By Daniel Robert Epstein
“Love is something that you work on over time and the more you get to know someone you love them more or not. Lust is immediate. It’s something that you feel upon first meeting.” – Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson goes through every emotion in the new Woody Allen film, Match Point. After she breaks up with her British fiancé, she begins an affair with his brother in law played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Rhys-Meyers soon realizes that he doesn’t want to end his marriage and realizes this can only end one way
Read our exclusive interview with Scarlett Johansson on SuicideGirls.com.
By Daniel Robert Epstein
“Since then, anything that’s got a good rhythm to it that makes people move I really like, no matter what genre of music it is..” – M.I.A.
M.I.A. latest album is Arular is being propelled by the dancehall hit “Galang.” But beneath the surface of this danceable fun track there is a power and politicalness that M.I.A. has carried with her whole life.
Read our exclusive interview with M.I.A. on SuicideGirls.com.
By Daniel Robert Epstein
“I’m not big on heroes. I’m more interested in the fact that he’s not just a hero. I think the whole Gunpowder Plot is extraordinary and should be put on film.” – Hugo Weaving
Hugo Weaving had a difficult task when he reteamed with the Wachowski brothers and their director James McTeigue on their adaptation of the Alan Moore and David Lloyd graphic novel V for Vendetta. James Purefoy had already filmed some scenes as V then was let go, giving Weaving only a few days to prepare before coming to set to replace him. But Weaving relished the challenge and rose up and according to reports from the first screening of V for Vendetta; they’ve pulled off an amazing film.
Read our exclusive interview with Hugo Weaving on SuicideGirls.com.
By Daniel Robert Epstein
“If I was going to be a sex worker, I’m going to dress crazy, I’m going to smoke, I’m going to flirt, grind dick and just have fun.” – Diablo Cody
I dont know a ton about strippers but if I was able to pick and choose them at will, Diablo Cody would definitely be the one for me. Cody is an intelligent, sexy and beautiful writer who went on a hilarious experiment a few years ago. A somewhat nice girl growing, Cody moved from Chicago to Minneapolis to be with a guy she met over the internet. After working some crappy jobs and being bored Cody decided to enter the world of sex work. Over the course of a year she was a stripper, a phone sex worker and a peep show girl. Now she’s chronicled all that in her new book, Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. The book has also led her to write the screenplay, Juno, for a major Hollywood director.
Read our exclusive interview with Diablo Cody on SuicideGirls.com.
by Fred Topel
“The last two years I was all about eradicating my fears and shit.”
– Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith is used to working a crowd. His forte career-wise is really as a public speaker at his live Q&A shows. His movies made him a name and he still makes them. Well, at least he’s making one more. But his bread and butter has been live shows. He can take a question and spin it into a 20 minute anecdote and keep the crowd laughing along the way.
The Television Critics Association could have been a tough room for Smith. An organization of veteran critics from the print days of newspapers, they gather twice a year to work, not to humor performers. So when Smith had a new AMC television series to present to the TCA, he took the mic and answered questions. He joked about how he’s enjoying talking to the TV press, because they don’t hate him yet like the film press do.
It has been a tumultuous year for Smith in the film world. He premiered Red State at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011, and then auctioned the film off to himself to take the film on the road and self-distribute. After saying on Twitter that he would not do press or screen the film for press, many of Smith’s loyal followers began lashing out, even more so after the “auction.” Yet Smith has been on the road with Red State, giving Q&As at sold out shows and the film is now available on VOD, Netflix and DVD/Blu-ray.
Comic Book Men is a reality series set in Smith’s New Jersey comic book store, Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. The dialogue between the staffers behind the counter may feel very similar to Smith’s movie Clerks, but he’s not writing any of it. It’s all real. After his TCA session, I found Smith in the hall of the Langham Hotel in Pasadena and I asked him for a follow-up interview. We ended up doing a full interview, ironic for someone who threatened to stop doing press. Our talk veered away from the TV show as a follow-up on his new distribution venture lead to spiritual life lessons, which only underscores the point that a conversation with Smith can really be about anything and go anywhere. It all ties into the voice that is making his final film, Hit Somebody, and launched the new TV venture Comic Book Men.
Read our exclusive interview with Kevin Smith on SuicideGirls.com.
by Fred Topel
“All I’ve ever done is recycle the hatred and use it to my advantage.”
– Chris Crocker
Chris Crocker was a Britney Spears fan before he made his famous “Leave Britney Alone” video. He grew up following her career and putting her posters on his bedroom wall. He was making YouTube videos in the early days of the video service, but when Spears took heat for a visibly unhealthy “comeback” performance at MTV’s Video Music Awards, Crocker leapt to her defense in a tearful display that made him a celebrity.
Most would think the “Leave Britney Alone” phenomenon would have been the end of it. Everyone gets their 15 minutes. Indeed Crocker is still known largely as the “Leave Britney Alone” Guy nearly five years later, though he’s continued to produce original videos and makes a healthy living from YouTube.
Certainly few would think he’d be the subject of a documentary. Me @ The Zoo is a film about Crocker’s life and career, and it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film illuminates Crocker’s difficult life in the south, avoiding violent homophobia and channeling it into an on screen persona. The film explains the YouTube phenomenon and follows the many changes that have developed since the site took off. It also shows Crocker’s less successful endeavors, including a reality TV show that never aired.
Crocker attended Sundance sporting his new look, which the film shows him adopting. Shedding his long blonde hair, Crocker is now a clean cut brunette, though his voice is still distinct, even when he’s not crying and screaming. Crocker met up with me in the festival’s Bing lounge on Main Street in between film screenings and events for the It Gets Better campaign, which also had a presence at the film festival.
Read our exclusive interview with Chris Crocker on SuicideGirls.com.
By Daniel Robert Epstein
“I’ve had numerous experiences when you’re in a small town in Europe and you meet some weird person then you run into them two days later at a totally different place and yo’ure like, ‘Oh, my God that’s that fucking guy.'” – Eli Roth
When talking about the new generation of horror directors Eli Roths name will invariably come up. He has directed two of the most exciting horror films for the new generation, Cabin Fever and Hostel, and is also one of the most visible having appeared in Bravo’s The 100 Scariest Movie Moments and even gotten Quentin Tarantino to present his new flick.
Hostel is certainly a big change from the disease horror of Cabin Fever. It’s about three backpackers in Amsterdam who are so damn horny they leave the sex capital of the world to travel to a small Slovakian city to find even looser, hotter women. They have some of the best times of their lives until they are kidnapped by a company that specializes in killing stupid backpackers.
Read our exclusive interview with Eli Roth on SuicideGirls.com.
