#he is not the villain the filmmakers portrayed him as :')

[austerulous]

Just been to see Titanic in the cinema and it’s just as emotionally devastating all these years later. The elderly couple cuddling in bed as their room floods? The mother tucking in her children and telling them a story of Tír na nÓg? Fucks me up every time. 😭 I’m going to sleep off a headache and hopefully I’ll be around more tomorrow. Mwah. ♡

[idksmtms]

willow (Cillian Murphy x Actress!reader) - evermore series

evermore series

A/N: I had an idea up on my masterlist about falling in love with Cillian while filming a movie so I just decided to merge it with this. Also I saw the picture of him and Emily Blunt walking in costume on the set of Oppenheimer and I thunk thoughts. (sidenote: I cannot write a summary to save my life) 

Extra info: I never say the title of the movie you guys are filming in the fic because I didn’t really want to get too detailed about it, but then I thought of the plot of The Delinquent Season the entire time lmao (I just changed random things because I’m a sucker for an age gap). Also, we’re pretending Oppenheimer hasn’t happened yet because it works for the story. 

Edit: I feel like the ending sucks but I’m too tired to change it. Sorry. 

Summary: When you met Cillian Murphy on set, you were already a fan. When you left, you were so much more…

Word count: 9,772  (oh my gosh I went so overboard with this…) 

Trigger Warnings: 18+, she/her pronouns, AFAB reader, profanity, age gap, PinV sex, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, toxic!Cillian, like 0 communication between characters, secret relationship, not proofread but they never are (please let me know if I missed any) 

Disclaimer: This is written purely for fictional purposes and for the sake of writing. No disrespect is intended to the real people portrayed/concerned in this scenario. 

Always appreciate comments, likes, and reblogs :)

You met Cillian Murphy for the first time five hours before you kissed him. Despite being cast in the lead female role, you were a rather late addition to the movie. Issues had come up with the actress initially cast and you had gotten a phone call about two months before shooting started to get yourself to the studio to sign contracts and start costume fittings. This was an amazing opportunity, and regardless of the rush, you were excited to have it. You had been in movies before, of course, but this was your first lead role and if you did a good enough job, it could skyrocket your career trajectory. Aside from all the good things it could do for your career, you were simply excited to get to work, and to get to work with such a good cast and filmmaker. 

On top of all of that, you would be working closely alongside the Cillian Murphy. When you were told that he was to be your costar, you had been in shellshock for a moment before pressing an obnoxious kiss to your agent’s cheek. Cillian Murphy was one of those actors that only came around once in a lifetime. He was only in tasteful, and well done projects, playing a variety of the most interesting characters you had ever watched. You had seen Peaky Blinders, Inception, Dunkirk, and though you had no interest in superhero movies, you sat down and watched all three Batman movies just to watch him play a villain. In the few interviews you had done up to now, you had mentioned once or twice that you believed him to be the best actor of your lifetime, someone who was left unrecognised at awards shows but deserved all of them and more (as you walked onto set for the first time, you really hoped he hadn’t seen any of those interviews). So, to say you were a fan before the movie might have been an understatement, but you had worked with other people who you were fans of before, and Tom Glynn-Carney only had nice things to say about you afterward; you could be professional and a fan. 

You had been put up in a hotel the night before you were to be driven to the studio lot, your new home for however long you were going to be filming there, and in the morning a polite chauffeur arrived in a blacked out car to take you there. You felt a little giddy during the drive, as you always did before starting a new project. You hadn’t learnt the rhythms of the set yet, the director’s process, whether it would be a rush of technical work or a more relaxed set. You hadn’t worked with most of the other actors, you didn’t know how they approached the job, whether they were welcoming and friendly or preferred to focus on the job then return to solitude. It was all the unknowns that made your stomach feel swoopy, but you had come to like the feeling, viewed it as a challenge, the beginnings of an investigation to learn about your job and home for the rest of the duration of the project. 

You were deposited into the custody of one of the many assistants running around, and hurriedly walked to your trailer with a warning that you would only have five minutes to put your things down, change into your costume, possibly have a sip of water, before you would be taken to hair and makeup and given your costume. You smiled brightly at her, nodding and affirming her over and over that you understood. Your first actual job on a movie set had been as an assistant, you knew her job was hard enough without an actor giving her attitude, so you simply followed her. 

The area you walked through was like the other studio lots you had been to before, large buildings that looked like warehouses on the outside but probably held the coolest sets or the most intricate technology on the inside. People drove around in golf carts, some assistants sprinted while yelling down the phone, others hurriedly rolled clothing racks between buildings. You could see someone giving an interview in the distance but they were too far away for you to tell who it was. 

The trailer you were led to was in a wide space filled with other trailers, what you imagined the setup area for a circus looked like. It was bland and white on the outside, your name in big letters surrounded by the shape of a star (some intern clearly had fun with Canva) on the door, and you felt that bubble of excitement all over again. You let the assistant open the door for you, thanking her and shooting her a smile as if inviting her to join in on the excitement you felt before stepping in. It was exactly as you had expected it to be, and that made you happier than anything else. There was a small kitchenette area with cupboards and a minifridge. A counter separated it from a little seating area, couch seats against either wall, before a tiny hallway (which could barely be called a hallway) that had the door to the bathroom on one side and led into a little bedroom (which was just a bed with a little space on the side to walk and nothing else). Your clothes were hung up on a little hook on the bathroom door. 

You deposited your tote bag on the counter and went to the minifridge, pulling out a bottle of water and taking a big gulp. Ice cold and delicious. You scrunched yourself up and did a happy little jump and squeal because you were living the dream, and nothing could be better than that. You messaged your parents and friends that you had arrived, sent pictures and a little video of the trailer, before picking up your costume and getting into the little bedroom to change. 

It was a simple pair of mom jeans, well fitted and slightly higher than your ankle, accompanied with a plain white blouse that had blue detailing around the neck and off the shoulder sleeves that ended just after your elbow, something you could imagine a mum wearing on vacation in Greece. It was comfortable, and you made a little note to ask the costume designer where she got the pieces because it may or may not have been the best pair of jeans you had ever worn. 

You were able to take another big gulp of water before a knock and a voice at the door was telling you to get to hair and makeup. The trailer for hair and makeup was closer to the actual block of buildings you would be filming in, and a little golf cart was ready to take you there. You let out a little laugh as you settled yourself inside, chatting with the driver as he manoeuvred around people and other obstacles to get you there. 

It was quieter in this corner of the studio, more people walking than running, less things being shifted around in a hurry, and you felt a sense of calm in the air (or at least whatever semblance of calm one could get on a movie set). The driver stopped right in front of the doors and you thanked him, laughing at the parting joke he told you about a dog getting loose in the lot. You went up the first two steps for the trailer when the door swung open and you had to jump back to avoid being slammed into the wall with it. Someone came walking out with their head down, turning back to smile at someone else who had wished them goodluck from within the trailer. They paused when they finally noticed you, and you opened your mouth to say something but not a word came out. They smiled with a huff of a chuckle, and all you could think was that he was so much more beautiful in person than what any camera could capture. 

“I hope I didn’t whack you with the door,” he winced apologetically and you just took a deep breath in, shaking your head then breathing out quickly and laughing at yourself. 

“No, no, I just managed to avoid it,” you breathed out, giggling because your stomach was suddenly tingling and you couldn’t quite feel your hands (or maybe you could feel them too much). 

“Oh, good,” he nodded, “would not have been a good way to introduce myself. Cillian Murphy,” he held out his hand, smiling and polite, his eyes piercing through your skin. They were so bright, so blue. You blinked then kept staring into them as you brought your hand gently into his, hoping your grip wasn’t too limp nor too firm. 

“Y/n L/n, it is so nice to meet you. I’m sorry, I’m trying really hard to hide how starstruck I am and I think I’m failing,” you admitted, cheeks suddenly burning. You always talked when you were nervous, which meant you always overshared when you were nervous. But he just laughed, a deep chuckle that made his chest shake and drew your attention to it. He was broader than you, and wearing a cosy looking black sweater that you desperately wanted to push your face against and feel rub against your cheek. The sleeves had been pushed up to his elbows and you could see the round collar of a white t-shirt poking out at the neck. 

“Don’t worry, you were doing a good job so far, until you admitted it anyway,” he did that little huff-laugh again and you pressed a hand to your face, scrunching your eyes shut in shame at the bombardment of thoughts running through your head that made you feel brainless at the same time. 

“Alright, well then,” you laughed, shaking your head and stepping to the side so he could finally walk past you (which you thought he had wanted to do the entire time but was too polite to point out). “I’m sorry for keeping you trapped here, I’ll let you go wherever you need to go Mr. Murphy.” 

“Please, it’s Cillian,” he frowned in that way that said ‘don’t bother with such formality’, and waved the hand in the air that was carrying his script as if to bat the title away. 

“Right, sorry, Cillian,” and you smiled brightly because he was looking at you with those beautiful, beautiful, eyes, and watched him walk down the steps, wave back at you, run a hand through his hair that had been styled messily, and head for the door of the first building. 

When he had disappeared through the door, you slammed the heel of your hand against your forehead until it stung a little and made it feel like your brain had moved around in your head, grumbling “Mr. Murphy? Seriously? You’re an adult too, ya know? You can call people by their first names now, for fuck’s sake.” 

Cillian chewed on his lip as he sat in the foldable chair on set, waiting for everything else to be set up, his co-star to arrive, and the director to start dictating everything. He enjoyed these few minutes before filming, they helped him focus in on the set, get into the mind of his character, evaluate the situation and what would be needed from him. But he had a little extra time today, and he didn’t mind either because his mind was a little distracted. 

He didn’t think he had ever been called ‘Mr. Murphy’ by a co-star, and it made him laugh because it felt a little ridiculous, but it also made him wonder if you were just young or overly respectful. A quick google search told him you were younger, much younger, but didn’t necessarily answer the question. 

Regardless, he liked you, thus far anyway. He liked the way you looked, your hair was pretty and you had kind eyes, and you smelled nice, a soft flowery perfume. And he liked your voice too, a little loud sometimes, a little too quiet others, but it was nice. He hadn’t seen any of your movies, but he was feeling positive about you. Perhaps too positive, but he shut down that thought process with a snap. 

The makeup artist was best friends with the hairdresser and they were both some of the sweetest people you had ever met. They chatted with you the entire time, laughed at your story of embarrassing yourself in front of Cillian, comforted you that he was a nice, easygoing man who wouldn’t hold it against you, and offered you the little snacks they had lying around. Your hair was put into a simple braid, slicked down with pommade to control the flyaways you were plagued with, and the makeup was so natural you would question if you were wearing any if you hadn’t been there while she was rubbing and brushing the products onto your face. 

The costume designer had left some jewellery for you with them, and they helped you clasp the necklace and earrings while you rummaged in your bag for your script. The director had come in while your hair was being done and told you about some of the last-minute changes to the script and the scenes that were being filmed. The ‘first kiss’ scene was going to be filmed at the end of the day instead of in two weeks time because of scheduling complications and the intimacy coordinator would work with you and Cillian during the break at midday while they filmed some of the scenes that didn’t have either of you in them. You had simply nodded, you couldn’t have argued anyway, you didn’t have any authority here even if you had a lead role, and just told him you’d look over your script and mark it out. He had patted you on the shoulder with a smile and hurried back out and you had resisted the urge to press your face into your hands lest you ruin the makeup. 

Of course you were a little annoyed, you had been told to prepare for certain scenes and those were the scenes you had prepared for, but as you took deep breaths and rifled through the many pieces of advice your therapist had given you, you knew this wasn’t a problem to waste your feelings on. They would be lenient because of the last minute change, and if they weren’t originally then they would have to be because you weren’t a magician. A few deep breaths and reading your lines for the first scene you would be filming calmed you down and returned you to the necessary headspace for filming. 

You thanked both the makeup artist and hairdresser, then put in your headphones as you slowly walked toward the set. You needed to be in a sombre mood, needed to feel that apathy and sadness clawing at the edges of your mind. Your character was struggling, her life was falling apart and she felt like she had no solution, only minor escapes during her trysts with Jim, Cillian’s character. You tucked the script under your arm as you got to the set, taking out your earbuds and looking around for the director. You met eyes with Eva Birthistle who smiled widely and waved at you, excusing herself from the assistant director and walking over to you. 

“Hello, hello!” She hugged you tightly and you returned the greeting against her shoulder. 

Eva was the only member of the cast you had gotten to meet before filming began. One of your fittings had been at the same time as hers and you both had gotten to chatting about the movie. She was an absolute sweetheart, someone you could see as a mentor for yourself, and you were glad to see a familiar face on the set other than the director, a bonus that it was one as welcoming as hers. She wrapped her arm over your shoulder and led you over to the cluster of chairs behind the camera where Cillian was already seated, chatting with Andrew Scott. They both looked up and smiled at the two of you as you came and sat down on the remaining two chairs, Eva already engaging them in conversation. 

Looking at all of them sitting there, it hit you for the first time that you were the youngest person here, in both age and experience. These were all people who had done multiple movies in a variety of roles, had been acting by the time you were born, and had made names for themselves. A wave of shyness hit you that you scolded yourself for, your cheeks burning as you sat down and shook hands with Andrew. Thankfully, the wave didn’t last, because Eva and Andrew were chatty, and both ready to include you in the conversation. 

You were glad for this little moment, though it took you out of the headspace of the character you were trying to settle into. These were all people you would be acting closely with, yelling at or kissing on camera for the next few months, and the more comfortable you could get with them the better. 

