Magic” for Universal; “The Berenstain Bears” for Walden; and “The Spectacular Now” and “Table 19” for Fox Searchlight.
Currently, Levy is in pre-production on the futuristic father-son boxing drama, “Real Steel,” starring Hugh Jackman, for Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks.
Levy’s 21 Laps recently produced the 2008 comedy «What Happens in Vegas,» starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, which went on to earn over $200 million worldwide.
Levy both produced and directed the blockbuster “Night at the Museum,” starring Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney, which grossed over $580 million worldwide and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” starring a wide array of today’s most notable comedic talent including Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Hank Azaria, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais and Steve Coogan, which grossed over $400 million worldwide.
He directed the successful 2006 comedy, “The Pink Panther,” starring Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Beyoncé Knowles, and Jean Reno and served as the executive producer of “Pink Panther 2.” Levy also directed “Cheaper By The Dozen” starring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Ashton Kutcher and Hilary Duff, which went on to gross more than $200 million worldwide.
In 2002, Levy directed both the hit romantic comedy “Just Married,” starring Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy, which grossed over $100 million and the family comedy “Big Fat Liar,” for Universal Pictures, with Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti and Amanda Bynes.
Levy graduated at the age of 20 from the Drama Department of Yale University. He later studied film in the Masters Film Production Program at USC, where he produced and directed the short film Broken Record. This film won the Gold Plaque at the Chicago Film Festival, in addition to being selected to screen at the Director’s Guild of America.
JOSH KLAUSNER (Screenwriter) attended Princeton University, where he was involved in the theater community as an actor, playwright and director, and studied theater luminaries Bobby Lewis and Albert Innaurato. Klausner’s thesis play, “Scratch,” received the Francis LeMoyne Page Prize for Excellence in Theater. After graduation, Klausner co-created the short “Season of the Lifterbees,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, and won the Time Warner Grand Prize at the Aspen Shortsfest and a regional AMPAS Student Academy Award for Best Dramatic Short.
In 1994, Klausner began working as an assistant to the Farrelly Brothers, on their first film, “Dumb & Dumber,” moving on to work as 2nd unit director on the Farrellys’ hit 1998 film, “There’s Something About Mary” and again in 2001’s “Shallow Hal.”
In 2000, Klausner wrote and directed HBO’s “The 4th Floor,” starring William Hurt, Juliette Lewis, Austin Pendleton and Shelley Duvall. He did additional screenplay work on “Shrek the Third,” and wrote the original screenplay and storyline for DreamWorks
Animation’s upcoming “Shrek Forever After,” to be released later this year.
Klausner is currently working on a number of feature film projects, including a live action adaptation of “Thomas the Tank Engine,” and an adaptation of Adena Hapern’s The Ten Best Days of My Life for Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps, which will star Amy Adams. He is also collaborating with Sir Paul McCartney on “High in the Clouds,” an upcoming animated feature film based on the former Beatle’s children’s book.
JOE CARACCIOLO, JR. (Executive Producer) began his career in film as a production manager on director Sidney Lumet’s “Running on Empty” and “The Verdict.”
Caracciolo executive produced the hit comedies “Marley & Me” starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, “What Happens in Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher (for 21 Laps), and “The Devil Wears Prada” starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. His other executive producing credits include “Just My Luck,” starring Lindsay Lohan, “Hide & Seek,” a psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, and “Uptown Girls,” a comedic New York fairy tale starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning. Additionally, he produced the teen thriller “Swimfan,” directed by John Polson.
Caracciolo’s other feature film credits include James Foley’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Jon Amiel’s “Copycat,” and “The Man Who Knew Too Little,” and writer-director John Waters’ “Serial Mom,” “Pecker,” and “Cecil B. Demented.”
JOSH McLAGLEN (Executive Producer) has worked as an assistant director on dozens of blockbuster films alongside some of Hollywood’s top directors. He has been 1st AD on “Tango and Cash,” “Alien 3,” James Cameron’s “Titanic,” “The X-Files,” “Cast Away,” “The Polar Express, and “Beowulf,” the latter three for director Robert Zemeckis, and again for Cameron on “Avatar.”
In 2002, McLaglen began wearing a producer’s hat, working his way from associate producer (“The Polar Express”) to co-producer (“Beowulf,” “Avatar”) to executive producer. In 2006, he began working with director Shawn Levy, as both 1st AD and co-producer on “Night at the Museum,” becoming executive producer for that film’s sequel, “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” as well as for “Date Night” and the upcoming “Real Steel.”
