Interview articles from November 2005

Interview archives from November 2005

Everybody in the pool!(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2005... Dear Interview, So I just received my October issue of Interview and had to be the first to write to say how much I love it. Okay, I haven't actually read anything yet, but with those combos (Kanye West by Fiona Apple! Ziyi Zhang by...

Tokyo a-go-go.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2005... Dear Interview, Your delightful issue on Japanese popular culture [June 2005] helps redress the information gap between our two countries--the Japanese have long known far more about us than we know about them. And the interview with that...

A legend gets her due.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2005... Dear Interview, The excerpt from Jill Watts's book on Hattie McDaniel [September 2005] about the demeaning treatment of the actress and other African Americans during Hollywood's heyday saddened me deeply. I'm Caucasian, and in my home...

More bale mail.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2005... Dear Interview, Thank you for recognizing the talents of Christian Bale. He is not only one of the most compelling-looking actors in film today but also disciplined and dedicated. He never presents himself as bigger than the roles he...

Seeing is believing.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2005... Dear Interview, Kudos to Graham Fuller! His recognition of Jena Malone [September 2005] as an up-and-coming actor of note shows he is a major swami. I recall the feature on Jena in your March 2002 issue, and the photo shoot that revealed...

Smoke gets in your eyes: casting a noir-ish spell.(LOOK OF THE MONTH)(eye makeup trends)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Harking back to an era when a cigarette was considered an asset to a lady's allure, this season's dark and smoky eye is a nod to the mystique of cloaking oneself in a willowy veil of smoke. This smoldering look was big not only on the catwalks...

Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje: he turned to acting to get off the streets. Now a gritty new film has him hitting the pavement once again--and going toe-to-toe with one of hip hop's hottest heavyweights.(MOVIE NEWS)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... In Jim Sheridan's new film, Get Rich or Die Tryin', a biopic of rapper Curtis Jackson--known to the world as 50 Cent--Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje plays a street-hardened crime lord who takes young Curtis under his wing and may or may not have a...

Judy Greer: like beards and battered baseball caps, she's been the hipster director's secret weapon of choice. But in one of the season's most anticipated films, she's ready to shine on her own.(MOVIE BREAKOUT)(Interview)
November 1, 2005... As a mousy wallflower who blossoms into a queen bee in the 1999 high-school comedy Jawbreaker, Judy Greer displayed the sort of grace, poise, and impeccable comic timing that most actors take years to perfect. So it's no wonder that ever since,...

Noah Baumbach: his emotional new movie chronicles the trauma of his parents' divorce. But has Indie film's archduke of ironic detachment gone mushy? The only woman who really knows gets the goods.(view MAN)(Interview)
November 1, 2005... Back in the '90s Noah Baumbach's cult comedies Kicking and Screaming (1995) and Mr. Jealousy (1998) marked him as an unassuming poet of twentysomething disillusion. But now he has reached into more autobiographical territory and emerged with...

Jed Johnson: how a California boy got on a bus, traveled to Manhattan, delivered a telegram, and found his life changed forever.(DESIGN CORNER)(Jed Johnson: Opulent Restraint)(Book review)
November 1, 2005... Ask anyone who knew Jed Johnson to describe him, and words such as graceful, serene, quiet, and beautiful tend to enter the conversation--the same adjectives one would likely reach for when trying to evoke the rooms he created. But words, even...

The Veronicas: think the Olsens are ubiquitous? Get ready for these harmonizing twins.(MUSIC BUZZ)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... The Veronicas--Australian-born twins Lisa and Jess Origliasso--always had a natural inclination to dance and sing around the house. At age 5 their parents enrolled them in a musical theater company in their hometown of Brisbane, Australia....

Lady Sovereign: they don't call her the "queen of grime" for nothing.(MUSIC SCOOP)(Louise Harman)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Most musicians will go out of their way to avoid being labeled, but London rapper Louise Harman, a.k.a. Lady Sovereign, seems to be doing everything in her power to live up to the tag that's been bestowed upon her. Dubbed by the British press...

Son (or daughter) of a preacher man: Sunday best has never looked better.(FASHION TREND)(Dsquared, Yves Saint Laurent)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... After having shown up in our schools, courts, and the Oval Office it was only a matter of time before references to religion manifested themselves on fashion runways. The iconography of Christianity replaced the standard raunch in Dsquared's...

Mira Sorvino: human trafficking--a kind of modern-day slave trade--ensnares roughly a million people each year. With her new program for lifetime, Mira Sorvino aims to abolish this ugly reality.(REAL REALITY TV)(Interview)
November 1, 2005... JOHN PRENDERGAST: The last time you were in D.C. you were morphologically quite different. Has having a child altered your long-term ambitions? MIRA SORVINO: I think it has, as well as reordered priorities and values. The successes in the...

Katherine Moennig: for years, men have been the crusading Casanovas of prime time. She's shaking up the formula--and throwing a wrench in the stale sexual politics of television.(GROUNDBREAKING TV)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Katherine Moennig likes her women freaky. "There are a gazillion projects out there that offer standard female roles, but they're not for me," says the 27-year-old actress. This is no surprise since Moennig is best known for her starring role...