Andrew was sweet, asking you questions about past jobs, the interview process, how you felt about your character, an endless supply of questions, jokes, and responses that made him an instant friend. Eva chimed in with her own stories and jokes, piling on top of his and making you laugh until your stomach hurt. Cillian was quieter, only speaking when directly spoken to or simply laughing along with the jokes, but his simple presence was enough for you to feel warm in your bones and excited at the prospect of acting with him. He was so nonchalant, so calm and focused but not deterrent or rude. While you seemed to learn a multitude about both Eva and Andrew, you learnt little about Cillian other than that he preferred living in Ireland to anywhere else. 

You thought maybe it was better that you didn’t get to know him too much. It would make the intimate scenes feel less personal, less intense. He genuinely was one of the most beautiful people you had ever seen and it was too easy for an actor to fall prey to the emotions of a scene in real life. You didn’t want to suddenly be sitting there after a sex scene wondering how similar it was to the real deal with him. You were here to do your job and nothing more. 

The conversation had quieted down as different checks were done on set and it was almost time for you all to convene with the director to get filming started. Cillian was reading quietly from his script, a pair of rectangular glasses with rounded edges and dark rims sat on his nose as he rubbed his index finger back and forth across his bottom lip. You watched him for a moment, the soft movement of his lips as he silently formed the words. Then the director was calling you all up and you felt like you were being snapped out of a trance you hadn’t known you had entered in the first place. 

“Alright, you guys have had a small dinner get-together at Jim and Danielle’s house. This is a sort of regular thing, every couple of weeks, maybe once a month, you have this dinner get-together. You’re all sitting at the dining table across from each other, picking at the final pieces of your meals. Jim and Danielle’s children are asleep upstairs and you guys are simply drinking wine and talking.” He walked you all over to the dining table and pointed out the seats, sitting you down first next to Eva before scrapping the idea and having you sit across from her and beside Andrew. Once you had all been assigned your seats, he turned to Eva and Cillian. 

“You two have been married for a long time, you have two children, you’re in a place in your lives where you believe you’re simply secure in your relationship, but if anyone pokes into this it’s fragile, and you’re not sure if you’re secure and still in love, or you’re just going through the motions of a life you have lived for a long time and don’t actually enjoy. You don’t question anything anymore, just go to work, come home, kiss each other, cook dinner, have a little chat before bed, and do it all over again, day by day.” Then he turned to you and Andrew. He looked at you for a moment before reaching out, pausing just before touching you and silently asking if it was alright. You nodded happily, and he gently pulled your braid to rest over one of your shoulders, moved the pendant on your necklace so it rested a little more to the left, and pulled one of your sleeves a little further down so just the edge of your bra strap was exposed. 

“You two have also been married for a while, but things are a little different. You married Chris right after graduating uni, most of your adult life has been married life. Chris is older, was already pushing forty when you guys got married. All of your friends are his age, mostly couple friends, and you’ve always felt pushed into this older, more mature role, that you don’t necessarily feel successful in. You lean on him quite a bit during these situations, deferring to him to answer difficult questions or when talking about your family life. Chris takes this in stride, it’s how it has always been in your relationship, even after years of marriage and a child. Chris is struggling silently recently, he’s easier to anger, feels a little distant, but honestly? You don’t even realise. You don’t know what he’s hiding, you don’t even know that he’s hiding anything. Andrew, the weight of the disease, hiding it from his family, all those private struggles, are always in the back of Chris’s mind, ok?” Both of you nodded and as you went to sit down at the table, he beckoned you and Cillian over to the side saying, “just a moment.” 

Cillian stood next to you with his arms crossed, the black sweater still pushed up to his elbows, and the edge just brushed against the skin of your arm. You shivered and stretched out your neck for a moment, a nervous tick, before returning your eyes to the director speaking in a low voice. 

“Alright, you two are sitting diagonally to each other at the table. You guys take the term ‘friends’ loosely. You’re friends because she’s friends with Danielle and you’re Danielle’s husband. You’re friends because you’re both couples who are friends, but you’ve never spoken to each other without your spouses in the room. Ok? But there is a little bit of intrigue, I guess. You glance at each other, not for long, just barely a look, or you meet eyes while one of you is talking to the group. I don’t want chemistry, I want the possibility of chemistry. Jim is laidback, especially compared to her husband. She’s pretty and young, especially compared to the other people at the table. I don’t want to notice anything between you yet, I want to come back and watch the movie one day in the future and suddenly notice that there’s something there, but too subtle to hint at the future affair. Ok?” You nodded as he spoke, feeling yourself settle into that focus you usually found just before filming, no more smile and twinkle in your eye. “Alright, break a leg,” and he was walking back to the cameras. You turned to Cillian for a second and he nodded at you, those eyes that you would never forget looking over your face for a moment before he headed for his seat at the table. You clenched your jaw for a second, staring at his back as he walked away, before shaking your head and holding it up high on your way to the table. 

“Alright, change costumes, change the lighting, we’re moving to the living room scene for the next couple of hours, I need the kids and Eva there, please. Cillian and Y/n, head down to studio three after changing, the intimacy coordinator is already there, you have a couple of hours to get it together before we start filming. Hop to it everyone!” 

You were happy to be moving on. Though you had been in films that took even longer for singular scenes, you were starting to feel stale in that environment and reverting to the exact same routine over and over. An assistant was quick to come up alongside you and direct you back to hair and makeup. 

“Your costume is already there, and once everything’s been changed, someone else will come get you to take you to studio three,” he told you, not once looking at you but rather at the clipboard in his hand filled with typed and handwritten notes. 

“Ok, thank you,” you nodded, watching the assistant nod goodbye before doubling back to find Cillian to relay the same information. You stood still and watched him for a moment, the glasses tucked into the neck of his sweater as he nodded at the assistant. 

The longer hair looked good on him, you thought. It was going a little grey in the places around his ears but you liked it more that way. His cheekbones cast shadows on his face in the dim light, but you could still see the faint freckles over his nose and the very light smattering he had on his neck. You could even see the freckles on his forearms and it made something warm bloom in your stomach. He looked up and directly at you. Those eyes… those eyes you could spend hours talking about, uncaring that you probably repeated yourself multiple times simply because of how beautiful they were. You smiled, something that could just barely be considered a smile with only the corners of your lips twitching up for barely a moment and your eyes fluttering, before turning away and walking out of the studio. 

You ended up changing in the corner of the hair and makeup trailer, both the women standing with their backs turned to you as they organised pins and palettes and chatted away. Your next costume was a set of oversized mauve-coloured pyjamas that felt a little too thin for your liking. You were a little relieved that it was only the first kissing scene being filmed. You had read the entire script twice over, and you knew about the other scenes to come that required a lot more of you. You had only ever filmed one ‘intimate’ scene before, and even that had only been a rather simple kissing scene. While this scene was definitely more than that, it didn’t feel as big of a leap on the first day simply because it cut off after the kiss. 

Your hair was let down from its braid, mussed up with the hairdresser’s hands and sprayed with hairspray. All your makeup was wiped off before they went to work again. Dabs of eyeshadow in strategic places made your eyes look slightly puffy, like you just woke up from a haggard sleep. Purple under eyes appeared out of nowhere and the faintest bruise was brought to life on your right cheekbone. Little dabs of red on your lips made them look bitten and your nails were chopped roughly to look like you had been chewing on them on and off. Again, you thanked the women and in a simple pair of slippers made your way outside to meet with the assistant responsible for guiding you to studio three. 

It looked like a school drama studio on the inside, with blackout curtains hung all the way around, a black linoleum floor and big wood blocks wrapped in fuzzy material pushed to the edges of the room. You would have taken your shoes and socks off outside the room out of habit if you had known what it looked like on the inside. You smiled to yourself at the thought, before quickly shuffling over to where Cillian stood talking to two women who looked like the opposites of each other. One was dressed in plain white pants, a white blouse tucked neatly into said pants, and a cream coloured cardigan. The other wore a poncho-style dress that fluttered as she moved her arms and was covered in dizzying bohemian patterns. Ten necklaces were draped over her chest, anything from chains to rope, and she had a bandana neatly wrapped to keep her hair out of her face. 

“Hi! I hope I’m not late!” You called, stopping just beside Cillian and smiling at the two women who looked old enough to be your grandmothers (the realisation that you would be making out with someone right in front of them was not a pleasant one). 

“Not at all, we were just talking about boundaries,” Poncho Lady told you warmly, reaching out to shake your hand. The one in the cardigan followed suit, though she was quieter, and you simply smiled brightly at both of them before waiting for instruction.

“Alright, give your scripts here and just stand in front of each other.” Poncho Lady gently pried the script from your hand, took your tote bag from your shoulder, and set them both down on one of the wood blocks Cardigan Lady had pulled over. “Ok, so we’re just here to make sure you don’t feel uncomfortable doing this scene, that no one pushes past any hard boundaries, and to make it seem natural without being unprofessional. Now, before you get to it, is there any place on your body that you would be uncomfortable with your partner touching?” You shook your head and watched Cillian mimic the reaction. 

Awkwardness was cloying at the back of your neck and you desperately wanted to open your mouth and make a stupid comment about how it would just look weird in the movie if he grabbed you between the legs anyway, and it took every ounce of your willpower to keep your mouth shut. “Alright! Let’s get started then! We’ll interrupt when needed.” You turned to fully face Cillian, tilting your head back slowly when you realised how close he was standing. He was still wearing the same jeans and sweater, but the shirt underneath had been changed to a black one, the neck perpetually poking out. 

You dipped your head down again, pressing your hand to your face as you began rambling about how stupid you were and how insane it was for you to be asking him to have an affair with you. Your eyes were squeezed so tight you could see white flashes on the backs of your eyelids. Then, gently, he was interrupting you, voice low as he told you that it was fine, everything was fine, you did nothing wrong, he completely understood, you were tired, emotional after everything. But you kept berating, spitting out words about how he was so good looking and so loyal and you were you, a horrible friend and obviously never a second thought on his mind. And then he was cutting you off, rambling in return about how you’re a beautiful woman, and he can’t lie that he hasn’t thought about you, he’s a man who can appreciate beauty after all. But he could see that you weren’t calming down, could see you slowly folding in on yourself in your panic. Then he was grabbing your hand. Gentle, soft fingers wrapping around your wrist, skin warm and making your own feel tingly. You took a deep breath, your chest visibly shaking, and he brought his other hand to your chin, slowly tilted your head back up to look him in the eye with his fingertips. You blinked, eyes big and wide, and he pressed your hand to his chest, covering it with his own. 

The sweater was so soft under your fingertips, and you desperately wanted it for yourself. His palm was warm on top of yours, warm and firm and unrelenting. You tuned into the sensation of his heart, a wild beating, and your face changed to just hint at concern. 

“Can you feel that?” He asked, voice so low it was almost a whisper. 

“It’s racing,” you breathed out, flexing your fingers against his chest so they caught a bit more of the material of his sweater. 

“Yeah,” he huffed out with a smile, and you moved just a little closer, reaching down to grab his other hand and pressing it to your own chest. His fingertips were a little cold, and your entire body shivered, a small sound leaving your lips. Your fingers were slightly threaded with his, and you pressed his palm to the place where your collar split away and exposed your chest. His hand covered so much of your chest, his pinky and index dipping under the fabric, and was so gentle on its own that you pressed it more firmly against the skin. You wanted his fingerprints imprinted on your skin. He breathed out shakily, almost loudly, and your next breath mimicked it as you closed your eyes. It was so hot in the room.

Both of you stood there feeling each other’s heartbeats for a moment, his head dipped lower so your foreheads almost touched. You were standing so close you could feel each other’s breaths against your lips and the sides of your noses just brushed every so often. He gulped, licking his lips as sweat began to build on the back of his neck and the need to rip the sweater off was soaring in priority in his mind. Your lips just brushed each other, cupid's bows just grazing- 

“Alright, so that’s where you say ‘feel my breast’ and begin guiding his hand under your shirt,” Poncho Lady interjected, looking up from the script in her hands. 

You let go of Cillian’s hand and stepped back quickly. It felt like stepping into an air conditioned room from a hot sunny day outside. Your insides were still warm, and the heat that had been tinging your skin hadn’t completely gone away, but you were more awake, more aware. You licked your lips and gave a small smile that you hoped didn’t betray the sudden embarrassment falling upon you. 

You had been in the scene, you had been lost in it. There had been times before when you were acting and when stopped abruptly felt like you were suddenly reentering your body, like your soul had been extracted for a few moments into a different person and then quickly pulled back and thrust into its original form. But this was a different level. This had been you and not you at the same time. You had been doing those things, had wanted to do those things, but you were also being controlled by something outside yourself, being told to do those things. You quietly excused yourself, saying you had left your water bottle in the hair and makeup trailer and would just quickly run and get it. As you turned back one last time at the door, you watched Cillian run a hand through his hair and smile at Poncho Lady as if nothing had happened since he had walked into the room. 

After the door closed behind you, Cillian happened to glance at your tote bag on the block, and saw your water bottle peaking out. He laughed quietly to himself as he sat down next to it. 

He understood how you were feeling. Intimate scenes were always hard, regardless of how many times an actor has done it. Especially intimate scenes when two people have palpable chemistry. If Poncho Lady hadn’t interrupted, he would have kissed you right then. 

Usually kisses between actors were saved for only when they were filming, but he had been lost in that scene, lost in you. Your eyes, teary and pained and so big, were so authentic that it had been easy to fall into his role, the saviour, the anchor. And as you guys had stepped closer and closer, and his senses were bombarded so much, he had lost himself more and more. Your perfume from earlier had worn off, but your skin smelt so good, like cocoa butter body wash. 

