#movie:three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri

[kevinpolowy]

How 'Three Billboards,' 'Shape of Water' have suddenly become the Oscar favorites

(Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures)

In what’s so far been a refreshingly unpredictable race for Oscar’s Best Picture trophy, a pair of clear-cut favorites have emerged.

Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water both had monster weeks between Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards and Thursday’s Critics’ Choice Awards (with some BAFTA and Director’s Guild Awards love in between).

Three Billboards, a Coensian crime drama peppered with heavy doses of black comedy, was the big winner at the Globes, prevailing in Best Picture — Drama, Best Actress — Drama (Frances McDormand), Best Original Screenplay (McDonagh), and Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell).

The Globes aren’t always the best predictor when it comes to the Oscars, given that they involve votes from fewer than a hundred foreign journalists and the Oscars are decided by thousands of film professionals. The Globes’ Best Picture — Drama winner has only repeated at the Academy Awards four times over the past 10 years (Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave, Argo, and Slumdog Millionaire), though on one of those years (2011), its Best Picture — Musical or Comedy winner (The Artist) later triumphed at the Oscars.

Regardless, the splashy, high-profile Globes telecast no doubt gave Three Billboards a few shots in the arm only five days before Oscar voting closed. It also boosted the chances of McDormand (who will likely go head-to-head with Lady Bird leading lady Saoirse Ronan, winner of Best Actress — Musical or Comedy) and Sam Rockwell (who pulled a major upset over the favored star of Florida Project Willem Dafoe).

On Thursday, McDormand and Rockwell repeated at the Critics’ Choice Awards, voted on by the Broadcast Film Critics Association and Broadcast Television Journalists Association, this time with McDormand winning head-to-head against Ronan, and Rockwell again topping Dafoe.

In between the two ceremonies, Three Billboards scored nine BAFTA Award nominations: Best Film, Outstanding British Film of the Year, Best Director (McDonagh), Best Leading Actress (McDormand), Best Supporting Actor (Rockwell), Best Supporting Actor again (Woody Harrelson), Best Original Screenplay (McDonagh), Best Cinematography, and Best Editing.

It was also a major coup for McDonagh to land a DGA nomination on Thursday, besting the likes of Steven Spielberg (The Post), Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name), Sean Baker (The Florida Project), and Dee Rees (Mudbound) for one of the five coveted slots.

It was a slower start to the week for The Shape of Water, del Toro’s whimsical woman-meets-sea-creature sci-fi romance. The film took home only two Globes, but it included a biggie: Best Director for del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim), who has called the film the best he’s ever made. (Alexandre Desplat also won for Best Original Score.)

Then came the tidal wave.

On Tuesday, The Shape of Water led all BAFTA nominations with a whopping 12 nods. including Best Film, Best Director (del Toro), Best Leading Actress (Sally Hawkins), Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer), Best Original Screenplay (del Toro and Vanessa Taylor), and Best Cinematography.

On Thursday morning, del Toro joined McDonagh in the DGA race — up against Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird), Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), and Jordan Peele (Get Out). And on Thursday night, the film came up huge at the Critics’ Choice Awards, winning not only Best Picture, but also Best Director, Best Production Design, and Best Score.

So what does this all mean for the bigger Oscars picture? It certainly positions The Shape of Water and Three Billboards — both Fox Searchlight releases — to lead all comers at the Academy Awards nominations on Jan. 23, with both films boasting a mix of above-the-line and below-the-line contenders.

It also boosts both their odds for Best Picture in a year when any of a half-dozen films (also including Get Out, Lady Bird, The Post, Call Me by Your Name, and Dunkirk) had seemed to have a legitimate shot at winning.

What’s the favorite between the two? Critics have been divided about Three Billboards (particularly in its redemption of a racist cop), while they have generally embraced The Shape of Water. Del Toro is now the hands-down favorite to win Best Director, and The Shape of Water could be shaping up for a Best Picture win, too.

