As he was 88, I guess I shouldn’t ask “so soon?,” but news of Ian Holm’s passing is sad news for me this Friday. We collectively have seen him in so much. You can read more about him and his career from articles and related material at: The BBC (a remembrance and an obituary that gives more detailed credits). The Hollywood Reporter Guardian (which also has a great photo spread) Comicbook.com and many others. I…
All sorts of physical businesses are suffering during this global pandemic and I know many people, dependent on in-person gigs for their livelihood who now have no income stream (to say nothing of creative freelancers, as one Nation article notes). So this video posted last week by Joseph Haj, artistic director of the Guthrie Theater resonated: I was lucky enough to grow up going to the theater and live performances frequently, something I’ve tried to…
It could be because we all have a bit more time to think about how we’ll reflect back on these days, or how we’re trying to help our children through this, but this video hit me particularly now. With apologies to Polonius, I think I’ll lead with this one in addressing my own Laertes.
Online creativity is abounding, and it’s not just clever memes and personable actors giving us a positive news boosts. People are making movies. In the past month, the 48 Hour Film project, a competition I’ve frequently done, has had a series of stay-at-home competitions. So now indie filmmaker extraordinaire Roger Corman, who’s still sharp as a tack in his 90s, wants to see your short film. Seriously. He said so. But better do it quick.…
I just re-watched Never Cry Wolf the other week, so Brian Dennehy’s ability to fully inhabit characters was fresh in my mind. Sadly, Brian Dennehy has passed away at the age of 81. One of the nice things about his work was that his characters were perfectly at ease with who they were, be it an alien, a corrupt sheriff, or entrepreneurial pilot. If he turned out to be a villain, his character would metaphorically…
I’ve played a wide number of characters over the years, including henpecked husbands, Shakespearean fools, and villainous muleteers (I know, is there any other kind?). But one character type I seem to have gotten several times is that of the well-intentioned jerk (an invaluable archetype in a number of training videos I’ve been a part of). So perhaps it’s only fitting that, for a modern, social media kind of passion play, I get to be…
A towering presence in cinema –literal and figurative– has died. Max von Sydow, an actor we’ve seen on screens since the 1950s, has died at the age of 90. You can read (and listen) to accounts in the BBC, Variety, and NPR among many others. What struck many of us moviegoers was the wide range of parts he would play… and could play with such quiet conviction. Here is a man who played the Son…
I haven’t been in a stage production for an age, but I was both on stage and backstage enough times to lose count — and I was a theatergoer long before that. So I greatly appreciated Mark Evanier sharing actor, director, and all-around theatrical Larry Blyden‘s theatrical laws. Laws, do you hear? Okay, to be honest, I haven’t always followed Law #5 or Law #10, but I definitely do my best with Law #17. Law…
I’ve linked to Mark Evanier’s series on rejection before. It’s very useful for writers — and many entries perfectly connect to film and TV actors and voiceover artists. This latest installment may resonate particularly with voiceover artists. In the realm of voiceovers (and frankly, in plenty of realms), people like to work with who they know. And it’s not only who you know, it’s safe bets. How does this relate to Gary Owens (aka the…
This past weekend, I was talking about the National Theater Institute of which I am quite a happy alumnus. They practice a maxim of “Risk. Fail. Risk again” which is kind of like the positive spin of the War Boys’ outlook in Mad Max: Fury Road. Same flamethrower guitars (metaphorically), less desolation. But that’s all artsy stuff, what about science? This is where David Noonan writing in Scientific American comes in. Apparently, some folks did…