Liev Schreiber: making the leap from actor to director, Liev Schreiber found his muse in the life of his grandfather and fashioned a film that could well be called "from ukraine, with love".(CROSSING BOUNDARIES)(Interview)
November 1, 2005... DUSTIN HOFFMAN: Hi, Lev. How are you? LIEV SCHREIBER: I'm a little nervous! I'm glad that it's you interviewing me. I got my start in acting because of you. I saw Midnight Cowboy (1969) and thought, "Geez, if they hired a guy like that,...

Elizabeth Reaser: a high school escapade had her parents chasing her cross-country--now she's really off and running.(THIS MONTH'S ONE TO WATCH)(Interview)
November 1, 2005... In Finding Neverland director Marc Forster's new psychological thriller, Stay, Elizabeth Reaser plays Athena, a waitress-cum-actress with a penchant for quoting Shakespeare. It's uncannily familiar territory for the 27-year-old Michigan native,...

Booty licious: take it in stride with fall's new boots.(STYLE FLASH)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... There was a time when the word "boots" evoked images of bad weather and hard labor, but that was a long, long time ago. In more recent years boots have not only kept toes warm and dry, they've been the defining accessory of countless segments...

Kenny Scharf: announcing a new exhibition by a legendary artist who continues to show a side of pop art that would make Salvador Dali's head spin.(CURTAINS UP)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Playfully referred to as the "Hieronymus Bosch of our Kool-Aid, sci-fi, space-age kulture," in a 1984 New York Times review, Kenny Schaff must have been quite the roommate for Keith Haring: the two lived together in a Times Square loft in the...

Fiona Apple: Extraordinary Machine.(SOUND ADVICE)(Sound recording review)
November 1, 2005... Extraordinary Machine (Epic) This spectral icon of waifish discontent returns after a six-year absence with an album that took two producers to get together. Despite its protracted evolution, Extraordinary Machine represents classic...

The Fiery Furnaces: Rehearsing My Choir.(SOUND ADVICE)(Sound recording review)
November 1, 2005... Rehearsing My Choir (Rough Trade) On their delightfully eccentric third full-length album, the inventive brother-sister team of Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger enlist their octogenarian grandmother, Olga Sarantos, a longtime church...

Dolly Parton: Those Were the Days.(SOUND ADVICE)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Those Were the Days (Sugar Hill Records) In curating an album that's entirely comprised of cover songs, Parton might have been expected to lead to some unbearably saccharine moments: Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," John Lennon's...

The go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike.(SOUND ADVICE)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Thunder, Lightning, Strike (Memphis Industries) If you don't like the Go! Team, you probably don't like beer, kittens, rocking a microphone, dancing around your kitchen, fun, or life itself. If you don't know who the Go! Team are yet,...

My morning jacket: Z.(SOUND ADVICE)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Z (ATO/RCA) Trippy, positive, spacious pop. Long, dreamy psychedelic jams. Motown-flavored retro rock. Surf music. Circus flea songs. Drunken white-boy reggae. You can find bits of it all on the impossible-to-pin-down and yet oddly...

Jamie Cullum: Catching Tales.(SOUND ADVICE)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... Catching Tales (Verve Forecast) This coolly charismatic singer and multi-instrumentalist proved himself a true Gen-Y jazz populist on his 2004 debut, Twentysomething, which made its way around both Cole Porter and Radiohead. Cullum's funny...

Atmosphere: You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having.(SOUND ADVICE)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having (Rhymesayers Entertainment) To say that Atmosphere's latest full-length starts out as a conventional hip-hop album might be taken as an insult by the entomologically named Minneapolis duo of Slug...

Jarhead.(PREVIEW)(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... (Universal) Directed by Sam Mendes Based on ex-Marine Anthony Swofford's best-selling memoir of his experiences in the first Iraq war, this adaptation by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, 1999) stars Jake Gyllenhaal as "Swoff," a...

Breakfast on Pluto.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... (Sony Classics) Directed by Neil Jordan Functioning as both a celebration and a redefining of Neil Jordan's highly fetishistic and inventive oeuvre, Breakfast on Pluto often recalls the Irish auteur's past films: a gender-blurring...

Tristram Shandy: a cock and bull story.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... (Picturehouse) Directed by Michael Winterbottom Laurence Sterne's 18th-century The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a pre-postmodern monster of a novel, a bawdy satire of the time's mores. Cue British director Michael...

Pride & Prejudice.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... (Focus) Directed by Joe Wright "Not all of us can afford to be romantic," it is noted in this adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, identifying the dilemma set before women in late 18tb-century England and, more particularly here,...

Three ... Extremes.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... (Lions Gate) Directed by Takashi Miike, Park Chan-wook, Fruit Chan This horror omnibus presents three of Asia's most innovative directors working (mostly) at the top of their game. With Bai ling serving a most unconventional dumpling dish...

The Dying Gaul.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... (Strand) Directed by Craig Lucas Craig Lucas's cool, casually venomous adaptation of his own play The Dying Gaul depicts the ever spiraling tension between smooth Hollywood mogul Jeffrey (a deliciously unctuous Campbell Scott), his...