Watch del Toro reveal how The Shape of Water was “terrible” to make:

Read more on Yahoo Entertainment:

BAFTA Awards slammed for nominating only men for Best Director for the fifth year in a row

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The 5 biggest movie upsets at the 2018 Golden Globes

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Sam Rockwell on channeling American rage in 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri'

Sam Rockwell as Dixon, with Frances McDormand in a scene from the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Photo: Merrick Morton/20th Century Fox)

In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Sam Rockwell plays a slow-witted, racist police officer prone to hot-tempered abuses of power – in other words, the guy in the headlines that everyone hates. But neither Rockwell nor writer-director Martin McDonagh are willing to let Officer Dixon be a straightforward villain. The drama, which often spins into black-comedy territory, tells the story of Mildred (Frances McDormand), a single mother who calls out her small-town police department (via the three billboards of the title) for leaving her teenage daughter’s murder unsolved. Woody Harrelson plays the police chief, arguably the best cop Ebbing has to offer; Rockwell plays the worst. And yet, through a series of hairpin plot turns (we won’t spoil them here), Dixon and Mildred see themselves reflected in one another’s grief and rage.

A critical favorite for his off-kilter characters, Rockwell has yet to be nominated for an Oscar — but his knockout performance in Three Billboards, at once infuriating, hilarious, and touching, is likely to catch the Academy’s eye. The film itself, Rockwell’s third collaboration with McDonagh (after Seven Psychopaths and the Broadway play A Behanding in Spokane), is remarkably timely, a parable about seeking grace amidst the anger and hopelessness of modern-day America. Rockwell spoke thoughtfully with Yahoo Entertainment about tapping into his dark side for Three Billboards, the freedom of playing “unhinged” characters, and how his early Robert De Niro obsession has shaped his entire career.

Yahoo Entertainment: I understand the character of Dixon was written for you. What did you know about the role in advance and what was your reaction to first reading it? Sam Rockwell: When you read a Martin McDonagh script it’s kind of like opening up a present on Christmas Day, because every page you turn, there’s something really thrilling that happens. There’s all these twists and turns. So it’s what we call a no-brainer. Sometimes you have to talk yourself into doing something a little bit, or you get talked into doing something. And with a Martin McDonagh script that’s not the case.

Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards (Photo: 20th Century Fox)

You’ve said before that all of your Martin McDonagh roles are like Travis Bickle, the Robert De Niro character in Taxi Driver. Martin and I, we’re theater and film nerds, especially the Scorsese movies of the 1970s. a lot of our vocabulary comes from either theater references or Scorsese references. [We talked about] Mean Streets. Bang the Drum Slowly is a De Niro movie we talked about — we actually sing a song in the beginning of the film from Bang the Drum Slowly. There’s Travis Bickle. I think there’s elements of King of Comedy in the fact that Dixon lives with his mother. But I think that all the [McDonagh] characters, including Mervyn in A Behanding in Spokane, the play that we did on Broadway with Christopher Walken, come from that world. And Billy in Seven Psychopaths, too. They all share in common that the text demands a sort of comedic goofiness, and yet you can’t go too goofy because Martin also demands from you a certain kind of danger and emotional unpredictability. So you have to ride that line from goofy to dangerous. And I think that’s what’s interesting about some of his anti-heroes.

You get to some very angry places in this film. Is it frightening to go there as an actor? You know, I was watching this Gary Oldman documentary, and he was talking to these acting students and he used an analogy that I thought was kind of brilliant. He said, it’s kind of like you’re taking a snow globe –  you being the vessel, the snow globe — and you’re shaking up all this stuff that’s inside you from your past, and you have to kind of explore that again. So I thought that was a great analogy.

Watch a trailer for ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’

One reaction a lot of people are having to your performance is admiration that you’ve made a character like Dixon into someone “sympathetic.” That seems oversimplified to me, but what does that idea of a sympathetic character mean to you? Maybe I’m being too humble, but I think that Martin’s script really provides all the clues for that. And I guess as an actor, I have to find the humanity in a guy who might be considered a monster. I just see it like it’s my job.

It seems like an important job right now. The times we’re living in, people have trouble sympathizing with people who aren’t like them. That’s interesting. Can you elaborate on that?

Well, the political and cultural divisions seem so extreme; there’s an instinct to label anyone who doesn’t agree with you as a villain. I think people are really struggling with the idea of wanting some moral clarity they can’t find, which is a lot of what this movie is about, in a way. Yes. There’s a childlike point of view right now, maybe in the world, that things are black and white. And I think these characters live in the gray.