From his line of sight, he could see a sliver of your neck where your hair had fallen behind your shoulder. In the moment a sudden, impulsive thought had flashed in his mind, the intense need to lean down and press his mouth to your neck, to kiss it and let his tongue just poke out and drag over the skin. He could even see it now as he sat and waited for you to return, the place where your neck joined your head and the skin went up to behind your ear. He closed his eyes and let himself linger there. 

Then the scene moved on and so did the little movie in his mind. Your hand in his, so soft and gentle as it settled against his chest. Then his hand in yours, your fingertips slightly sweaty and shaking. For a moment he had considered letting his hand stay limp, wanting to see how you would manage to drag the weight of his arm, but that was another intrusive thought that had to be pushed away. 

The skin on your chest was firm but with how firmly you held his hand against it he could feel the slight give of your flesh. His finger had just barely stroked your collarbone as his hand had rested there and he had wanted to move his hand so much more, to so many other places. Up to your neck to feel the soft skin there, to see if he could make you do that full-body shiver again. Down to your breasts, to the delicate skin stretched over them and then to cup them, to feel the weight of them in his hands. 

Cillian opened his eyes and took your water bottle in his hands, opening it and drinking from it as you came back into the room. You looked directly at him and he smiled at the wide-eyed, almost scandalised, look you gave him. He brought the bottle down and screwed the cap back on, putting it right-way up on the block for you to clearly see. He could see a little flush in your cheeks, and watched you rub the tips of your ears with a mischievous smile. 

Poncho and Cardigan Lady didn’t even notice that you returned without a water bottle. 

The intimacy coordinators only made you rehearse the scene two more times before letting you go. They said you both seemed comfortable enough, that you understood what the other person was and wasn’t comfortable with and you were left to your own devices. You left without a glance back and told an assistant you would be heading back to your trailer. She nodded, telling you that someone would come get you for touch ups on your makeup in an hour, and then you walked the entire way back to the makeshift trailer park. 

You only got about fifteen minutes on your own before someone was knocking on the door. You had washed all the makeup off, reasoning that you could simply head back early on your own and give them the time to do it all over again. As you walked, you tied your hair up in a ponytail, awkwardly opening the door with one hand. Cillian smiled politely up at you, arms crossed over his chest and you simply stared at him with wide eyes, blinking stupidly. 

“Hi,” his smile was jovial and infectious, but the one you offered in return felt forced. You felt so awkward around him now, as if you had violated some trust by being so caught up in the moment. “I thought we could walk around a little bit, get to know each other. I think it helps a little bit when filming roles like these.” You paused, fidgeting with the door handle. 

You had really wanted to take a nap, to reset yourself before filming the scene all over again. But this was such an enticing invitation. And maybe it would help you push past all this awkwardness. Maybe getting to know the other actor was better than not knowing. Maybe feeling connected worked better because you had more to think about, more defence in the moment. 

You nodded, holding up your finger for him to wait a moment so you could put your sneakers on and deposit your slippers in your tote bag. He waited patiently, leaning against the outside of the trailer while thumbing through the script. You hopped down the steps and waited for him to take the first stride before following alongside him, taking a winding path back up to the studios. 

“What do you keep in this all-important tote bag?” He asked, eyes squinting in the sun as he teasingly tugged on one of the straps. 

“Oh, heh, just little on-set essentials. Phone, headphones, little snack,” you paused, “my water bottle,” you added quietly, pursing your lips as you watched his smile widen. 

“That’s quite a nice idea, I should think about getting my own,” he nodded as he spoke, and you just smiled. Both of you walked for a little bit without saying anything, and just as the urge to open your mouth and spew out whatever comment happened to be on the tip of your tongue became almost unbearable, Cillian spoke again. “Have you filmed scenes like this before?” He asked, and you knew there were other questions behind it, insinuations. You felt embarrassed all over again, wrapping your arms around yourself and looking straight ahead to the path you were walking. 

“Um, once. And it wasn’t even this intense. I was working on this show, a supporting role with a romantic storyline. I was working with Tom Glynn-Carney?” He let out a little ‘ah’ nodding his head in recognition, muttering a ‘good lad’. “Yeah, it was really small, like a chaste ‘this guy has been my boyfriend for the past two years and I’m just leaving for work’ kind of kiss.” He laughed at that, genuine and melodic, as he looked at the floor and shook his head before looking up to the sky like he was exasperated with your silliness. “And Tom’s really sweet so it went really well, but this has a lot more expectation on it. It feels like going from the kids' pool to the deep end.” You chose to leave out the fact that his very good looks and insane acting abilities made it that much more difficult. 

Both of you paused for a moment, turning to each other in the late afternoon light. He stared at you and you wrapped your arms around yourself again, suddenly feeling like you were exposed to the elements. Slowly, he reached up and pressed the tip of his index finger to your cheek just under your eye. You stared at him, at his lips as he breathed in, and the moment was so slow, so natural, that for a moment you considered stepping forward and kissing him. But someone hit fast-forward again and he pulled back, holding up his finger to you. 

“I’m sorry, you had an eyelash,” he explained. “Make a wish,” he whispered, holding it close to your lips and you waited a beat, looking into his eyes as you leaned closer and blew the little eyelash away. You felt like you couldn’t breathe. You turned and began walking quickly, a rain of dread suddenly drizzling onto your shoulders. Maybe it was a premonition, maybe it was delusion, but something told you that all these moments were leading to something and you wouldn’t necessarily come out of it for the better. 

You pressed his hand to your chest, breathing in slowly and looking into his eyes as if everything you’ve ever wanted was held there. His fingers flexed, just slightly, and you began to move it down, dipping it under the edge of the pyjama shirt. 

“Feel my breast,” you whispered, guiding his hand into your shirt until you could feel it searing the flesh of your breast. He was breathing heavily now, chest shaking as he pressed even closer to you, moving his head so his nose lightly brushed your nose. You tilted your head up further so your lips were aligned and only a little move was necessary to connect them. You looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, thoughts racing, trying to decipher what the other person was thinking but also knowing exactly the thoughts that rain through their head, peaking themselves out into their eyes. And then he was kissing you, mouth slightly open, pressing your bottom lip between his. You moved the hand on his chest up to cup the side of your neck, steadying yourself as he gripped onto your chest and devoured your mouth. And his tongue was in your mouth, delving in and pressing to yours, and you couldn’t breathe but you didn’t want to either and his thumb was pressing against your nipple and your entire body was tingling and- 

“Cut! That was perfect, guys!” 

You pulled away slowly, so so slowly. Your lips still stuck to his a little as you moved away. His hand was almost lethargic in its pace to snake out of your shirt, and you moved your own down from his neck to his chest before bringing it back down to your side. You were both breathing heavily, glancing away from each other then back, away then back before you finally turned away and walked off the set toward the chairs and cameras. You licked your lips as you walked, trying to savour the taste of him. 

The director let you all go for the evening, telling you he’d see you all bright and early on the other side of the studio lot for the ‘second meeting’ scene. You hauled your tote bag over your shoulder and practically ran to the golf cart. You spent the entire ride with your eyes closed. 

You didn’t bother eating dinner, just did your night routine and lay down on the bed. There was a little window in the bed area covered with blinds that had been left unfolded. Yellow light from somewhere on the lot was shining in through the cracks but you couldn’t be bothered to move them. You lay in a state between sleep and wakefulness until midnight. Your brain was buzzing with too many thoughts but you were too tired to think through them. 

Five minutes past one, and there was a knock at your trailer door, three soft thuds. You shifted on the bed, lifting your head up slightly to listen for another one. It came, the person was trying to be quiet, and you slowly slid out of bed. You tiptoed to the door and only opened it an inch. Cillian stood directly in front of the trailer, so close to the door that if you opened it wider he would basically be inside. He was wearing a plain white round-neck shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants, his hands shoved into the pockets. His hair was still relatively neat, which meant he hadn’t gone to bed yet, and you suddenly felt self-conscious, patting down the back of your head as you blinked up at him. He smiled, a small thing that didn’t reach his eyes, and you opened the door a little wider, pulling the sleeves of your hoodie down so they wrapped over your fingertips. 

“Can I come in?” He asked quietly, low and serious. You nodded, moving back and letting him close the door behind himself.

You both stood in the little space between the kitchenette and the door. You felt fully awake now, but everything in the world was still. There was pin-drop silence and you two simply looked at each other. Then he was moving forward, slowly, one step at a time, until he was standing as close to you as he was when you were both filming earlier, maybe even closer. 

Every breath you took made your chest brush his. You could feel your nipples tightening and pushing against your hoodie. He brought both of his hands up to cup your head on either side, then leaned down and kissed you firmly. It was slow, a little pull back and then he was pushing in, kissing you again. Everything inside you was slowly heating up, like a saucepan set on a low fire. Your limbs were filling up with it, there was a lump at the back of your throat, and your core was slowly tightening into itself. Your hands shook and you lifted them to press into his sides, clenching your hands into the soft material of his t-shirt. He kissed you again and again until you were heaving your breaths in and leaning your upper body onto his. 

Cillian pulled away and looked at you, a pause as if waiting or asking, and you simply pointed behind you at the little hallway that led to the bedroom. He nodded, just one little movement of his head tipping down, then he pulled away, grasping your hand in his and walking you both to the little bed area. 

The blinds were still spilling orangey-yellow light into the room, and he simply sat you on the bed before turning around to adjust them so they were closed a little tighter but still let small slits of light into the room. Then he got on his knees right in front of you, pushing himself forward so he was between your legs and your knees pressed into his ribs. You were taking deep breaths in, staring at him with parted lips as he brushed your hair away from your face and kissed you once. 

Everything felt so… small. The room was only the space you two inhabited, your breaths were his breaths, your eyes only looking into his eyes, your lips only existing to kiss his. His fingers gently burrowed under the fabric of your hoodie and began lifting it up. He waited for you to raise your arms then slowly removed each of your sleeves, dropping it into a heap next to himself. You were only wearing a bra underneath it, and he lightly caressed your stomach, watching you shudder out breaths at the sensation. He reached up with his other hand and slid one of the bra straps down your shoulder, touching the little mark it had left behind before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to it. Then the other strap was shifted down, another kiss on your shoulder. Your mouth was dry, your hands shaking. You wanted him to consume you. 

You reached out and lightly tugged on the collar of his shirt. He instantly leaned back and took it off, exposing pale skin and softly defined muscles. Each ridge was gentle, like the artist had painstakingly smudged out any harsh lines. You wanted to feel his body pressing down on top of you. 

He gently tugged your shorts down your legs, waiting patiently for you to lean back and lift your hips up so he could get them off. His right hand moved to splay over your stomach, gently pressing until you were laying flat on your back while his left hand lifted your legs to rest over his shoulders. He slowly pulled you forward until the small of your back was curved to the edge of the bed and all the weight of your lower body was on his shoulders. He looked up at you once, bright blue eyes so shiny in the dim light that you wanted to stop and take a picture. But you only breathed out a little shuddering moan as he pressed his lips against your pussy, poking his tongue out and gently licking between the folds. You clenched your eyes shut, one arm thrown carelessly above your head as you bit down on your other hand. 

It was warm and wet and hot. The room felt humid and your skin burned. His lips were so soft, his tongue skillful, and your hips rolled with every movement, warm tendrils of pleasure moving in waves through your body. He licked until your thighs were messy and you could feel his cheeks stick to the insides. He pressed the tip of his tongue inside you until the pressure at your entrance was making you convulse and the sounds leaving your lips were a little too loud for your own liking. You bit so hard into your hand that you were sure your teeth marks would be there the following morning and let your body quiver on the bed as he pulled away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

You could see his chest heaving up and down and you pushed up to lean on your elbows, watching him push the sweatpants off his hips before draping himself over you. You closed your eyes and fell back onto the bed, letting him spread your legs and drape them over his hips. When he pushed into you, you curled around him. Your legs tightened around his waist, your arms wrapped around his torso and you pressed your face into his shoulder, muffled sounds spilling from your lips and into his skin. You could hear him panting directly by your ear, feel the wet breaths against the shell of your ear as he turned his head to nip at it. He began moving, backwards and forwards, pull and push, drag and rub. You pushed your hips up against him, a little ‘unh’ sound pushing from your chest when the little space below his belly button pressed perfectly against your clit. 

You lost yourself in the pleasure. Time didn’t exist in that space, only the feeling of your insides climbing up, reaching for something that would make stars burst behind your eyes. It was the feeling of the bed sheets rubbing against your skin, the clasp of your bra pressing into your back. It was his skin sticking to yours, your hands digging into his back, his lips on your cheek, behind your ear. It was the sounds of your hips meeting, soft consistent thumps that slowly began to increase in speed. 

And then you were there. The moment where everything was just right. When the weight of him inside you and the press against your clit lined up perfectly. When his lips were pressed against your cheek and somewhere a star aligned in the universe. It was like warm flowers blooming inside your stomach, so brightly it was almost painful. You clenched around him, pressed your knees to his ribs as tight as they would go. You clenched your teeth tightly together but pressed your mouth to his shoulder so all the sounds came out muffled and weird, high pitched from the back of your throat or deep from the pit of your stomach. 

He groaned when he finished, hands gripping your hips so tightly you felt them even after he let go. His eyes were scrunched shut and when his hips convulsed a few times he almost hissed at the sensation. He quickly pulled out, falling down right beside you. Neither of you moved for a long while. 

When your joints finally felt like they would no longer fall apart if you moved, you slowly turned to lay on your side. He was already looking at you, eyes soft and tracing over every feature of your face. He reached out, blunt fingertips gently brushing hair off of your forehead and cheeks. He stroked one with his thumb, then moved forward to press the gentlest, most loving kiss against your lips. You kept your eyes closed even when he pulled away. 