TOM McNULTY (Executive Producer) is the president of production at 21 Laps, a production company based at Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles. McNulty joined 21 Laps at its inception with the company’s principal, director Shawn Levy and has set up over a dozen film projects at Fox, Universal, Warner Brothers and New Line. 21 Laps films include “Cheaper By The Dozen 2,” as well as the hit comedy “What Happens In Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, “St. Peter” starring Elizabeth Banks and Sam Rockwell, and “The Rocker,” the latter marking their first producing effort together.
Prior to joining Levy, McNulty was the executive vice president of production at Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions for over six years. There, he oversaw the development of the entire slate of films, notably “Mr. Deeds,” “Anger Management,” “50 First Dates,” “Are We There Yet,” “Click” and “Dickie Roberts Former Child Star.”
Prior to joining Happy Madison, McNulty was an executive at Out Of The Blue Entertainment, where he was an executive on “Big Daddy” and “Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo.”
McNulty arrived in Hollywood as an actor, appearing in “Boys on the Side” opposite Whoopi Goldberg and “Escape from L.A.” with Kurt Russell. McNulty grew up on Long Island and attended The Catholic University of America in Washington DC.
DEAN SEMLER, ACS/ASC (Director of Photography) began his career in his native Australia, lensing “Mad Max 2” (aka “The Road Warrior” in North America) in 1982 for George Miller, for which Semler received an Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination. Semler reteamed with Miller for “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.” Semler won both the AFI and Australian Cinematographers Society awards for the Aussie thriller “Razorback.”
By the late ‘80s, Semler was serving as director of photography on several U.S. productions, including “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown, and the western “Young Guns.” The following year, he returned to Australia for “Dead Calm,” starring Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill, for which Semler won the AFI award.
After filming the “Young Guns” sequel in 1990, Semler shot Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” for which Semler received multiple honors, including an Academy Award and American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award. He reteamed with Costner in 1995 for “Waterworld.”
Throughout the ‘90s and into the following decade, Semler shot the comedies “City Slickers,” “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” “Bruce Almighty,” and “Get Smart.” He also filmed Mel Gibson’s epic “Apocalypto.”
Most recently, Semler was director of photography on Roland Emmerich’s “2012,” and on “Secretariat,” starring Diane Lane and Scott Glenn.
DAVID GROPMAN (Production Designer), after working in television and independent films, designed the studio features “Of Mice and Men,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and “The Cider House Rules,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
Gropman received an Art Directors Guild award and BAFTA nomination for his design for “Chocolat.” Gropman worked on John Waters’ “Hairspray,” for which Gropman was nominated for a Satellite Award. The Art Directors Guild once again recognized Gropman with a nomination for period film design for “Doubt,” which takes place in the 1960s.
CHRISTOPHE BECK (Composer) reunites with Shawn Levy, after composing the scores for the Levy-helmed projects “Just Married,” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “The Pink Panther. Recently, Beck reteamed with director Chris Columbus on “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” after composing the score for Columbus’ “I Love You, Beth Cooper.”
The Montreal native started piano lessons at age five and was writing music for his first-ever band, Chris and The Cupcakes, before his teen years. During high school, Beck studied flute, saxophone, trombone and drums, and performed in rock bands. While studying music at Yale University, Beck had an epiphany, discovering that his talent for composing exceeded that for performing. He wrote two musicals with his brother Jason (a.k.a. Chilly Gonzales, the Berlin-based hip-hop recording artist), as well as an opera based on The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
Upon graduation from Yale in 1992, he moved to Los Angeles to attend USC's prestigious film scoring program, where he studied with Oscar winner Jerry Goldsmith, among others. Beck was immediately attracted to the creative challenges unique to the marriage of music and picture, and a personal recommendation from the head of the USC Music Department led to his first professional assignment, the Canadian TV series “White Fang.” Soon thereafter, he was asked to score a new TV series (then in its second season), “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” based on the 1992 cult classic film, for which he received the Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition during his three seasons with the show.
The prolific talent has scored 40+ feature films and nearly twenty television shows since 1993. His film compositions include a wide array of projects and genres including the action films “The Sentinel” and “Elektra,” the comedies “The Hangover,” “Drillbit Taylor,” “What Happens in Vegas,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “Pink Panther 2,” and “Bring It On,” and the dramas “Under the Tuscan Sun,” “Year of the Dog,” “Phoebe in Wonderland” and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury nominee “The Greatest.”
Beck has also composed scores for “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising,” “School for Scoundrels,” “License to Wed,” “Fred Claus,” “We Are Marshall,” “Confidence,” “Yours, Mine and Ours,” “Taxi,” “A Cinderella Story,” “Saved!,” “Garfield” and its sequel, “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “American Wedding,” “Post Grad,” and “All About Steve.”