As an actor, you may be in an interesting position to see that. For example, if I see a headline about a racist police officer beating someone, I might think, “I am nothing like that guy,” because I don’t want to identify with him. But as an actor in this film, you have to understand that guy on a deeply personal level, and find some humanity in that guy. So how do you get there? Well, you know, I think it’s hilarious that I get all these rednecks and cowboys — they’re always trying to throw me on a horse. I’m a city kid. I went to an interracial school, and I used to break dance and stuff. That’s just not where I come from. I don’t relate to racism. But what I can relate to is — I just played a Klu Klux Klan member in a movie with Taraji Henson. It’s a true story called The Best of Enemies. And I was able to locate an ex-white supremacist who now pulls people out of hate groups. I had a brief conversation with him. He was very helpful. And he said, it’s not so much that you hate brown or black people; it’s that you hate yourself. That was a key component that helped me a lot. Because that’s universal. Everybody’s had a bad day. So if you’ve had a bad day, you’re going to relate to that. And Dixon has several bad days in this movie.

Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Photo: 20th Century Fox)

So I think the best way I can put it is that, if you’re able to tap into the loneliness and maybe the self-loathing that some people experience on any given day – and that’s not saying that I sit around feeling bad about myself all the time, I’m just saying that I know how to tap into that stuff and I don’t mind delving into it. For me, it’s sometimes even cathartic. So I think, if you just sort of redirect that into rage, that equates as hatred, danger, racism. That’s kind of how I approach it.

In a couple of earliest film credits — specifically Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Basquiat — your character was just called “thug.” [laughs] Yes. I think early in my career, I was watching too many Robert De Niro movies.

But Dixon is probably the most evolved and interesting version of that character type. Totally. I mean, Dixon’s a redneck. But it’s funny. Early on in my twenties, I wanted to be like Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro. I wanted to be a New York Italian guy, so I tried to perfect that. And now I do all these country folk, so I think that’s from watching Coal Miner’s Daughter and Tender Mercies too many times. It’s all derivative, you know?

You actually did spend some time with police officers in Missouri, right? What did you learn from them? I did a ride-along with a cop in Los Angeles, and an officer Josh McCullen — I think that’s his last name – in southern Missouri. He told me a lot of great stories. I had Josh take my lines and he came up with some alternative ad-libs and stuff. And Martin actually liked some of it and he put it in the movie.

Was there anything that surprised you about their job or their attitudes? You know, they’re really nice guys. They were nice to me, probably, because I’m an actor. But when I saw them interrogate people, they were all business. They also, I thought, related to people in a more human way, maybe because it was a small town. But of course, my character’s not like that.

When Frances McDormand has talked about making this film, she described getting into arguments with Martin McDonagh over particular lines. Has that been your experience as well? No, I think Martin knows what he wants. I think because I play characters who are a little, shall we say, unhinged — whether it’s this movie or Seven Psychopaths or The Green Mile, where [director] Frank Darabont gave me a lot of rope, so to speak. You can’t say, “Well, let’s keep it in the lines!” You have to draw outside the lines a little.  So someone like McDonagh or Frank Darabont might not let the prison guards do as much ad-libbing, but he’d let Wild Bill do a little bit because Wild Bill is unhinged. So I get a little more leeway because I’m playing a crazy guy.

You’ve had such an eclectic range of roles. What movie do people most often want to talk to you about? It’s five or six movies, I’d say, that come up a lot: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Moon, The Way Way Back, Charlie’s Angels, Galaxy Quest, and actually, people talk about Seven Psychopaths more than you’d think. A lot of dudes like The Green Mile and Seven Psychopaths. I think Seven Psychos is kind of a movie-nerd-dude movie. I notice a lot of young kids, of all nationalities, love my character in The Green Mile because he’s an outlaw. And I’m very pleased that Moon gets so much attention, because it’s a little movie, you know?

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri opens in limited release Nov. 10 and nationwide Nov. 22. 

Watch: Woody Harrelson on what makes ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ so powerful:

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[marcuserrico]

Role Recall: Woody Harrelson on identifying with 'Cheers' character, learning to dunk, and what he really thinks of Jennifer Lawrence

Over the course of a wildly successful, widely diverse three decades, Woody Harrelson has held down the tap on Cheers, proved white men can jump, and managed to survive The Hunger Games, winning an Emmy and receiving two Oscar nods along the way. The 56-year-old Texas native has two major films out this month — the Rob Reiner-helmed biopic LBJ, in which he’s virtually unrecognizable as the 36th president, and the Oscar-buzzing Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, where he plays a local sheriff under siege from a mother who wants justice for her murdered daughter —  and has recently wrapped filming on 2018’s surefire blockbuster Solo: A Star Wars Story. Yahoo Entertainment recently down with Harrelson for a guided tour of his greatest hits in the latest edition of our Role Recall series. Some highlights:

Cheers (1985-93) Harrelson’s breakout role came in the classic NBC sitcom, where he joined the ensemble in 1985 as the kind, yet dimwitted bartender Woody Boyd. “It was a friend of mine who told me that there was this part you should go try out for,” Harrelson explains. “The part’s named Woody, he’s from Indiana, where we had gone to college, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’

“There was a lot about Woody Boyd that I resonated with. And though I didn’t think I was very innocent at the time, I probably was pretty innocent. It was the first time I really broke out of anonymity — and poverty.”

White Men Can’t Jump (1992) Harrelson really couldn’t jump for the Ron Shelton comedy about two basketball hustlers, a fact that resulted in endless taunting (and wagering) from co-star Wesley Snipes. “That was one of the funnest times I ever had doing a movie. I remember having an actual contest with Wes where I was trying to dunk. We were betting and I was losing. Then he went to his trailer … and this [crew member] told me, “Why don’t you ever stretch?” This is my first introduction to yoga,” Harrelson recalls, “and I started stretching and the next thing you know, I could dunk the ball. This is on a 9-and-a-half-foot rim, by the way; I couldn’t do it on a 10-foot rim. … He came out of his trailer and I pretended I couldn’t and we upped the bet and upped the bet and then slammed it. I’ll never forget the look on Wes’s face: It was joyous.

Indecent Proposal (1993) This extremely popular, extremely un-P.C. film starred Robert Redford as mogul who offers Harrelson’s character $1 million for a night with his wife, played by Demi Moore. “My mom was pretty psyched,” says Harrelson. “She didn’t come to visit me on set much, but with Robert Redford was in the movie, she came to the set for sure. She was like a little girl. It was fantastic.”

Natural Born Killers (1994) Harrelson and Juliette Lewis played a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde in Oliver Stone’s graphically violent road-trip movie that polarized audiences upon its release. “I didn’t know it would be that controversial. It was very controversial,” says Harrelson. “People are like, ‘Do you like doing controversial movies?’ I’m like, ‘Hell, no. I like doing movies people would go see, not movies people are boycotting.'”

The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) Harrelson reteamed with Stone and earned his first Oscar nomination playing Hustler magnate Larry Flynt in this biopic. “I wouldn’t have been much into doing this movie if I hadn’t come to respect Larry. I don’t respect much the pornography part of what he does,” Harrelson quickly adds, “But what he is as a person, and the rebel that he is, and even what he did recently offering $10 million for any information that leads to the impeachment of our so-called president… I’ve never met a more honest man.”

The Hunger Games (2012-15) For the blockbuster four-film saga based on the bestselling book series, Harrelson played mentor to Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen. “I love Jen,” Harrelson says with a smile. “She’s absolutely hysterical. She’s her own person. I love who she is. I think she’s a tremendous actress, but even more so as a person, she’s one of my top favorite people in the world.”

True Detective (2014) Harrelson and partner Matthew McConaughey both earned Emmy nominations for HBO’s esoteric mystery thriller. “Love working with Matthew, that’s the third thing we did together,” Harrelson says, ticking off their collaborations in EDtv and Surfer Dude. “He’s a hard-core committed guy… Man, what a performance.” But despite their good vibes on set and off, that doesn’t mean Harrelson wants to reprise their partnership for a follow-up season of True Detective. “I don’t see doing that because it went really well the first time and if you come back around to it, what else are you going to hear? ‘Not as good. Wasn’t as good. Boy, you guys were good before, but this time…’ I don’t want to hear that.”

Watch the complete Role Recall above.

Here’s Woody on why he almost didn’t appear in the upcoming Star Wars movie:

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Woody Harrelson’s ‘LBJ’ transformation was so complete it fooled his daughter

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[gwynnew]

About that ending of 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri': Sam Rockwell and Martin McDonagh reveal their theories (spoilers!)

Frances McDormand in ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ (Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures c/o Everett Collection)

Audiences watching Martin McDonagh’s crime film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri will be forgiven for thinking, at a certain point, that they know how it will end. (Spoilers ahead!) In the film, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) rents three billboards in her small Missouri town to call out the police department for leaving her daughter Angela’s rape and murder unsolved. Sam Rockwell plays Dixon, an aggressive and largely incompetent police officer who takes Mildred’s vendetta personally.