He was gone when you woke up in the morning. You thought you dreamed it for a moment, the most vivid dream you had ever had in your life. But you were naked under the blanket, and you never remembered pulling it up from the edge of the bed so someone had tucked you in. Your hoodie and shorts were folded and placed on the tiny nightstand beside the bed, and your blinds were fully closed. When you shifted to get out of bed, you could still feel the way fingertips had pressed into your thighs and a soft soreness throbbing between your legs. Not a dream. 

But then everything felt weird when you left the trailer. You didn’t see Cillian until you were on set for filming and he was busy with the director until ‘action!’ was called. You followed him after ‘cut!’ but he only sat and watched the scene over or read from his script. He smiled politely at you, gave you a wave when he caught you looking, but made no special effort to come over to you. 

You felt off-kilter the entire day, like a joke was being pulled on you but you couldn’t figure out what it was. But then, as you curled up in your bed after sunset, watching the sky darken through the window, he knocked on your door again. And you let him in, let him kiss you and take you to bed. And in the dead of night he wrapped you up in the bed sheets, whispering little jokes, telling stories, watching you like you were precious. And then the cycle started all over again the next day. 

You reasoned with yourself. You guys were still at work, you needed to be professional on set, and it seemed to explain everything away. He snuck into your bed at night, wrapped his arms around you and kissed you, coaxed you into sleep eventually, but never in the daylight. Not even a touch other than the ones on camera. 

You couldn’t feel yourself getting attached, couldn’t see yourself manoeuvring your life around him until you knew you would beg for him to just take your hand in the daytime once, let you call him your man. You came when he called, followed where he went. You didn’t realise until you were devoted, didn’t realise until the willow had bent to the wind.

Taglist: @4ria790

[mrs-stans]

Sebastian Stan

Words Natty Kasambala

Beloved for Captain America, I, Tonya, and his recent Emmy-nominated role in Pam & Tommy, Stan reflects on a career shaped by diverse characters. Now, with A Different Man and The Apprentice, he’s exploring deep questions about identity, ambition, and the complexities of portraying one of America’s most influential (and controversial) men, Donald Trump

Sebastian Stan wears Rag & Bone throughout. Photography Jim Goldberg

The first time Sebastian Stan tried acting, he hated it. At 9 or 10 years old, he played a Romanian orphan in an Austrian film called 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994). Between the waiting around, night shoots, and general pressure-cooker energy, the whole experience had been pretty anxiety-inducing. “I think the idea of a set was just really terrifying,” he recalls. The 42-year-old mainstay admits to being a Leo, but a rather reluctant one, he says, not that extroverted or hypersocial. “I know my mom always thought I was creative simply because I would impersonate the people in our family, or birds or whatever I would see around me.” Nowadays, when he does speak, it’s with the compelling ease of someone who’s spent equal time commanding impressive rooms and in their own head trying to crack the great questions of the world – sounding off passionately about the perils of social media (“there’s so much noise in today’s world”) or the last incredible film he watched (Sing Sing and it was “pure heart”).

Born in Romania and raised in Vienna until he was 12, it wasn’t until immigrating to America as a preteen that Stan found his way back to the craft at all. Attending Stagedoor Manor summer camp aged 15, in the Catskill mountains of upstate New York, his spark was reignited. “That place was really magical and made me fall in love with (acting again); I couldn’t think of anything else as exciting to me as performing was,” he says. “Some of it was about not ever being sure of what to be when I grew up. I kept thinking that you could be a lot of things if you did this.”

So far, he’s been a wayward socialite, a cannibal, a space surgeon, a ski patrol villain, a heavy metal drummer, a supernatural student and a World War II veteran turned brainwashed Soviet operative, to n ame but a few. He’s not an actor you’ll find in the same role twice. With that said, his name has reached household status through a decade-long Marvel stint, with the two films Stan finds himself at the helm of this year being his most ambitious forays yet. 33 years on from his awkward beginning, the actor’s commitment to film appears to still be very much in bloom. “I think I’m at a point in my life where I’m trying to understand things on a deeper level,” he explains. “I can’t say I know everything, you’re always growing, always having to explore. I think it’s important to stay curious, to stay in a certain degree of healthy discomfort… I want to be part of important storytelling that’s asking important questions and reflecting our time.”

In A Different Man, an A24 production directed by Aaron Schimberg, Stan takes on the role of an aspiring actor called Edward with neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition that results in the extensive growth of benign tumours. He undergoes a clinical trial that cures him of his physical symptoms, but his new life turns out to be far from what he dreamed for himself. It’s a winding surrealist investigation into the social impacts of disability, alienation, representation and self-image: its gaze is unflinching, its narrative self-referential and its humour pitch-black. Stan has already won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at the Berlin Film Festival for A Different Man.

The second release, The Apprentice, follows a wildly different arc. Directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, it tracks a young Trump as he falls under the nefarious mentorship of infamous legislator Roy Cohn. Dubbed ‘an American Horror Story’, it’s a sobering yet deeply entertaining snapshot of the making of one of America’s most influential men. Yet even within the dynamic, prescient story, the actor’s take on Trump is subtle and human, and the tone of the film is less moralising and more matter of fact.

Though the narratives of these two projects are starkly different, you can’t help but find the common threads. Both are set in New York and document a transformation, and both centre a feverish pursuit of some ideal imagined self. A Different Man was filmed back in 2022, and The Apprentice only wrapped in February of this year, but Stan agrees it’s a curious double-header. “I’m weirdly finding parallels between them that I never thought I would. Identity, self-truth, self-abandonment. This idea that we’re always chasing in America, whether it’s image or status or an inability to accept failure and to take ownership over mistakes.”

For the Trump film, that real-life denial was almost the ending of their work of fiction. After years of false starts, Trump’s legal team attempted to block the film’s release in the US altogether and they struggled to find a distributor willing to take on the risk of pissing off a potential President. “For to edit it and get it to Cannes in some finished version itself in five months was just insane. There was no idea if the movie was going to come out,” Stan says. On an individual level, the task felt equally murky and intimidating at first. “You’re trying to tell a story about somebody that’s so famous, who everyone has an opinion about: either extreme love and adoration or hate and animosity. And everyone’s got a version of the guy, so you think, well what do I…” he shrugs, “how do I find my way into it?” Ultimately, they landed on this film as a means of peeling back the layers of one of the most polarising figures of our time. It’s less caricature and more character study as it explores his relationship with his father, his ambitions, the man he was before the slogans and affectations.

Executive producer Amy Baer has spoken about the choice to call on a non-American director to provide a new lens on the intricacies of American culture, propaganda and patriotism. With Stan’s own immigrant story, his perspective adds another dimension to that prism too. Memories of walking down Fifth Avenue in awe and wonder as a kid, staring up at all the big buildings – he tapped into a hunger and drive to portray early Trump as a young man desperately trying to be a part of The Club. “I guess with my experience coming to this country, it was communicated to me even from Eastern Europe that this is the place where you can make something of yourself, you can have a good idea… and you could just succeed,” Stan says. The Apprentice asks, “but at what cost? What happens to a person’s humanity?”

Throughout the film, you witness Trump espousing about “bringing back New York”, even remarking on Reagan’s campaign slogan ‘Let’s Make America Great Again’ towards the end, an ideology he would go on to repurpose for his own candidacy. It’s a fascinating yet depressing origin story of a nationalistic rhetoric that echoes today as a Trojan horse for corruption and greed. “It’s complicated. That’s why I think there’s value in exploring it,” Stan urges. “This American Dream idea is a really powerful driving force that also comes with consequences.”

Perhaps the most complex part was the toxic relationship with his sometimes-partner-in-crime played staggeringly by Jeremy Strong. “I think he was the best partner I’ve ever had in anything I’ve worked on,” Stan declares with a smile. “You know when you’re standing in front of a fire and you feel the heat of it and there’s crackling in the air? That’s how it felt.” Amidst quite a gruelling, isolating filming schedule, it’s the aspect Stan speaks about most fondly.

Clothing Fendi, Necklace & Bracelet Cartier, Boots Givenchy

Swinging between dominant and intimate, transactional and paternal, from comical to devastating, both stayed in character throughout the shoot and undertook a colossal amount of research to be prepared for infinite possible improvised routes. “Creatively, makes things interesting is when you’re not in control. You do all this preparation to be prepared to be surprised,” Stan says. Shot documentary-style in moments, Abbasi might give each of them notes in private to shift the tone of a scene, and they’d find themselves responding instinctively within their roles. “The only way you can achieve that is if, to some degree, you find that person in you. And I can certainly tell you,” he pauses briefly to consider his landing. “There is a version of Trump that existed in me. And I’ll make the argument that there’s a version of Trump that exists in all of us. And that part of our job, part of our interest, should be figuring out what that is. I think we have to acknowledge and expose the things in us that are not so easy to admit, in order to further protect the things we need to fight for. You can’t ignore it.”

In that moment, it’s clear that it’s an argument as true of our discourse on Trump as it is of Stan’s other role in A Different Man. His character Edward is driven to obsession and madness when he witnesses the thriving life of a person with the same disfigurement he was quick to shed, the very thing he believed to be the root of all his misfortune. Right before his transformation, Edward has been ignoring a leak in his ceiling for weeks, and the damage is getting worse. When he’s finally forced to call for a repair, the super arrives and is appalled at how bad he’s allowed it to get. He tells Edward frustratedly, “you should have fixed this sooner”. In that moment, it feels as though he’s talking about a hundred things at once. From Edward’s own issues with doubt and self-acceptance that cling to him even when he is no longer ‘different’ to our own society’s discomfort with, and the misunderstanding of disability altogether. We cannot be afraid to look.

“Edward makes a decision that he thinks is going to improve his life, but he’s not making it for himself. He’s making it because he’s watched other people and he’s grown up in a society that’s told him this is what works,” Stan explains. “Essentially, he abandons himself and he spirals down trying to further live with that painful acknowledgement. I think we have to be conscious of when we’re making decisions that go against who we are and what we truly want.”

In true indie style, squeezing in around the schedule of their makeup artist who was on another project at the same time, Stan had some hours to kill most mornings in prosthetics before filming which he’d spend navigating the city he calls home: “one of the gifts that I was given which I’m very grateful for was the experience that I had walking around New York City as Edward.” With reactions to him ranging from invisibility to hypervisibility, it shifted his entire understanding.

“I’ve been there like everybody else thinking, oh, if I had that. Or you see someone on Instagram and you’re like, oh my God, look at that life, they have the best life; you get caught up in these things.” It’s both reassuring and a little disheartening that, unlike his superhuman alter ego, a star like Stan is still not immune to the very human insecurities us civilians face of joy-stealing comparisons. “There’s this idea I’ve been thinking about a lot with my therapist actually,” he laughs. “He was saying ‘I am me and you are you.’ I was like… yeah! But you forget. We have to understand our own experience and then understand someone else’s. But we have to try to understand it not through our own emotional… vomit.”

When I ask Sebastian what he does for fun, to unbecome his characters and shed their existential weight, he cites reading (mostly non-fiction) and travel (to see other cultures). “I always feel like I’m not learning enough,” he laughs. You get the sense that this year is a juncture for Stan, always revered for being grounded and likeable, but perhaps waiting for opportunities like these to enrich and express other sides of himself as an actor and voice within culture. “Both of these films came at an interesting time where I’m thinking about if I’m at mid-life, this second half of my life. What is it that I want to be a part of and one day look back and be proud of?”

And that’s not to say fun is off the table for Stan. He’s passionate about laughter as a release in a difficult world. “I think it’s just as important, we have to protect humour,” he tells me with an urgency. “I love comedies, romantic comedies, action.” In fact, there’s a top-secret action movie passion project that he has in the works and hopes will come together in the right way. “There are also things in Marvel I want to do and explore with ol’ Bucky Barnes,” he smiles, presumably in reference to the new Marvel film Thunderbolts, slated for a 2025 release, in which he stars alongside Florence Pugh, Harrison Ford and David Harbour. “Otherwise I just want to keep learning how to be a human being. I’m telling you,” he laughs, “I feel like it’s pretty hard.”

Photography Jim Goldberg Styling Reuben Esser Production Hyperion LA Hair Jamie Taylor using Augustinus Bader Hair Erica Adams Represented by A-Frame Agency

[imagitory]

Review: Wish (2023) [SPOILERS]

Evening, everyone! Tonight my mother and I went to go see Disney's most recent film, Wish, which fortunately came to theaters in my area right before its formal American release date. I'd been very curious to see how this tribute to Disney's last 100 years of filmmaking would turn out, and now that I've seen it...well, I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed. I want to be very clear both that I was going into this with a rather sunny outlook and that there are things I really liked in this film...but overall, it felt like a lot of the good ideas it had were only half-baked, and I found myself -- forgive me -- "wishing for something more" than what we got.

For a more comprehensive deep-dive...a cut!

The Good!

+The single best element in this film for me was Chris Pine's performance as our villain, Magnifico. There are definitely some things I can critique about Magnifico's overall storyline and "character arc" further down, but Chris was clearly having a grand old time being an egotistical, sassy jerkwad, and it totally showed. Even in his villain song This is The Thanks I Get?, which just screamed "passive-aggressive abusive parent," you can hear how much fun Chris was having in the studio, recording it. I just about always enjoyed when Magnifico was on screen, and I actually did really like the idea that a lot of his villainy is rooted in him being obsessed with control over everyone and everything. In a weird way, Magnifico's turn to the Dark Side parallels Anakin Skywalker's in the sense that he lost so much in the past that he's determined to never lose anything important to him again -- especially the power he's accrued to make himself feel strong, after having felt so powerless. I find that very interesting, and I kind of wish that aspect was really highlighted more in the story, but we'll talk about that later.

