Interview articles from November 2004

Interview archives from November 2004

Fele Martinez.(Actor)(Interview)
November 1, 2004... "I'VE BEEN DOING THE CLOWN MY WHOLE LIFE. Growing up in Spain, my friends always said: 'Fele. We want to laugh!' So that's what I made them do. I loved theater, particularly the experimental kind, and I joined with three friends and we started...

Casting their vote.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Dear Interview, If anyone should get an Oscar it should be Selma Blair [September 2004]. It's good to see someone stay true to herself and not become commercial, something a lot of actors would sell their souls to become. Not only has...

Keeping the "liberal" in liberal arts.(Letters)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Dear Interview, Thanks for saving me from the horribly plain life of being a college student in an ordinary, suburban, conservative community. I look forward to receiving my Interview magazine the way a stranded man in the desert longs for...

Stirring the melting pot.(Hispanic Americans)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Dear Interview, I enjoy the format of your magazine, but I never knew that it could have social sabor. I was glad to see three Latinos in your September issue (Diego Luna, Paz Vega, and Mia Maestro). As a struggling Hispanic actress in New...

Clean sweep: when it comes to makeup now, less is more--and more should look like less.(Look Of The Month)
November 1, 2004... After seasons of smudgy eyes, bold lips, and burnished cheeks, such designers as Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga, Phoebe Philo at Chloe, and Miuccia Prada are keeping it real, showing collections topped off with a natural, minimally made-up...

Jacinda Barrett: from ruckus maker on the Real World to real deal on the big screen.(Movie Heat)(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 1, 2004... Jacinda Barrett's story reads like a tale of wanderlust: Straight out of high school, she left her home in suburban Brisbane, Australia, to model in Paris and Tokyo. From there it was on to Hamburg to learn German and Oxford to study, followed...

Jason Behr: a career born on little green men promises a future in a cape and tights.(Movie Breakout)(Interview)
November 1, 2004... Having starred on the otherworldly cult television show Roswell, actor Jason Behr is no stranger to the supernatural. But this month, the Minneapolis native takes a different kind of mystical turn, appearing opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in...

Lucy Punch: she chucked away her college career for a walk-on part on a television show. Now this British actress is making the grade.(Movie News)(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 1, 2004... In the midst of cramming for exams at University College London, actress Lucy Punch received a life-altering phone call from her agent, announcing that she had a part for her on a television series. "It wasn't a very hard decision--much to my...

Shots in the dark: with threats to Roe v. Wade looming on the horizon, movies are putting the issue of choice under the cinematic microscope.(Movie Column)
November 1, 2004... Mike Leigh's Vera Drake is unique in that it portrays an abortionist, its main character, with unwavering compassion. Though set in early '50s London, the film is as fiercely polemical as any film Leigh has made--and especially timely given its...

Billy Corgan: over the years music's most penetrating singer-songwriters have straddled the line between poet and lyricist. With the recent publication of his first collection of poems, it's a mantle Billy Corgan, former front man of seminal rock quartet smashing pumpkins, assumes with authority.(Poetry Goings-On)(Interview)
November 1, 2004... Billy Corgan has sold almost 30 million records, first as one of the founding fellas of alternative rock with Smashing Pumpkins, and most recently with the group Zwan. He as always dealt out his emotions with the fury of a cat released...

Jessi Klein: the thinking laugher's new live wire.(Comedy Corner)(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 1, 2004... Jessi Klein says she's "just another snarky idiot," but thanks to her hilarious commentary on VH1's pop-culture show Best Week Ever, the 29-year-old New York native has become the female comic you'd most like to be insulted by. Klein grew...

All the dish: how to eat swimmingly in Manhattan.(Food Column)
November 1, 2004... Perhaps it's the weekly Friday-night fish ritual once endured by countless Catholics or the longstanding association between fish and "sensible eating," but the prospect of a seafood dinner has tended to fall well short of the reward we...

Nightlife force: don't tell Larry Tee that clubland is dead.(Underground Update)
November 1, 2004... Before Larry Tee became the emperor of electroclash, the 44-year-old Brooklyn-based DJ, musician, club promoter, and Mogul Electro record label owner was reinventing international nightlife. The Atlanta native moved to New York in 1989 with...