MARLENE STEWART (Costume Designer) earned her first credits working on music videos, including memorable designs for fashion-forward pop superstar Madonna. Stewart created image-shaping costumes for 11 Madonna videos, including “Vogue,” “Material Girl,” “Like a Prayer” and “Express Yourself.”
Stewart’s film work spans a wide variety of genres, periods and looks. She has collaborated with an intriguing array of directors, ranging from Alejandro González Iñárritu on “21 Grams” to Oliver Stone on “The Doors” and “JFK” to Michael Mann on “Ali” and Beeban Kidron on “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.”
Most recently, Stewart designed the costumes for Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder,” Nancy Meyers’s romantic comedy “The Holiday” and Kimberly Peirce’s drama “Stop-Loss.”
Her credits also include Andy Tennant’s “Hitch,” James Cameron’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “True Lies,” Mary Lambert’s “Siesta,” Joel Schumacher’s “Falling Down,” James L. Brooks’s “I’ll Do Anything,” Curtis Hanson’s “The River Wild,” Joe Pytka’s “Space Jam,” Rob Bowman’s “The X Files,” Tony Scott’s “Enemy of the State,” Dominic Sena’s “Gone in 60 Seconds,” David McNally’s “Coyote Ugly,” and Antoine Fuqua’s “Tears of the Sun.”
After earning a degree in History at the University of California, Berkeley, Stewart studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. She received the Bob Mackie Award for Design for her student work and began her design career by launching her own women’s clothing line, Covers. A Boston native, Stewart designed the costumes for three Madonna tours as well as tours for Cher, Paula Abdul, and Gloria Estefan. She created music video looks for Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler, Debbie Harry, Smashing Pumpkins, the Bangles, and the Eurythmics, and was the first recipient of the American Music Awards’ Best Costume Design Award for the video “Material Girl.”
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15:59:43 03/26/10
Wings World Quest's Discover! Rosita Arvigo The Day I Learned The Power Of Plants To Heal
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Rosita Arvigo, Ethnobotanist and Mayan Traditional Healer tells the story of her transformative experience with a mid-wife in Mexico and how she learned that Roses can save lives the second of a 10 part series of WINGS WorldQuest's DISCOVER! Your Dream, Your Journey educational program.
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22:14:10 12/23/09
Music Video Reform School vs Selena Gomez and KISS - MeVIO Music
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Welcome to Music Video Reform School. Jackie and Martina managed to survive Christmas, and they are back with some new videos to grade. First up is the latest from Selena Gomez, and then they go back to the 80's with a classic video from KISS.
Selena Gomez:
BIO: (from myspace.com )
Selena Gomez took her sweet time before recording her debut album. After all, she had her hands full starring in her hit Disney Channel series "Wizards of Waverley Place," not to mention appearing in a string of movies and other TV shows. Still, music had been a core passion of hers going back to childhood. A child no more, Selena comes on strong with her Hollywood Records premiere CD, "Kiss & Tell." It is nothing less than the emancipation proclamation of a young artist with a lot to say.
She didn't get there alone. Producer Ted Bruner, along with songwriters Gina Schock , Tim James & Antonina Armato and Selena's band, The Scene, wrap her vocals with fire and ferocity. "Because it is my first record I wanted it to be amazing," Selena says. "I think of this record as a huge learning journey. I wanted to find my sound and see where I wanted to go musically."
On that journey, she clearly found her musical home base. And it rocks. Selena's blazing rock 'n' roll chops may surprise fans, especially on songs like "Kiss & Tell," with its battalion of drums, tight harmonies and Jane's Addiction-like lead guitar work. Says Selena with a laugh, "Basically this is my harsh song, but in a good way."
Selena decided to make the album "passionate, fun and empowering,' as she puts it. Thus, for the most part the 17-year-old singer bypasses the puppy love and goes straight to a righteous "guys are dogs" attitude. Songs like "Falling Down" and "I Don't Miss You At All" simmer with feminine scorn, while the pop gem "I Won't Apologize" (which Selena co-wrote) takes a stand for self-affirmation. "Girls my age tend to change themselves for others," Selena says. "Whether it's a boyfriend or trying to fit in with the 'cool kids,' this song says you're not going to apologize for who you are."
Selena tackles ballads on the wistful "The Way I Loved You" and "I Promise You," the latter a love song steeped in unadorned romance. She shakes off the sentimentality in the sophisticated put-down rocker "Stop and Erase," "I Got U," "Crush" and "As a Blond," perhaps the edgiest song yet from the legally brunette Selena. "Every girl goes through a break-up at some point," she says, "and they never feel good. I wanted to make sure that the songs about heartbreak were all empowering rather than sad. When I perform these songs I don't feel I am dwelling on pain."