+Asha was a likable enough heroine, even if I found her to be a lot like a two-way fusion of Mulan and Anna placed in a vaguely Snow-White-ish role in her clearly Seven-Dwarf-inspired friend group. Ariana DeBose portrayed her rather well, both acting and singing-wise. I also liked the "social justice" bent to Asha's character where she wants better things not just for herself and her family, but also Rosas overall -- in the French translation of her main song "This Wish," they even push this further by having Asha wish "to see the world happy again someday." We haven't seen a heroine really express this kind of desire for a positive change in the world since Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and that's cool! Plus representation in mainstream media for previously underrepresented groups is always nice. ^.^

+As much as I don't think they all got enough focus as individuals, I liked Asha's friend group! Especially the fact that it is a friend group made up of people that are around the same age as our protagonist, which -- let's be honest -- isn't that common for Disney heroines. Often with "sidekick groups," you're more likely to have situations like Cinderella with the mice (who are more like cutesy sidekicks than equals) or Snow White with the Dwarfs (who are all quite a bit older than our heroine)...so a friend group made up of peers with their own personalities and motivations was kind of fun.

+The setting of Rosas itself could be pretty. I liked a lot of the Mediterranean-inspired architecture, especially inside Magnifico's tower.

+The combination of 3D and 2D-esque animation was also interesting! It really served to give the film its own distinctive visual style that sets it apart from other Disney projects, which I always appreciate.

+Star was...cute. Obviously just designed to sell plushies and definitely reminded me way too much of Kirby, but cute enough. I do think it's kind of cool that they're never gendered at all in the entire movie, because it'd be silly to think of a sweet little androgynous ball of stardust as being specifically male or female.

+I liked the idea of Simon "betraying" Asha, only to be turned into a pawn by Magnifico in the process, but not being treated unsympathetically by the story for it. Didn't love the full execution of the idea, but hey, that's what the negative section is for.

+The idea of everyone finding the power inside of themselves to stand up against Magnifico (because they're "all stars," and presumably all have the magic needed to make their wishes come true) was a little predictable, but still sweet. I have problems with how the film wrote it (which we'll get to), but the idea itself was wholesome and fitting.

+I like several of the songs, just on their own -- I added This Wish and Knowing What I Know Now on my ITunes as soon as I first heard them prior to the film's release, and now I've added At All Costs too: it's a really pretty duet! (Gorgeous work, Chris and Ariana!) I'll leave my praise here, though, because sadly the soundtrack is going to get a lot of discussion in the less positive section.

The Not-So-Good...

+This film being "Disney's 100th anniversary film" really got in the way of this movie telling a compelling and unique story sometimes. The whole movie really twisted itself into a pretzel trying to check off all the usual Disney tropes, and there were points that certain choices made the story seem incredibly stilted. For instance, one common Disney trope is a dead parent, so of course Asha has lost her father -- but we learn so little about him and he ends up playing such a small role in Asha's arc and story that it seems like an unnecessary detail. Asha's grandfather honestly plays more of a role in Asha's motivation throughout most of the film, so it would've made just as much sense to have Asha's grandfather be the one who believed in stars having power, rather than her father. Another example is the concept of the cute animal sidekick who's just there to make jokes -- as much as Valentino the goat didn't annoy me personally, he added just about nothing of value to the story whatsoever aside from comic relief, in contrast to other funny sidekicks like Sebastian from The Little Mermaid or Olaf from Frozen, who also serve a plot purpose and have a developed relationship with the protagonists. Then there's Asha being cut from the same "naive, awkward, wide-eyed idealist" cloth as many of our Disney Revival heroines like Anna, Rapunzel, and up to a certain point even Mirabel are; Star being in a similar vein to cutesy, innocent sidekicks like Pua, Crikee, and Baymax while Valentino is more akin to sassier, comic ones like Mushu and Sisu; her friends literally being based on the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White; our heroine getting a pretty standard "I Want" song and the villain getting his own solo number that doesn't really take any risks...oh yes, and we mustn't forget the trope of the Storybook opening, which (I'm sorry) I know was supposed to be a reference to Snow White, Cinderella, and Enchanted, but just gave me Shrek vibes the entire time. I was waiting for Shrek to rip out the page and use it for toilet paper any minute. It just felt a lot of the time like the movie was very paint-by-numbers, rather than throwing in much that was surprising or different.

+This isn't even touching all of the pointless meta references to other Disney movies. Asha wearing the Fairy Godmother's cloak and getting a wand like hers at the end -- the mushrooms crowing "we love crazy!" the way Hans did in Love is an Open Door -- Asha riding the reindeer the way Kristoff did in Frozen 2 -- Magnifico using green smoke hands a la Ursula -- the ending with those obvious Wendy and Peter Pan look-alikes, come on, really??? That was just painful.

+As much as Magnifico was an awesome idea for a character and Chris Pine's performance was beyond entertaining, the movie did not always write him as well as they could've. From the very start, we see this guy is an egotistical control freak -- obsessed with his own image, incredibly hard-to-please, arrogant, vain, desperate for attention and unwavering praise and adoration from all of his subjects, and determined to keep an iron grip on everyone else's wishes because of the power it gives him. He's ALREADY a terrible person, from the start -- and yet the film tries to introduce this dark magic book that gets no explanation or backstory whatsoever and has no real characterization or presence, so it leaves no real impact on the audience corrupting him and making him a bad person, when it didn't need to! Magnifico was already the villain this film needed! Just let him fall head-first into madness without the book prompting anything! Even if Magnifico "lost everything" in the past, that doesn't make him a good person, if he takes everyone's wishes away from them and hoards them all to himself, only to grant a few now and again when it would make him look good.

+This above point actually leads nicely into one change I really, really wish the film had been ballsy enough to make -- have Asha already be Magnifico's apprentice, not trying to become it at the start of the story. Give our villain and hero a real relationship, with history that started before the events of this film! Asha lost her father at the age of 12...how interesting would it have been -- whether to make Magnifico more of an anti-villain or show how manipulative he really is -- if he'd tried to fill that fatherly role for our main character and twist her to serve his ends? What if At All Costs was rewritten to be about Magnifico not just being determined to hold onto all of the kingdom's wishes, but also this apprentice he sees as an extension of him and his legacy, while Asha is determined to protect this Star she's accidentally summoned and the suppressed wish of hers it represents? This change would've made Asha's break with Magnifico so much more powerful for both of them -- it would've both justified Magnifico's descent into madness and given Asha more reason to feel like it was her responsibility to stop Magnifico. You even could've then played more with Asha's relationship with Queen Amaya too, in this kind of a scenario.

+Oh yeah, and on that note, Queen Amaya. OOH, this really annoyed me -- okay. So this woman is supposed to be a good guy, in this story. But as I touched on earlier, Magnifico was already a pretty awful person, hoarding people's wishes away in order to make himself powerful. Was Amaya truly so blind to that? Did she truly never question anything, ever? But no, really, she only turns on Magnifico after he starts using the dark magic book and actively threatens her. Only that makes her turn from him, and it's pretty damn immediate. Now okay, I hear you saying, it's like Amaya sings in Knowing What I Know Now, right? "The good in him, I've watched it melt // I was blinded by the love I felt"? Excuse me, lady -- but Magnifico wasn't a good person, before. He was just playing a part so as to stay powerful and adored by the masses. And if the story wants to claim otherwise, and act like that dark magic book was responsible for Magnifico going bad, then why would our Queen decide to keep him locked up in his staff's crystal forever? If the book was responsible, then Magnifico would be the Frodo or Golum to the book's One Ring -- he'd be a victim, in such a scenario: one in need of help and pity, not punishment. So either Amaya is a selfish person who only cared about her husband's mistreatment of others when it affected her, or she's a needlessly cruel person who decides to punish her husband for a vice that anyone could fall prey to. Either way, I don't want this woman ruling anyone! Make this woman a straight-up villain, same as her husband, and have the whole monarchy come crashing down after she and Magnifico both go down in flames! VIVE LA RESISTANCE! (Playing into my idea with Asha being Magnifico's apprentice all along, maybe there could even be a twist on the Evil Stepmother trope with Amaya, where she's jealous of how much Magnifico has tried to groom Asha as his apprentice, rather than spending time and/or starting a family with her or something.)

+As I touched on earlier, there wasn't even close to enough time to develop all of these characters properly. Since our heroine and friends are most similar to Snow White and her friends the Seven Dwarfs, let's compare cast size. Snow White is 83 minutes long and has a cast of ten (Snow, the Prince, the Queen, and the Dwarfs) -- Wish is 95 minutes long and has a cast of fourteen (Asha, Magnifico, Star, Valentino, Amaya, Asha's mum and grandpa, and our seven Friends). This results in us getting the vague idea that "Grumpy" role Gabo is sweet on our "Bashful" role Bazeema, but no time to develop their relationship or give it any kind of conclusion; the others saying "Sneezy" role Safi apparently loves the castle chickens with no sympathetic explanation why, to the point that he gets super excited about a chicken growing to a giant size for no real reason; "Doc" role Dahlia having a crush on Magnifico that is then dropped immediately after Asha turns against him; oldest kid and "Sleepy" role Simon feeling incomplete without the dream he gave Magnifico and "betraying" Asha as a result in an attempt to get it back, only to get stabbed in the back by Magnifico, and then have no time for a proper redemption after he's unhypnotized; Asha's grandfather turning on a dime about whether or not he wants to know what his wish was if Magnifico thought it was dangerous; Magnifico getting some justification in his backstory for his bad behavior, but Amaya's backstory being a complete black hole before she married Magnifico when you'd think it'd explain all the more why she stuck with him so long; and Asha's mum having her wish crushed to dust by Magnifico and then given back without us EVER LEARNING WHAT IT EVEN WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE, even after we see just about everyone else's wishes as soon as somebody picks it up and Asha's mum's wish gets picked up multiple times!! Come on, if you're going to set up NOT showing it, you may as well have a pay-off for it!! At least give us some moment where Asha's mum hugs her in relief and acknowledges that her daughter was her wish! That would've been a nice "aww" moment for everyone!

+Okay, I said I was going to talk about my problem with the songs, so here goes. As I said before, I listened to the soundtrack before watching the movie, and even when I did, I could immediately sense a problem: these songs did not tell me much of anything about the movie, just on their own. Welcome to Rosas, which is pretty much just an exposition dump about the kingdom and how Magnifico founded it, didn't really paint a picture of our setting or characters much at all, the way opening songs like Belle or The Family Madrigal do. This Wish, although pretty, was something I could hear just as easily on the radio -- it didn't feel as tied or necessary to understanding our heroine the way something like Part of That World does. I'm a Star, quite frankly, felt like a lot of inspirational word salad, rather than anything particularly memorable or revelatory -- why else wouldn't it even be worthy of a musical salute in the reprise, where Asha remembers that she and everyone else are stars during the climax? Even after reading summaries of the plot and spoilers from the storybook for this film, I could not figure out for the life of me how At All Costs would fit organically into such a story, being sung by our villain and hero. It wasn't until I saw the film that I saw how the filmmakers decided to fit it in and honestly...the song didn't help tell that particular scene at all. It's a really pretty song and I like it a lot -- but it lacked any of the irony or contrast that kind of a scene that introduces the difference in focus between our hero and villain required. If the scene itself is needed to understand what's supposed to be going on while the song is playing, then the song is not effectively telling the story and is therefore unnecessary. There wasn't even a particularly Spanish or Mediterranean flair to the soundtrack to help set the stage, aside from the occasional flourish of castanets -- instead it sounded very contemporary, which I guess is appropriate, since it was largely written by pop composers rather than any musical theater talent.

+There were also points where the songs felt the urge to shove in a bunch of extra words just because, rather than have the words flow well and really mean something. I'm a Star is most guilty of this, of course, but even in This is the Thanks I Get?, we hear Magnifico gripe that "I let you live here for free and I don't even charge you rent" -- mate, THAT MEANS THE SAME THING! If you live somewhere for free, then you are NOT paying rent!

+Knowing What I Know Now is a bop and I like it (aside from Amaya's stupidity), but I'm sorry, all I can think when I hear it is "This is clearly trying to be Ready as I'll Ever Be from Tangled the Animated Series, but that song blows this out of the water." However fun the song can be, it would've been so much stronger if it actually addressed the contrast between the characters and revved us up for a big final battle, instead of it just being our eight underdeveloped characters psyching each other up.

+The idea of everyone being stars was a lovely idea, but the execution of Asha remembering this fact and using it to defeat Magnifico was terribly handled. First off, there was no revelatory phrase or action that prompted Asha to remember this fact, so her suddenly saying that "they're all stars" came out of nowhere. Second, even putting aside that there'd be no way any of her friends could hear Asha from all the way up on the tower if they're stuck in the courtyard below, there's no reason I can see for Asha's friends or family to know what the hell she was even TALKING about. They weren't there when the I'm a Star number happened! And the way that number made it seem, just based on the visuals, it looked like the "star" power came from a person's dream, since it's the same glow that returns to Asha's grandfather when he gets his dream back, but most of the town's dreams have been already yanked out by Magnifico at this point! I think the idea is that since everyone is a star, even with that big piece of them and the power accompanying it taken out, they still have enough stardust inside of them to be powerful enough to chase their heart's desires...but yeah, I'm sorry, for all the word salad I'm a Star threw around, this world-building aspect was really not made clear, and because of that and the lack of a proper callback to this plot turn, the climax didn't hit as strong as it should've.

