5 posts tagged “actor”

ANTOFAGASTA, Chile - After getting the bad end of his own ax in a fight, a bloodied villain limps alone in a stark desert. Mathieu Amalric stumbles to the red, rocky ground. "CUT!" rings loudly from the set of the 22nd James Bond film.Picking up an hour after "Casino Royale" left off, "Quantum of Solace" is the spy franchise's first direct sequel. Filming began in January and has taken the crew from Britain to Panama to this moonlike landscape in northern Chile, which is standing in for Bolivia.It's a place that director Marc Forster said evokes Bond's "isolation and loneliness.""He is an assassin, he is a secret agent, and that reflects a certain lifestyle, which is lonely," said Forster.Indeed, the big news on the set is that one of the two Bond girls, Olga Kurylenko, doesn't get in even a single kiss with star Daniel Craig. ("Why would I be disappointed?" Kurylenko insisted. "I'm just doing my work.")The question is: Do audiences want an emo Bond?Craig says not to worry too much."We're not making a kitchen sink drama here. We are making a Bond movie," he said. "What Marc wanted and the producers and what I wanted is to bring back a visual flair to the movie, so that every frame in every shot that we see is beautiful. And there may be things exploding, but they're good to look at."Still, Forster, the youngest-ever Bond director at 39, was hired on by longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson because of his emotionally intense films like "Monster's Ball" and "The Kite Runner."Despite the heightened realism of the last Bond film, not to mention its commercial success (over $500 million worldwide), the German-born Swiss director was wary of joining the bombastic franchise.Forster negotiated with producers to ensure he had as much creative control as possible on the $200 million-plus production. Nevertheless, he's still squeezed into the "framework of Bond.""But I like it because you feel like it can make you very creative," he said. "And a lot of i...

NEW YORK - Every time he comes home, Leonardo DiCaprio is practicing what he preaches. The environmentally conscious actor has bought an apartment in Riverhouse, an eco-friendly building overlooking the Hudson River.The purchase was confirmed on Friday by Christopher Daly, president of Sheldrake Organization, the developer of the Battery Park City complex. Occupancy is slated for this summer.The 264-unit condominium glass tower overlooks the river and a park, and boasts low emission paints, a 24-hour fresh filtered air system, a water treatment facility and rotating solar panels.DiCaprio seemingly also will have everything at his fingertips. The David Rockwell-designed high-rise features an indoor 50-foot lap pool, media cafe, fitness center, landscaped terrace — and dog spa.The building also will house the City Bakery and a branch of the New York Public Library.DiCaprio has served on the board of directors of the environmental organization Global Green USA. He also owns a hybrid car and had solar panels put on his Los Angeles home.The 33-year-old actor has won Oscar nominees for "The Aviator" and "Blood Diamond." He is currently filming "Shutter Island," directed by Martin Scorsese.An e-mail sent to his publicist was not immediately returned.Source: AP

NEW YORK - Every time he comes home, Leonardo DiCaprio is practicing what he preaches. The environmentally conscious actor has bought an apartment in Riverhouse, an eco-friendly building overlooking the Hudson River.The purchase was confirmed on Friday by Christopher Daly, president of Sheldrake Organization, the developer of the Battery Park City complex. Occupancy is slated for this summer.The 264-unit condominium glass tower overlooks the river and a park, and boasts low emission paints, a 24-hour fresh filtered air system, a water treatment facility and rotating solar panels.DiCaprio seemingly also will have everything at his fingertips. The David Rockwell-designed high-rise features an indoor 50-foot lap pool, media cafe, fitness center, landscaped terrace — and dog spa.The building also will house the City Bakery and a branch of the New York Public Library.DiCaprio has served on the board of directors of the environmental organization Global Green USA. He also owns a hybrid car and had solar panels put on his Los Angeles home.The 33-year-old actor has won Oscar nominees for "The Aviator" and "Blood Diamond." He is currently filming "Shutter Island," directed by Martin Scorsese.An e-mail sent to his publicist was not immediately returned.Source: AP

LOS ANGELES - Dick Van Dyke may be 82, but he can still get 14 syllables into a single word. Van Dyke sang "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" on Monday night at the Geffen Playhouse during a tribute to actress Annette Bening and studio chief Robert A. Iger. The ceremony honored their efforts to support the arts — live theater in particular.Van Dyke even recreated a bit of the choreography from "Mary Poppins" with the current Broadway stars of "Poppins" and "Mermaid," Ashley Brown and Sierra Boggess."The secret to keeping moving," Van Dyke said, "is keeping moving."Not coincidentally, Julie Andrews served as co-chair of the tribute with Van Dyke, marking a "Poppins"-movie reunion on the arrivals line."It's one of those friendships where we do see each other, occasionally," said Andrews, 72. "Not as much as I like, but it's as if we never said goodbye, and we never did say goodbye."While the spotlight was on three-time Oscar nominee Bening and Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, the stage loomed larger than both of them — and it's clear that's just as the two preferred.The star of such movies as "American Beauty" and the upcoming "The Women," Bening, 49, told AP Television, "The non-profit theater is where I started. It's where I saw my first play. I don't know how many people out there were taken to the theater for the first time by their English teacher or their drama teacher, but that's where I went, which is The Old Globe in San Diego. ... So, for me, it's where I started, and I feel so grateful."The Tony-nominated Bening won wide acclaim for her lead in "Hedda Gabler" at the Geffen in spring 1999. "I'd rather watch her on stage than anyone else," noted Bening's husband, actor Warren Beatty, 70. "And I'd rather watch her at home than on stage."Bening has been a longtime supporter of the Geffen, as well as a member of the California Arts Council. When Iger, 57, took over for Michael Eisner as Disney chief in 2005, he quickly made it clear that ...

By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie WriterLAS VEGAS - This time out, there's no vat of chemicals to explain how Batman's greatest enemy came to be the twisted sociopath known as the Joker.Heath Ledger's Joker springs full-blown in this summer's "The Dark Knight," the sequel to 2005's "Batman Begins" that was previewed for theater owners Thursday with a clip showing the new movie's opening sequence.Unlike 1989's "Batman," in which the deranged, disfigured clown appearance of Jack Nicholson's Joker resulted from a dip in chemical goo, "The Dark Knight" starts right in with the bad guy in all his psychopathic glory."I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger," Ledger's depraved Joker cryptically tells an accomplice in the opening scenes, in which he pulls off a daring bank robbery.In an interview at ShoWest, a theater-owners convention where distributor Warner Bros. showed off footage of "The Dark Knight" and the rest of its summer lineup, director Christopher Nolan said it was almost inevitable that the sequel would pit Christian Bale's Batman against the Joker."The psychopathic clown, that's an icon to stand with the guy with the ears and cape," Nolan said. "It's just a wonderful visual relationship, and it's a terrifying image."Long before Ledger's death of an accidental prescription drug overdose in January, the marketing of the movie had focused on the villain's rise to power and his creepy appearance.There had been speculation among critics and fans that the studio and filmmakers might take a different approach to selling the film in light of Ledger's death, but the marketing has gone on as originally planned."I think he'd be very pleased to see we're just moving ahead as is," Nolan said. "If you try to honor somebody, you honor them by respecting their work and putting it out there for as many people to see. He was immensely proud of the work he did on the film. I feel a great burden to present that in an undistorted form.""The Dark Knight" is due i...