Ellie Parker.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... (Strand) Directed by Scott Coffey When Naomi Watts last played a wide-eyed ingenue trying to navigate Hollywood's treacherous waters in Mulholland Dr. (2001), critics and audiences applauded. Scott Coffey's Ellie Parker again allows Watts...

Shots in the dark: how two movies about the '50s make us shiver about today.(MOVIE COLUMN)(Good Night, and Good Luck)(Where the Truth Lies)
November 1, 2005... If George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck hadn't taken its title from CBS TV newsman Edward R. Murrow's ominous sign-off line, it could have applied equally well to Atom Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies--and vice versa. Establishing the truth...

Letter from the editor November 2005.(view)(Editorial)
November 1, 2005... People often ask us, "How does Interview manage to put together all those incredible pairings of subjects?" The truth is, we inherited this tradition, now a signature of the magazine, from our founder, Andy Warhol, and have been able to build...

Scarlett Johansson: forget the angst and the hand-wringing--here's an actress who says, "this is fun!".(Interview)
November 1, 2005... Such is the omnipresence of Scarlett Johansson in the movies today--not to mention on the many miles of red carpet that surround them--that just four years after establishing herself as an actress to watch with her co-starring role in Terry...

Gavin Rossdale: a heavy new band, a budding film career, and a girl named Gwen at his side--has the man who's always been a stranger in his own land finally found a home?(Interview)
November 1, 2005... GARY OLDMAN: Hello, Gavin. First, let me congratulate you on Constantine. GAVIN ROSSDALE: Oh, thank you. GO: Did you have prosthetics, contact lenses, and all that stuff? GR: Yeah, it was a 4:30 A.M. call. I've always had the...

Michelle Monaghan: she may be the icing on the cake in this season's coolest retro crime flick, but anyone who thinks that Michelle Monaghan is just another sidekick sweet tart has got another thing coming.(Interview)
November 1, 2005... In this era of inflatable figures, CGI, and souped-up sirens, it seems the array of methods at the disposal of an actress looking to seduce an audience have grown rather than diminished. Far rarer, though, has become the ability to not just...

Shirley MacLanie: whether for a movie, women's rights, or her own multidimensional beliefs, Shirley MacLaine has never been afraid to go out on a limb. And as her performances in two major new films prove, she is not about to rest on her laurels. Here, Jennifer Aniston gets the scoop.(Interview)
November 1, 2005... JENNIFER ANISTON: Hi, Shirl! SHIRLEY MAcLAINE: Hey! JA: How ya doin'? SM: I'm good. It was so great to see you when I was in Chicago the other week. JA: I know. What a treat! After your big night of being honored [with the...

Cocteau hour: just like the lyrical line drawings of one of modernity's most captivating inventors, yarn this season is being spun into fashion that will surely weave some intrigue.(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... This page: Clothes by CHLOE. Belt by HERMES. Necklaces by ERICKSON BEAMON FOR TORY BURCH. Shoes by BRUNO FRISONI. Opposite page: Sweater by ANNA MOLINARI. Skirt by BLUGIRL SUBVERSIVE BY JUSTIN GIUNTA. Shoes by ROGIER VIVIER. Right: Clothes...

Mickey: few actors have been knocked off their feet more times than he has--by Hollywood, by his opponents in the boxing ring, and by his own stubborn pride. but after walking through hell--and with the scars to prove it--he's a man who's learned something. Now with a punch of new movies, Mickey Rourke is back.(Interview)
November 1, 2005... My interest in Mickey Rourke started when I first saw him in Body Heat, before he had any lines, and he was mouthing the words to Bob Seger's song "I Feel Like a Number." Just seeing that moment you knew you were witnessing an actor you were...

Catherine Keener: like the nuns she admired as a schoolgirl, the work of Catherine Keener is quiet and free of vanity.(Interview)
November 1, 2005... Vulnerable but cool, mysterious but laid-back, brainy but unpretentious, actor Catherine Keener is at once a great beauty and a wisecracking tomboy. When she played Maxine in her Academy Award--nominated role in Being John Malkovich (1999), two...

Usher: his velvet voice, debonair style, and swoon-inducing songs have already put him at the top of the music biz. Now he's ready to put the moves on moviegoers.(Interview)
November 1, 2005... VERONICA WEBB: You there, baby? How you doin'? USHER: I'm doin' okay. How's everything? VW: Everything's great. I'm going back to work; my girls are getting big. One of them's starting nursery school. U: You got yourself some young...

The women.(Ingrid Sischy and Evelyn Lauder)(Interview)
November 1, 2005... INGRID SISCHY: Let's go back to the very beginning when Evelyn Lauder was a little girl. EVELYN LAUDER: Well, I was born in Vienna. My family escaped from the annexation of Austria by Germany shortly after Hitler marched in. We got...

Night owls and nightingales.(PAGE 5)
November 1, 2005... Michael Pitt and Gus Van Sant at the New York premiere of Last Days. Dita Von Teese and Adrian Grenier in NYC for the launch of Virgin Mobiles "3 Ways to Pay As You Go." W Hotels Michele Denby (center). Michael Showalter (right) and...