Overall, this film felt a lot like a batch of unbaked chocolate chip cookies that someone decided to throw a bunch of brightly colored sprinkles on top of, just because they could. A lot of ideas just don't feel like they were fully developed, and there was a lot tossed in that didn't contribute to the overall taste or bring the disparate elements together in a cohesive whole, instead feeling more like a distraction than anything of actual substance. That doesn't mean I couldn't eat it -- I like eating cookie dough as much as the next person -- but that doesn't mean it felt like a complete, finished product worthy of great praise. Instead I'm left looking at the wasted potential and wishing the movie had carved out its own path more, one distinctive to itself, rather than just be a mashup of previous Disney concepts and tropes. I won't act like there's nothing to like here, nor that it's completely lacking in heart: I actually would love to see fandom for this movie re-imagine it in ways that could've improved the story and characters, because there were SO many good ideas here...but for me personally, this movie left me colder than it should've and -- like Asha after meeting Magnifico -- a bit disappointed.

So I make this wish...to have Disney make a film better than this.

Overall Grade: C-

[onlydylanobrien]

Dylan O’Brien Sets ‘Twinless’ With James Sweeney Directing & Starring; Republic Pictures Takes Global On Three Point Capital & David Permut Production

EXCLUSIVE: Dylan O’Brien is set to headline in James Sweeney‘s dark comedy Twinless, which the latter wrote and will also star in. Republic Pictures has taken global rights to the movie. Cameras are currently rolling on the movie in Portland, OR. O’Brien will executive produce.

The pic follows two young men who meet in a twin bereavement support group. An unlikely bromance develops between them. Twinless follow Sweeney’s directorial debut, Straight Up, which notched the filmmaker a Best First Screenplay nom at the 2021 Independent Spirit Awards.

Three Point Capital is financing the film with Ali Jazayeri, David Gendron and Liz Destro also serving as EPs.

Twinless is produced by Academy Award nominated producer David Permut and Permut Presentations (Hacksaw Ridge, Face/Off) whose most recent Netflix movie, Rustin, garnered Colman Domingo a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

Miky Lee (Parasite) Vice Chairwoman of CJ and who most recently executive produced the Oscar nominated film Past Lives, serves as EP.

Permut Presentations Director Of Development Alex Astrachan co-produces.

Permut said, “I was absolutely knocked out by James’ first film Straight Up and was determined to work with him. I immediately responded to the originality and provocative concept of Twinless. The dark comedy depicts complex characters in such an irreverent, emotional and hysterical way. The chemistry between Dylan, who portrays the role of identical twin brothers, opposite James’ character is absolutely combustible.”

O’Brien’s most recent film is the independent feature Ponyboi, in which he plays a villainous pimp and small-time drug dealer, recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. He will next be seen in the upcoming films SNL 1975 (from director Jason Reitman) as Dan Aykroyd, Caddo Lake (from the writing-directing team of Logan George and Celine Held, and producer M. Night Shyamalan), and Anniversary (a thriller co-starring Diane Lane, Kyle Chandler, Zoey Deutch and Phoebe Dynevor). The $1.7 billion grossing star is well-known to audiences from his work in The Maze Runner franchise, as well as the hit MTV series Teen Wolf.

Permut also recently produced the Paramount+ series hit, Lawman: Bass Reeves from Taylor Sheridan, which stars SAG nominee David Oyelowo. His upcoming high priority slate includes Being Heumann written and directed by Academy Award winner Sian Heder (CODA) at Apple, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ (Little Miss Sunshine) film The Invite, and Face/Off II at Paramount, the sequel to Permut’s 1997 hit film, to be directed by Adam Wingard.

Sweeney is repped by UTA, 2AM and Brecheen Feldman Breimer Silver and Thompson. O’Brien is repped by WME, Principal Entertainment, and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Feldman, Rogal, Shikora & Clark and Permut is repped by John Tishbi at Pearlman & Tishbi.

Three Point Capital, established in 2009, is a financier and service provider in the film, television, and commercial industries. They have financed over 400 films, including The Butler, Clerks III and the Oscar-winning Manchester by the Sea. They most recently provided funding for the upcoming Michael Keaton starrers Know Goes Away and Goodrich, the Nicholas Cage starrer Longlegs, the Tina Fey/Jon Hamm comedy Maggie Moore(s) and the recent Sundance premiere Rob Peace.

Paramount Global Content Distribution is revitalizing the former Republic Pictures label, originally founded in 1935. The newly branded acquisition label will leverage Paramount Global’s vast worldwide distribution channels, across home entertainment and third-party distribution platforms to distribute a wide range of acquired films. Republic Pictures is an acquisition-only label under Paramount Pictures.

Source: deadline.com

[justforbooks]

Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), and A View from the Bridge (1955). He wrote several screenplays, including The Misfits (1961). The drama Death of a Salesman is considered one of the best American plays of the 20th century.

Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. During this time, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and married Marilyn Monroe. In 1980, he received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. He received the Praemium Imperiale prize in 2001, the Prince of Asturias Award in 2002, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003, and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 1999.

Miller's writing career spanned over seven decades, and at the time of his death, he was considered one of the 20th century's greatest dramatists. After his death, many respected actors, directors, and producers paid tribute to him, some calling him the last great practitioner of the American stage, and Broadway theatres darkened their lights in a show of respect. Miller's alma mater, the University of Michigan, opened the Arthur Miller Theatre in March 2007. Per his express wish, it is the only theater in the world that bears his name.

Miller's letters, notes, drafts and other papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Miller is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. He was inducted in 1979. In 1993, he received the Four Freedoms Award for Freedom of Speech. In 2017, his daughter, Rebecca Miller, a writer and filmmaker, completed a documentary about her father's life, Arthur Miller: Writer. Minor planet 3769 Arthurmiller is named after him. In the 2022 Netflix film Blonde, Miller was portrayed by Adrien Brody.

Miller donated thirteen boxes of his earliest manuscripts to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin in 1961 and 1962. This collection included the original handwritten notebooks and early typed drafts for Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, All My Sons, and other works. In January, 2018, the Ransom Center announced the acquisition of the remainder of the Miller archive, totaling over 200 boxes. The full archive opened in November, 2019.

Christopher Bigsby wrote Arthur Miller: The Definitive Biography based on boxes of papers Miller made available to him before his death in 2005. The book was published in November 2008, and is reported to reveal unpublished works in which Miller "bitterly attack[ed] the injustices of American racism long before it was taken up by the civil rights movement". In his book Trinity of Passion, author Alan M. Wald conjectures that Miller was "a member of a writer's unit of the Communist Party around 1946", using the pseudonym Matt Wayne, and editing a drama column in the magazine The New Masses.

In 1999, the writer Christopher Hitchens attacked Miller for comparing the Monica Lewinsky investigation to the Salem witch hunt. Miller had asserted a parallel between the examination of physical evidence on Lewinsky's dress and the examinations of women's bodies for signs of the "Devil's Marks" in Salem. Hitchens scathingly disputed the parallel. In his memoir, Hitch-22, Hitchens bitterly noted that Miller, despite his prominence as a left-wing intellectual, had failed to support author Salman Rushdie during the Iranian fatwa involving The Satanic Verses.

Works

Stage plays

No Villain (1936)

They Too Arise (1937, based on No Villain)

Honors at Dawn (1938, based on They Too Arise)

The Grass Still Grows (1938, based on They Too Arise)

The Great Disobedience (1938)

Listen My Children (1939, with Norman Rosten)

The Golden Years (1940)

The Half-Bridge (1943)

The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944)

All My Sons (1947)

Death of a Salesman (1949)

An Enemy of the People (1950, adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People)

The Crucible (1953)

A View from the Bridge (1955)

A Memory of Two Mondays (1955)

After the Fall (1964)

Incident at Vichy (1964)

The Price (1968)

The Reason Why (1970)

Fame (one-act, 1970; revised for television 1978)

The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972)

Up from Paradise (1974)

The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977)

The American Clock (1980)

Playing for Time (television play, 1980)

Elegy for a Lady (short play, 1982, first part of Two Way Mirror)

Some Kind of Love Story (short play, 1982, second part of Two Way Mirror)

I Think About You a Great Deal (1986)

Playing for Time (stage version, 1985)

I Can't Remember Anything (1987, collected in Danger: Memory!)

Clara (1987, collected in Danger: Memory!)

The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991)

The Last Yankee (1993)

Broken Glass (1994)

Mr. Peters' Connections (1998)

Resurrection Blues (2002)

Finishing the Picture (2004)

Radio plays

The Pussycat and the Expert Plumber Who Was a Man (1940)

Joel Chandler Harris (1941)

The Battle of the Ovens (1942)

Thunder from the Mountains (1942)

I Was Married in Bataan (1942)

That They May Win (1943)

Listen for the Sound of Wings (1943)

Bernardine (1944)

I Love You (1944)

Grandpa and the Statue (1944)

The Philippines Never Surrendered (1944)

The Guardsman (1944, based on Ferenc Molnár's play)

The Story of Gus (1947)

Screenplays

The Hook (1947)

All My Sons (1948)

Let's Make Love (1960)

The Misfits (1961)

Death of a Salesman (1985)

Everybody Wins (1990)

The Crucible (1996)

Assorted fiction

Focus (novel, 1945)

"The Misfits" (short story, published in Esquire, October 1957)

I Don't Need You Anymore (short stories, 1967)

"Homely Girl: A Life" (short story, 1992, published in UK as "Plain Girl: A Life" 1995)

Presence: Stories (2007) (short stories include "The Bare Manuscript", "Beavers", "The Performance", and "Bulldog")

Non-fiction

Situation Normal (1944) is based on his experiences researching the war correspondence of Ernie Pyle.

In Russia (1969), the first of three books created with his photographer wife Inge Morath, offers Miller's impressions of Russia and Russian society.

In the Country (1977), with photographs by Morath and text by Miller, provides insight into how Miller spent his time in Roxbury, Connecticut, and profiles of his various neighbors.

Chinese Encounters (1979) is a travel journal with photographs by Morath. It depicts the Chinese society in the state of flux which followed the end of the Cultural Revolution. Miller discusses the hardships of many writers, professors, and artists during Mao Zedong's regime.

Salesman in Beijing (1984) details Miller's experiences with the 1983 Beijing People's Theatre production of Death of a Salesman. He describes directing a Chinese cast in an American play.

Timebends: A Life, Methuen London (1987). Miller's autobiography.

On Politics and the Art of Acting, Viking 2001 an 85-page essay about the thespian skills in American politics, comparing FDR, JFK, Reagan, Clinton.

Collections

Abbotson, Susan C. W. (ed.), Arthur Miller: Collected Essays, Penguin 2016

Kushner, Tony, ed. Arthur Miller, Collected Plays 1944–1961 (Library of America, 2006).

Martin, Robert A. (ed.), "The theater essays of Arthur Miller", foreword by Arthur Miller. NY: Viking Press, 1978

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[forthegothicheroine]

New-to-me (horror) movies seen in 2023: Incident at Loch Ness (2004)

@goryhorroor ’s challenge: Underseen found footage

If you're a fan of Werner Herzog's documentaries, you have to see this. I mean it.

Incident at Loch Ness is a movie in a movie in a movie, a found footage film about a documentary about a documentary. Werner Herzog is out to examine "the difference between fact and truth" with a movie about the Loch Ness Monster legend, intended to be more about the culture around it than any monster itself. He is portrayed as eccentric and condescending, but at least he's trying to make a real documentary. Producer Zak Penn (also playing himself) wants a real Loch Ness Monster movie, and he's prepared to hire actors and stage a hoax to get one. And as these two men carry out their ideological fight over filmmaking, they circle closer to a creature in the water who is both hungry and territorial...

While primarily a comedy- I practically fell over laughing at several points- watching National Geographic turn into Moby Dick keeps the tension high, just as the villain would have wanted. I've often said that found footage filmmakers should study actual scary documentaries, including Herzog's Grizzly Man, to get a feel for both the kind of shots that would be taken and the personalities that would make these kinds of films. When Herzog picks up a camera at a point when it looks like he may be about to die, he says it was pure instinct. Even if I'd never seen one of his films before, I would believe him.

I keep pressing this film as funny for Herzog fans- there's one sequence parodying the rumor that he directed Klaus Kinski at gunpoint, among other in-jokes- I don't think you need to have seen any of his films to get the point. There have been enough exposes about falsified or heavily slanted documentaries that the increasingly bad conditions and setup pushed by the producer feels unfortunately plausible. Heck, it even made me look back on Herzog's real films critically. He probably doesn't actually look for interview subjects whom he calls kooks, or else he wouldn't have joked about it here- but if he does, how would I know?

Maybe Nessie is just a big fan of truth in film.

[astercontrol]

I've been thinking about at least one post I've seen, regarding a certain type of caricaturized villain in movies. A man who is portrayed as flamboyantly un-masculine, and yet instead of hinting that he's gay, the narrative makes him intensely, worshipfully devoted to his wife or other female love interest.

A lot has been said about why that is. But here's my take, based on how I perceived these tropes in my own experience of watching movies as I grew up in the 80's and 90's.

So, as I see it, the villain characters from old movies that we often see described as "queer-coded"-- the sissy, the fop, the dandy-- are usually there primarily to show weakness. To be physically, emotionally and morally weak, in the most conspicuous way possible, and thus throw into contrast the "strength" of the manly-man hero.

And homophobia is of course a very large part of why so much of that portrayal is associated with weakness. Gay men and trans women (who were at the time very much lumped together in popular culture, and often considered practically the same thing) represented the opposite of what the manly-man hero was supposed to be.

As a strong man, he was of course supposed to be attracted to women. But at the same time he was supposed to be very much at home in his own masculinity, and never show significant interest in any pastime or entertainment that was considered feminine.