She ends the album with a full-circle moment, re-recording "Tell Me Something I Don't Know," an upbeat hip-hop-flavored track she first cut several years ago and now revisits with a more seasoned point of view. "I thought it would be a fun to redo the song and add some cool techno beats," says the ever-adventurous Selena, who today stands at the brink of a thrilling new phase of her career.
Born July 22, 1992 in Dallas, Texas, Selena started acting at age seven when she landed a role in the popular television series "Barney & Friends," on which was a regular for two seasons. There she met her best friend, actress/singer and fellow Hollywood Records recording artist Demi Lovato. Their connection has endured. "I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to go through so much with Demi," says Selena. "We have known each other for so long now that we're more like sisters."
She landed her first feature film role in 2003, when she was cast in the sci-fi action adventure film "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over." Selena went on to lend her voice to "Horton Hears a Who!" in 2008, and made guest appearances on "Hannah Montana" and "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody."
But she made her greatest impact as an actress starring as girl wizard Alex Russo in the hit Disney Channel series "Wizards of Waverly Place," which premiered in 2007. For their work on the show, Selena and her cast mates won a 2009 Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program. "I don't think I'm too much like Alex," Selena says. "She gets into a lot of trouble, and my parents would never let that happen. Overall she's confident and doesn't let anyone negative get in her way, which is a good quality to have."
Her busy schedule in front of the camera did nothing to dampen her musical dreams. Selena recorded three songs for the "Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie" soundtrack, as well as tracks for "101 Dalmatians," "Another Cinderella Story" and "Tinker Bell." But she had broader ambitions. "I have always loved music and write all the time, but to make a career out of it seemed scary," she says. "I focused more on acting at one point, which blessed me with my show and other projects I had the honor of working on. Now I'm putting more into my music."
With a new album, a hit show and more movies on the horizon, it's a wonder Selena has time left for anything else. But she makes time to give something back. She has volunteered for St Jude's Hospital for children, Disney's Friends for Change and she was twice named youth ambassador for UNICEF, a role that recently took her on a fact-finding trip to Africa. It all served to expand her perspective on life. "I am constantly growing and changing," she says, "but I like to think my morals about family and friendships haven't changed."
She's not done dreaming. In the years ahead, Selena plans to push her career to greater heights, while always remembering her fans and the faith they place in her. Summing up her goals, Selena says: "I want to inspire others, help and make an impact." With "Kiss & Tell," she won't have long to wait.
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KISS
BIO: (from allmusic.com )
Rooted in the campy theatrics of Alice Cooper and the sleazy hard rock of glam rockers the New York Dolls, Kiss became a favorite of American teenagers in the '70s. Most kids were infatuated with the look of Kiss, not their music. Decked out in outrageously flamboyant costumes and makeup, the band fashioned a captivating stage show featuring dry ice, smoke bombs, elaborate lighting, blood spitting, and fire breathing that captured the imaginations of thousands of kids. But Kiss' music shouldn't be dismissed -- it was a commercially potent mix of anthemic, fist-pounding hard rock driven by sleek hooks and ballads powered by loud guitars, cloying melodies, and sweeping strings. It was a sound that laid the groundwork for both arena rock and the pop-metal that dominated rock in the late '80s. Kiss was the brainchild of Gene Simmons (bass, vocals) and Paul Stanley (rhythm guitar, vocals), former members of the New York-based hard rock band Wicked Lester; the duo brought in drummer Peter Criss through his ad in Rolling Stone and guitarist Ace Frehley responded to an advertisement in The Village Voice. Even at their first Manhattan concert in 1973, the group's approach was quite theatrical; Flipside producer Bill Aucoin offered the band a management deal after the show. Two weeks later, the band was signed to Neil Bogart's fledgling record label, Casablanca. Kiss released their self-titled debut in February of 1974; it peaked at number 87 on the U.S. charts. By April of 1975, the group had released three albums and had toured America constantly, building up a sizable fan base. Culled from those numerous concerts, Alive! (released in the fall of 1975) made the band rock & roll superstars; it climbed into the Top Ten and its accompanying single, "Rock 'N' Roll All Nite," made it to number 12. Their follow-up, Destroyer, was released in March of 1976 and became the group's first platinum album; it also featured their first Top Ten single, Peter Criss' power ballad "Beth."