David Rockwell: lately it feels like designer David Rockwell has his hands on everything. In the new film Team America: World Police, he puts his personal (and poppy) touch on a very UN-P.C. Planet Earth.(Design Crowd Pleaser)
November 1, 2004... Trust Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park infamy to mastermind this month's political parody Team America: World Police. And trust them to bring on board David Rockwell--the uberpopular designer whose resume comprises everything from...

Dan Dyer: with a big-time booster like Lenny Kravitz, this singer-songwriter who battled his way out of the Texas backwoods is music's newly anointed anthem maker.(Music Buzz)
November 1, 2004... It's not surprising that Lenny Kravitz signed Dan Dyer as the flagship artist of his new label, Roxie Records: Dyer's debut album,... Of What Lies Beneath (Roxie/Reprise Records), sounds classic fresh out the box. Songs like "Great Ocean"...

Minnie Driver: with an upcoming role in a buzzy big-screen musical and a debut album to take out on the road, the actress is enjoying a return to her first love: music.(Music Surprise)(Interview)
November 1, 2004... From the very first notes of her introspective debut, Everything I've Got in My Pocket (Zoe Records), it's clear that music isn't just a rainy-day hobby for Minnie Driver. Anyone suspicious of an album by a freshly annointed "actress-musician"...

Earlimart: riddled with writer's block and rattled by a sudden death, this experimental rock band went soul-searching and turned up a shimmering new album.(This Month's Talked-About Band)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... "It's definitely a document of a period in time," says Earlimart singer Aaron Espinoza of his group's latest record, Treble & Tremble (Palm Pictures). And given the backdrop against which it was made, that period wasn't a particularly happy one...

Sarah Hudson: dipping into her life as a Hollywood kid, this singer bares all on her firecracker debut.(Music Spotlight)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Sarah Hudson is used to standing out. Not because of her family lineage--her aunt is Goldie Hawn; her cousin, Kate Hudson--but for her own quirky ways. Attending an all-girls Catholic school in Los Angeles where academics and sports were the...

Angela McCluskey: the world may not know her yet, but just ask R.E.M., Winona Ryder, and other insiders who they love and they'll be singing her praises. Friend--and fan--Lisa Marie Presley finds out what makes this saucy Scottish torch singer simply irresistible.(Music's Best Kept Secret)(Interview)
November 1, 2004... LISA MARIE PRESLEY: Let's start with how long I've known you. I'd say about 12 years. You were in a band called the Wild Colonials, and an ex-boyfriend of mine was your drummer. You were actually one of the first people I ever wrote songs with....

Le Tigre: This Island (Strummer/Universal).(Sound Advice)(Brief Review)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... LE TIGRE This Island (Strummer/Universal) Who'd have thought a Pointer Sisters' remake could have ever trumped the original? Well, there's some heavy competition coming from the grit-grrrls in Le Tigre. The New York City dance-punk trio,...

Leonard Cohen: Dear Heather (Columbia).(Sound Advice)
November 1, 2004... LEONARD COHEN Dear Heather (Columbia) Always a better poet than singer, Cohen has nonetheless created more than a few truly great songs over the years. His voice is loaded with charm in its lower register, and with the passing of time his...

The Donnas: Gold medal (Atlantic).(Sound Advice)(Brief Review)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... THE DONNAS Gold Medal (Atlantic) "I may not be a man/but you're not one either," snarls Donnas front woman Brett Anderson on "It Takes One to Know One." On this fifth album by the Donnas, the spunky all-girl quartet perfects more than just...

Elliott Smith: from a Basement on the Hill (Anti-).(Sound Advice)(Brief Review)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... ELLIOTT SMITH From a Basement on the Hill (Anti-) Like most posthumous releases, this last outing from singer-songwriter Smith, which he was in the midst of recording when he died late last year from an apparently self-inflicted stab wound,...

Dirty Vegas: One (Capitol).(Sound Advice)(Brief Review)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... DIRTY VEGAS One (Capitol) Two years ago, the British trio of Paul Harris, Ben Harris, and Steve Smith came up with magic in the form of "Days Go By," the bubonically catchy Grammy-winning single that could be heard in the background of a...

Panthers: Things Are Strange (Vice).(Sound Advice)(Brief Review)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... PANTHERS Things Are Strange (Vice) Brooklyn alt-rock agitators Panthers demonstrate real growth on their second full-length. A collection of angular rock songs characterized by strung-out guitars, panicky percussion, and tribal bass, the...