The two characters spend the film butting heads with consequences that are often unexpectedly violent.  Then Dixon overhears a strange man bragging about a crime that sounds much like Angela’s murder. For a moment, it looks like killer might finally be brought to justice after all…

But writer-director McDonagh doesn’t let the audience off the hook that easily. “It was about not wrapping up the story with a bow, not finding the solution and that person getting his comeuppance and all of that,” McDonagh told Yahoo Entertainment. “Because the story is more about change than it is about solutions.” The stranger, Dixon learns, has a rock-hard alibi for the night of Angela’s death. He must therefore have been bragging about a different rape and murder. Dixon (who by this point in the story has been fired from the police department) comes to Mildred with an idea: since her daughter’s killer hasn’t been found, they can take revenge on this killer instead. The film ends with the two characters driving away, having their first-ever friendly conversation, and wondering aloud whether they’ll actually go through with killing the stranger.

During interviews with Yahoo Entertainment about Three Billboards, McDonagh and Rockwell each offered a different take on the film’s ambiguous ending. Rockwell admitted he’d gone back and forth in his own mind about where Mildred and Dixon were headed. “At first I thought they were going to go kill people, and then I thought maybe not,” said Rockwell.

Sam Rockwell as Dixon, with Frances McDormand in a scene from the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Image: Merrick Morton/ 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

After discussions with co-star McDormand, Rockwell came to the conclusion that Mildred and Dixon “probably just go to a bar to get some liquid courage to go kill the guy, and then they just decide not to. And they just get drunk and make out.”

Naturally, McDonagh takes a longer view. “The conversation they have in the car is the most important one in the film, because it’s about how much they’ve changed from the start of the story,” he said. “The fact that they could even sit in a car and have a conversation is momentous, and to have complete doubt about violence and where they’re at with it.” And, he noted, “It’s almost the only time she smiles in the film, which is a big change.”

However, McDonagh pointed out that there is one variable that could send Mildred back over the edge: She has already met the stranger. In a disturbing scene earlier in the film, the man visits the shop where Mildred works, and his casually menacing behavior leads Mildred to wonder if he could be her daughter’s killer. “Mildred doesn’t know it’s going to be that guy from the shop when she meets him,” said McDonagh. “So even though she’s probably more reticent than Sam is about doing something, I wonder what happens when she sees who he is.”

It’s a question that McDonagh very deliberately left unanswered. (Though McDonagh has joked that he’ll explore it in the sequel, he told Yahoo Entertainment that he is utterly opposed to making sequels.) To him, the ending is about the journey: “They’re still driving ahead. But they’re driving ahead with more doubt and more humanity than they began with.”

Watch a clip from ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’:

  Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

‘Three Billboards’ director Martin McDonagh on Tarantino comparisons, telling off priests, and making an American hero of Frances McDormand

Sam Rockwell on channeling American rage in ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’

Role Recall: Woody Harrelson on identifying with ‘Cheers’ character, learning to dunk, and what he really thinks of Jennifer Lawrence

[kevinpolowy]

The 5 biggest movie upsets at the 2018 Golden Globes

Sam Rockwell (Getty Images via NBC)

You should never be surprised that there are big surprises at the Golden Globes. The voting body of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is not very large — it’s roughly the same size as an NFL team roster. So no matter how many quote-unquote experts (like this guy) are making predictions, it’s always tough to get a read on what exactly the HFPA is thinking, and why or how or when. Then again, the unpredictability makes for a suspenseful, entertaining show. Here are the biggest movie shockers from the 75th Golden Globes:

5. In the Fade wins Best Foreign Film. Granted, the average American likely hasn’t heard of any of the five nominees for Best Foreign-Language Film. So trust us when we tell you very few expected Fatih Akin’s explosive German drama In the Fade to topple the likes of the Chilean transgender story A Fantastic Woman, the Angelina Jolie-directed Cambodian genocide drama First They Killed My Father, and the wackadoo Swedish satire The Square. It was. We swear.

4. “This Is Me” wins “Me”-off against “Remember Me” in Best Original Song. Movies rarely come as Golden Globesy as The Greatest Showman, a big splashy musical with big splashy stars (Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, et al.) at an awards show that loves musicals so much that there are three “Musical or Comedy” movie categories despite the fact we only see one or two musicals released a year. Coco‘s poignant ballad “Remember Me” felt like a heavy favorite, and remains so for the Oscars… But on this night, the “Me”-off in Best Original Song went to the poppy empowerment track “This Is Me,” crooned by Bearded Lady of the Year, Keala Settle.