His attraction to the heroine would be based on her looks, and on her virtuous character traits like kindness and loyalty. He could want to protect her, give her gifts, and of course be physically intimate with her. But there was a limit to how much he could have in common with her-- how much he could share her interests, how much he could respect her as a person-- before he would start to be perceived as a sissy caricature like the villain.

This extreme devotion to a woman, which we saw in villains sometimes, was a sort of heterosexual expression of "weakness," a different side of what was expressed in gay-coded villains. This devoted wifeguy-- hen-pecked, pussy-whipped or whatever he might have been called at the time-- was considered weak because he let a woman tell him what to do. His masculinity was undermined not by being attracted to men, but by being so attracted to a woman that he became "weaker" than her.

He had failed to walk that fine line of strong masculinity, where a hero could want a woman, but could never fully be in her world.

We also see a fair number of other male villains with the trappings of queer-coding-- in their clothing, interests, mannerisms and so on-- who are explicitly interested in women-- but come across as objects of ridicule because the women they pursue are not attracted to them. These men have the masculine desire for a woman, but they fail the other masculinity test of being able to get one.

And of course, again, this is deeply intertwined with the queer-coding tropes. The failed pursuer of women doesn't lack heterosexual experience by choice, but he still lacks it. And the trappings of queer-coding in his mannerisms, clothing, and interests are often implied to be part of the reason women don't want him.

I'd say it's not really possible to untangle all the different threads to what makes a stereotypically "weak" male villain. They're all too interwoven in the culture of filmmaking tropes. Gay-coding is absolutely a part of it-- not the only part, but still pretty much inseparable from the others.

Other parts-- also pretty much impossible to untangle from it all-- include such things as nerdiness, laziness, physical weakness, and pretty much anything that could be viewed as a character flaw in the culture contemporary with a film.

Childishness is another one-- as in Disney's Robin Hood, where Prince John "calls for his mum and sucks his thumb," or in Spaceballs, when Dark Helmet is caught "playing with dolls."

Interestingly, although the words "playing with your dolls" are used in that scene, the dolls are not stereotypical girls' toys; they are action figures closely resembling the Star Wars merchandise marketed to boys at the time. Furthermore, they all represent adult characters, and Helmet is using them to act out an adult scenario (seduction)-- which is also explicitly heterosexual (representing what he wants to do with Princess Vespa.)

So even though his activity, on the surface, is explicitly not something that would be expected of an actual child, woman, or gay man-- it still carries trappings of those identities, which evoke the same feelings of ridicule that those identities themselves would have evoked in many audience members at the time.

But, to end on the subject of childishness: That whole set of tropes, where a man can fail masculinity by liking a woman too much, reminds me very strongly of a certain phase I've seen before in the behavior of very young boys. The phase where all girls are gross and have cooties, and liking girls at all makes you a sissy.

Some filmmakers are still stuck there, and it shows.

[denimbex1986]

'There is a moment in NT Live’s Vanya – a one-man version of Anton Chekhov’s 1898 classic Uncle Vanya – where it feels fully possible that Andrew Scott could have cloned himself, and that three versions of him are on stage at once. He’s chameleonic enough that you’d believe it.

Vanya shows how life on a rural estate is completely upended when famous filmmaker Alexander, and his young, glamorous second wife Helena, visit. During this time, estate manager Ivan (Vanya) and country doctor Michael both fall for Helena, and consequently reevaluate their lives. The play stars Andrew Scott portraying all seven characters – including Ivan’s niece Sonya, housekeeper Maureen and local boy Liam – in a powerhouse, multipronged performance. The production enjoyed a sell-out run on the West End last year, alongside a spate of five-star reviews.

In a way, it feels like Scott’s career has been building towards Vanya, so varied are his most celebrated roles. Starting out on the stages of his native Ireland, the West End and Broadway, Scott burst onto our television screens in 2010 as the delightfully unhinged villain Jim Moriarty in BBC’s Sherlock. He gave a playful, terrifying edge to a character who is usually dull and professorial in his ruthlessness. Since then, Scott has been a mainstay of stage and screen, his characters running the gamut from Hamlet to Bond antagonist (Spectre), fantasy hero (His Dark Materials) to droll matinée idol (Present Laughter), the latter of which earned him an Olivier. With every part, Scott conveys a sense of something deeper going on under the surface – unsaid, but clearly legible on his face.

With his beloved ‘Hot Priest’, hired to officiate a family wedding in series two of Fleabag (2019), Scott further demonstrated this facility for internal performances. His clergyman forms a tentative, transgressive romantic relationship with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s titular tearaway, which simultaneously heals and serves as rock bottom for both of them. Scott brings a quiet confidence to the priest as he flirts with abandoning his vows, trying to do the right thing no matter how much it hurts. It’s terrifically subtle, deeply felt work.

Scott is uniquely adept at holding space for emotion, as seen with Adam, a man dealing with the impact of a lifetime of loneliness in Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers. He brings a guardedness to the character, who discovers that his late parents are alive and waiting for him in the house he grew up in. His visits home become the key to opening himself up to a romantic relationship with his neighbour (Paul Mescal). Throughout the film, we feel Adam’s gratitude and grief as he discovers the love and support he’s denied himself for so long. Scott is a master of smiles that never quite make it to the eyes, of lit-up eyes downplayed with hesitant smiles. His emotions are fluid, never vacillating, never overwrought.

He takes his considerable skills to new heights in Vanya, where he showcases his immense versatility as an actor. One minute, he’s a beleaguered and gossipy housekeeper, and the next – literally, the very next – he’s a bored and depressed doctor. Another moment, and he’s a young woman filled with hope and energy, and, almost in the same breath, he’s transformed into her uncle, whose decline from cringey jokester to an utterly lost man has happened before our eyes.

Scott introduces us to each of his characters slowly: establishing their physicality, their voices, their mannerisms. His transitions between them are more marked at the beginning, when he uses props and leaves space for us to register his change in posture, or physically moves from one side of the room to another. He accustoms us to the characters’ different voices – Helena’s is cold, reserved and posh; Alexander’s slow and scatterbrained; Ivan’s jovial and tense, like something could imminently break. Some characters are linked with certain props: Sonya with her tea towel, Michael with his tennis ball, Ivan, again, with his comedy sound-effects box.

But eventually these visual clues fall away, and we know everyone by their sound and posture. Soon, Scott is setting one character down and picking another up as he rises. He is both the person being blocked and the one doing the blocking, the person being comforted and the one tenderly stroking their head. Even the scenes of sexual intimacy between two characters are made believable, handled in a way so focused and naturalistic they don’t seem contrived or actorly. By the play’s end, Scott is throwing his voice as one character and reacting as another, and we know who is who by the arc of his brow, the curve of his smile or the movement of his hand.

These smaller movements, which would be felt more than seen from anywhere other than the front rows of a theatre, are what give this cinematic version of Vanya its magic. It’s in the way Sonya can handle a tea towel both nervously and with resolve, the way Michael’s slumped posture goes from listless to lustful and the way Ivan slowly crumbles, sloughing off layer upon layer of coping mechanisms. All of the decisions Scott makes as an actor are clearly rooted in a deep empathy for each of these characters. Quite a feat, then, to maintain this dedication for more characters than can be counted on one hand over the course of two hours.

Vanya is an acting masterclass, a beautiful unfurling of Scott’s multifacetedness. It’s a culmination of what we love about him as an actor: his constant, daring shapeshifting. If he was at the top of his game before, then now he is absolutely stratospheric.'

[kingbryancroidragon]

Niall MacGinnis as Menelaus in the 1956 film "Helen of Troy."

A constant problem with the multiple screen adaptations that side with the Trojans and villainize the Achaeans, is that it is rarely there are more fantastic performances on the Trojan side than on the Achaean side. As a result, while the filmmakers want you to root for the Trojans, it is more often that not the Achaeans you end up rooting for and this film is no exception.

Niall MacGinnis was a phenomenal actor in his day, bringing a performance only he could do, while with Jacques Sernas as Paris, you find yourself asking: "Besides the will of the writers, why is Helen going with that block of wood again?" Jacques Sernas' performance was one anyone could have done.

Despite being intended as the villain, with the Achaean king being portrayed as pirates who want to loot Troy, Menelaus is far more sympathetic, being more stern than truly brutish and the realization that Helen is gone leaves him truly hurt.

Also, as a funny piece of coincidence, Niall MacGinnis was an Irish actor who had been born in Dublin and was in his forties when he played Menelaus. So was Brendan Gleeson.

[evermoredeluxe]

Circling back to Wuthering Heights - descriptions of Heathcliff in the book often emphasize his dark skin and hair, including by comparing him to multiple non-white populations (on Heathcliff's wikipedia page, the first paragraph under the Character section provides a few quotes which demonstrate this), but the anon is also correct that he has been portrayed by white actors a lot over the years, and I imagine many people's perception of the character is informed by those adaptations, perhaps leading later adaptations to continue the trend. One could potentially make a case that he's just a super tan and dark-haired white guy (in a racist-characters-describe-anyone-less-pale-than-themselves-as-looking-like-poc way), but given that so few adaptations cast an actor of color in the role, one could also argue it's a missed opportunity to just cast a white actor again, especially since it's very easy to argue that he was intentionally written as a character of color. Obviously racism is a factor in such adaptational choices, but I do also wonder if some filmmakers might feel a bit uncomfortable making Heathcliff non-white in their adaptations because the angry and abusive aspect of the character and his obsessive relationship with Cathy (which already make a lot of people uncomfortable on their own) could lead to accusations of playing into racist stereotypes of hotheadedness and fixation on a white woman, depending on the audience's previous knowledge of the character and/or how deftly the film handles things. It's a hard book to adapt, I guess is what I'm saying? Anyway, sorry for the ramble, just thought I'd add on a little. It will be interesting to see how everything plays out with the upcoming version

no i appreciate the ramble and your thoughts. i do agree it would play into stereotypes if a poc played him, but i still think it’s a missed opportunity. a case could be made that the obtuse comparison of fiction with real people just to prove a prejudice they have and feel validated in their notions disables poc from getting certain opportunities. because by this logic, poc could never play a complex villain/anti-hero. ofc what you’ve said still rings true and it’s not possible to stop people from holding onto their perceptions, but im just making a point. anyway, none of this is to say that im outrageously mad; we’re just having a conversation and im happy for jacob for getting that role (also, he worked with emerald on saltburn and pretty sure she just thought that he would be able to embody heathcliff’s character)

[princesssarisa]

Character ask: Esmeralda (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

This answer is for the Disney version, not for the original novel character, whom I'm not really familiar with.

Favorite thing about them: She's one of my favorite Disney heroines. She's tough, witty, and smart, yet kind, selfless, and idealistic, she's lively and full of fire, yet dignified too, she knows when to be fierce, when to be gentle, and when to be funny, and she's a brave, outspoken champion of the underdog.

I also like that she's sensual and sexy yet never slut-shamed by the narrative, just by the villainous Frollo (though I'll admit that portraying a Romani woman that way does have unfortunate implications; see below), and that she's allowed to not return Quasimodo's romantic feelings without being portrayed as clueless or ungrateful to him.

Least favorite thing about them: That in some ways she's a stereotype of a Romani woman. I wish that the filmmakers had taken more pains to portray the culture accurately, and not sexualized Esmeralda quite so much.

Though I appreciate that in-universe, "sexy Romani dancer" is a role she plays because it earns money (she tells Quasimodo that she wouldn't be a street dancer if she had his talent as a woodcarver). And I'm glad that at least she is a sympathetic, heroic Romani character, unlike in the original novel where she's a white girl who was kidnapped by the Romani as a baby. (Ugh!)

Three things I have in common with them:

*I have dark hair.

*I care very much about social justice and standing up for outcasts.

*I like to wear purple.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I'm not stunningly beautiful and desired by multiple men.

*I doubt I could survive on the streets or as a fugitive from the law.

*I'm not Romani.

Favorite line:

During her duel with Phoebus in the cathedral, when he compliments her for fighting "almost as well as a man":

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing about you!"

And the opening lines of "God Help the Outcasts," sung to a statue of Mary and baby Jesus:

"I don't know if you can hear me,

Or if you're even there.

I don't know if you would listen

To a g***y's prayer.

Yes, I know I'm just an outcast,

I shouldn't speak to you.

Still, I see your face and wonder,

Were you once an outcast too?

brOTP: Quasimodo, Clopin, her goat Djali.

In crossover fics, I also enjoy seeing her interact with other heroines from '90s animated film, especially Belle, Megara, and Anastasia. They all have a lot in common, but striking differences too that could make them interesting foils for each other.

OTP: Phoebus.

nOTP: Frollo.

Random headcanon: Her parents were killed when she was very young, and Clopin has effectively been her father figure ever since.

Unpopular opinion: I don't think her lack of romantic interest in Quasimodo is because he idolizes her too much. She just doesn't have romantic feelings for him, and it's nobody's fault. She loves him as a friend, but Phoebus – whose maturity, humor, rugged edge, and fighting spirit more closely match her own – is the type of man she wants as a romantic partner. I agree that she and Quasi wouldn't have been right for each other even if she had been interested, in part because he idolizes her too much, but also because she pities him too much. (Why does the fandom criticize him for calling her an "angel" but not her for calling him "this poor creature"?) But I don't think that's the reason why she chooses Phoebus instead.

Also, contrary to what Disney Wiki says, I don't think she and Phoebus are about to kiss in the cathedral when Frollo bursts in to have her arrested. Staring into each other's eyes and feeling drawn to each other doesn't always mean "about to kiss." I think it's important that her feelings for Phoebus don't fully cross from wary attraction into love until he proves that he's a true ally, by (a) saving her with the lie to Frollo that she claimed sanctuary, and (b) rescuing the miller's family at the cost of his career and potentially his life.