R.E.M.: Around the Sun (Warner Bros.).(Sound Advice)
November 1, 2004... R.E.M. Around the Sun (Warner Bros.) On the Athens, Georgia, trio's 12th album, the introspection of recent records like New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996) and Up (1998) is turned inside out. Opener "Leaving New York" is patent mid-period...

From the editor's desk: November 2004: a conversation between Ingrid Sischy and Graydon Carter.(View)
November 1, 2004... INGRID SISCHY: You recently came out with What We've Lost [Farrar, Straus and Giroux], a book jam-packed with facts and figures on the presidency of George W. Bush. It goes into every nook and cranny of the big issues, requiring herculean...

Bjork: with an experimental new vocal album, one of pop music's great explorers continues to venture into uncharted waters. Here, she talks living on the edge with a fellow avatar of the avant-garde.
November 1, 2004... LAURIE ANDERSON: So, Bjork, I love your new record, Medulla [Elektra/Atlantic]--especially some of the words. The song "Sonnet" sounds like the kind of thing 17th-century poets like John Donne or Andrew Marvell would have written. What did you...

Jamie Foxx: underestimated from the start, he always had something special up his sleeve. Now with his eye-opening performance as Ray Charles in a new film on the life of the late music legend, the wise-cracking funny man is getting serious--and the world is taking notice. Elvis Mitchell gets the lowdown on challenging the status quo from the movies' newest big leaguer.(Interview)
November 1, 2004... What's surprising about Jamie Foxx is the gravity of his physical presence. His Mack diesel muscularity isn't always apparent in his work, which is the sign of a true actor. That's partially because he literally expands and contracts to fit the...

Christian Bale: he has a worldwide cult following and critical credibility, yet he remains an outsider. So what drives this shape-shifting individualist?(Interview)
November 1, 2004... Reversing the strategy of Robert De Niro in Raging Bull (1980) and Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones' Diary (2001), Christian Bale stopped eating during preproduction on his latest movie, The Machinist. By the time it came to filming, he was an...

Teresa Heinz Kerry: from scripted to mold breaking, the role of first lady has varied dramatically over the years. As the race for first lady began to heat up, Donna Karan and Ingrid Sischy checked in on the 21st-century candidate.(Interview)
November 1, 2004... INGRID SISCHY: Let's set the scene for our readers, so they know at what point we're at in this historic election. The Democratic National Convention has just finished. You and your husband, John Kerry, the Democratic nominee to be the next...

Rosario Dawson: it all started when she was plucked off her lower east side stoop for a movie that put the censors in a twist. Since then, Rosario Dawson, who steams up the screen with Colin Farrell this month in Alexander, has become a real contender. Hayden Christensen talks to her about life, movies, and a role worth getting arrested for.(Interview)
November 1, 2004... HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN: So, Rosario, tell me how the steps in front of your apartment building influenced your game plan. Weren't you sort of cast off the stoop? ROSARIO DAWSON: Yes, I was 15. They were shooting a Vibe commercial on my block,...

Gael Garcia Bernal: he plays everybody's favorite revolutionary onscreen, but he's not just playacting.(Interview)(Cover Story)(Biography)
November 1, 2004... In Walter Salles's Motorcycle Diaries, Gael Garcia Bernal's portrayal of Che Guevara, one of history's most vaunted rebels, showcases the actor's gift for bringing a hard-won freshness to the screen, but it also reveals something about his...

The buzz of Miss Bryce Dallas Howard.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... One of Hollywood's rising talents in motion pictures stars here in here first "silent movie." Above and opposite: Clothes by EMPERIO ARMANI. Hat by HOLLYWOOD HATTERS. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Holy Howards! Where can Our Actress be...

Curtains up.
November 1, 2004... In December 2001 I was asked by a mainstream American magazine to create a spread of images. They had invited a number of directors to do this, and the only rule was that you had to incorporate a men's suit into the design. This was three...

Beasties, wiggles, and biggies.(celebrities)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Beastie Boys MCA, Adrock, and Mike D at the American Airlines Arena in Miami for MTV's Video Music Awards. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Christina Aguilera at the Video Music Awards. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At the Video Music Awards:...