Allison Janney

3. Allison Janney edges Laurie Metcalf in Best Supporting Actress. Allison Janney’s wickedly funny, filthy-mouthed Bad Mom in I, Tonya isn’t your traditional “awards bait” part. While she has won a few trophies here and there, most of the early award-season hardware has gone to Lady Bird star Laurie Metcalf for her not-nearly-as-bad-but-still-sometimes-infuriating mom in Greta Gerwig’s beloved dramedy. Janney won big on Sunday, and she didn’t even have to send in the goons. Suddenly her Oscar chances feel a little more real.

2. Sam Rockwell tops Willem Dafoe (and Christopher Plummer) in Best Supporting Actor. Willem Dafoe is looking like the early Oscar favorite for his touching, understated performance as an empathetic Everyman routinely crapped on by the residents of an extended stay motel in The Florida Project. So pundits figured this one would go to either Dafoe or Christopher Plummer, given the HFPA’s clear appreciation for what he did in a matter of weeks on the now-famous All the Money in the World reshoots. But there was Sam Rockwell, whose bigoted-turned-simpatico cop owns the most surprising arc in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, coming out on top. Rockwell likely benefitted from the HFPA’s overall love for the film, which leads us to…

1.     The overall dominance of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri You may have heard, but this year is generally considered one of the most wide-open awards races in eons, with five or six films that could reasonably win Best Picture come March’s Oscars telecast (Get Out, Lady Bird, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards, and maybe even Dunkirk or Call Me by Your Name). The HFPA clearly has one clear-cut favorite, though, as they doled out Four Statuettes Inside the Beverly Hilton to Martin McDonaugh’s Midwestern murder drama (Best Picture — Drama, Best Actress — Drama for Frances McDormand, Best Supporting Actor for Rockwell and Best Screenplay for McDonagh). Does its Globe domination give it a leg up at the Oscars? Not necessarily, but in such a tight year, any momentum helps.

Watch Oprah Winfrey’s stirring Golden Globes speech:

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[gwynnew]

'Lady Bird' and 'Three Billboards' star Lucas Hedges on 'magical unicorn' Saoirse Ronan and his faux rivalry with Timothée Chalamet

Lucas Hedges, right, with Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird. (Photo: A24/courtesy Everett Collection)

In Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age film Lady Bird, Lucas Hedges performs a jubilant number from Into the Woods, dances in a rose garden with Saoirse Ronan, and collapses into giggles while microwaving late-night snacks with his friends. Anyone who saw Hedges’s Oscar-nominated performance as a grieving son in 2016’s Manchester by the Sea will recognize this as a dramatic shift in tone — which is just what the 21-year-old actor was looking for, he told Yahoo Entertainment. Hedges plays Danny, a Catholic high school senior in Sacramento in 2002, who becomes the first boyfriend — and first heartbreak — of the title character, played by Ronan. It’s one of two memorable minor roles Hedges took on in 2017, the other being Frances McDormand’s son in the darkly comic crime film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Neither part is big enough to merit the awards-season attention Hedges received last year, but he’s fine with that. Instead, he’s enjoying the experience of watching his friend (and Lady Bird co-star) Timothée Chalamet garner the same kind of buzz for his performance in Call Me by Your Name. When Yahoo spoke with Hedges in late November, Chalamet had just won the Gotham Award for Breaththrough Actor, the category in which Hedges was nominated in 2016. The thoughtful and humble Hedges talked to Yahoo Entertainment about making Lady Bird, compared the acting styles of Ronan (“a unicorn”) and McDormand (“iconic”), and shared the personal hazards of living through awards season (“I started losing track of reality”).

Yahoo Entertainment: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me! I was just watching Timothée Chalamet’s Gotham Awards speech— Lucas Hedges: Oh my God! Wait, that’s so funny. I just saw it, too! Isn’t it amazing? [laughs] It’s hilarious. I texted him about it last night and was like, “Dude, that was so funny and amazing and eloquent, and you’re killing it.’”

Well, I was thinking about you, because in an interview with Vulture about your great run of films, you said something like, “I’m not having Timmy Chalamet’s year or anything.” [laughs] I know, I know.