Song I associate with them:

"God Help the Outcasts"

"Someday" (this is my favorite cover version of it, sung by the late Broadway star Laurie Beechman)

Favorite picture of them:

[tobiasdrake]

Villain Breakdown: Thanos, the Mad Titan

It's finally here. After ten years of waiting, Thanos at last made his big screen debut. And. It's. Complicated.

Thanos is one of the most divisive villains that the MCU has. It feels like there is a world of difference between the character that the filmmakers think they made and the character that audiences saw.

The filmmakers believe they've crafted a deep and compelling character here. Thanos, throughout the movie, is presented like the progressive villain. Someone who has identified a real and serious problem with society, but whose personal failings have caused him to misidentify the solution.

Thanos as written is cruel, ego-driven, and obsessed with proving his own rightness even when everyone around him is telling him to stop. He's a wicked foil to Tony operating on a far grander scale. And even though the problems he seeks to solve are real, he must be stopped nonetheless because his preferred solution is monstrous.

He's more or less written like Killmonger. "You were all wrong to turn your backs on the rest of the world," yes. But also "You have become just like the people you hate so much." The problem needs to be solved. But not by him and not like this.

The problem with Thanos is that he's wrong. Not that his solution is wrong, but that his solution could have never been right in the first place, because the problem he thinks he's identified is a long-discredited theory of economics written before industrialization largely eliminated the problems of scarcity. He's not "right, but in horrifying ways". He's just wrong.

Thanos does not have the slightest idea what he's talking about. This makes the scenes where he rants unchallenged about his economic beliefs infuriating rather than dramatic. He's a moron who kills planets because he doesn't understand how economics work, who abuses his "children" and murders his "daughter" and calls it love when he does so.

He was written as a deep and complex character. He's portrayed as a deep and complex character. The camera dwells on him making sad faces and pained expressions. The story speaks at length about the painful sacrifices he has to make, while he waxes poetic about the only man strong enough to make them. Hard Man Makes Hard Choices.

But he's just a monster. An uncomplicated shitweasel given an undeserved amount of pathos by the story. And it's to the film's detriment that this uncomplicated shitweasel is basically its main character. Infinity War screwed up with Thanos and the rest of the film pays for it.

But at least he gets to have cool fights. That's something, I suppose.

[lunatic-fandom-space]

OKAY i just finished the 2000s Jesus Christ Superstar movie and I really enjoyed it as well. At the start I was under the impression that this was meant to be like, an actual movie adaptation and not 'just' a filmed version of the stage musical but when the last supper scene started I realized that theyve been on the same set the whole time and the only other set theyve shown was that small room where they sang This Jesus Must Die, so this was probably meant to be a fairly straight forward recording of the stage show only with some more elaborate and cinematic camera work. And I made that whole post complaining about the more theatrical staging of the 2000s film and why it didnt work and then I realized its because I really misjudged the filmmakers intentions and I was able to enjoy the movie way more after that.

Id say both movies are equally good, they just have different strengths. Like, if you prefer something thats grittier and closer to reality and is filmed more like a traditional movie, Id recommend the 70s film but if you prefer something more colorful and theatrical and presumably more accurate to the stage show, Id recommend the 2000s film.

Personally, I think im leaning more towards the 70s movie because while theres so much to like about the 2000s one, I just cant get past the actors they got for Jesus and Judas. I already didnt like Jesus in the original movie so the only thing that really changes here are my reasons for disliking him. I think in one of my previous posts I said that 70s movie Jesus brought the Jesus Christ while 2000s movie Jesus brought the Superstar and I prefer Jesus Christ and. yeah, cant sum it up any better than that

What they did with Judas was just awful though. The second the actor came on screen I was like "ohhhhhh noooooooo I dont think Im gonna like this guy" and yeah, I didnt. But unlike with Jesus where he really wasnt written or framed different and it mostly came down to the performance, i feel like they really went out of their way to portray him as way more malicious and antagonistic and it was just bad man. Like, when Mary is done putting Jesus to bed and singing her song about how He Scares Her So they reintroduce him like some kinda horror movie villain and like we're meant to be jumpscared by him its so weird. And then during that last song hes not wearing white and singing exclusively with presumed angels, hes wearing red and black like he did before the betrayal and hes singing with all these women who are also dressed in red and black but theres also this choir of angels in the background and its just messy and confusing. Like, I was kinda confused by that scene in the original movie but thats because the location suddenly changed, the actual point of it was pretty clear to me; Judas and his backup singers are audience inserts who are trying to make sense of Jesus and the things he did. In the 2000s movie there are two groups, the angels and Judas' guys and the latter appear needlessly antagonistic towards Jesus for no real reason because of the framing and because of the way Judas has been characterized. It feels like theyre taunting him, its so weird and I really dont like it. Also, while the actors singing voice was alright for most of the film (I didnt like his delivery but he wasnt an awful singer or anything) during the song right before he dies his voice just sounds so rough and raspy and awful, I really hate actors in a musical movie are like "oh Im letting the acting take precedent over the singing, oh im applying the reality of the situation I cant sing this pretty" because thats not the point of musicals!! stop it!!!

The other big issue I had was that there were no breaks between musical numbers whatsoever so Id often get whiplash because there was practically no breathing room between songs. Like, JCS is entirely sung-through with no real spoken dialogue but you gotta have a few breaks in there man (also they had those breaks in the 70s movie and it was a lot better that way)

But thats enough complaining, lets get to the shit I liked!! Right off the bat, I liked Judad kissing Jesus because the way it was filmed and acted made it look like Judas just went in for a straight up makeout session and I love that. Judas/Jesus shippers stay winning!

I also adored the lighting and and the camerawork, there were so many striking still images and they made great use of contrasting colors and dark silhouettes like during the crucifiction and when Mary was telling jesus to rest and the set was bathed in this cool shade of dark blue while they were both this warm orange and when they were singing This Jesus Must Die in that black room with the cool lighting and then the screens on the walls suddenly turned on and brought in these warm orange undertones

Speaking of This Jesus Must Die, I loved the way they handled that scene and the Hosanna, Heysanna scene right afterwards, its probably one of my favorite sequences in the movie

The scene ends with a bunch of guys in like riot police gear coming out and trying to arrest everyone/beat everyone to death and then right after that we get the bit where theyre all like Did You See I Waved I Believe In You And God So Tell Me That Im Saved and theyre passing around guns and stuff and I have no strong feelings about that, I just dont know why its there. I get the vibe that they were trying to go for more relevant political commentary since they were modernizing this story about a guy being wrongfully executed by a tyrannical government anyway, but then just gave up abount a third or a quarter of the way through only for it show up again for a brief moment at the very end, its pretty strange.

That being said, I really liked this anachronistic setting they managed to build here. One of the things i really enjoyed about the 70s movie was that it was set in the actual time period of Jesus death and then they would just throw in a small filler scene of Judas running away from some actual fucking tanks. It was really bizarre but it also really adds to the charm of that movie imo. They were definitely more deliberate about it here and had a more consistent tone as a result though, so I think I prefer the 2000s movie

I still didnt really get Pilates deal, even after someone in my replies graciously explained it to me. He just doesnt really have a clear through-line and he feels oddly unimportant considering hes yknow, the guy who gave the order to crucify Jesus, which is a pretty big deal Ive heard

Tangentially related to that guy, I love love love the scene of Jesus getting whipped. If theres one thing Ive learned about myself in these past few weeks its that I like my men how I like my sidewalks; wet n dirty. And BOY did they get our guy wet and dirty!! with blood. And then afterwards when the crowd is trying to get Pilates to crucify him and all these black hooded figures reach out to him with with blood red hands and its visually similar to a previous scene where Jesus was surrounded by beggars, ough I was going sick mode babeyyyyy

Speaking of that scene with the beggars, I think they did a good job of conveying the claustrophobia and the urgency and the rapid escalation, but they shouldve done less of those slow fade transitions and more hard cuts. Also, this scene, that scene where he gets caught and the crowd is taunting him as hes walked to his execution and the scene where he gets whipped and each strike is one person individually hitting him and coating him with blood are all great at conveying how uncomfortable being touched without consent like that is even if its not sexual or anything. It tapped into something very specific for me and i dont know if I'll be able to explain it well but here it goes: i like to write these fucked up little short stories in my free time and Ive recently developed something of a fascination with religion, mainly as a concept I can use to write more interesting stories. And a common theme in all those stories i came up with since i developed that fascination has been the horror of having bodily autonomy taken away from you, specifically how awful it feels to be touched in a non-consentual non-sexual way and those scenes were very striking to me because of that

7/10, they shouldve stayed more faithful to the original and had every guy show some boob

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Khartoum (Dearden & Elisofon, 1966)

The fact is I'm a sucker for these kind of old school epic war movies. The kind that were mounted at great expense and all the money can be seen onscreen, in the form of countless extras, human and equine, immaculate period set dressing and props, and locations where it must have no doubt cost a lot of money to have moved a large enough crew and all these cast members and equipment out there to shoot for however long it took to shoot the damn thing. You take all those things together and combine them in elaborate battle scenes, and there's a baseline of enjoyment I get watching pretty much any of these things. So Khartoum, which was made in an era when such movies were being churned out regularly, is a movie I got a fair bit of enjoyment out of for the mere fact of what it is, even if I don't think it holds up as well as some of the better regarded movies in that mode.

The most obvious point of comparison is Lawrence of Arabia, which also features a charismatic British officer leading an army of locals in desert warfare. The Lawrence analogue here is played by Charlton Heston, who I think is actually pretty good in the role, even if his British accent sounds suspiciously like how he normally speaks. But there's something conservative about Heston's screen presence (and I don't mean this in terms of Heston's real life political views), that he doesn't carry the same unorthodox aura as Peter O'Toole does in the other movie. But the much bigger problem here is presented by the performance of Laurence Olivier as the villainous Sudanese leader who threatens a violent holy war on the titular city.

It's an unfortunate fact of this era that characters of colour will be played by white actors in makeup more often than not, but I think this is an especially bad example. Olivier may be a great actor, but he's slathered so heavily in blackface and so burdened by an assortment of tics that he comes off entirely as caricature. You compare this to Lawrence of Arabia, which also features white actors playing people of colour, but in that case, the issue is alleviated by the presence of at least one star who happens to be of the group being portrayed, and the fact that the movie is determined to engage with them as actual characters, sussing out the nuances of their differing perspectives. The closest character in Lawrence to Olivier's here would be the one played by Anthony Quinn, and even putting aside that Quinn doesn't seem to be made up as aggressively, the sheer force of his portrayal makes him feel like a real person. Olivier by contrast is calculated, choosing the worst possible tics at every opportunity, so that he plays like a sketch comedy character.

Politically, the movie probably first brings to mind the US's withdrawal from Afghanistan when viewed today, but in its original context was probably meant to evoke post-war decolonization movements, and the emerging war in Vietnam, with Heston's hero determined to defend the capital of the friendly government against an insurgent army that didn't play by the same rules. (Given the importance of the Nile in the proceedings, one might expect the movie to parallel the Suez Canal Crisis, but I don't think the particulars line up all that well.) Depending on your views, you will probably not gel to this movie's view of colonial governance, but it is worth noting the movie points out the deliberately meaningless gestures made by the British government that do little to help Heston or the locals under threat, or that the presence of the British in the area is driven by self-interest.

From this angle, I think the movie also invites comparison to a few other movies of the era: Lost Command, Zulu and The Sand Pebbles. All of those movies are told from the colonial perspective, but I think they do a better job of depicting the complexities of those on the other side, and are indeed about that tension. Lost Command is in part about the limitations of this kind of old school filmmaking in depicting a guerilla war, while Zulu and The Sand Pebbles go to lengths to puncture the characters' misconceptions about the locals. I also think the latter two especially are pretty magnificent in depicting actual combat, particularly in their attention to the tactics used, although this does emphasize a pretty ingenious mining defense, and features its share of thrilling battle scenes as well.

Listen, there are problems with this movie, but you get all those people and all those horses and starts blowing things up, and I'm having a pretty good time.

[opinated-user]

The Hayes Code was pivotal in shutting down the career of POC in Hollywood who had been able to cultivate careers pre-Code, so it makes sense to me that Lily likes it. Less non-white people in media is a common wish among conservatives, and considering she reblogs from conservatives, misgenders people, and was briefly friendly with a Nazi, it's clear that she's a right winger attempting to pretend not to be.

As someone who actually knows my film history I find this to be Tucker Carlson-esque. "Why can't things be like in the good old days where we didn't have to put up with LGBT+ people and non-whites and the villains always got punished?" is a thing that could come out of Lily or Tucker's mouth, and that's so sad to me.

No matter how hard you lick fascist, queerphobic and racist boots, Lily, you will never be 'one of the good ones'. They hate you. You can't be a pick me girl for racists and queerphobes, that's not a thing.

speaking of, while casually googling about this i found the fascinating story of Oscar Micheaux. he was a prolific filmmaker that made more than 40 film through out his career. he was there to witness people go watch birth of a nation so he responded with his own movie, with a mostly black cast being portrayed as the heroes suffering injustice racial violence. truly fascinating stuff. https://daily.jstor.org/how-oscar-micheaux-challenged-the-racism-of-early-hollywood/

but i doubt that LO will ever speak about men like him or any other POC creative person negatively impacted by the hays code, because it would break her little narrative that it didn't do much of anything and everyone else (notably, progressive people) are mad about it for no reason.