A 1977 Gallup poll named Kiss the most popular band in America. Kiss mania was in full swing and thousands of pieces of merchandise hit the marketplace. The group had two comic books released by Marvel, pinball machines, makeup and masks, board games, and a live-action TV movie, Kiss Meet the Phantom of the Park. The group was never seen in public without wearing their makeup and their popularity was growing by leaps and bounds; the membership of the Kiss Army, the band's fan club, was now in the six figures. Even such enormous popularity had its limits, and the band reached them in 1978, when all four members released solo albums on the same day in October. Simmons' record was the most successful, reaching number 22 on the charts, yet all of them made it into the Top 50. Dynasty, released in 1979, continued their streak of platinum albums, yet it was their last recorded with the original lineup -- Criss left in 1980. Kiss Unmasked, released in the summer of 1980, was recorded with session drummer Anton Fig; Criss' permanent replacement, Eric Carr, joined the band in time for their 1980 world tour. Kiss Unmasked was their first record since Destroyer to fail to go platinum, and 1981's Music from the Elder, their first album recorded with Carr, didn't even go gold -- it couldn't even climb past number 75 on the charts. Ace Frehley left the band after its release; he was replaced by Vinnie Vincent in 1982. Vincent's first album with the group, 1982's Creatures of the Night, fared better than Music from the Elder, yet it couldn't make it past number 45 on the charts. Sensing it was time for a change, Kiss dispensed with their makeup for 1983's Lick It Up. The publicity worked, as the album became their first platinum record in four years. Animalize, released the following year, was just as successful, and the group had recaptured their niche. Vincent left after Animalize and was replaced by Mark St. John; St. John was soon taken ill with Reiter's Syndrome and left the band. Bruce Kulick became Kiss' new lead guitarist in 1984. For the rest of the decade, Kiss turned out a series of best-selling albums, culminating in the early 1990 hit ballad "Forever," which was their biggest single since "Beth."
Kiss was scheduled to record a new album with their old producer, Bob Ezrin, in 1990 when Eric Carr became severely ill with cancer; he died in November of 1991 at the age of 41. Kiss replaced him with Eric Singer and recorded Revenge (1992), their first album since 1989; it was a Top Ten hit and went gold. Kiss followed it with the release of Alive III the following year; it performed respectably, but was not up to the standards of their two previous live records. In 1996, the original lineup of Kiss -- featuring Simmons, Stanley, Frehley, and Criss -- reunited to perform an international tour, complete with their notorious makeup and special effects. The tour was one of the most successful of 1996, and in 1998 the reunited group issued Psycho Circus. While the ensuing tour in support of Psycho Circus was a success, sales of Kiss' reunion album weren't as stellar as anticipated. Reminiscent of the band's late-'70s unfocused period, few tracks on Psycho Circus featured all four members playing together (most tracks were supplemented with session musicians), as the band seemed more interested in flooding the marketplace with merchandise yet again instead of making the music their top priority. With rumors running rampant that the Psycho Circus Tour would be their last, the quartet announced in the spring of 2000 that they would be launching a U.S. farewell tour in the summer, which became one of the year's top concert draws. But on the eve of a Japanese and Australian tour in early 2001, Peter Criss suddenly left the band once again, supposedly discontent with his salary. Taking his place was previous Kiss drummer Eric Singer, who in a controversial move among some longtime fans, donned Criss' cat-man makeup (since Simmons and Stanley own both Frehley and Criss' makeup designs, there was no threat of a lawsuit) as the farewell tour continued. With the band scheduled to call it a day supposedly by late 2001, a mammoth career-encompassing box set was set for later in the year, while the summer saw perhaps the most over-the-top piece of Kiss merchandise yet -- the "Kiss Kasket."
The group was relatively quiet through the rest of the year, but 2002 started with a bang as Gene Simmons turned in an entertaining and controversial interview on NPR where he criticized the organization and berated host Terry Gross with sexual comments and condescending answers. He was promoting his autobiography at the time, which also caused dissent in the Kiss camp because of the inflammatory remarks made towards Ace Frehley. Frehley was quite angry at the situation, leading to his no-showing of an American Bandstand anniversary show. His place was taken by a wig-wearing Tommy Thayer, but no one was fooled and the band looked especially awful while pretending to play their instruments during the pre-recorded track. The appearance was an embarrassment for the group and for their fans, but Simmons was quick to dismiss the performance as another in a long series of money-oriented decisions. The band kept touring the globe with no new album in stores, but in 2008 they returned to the studio, re-recorded their hits, and released Jigoku-Retsuden aka KISSology or Kiss Klassics. The release was exclusive to Japan until a year later when it became a bonus disc for the band's first studio album in 11 years, Sonic Boom. Produced by Paul Stanley and Greg Collins, the album was exclusively distributed in North America by the Wal-Mart chain of stores.
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