I mean, I wouldn’t put it that way! But do you feel like he’s going through some of the things you went through last year? Oh, to-tally. The joke that I have with Timothée, or the joke that we have together — hopefully I’m not throwing him under a bus right now — is that we’re both so threatened by each other. We’re both like, “Dude, I’m so threatened by you!” “What? I’m so threatened by you!” But we have such a great friendship because I have so much respect and love for everything he does, and I’ve just come to really love him as a friend and as an artist. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s having an even crazier year than I did. He just won a Gotham Award for the category that I was nominated in, and he’s on the cover of all these weird magazines. I mean, he’s becoming like, this crazy icon. [laughs] And I can’t say that that happened to me.

You’re the face of Dior. I feel like you’re underselling yourself a little bit. Oh, OK. I have a history of doing that to myself so you may be right. But I feel like I’m grateful that he’s going through this because it makes me feel less alone.

Lucas Hedges at the National Board of Review Awards 2017 in New York. (Photo: Kristin Callahan/Everett Collection)

I always wonder about how people process these experiences of fame. You can’t Google “how to handle losing an Oscar,” “how to handle winning an Oscar;” even “what do I bring to the Oscars?” Do you feel like you need to warn Timothée about anything or prepare him for anything? You know, there’s a part of me that wants to be like: Meditate every day. Do yoga. Really get clear with who you are. But I can’t tell him that because that’s not what I did, and I really just think he should live it, and do whatever he wants to do. And what I mean by that is not “go crazy,” but just, you’re a good person, and do whatever feels natural to you in these moments. If you want to go out and celebrate, go celebrate. You deserve to celebrate! And he is 21, so he [can] have a drink; don’t lose control. And if you do feel like you’re on the verge of losing control, then start meditating [laughs] and take care of yourself. But I do think it’s a time to actually celebrate.

And if there ever comes a day that I go through that again — I just think it’s kind of hard, and I started losing track of reality. When most of your conversations are interviews and you’re thinking about, just how everything you do is perceived, then how every word that comes out of your mouth is filtered through an interview lens — it gets complicated and confusing. And it sort of becomes plastic. So I guess maybe I have advice for him? But I feel like I’m in the same position as him still. I have no idea what I’m doing, still.

I talked to Greta a couple weeks ago about how she created the environment on set, and how she conveyed the idea of what it was like to be a teenager before everyone had cellphones and fast internet. How did you wrap your head around that idea? I know she makes you put away your phones. For the two years before this year, I had a flip phone. I was living with a flip phone when I got offered the part, just because I was on my iPhone way too much. I’ve also gone entire periods of my life without having a phone, so it’s hard to imagine a world without it, but I know what it’s like to live without it. Oh, but then again it’s the time before flip phones — even a flip phone is futuristic! [laughs] But I also feel like that’s kind of insignificant when it comes down to playing the part… It’s not about the fact that I don’t have a phone, it’s about, what do I want as a human being? Ultimately the movie could take place at any time, anywhere.

One of the themes in the film is Lady Bird wanting more than her parents gave her. When I was growing up in the suburbs, I was in awe of kids like you, who have glamorous artsy parents and live in the city. So was that idea something that you could connect to at all? [laughs] It’s so interesting because I grew up in Brooklyn, my dad’s a filmmaker. My parents aren’t celebrities or anything, but I grew up with the life that someone who didn’t live in New York City, who’s an artist and wants to be an actor, would long for. And I spent my entire childhood longing for, of course, another life. I just wanted to live in England and have English parents. So it’s weird how we always find the thing that we don’t have. It’s sort of the obvious cliché, the grass is always greener thing. But yeah, part of the reason why I wanted to be an actor in movies is so I could escape the world that I grew up in — not because it was uninhabitable or dangerous, it was a very safe place, but because there’s always somewhere more magical. And I’m only now beginning to love where I’m from, weirdly, and only now am I getting really grateful for the parents that I have. But I’m always sort of trying to find my way out of what I was born into, which is just weird. Like even now — like you said, I did get nominated for an Academy Award, but there’s still a part of me that’s like, “Well I’m not having Timothée Chalamet’s year!” [laughs]

J. Cole did this great song called “Love Yourz”, which is just an amazing song about how you’re never going to be happy until can you figure out how to love the life that you have. And he really, he has some great lyrics — you should listen to it. It’s a really beautiful song. I can hear it in my head right now.

There’s a lightness in your performance in this film that’s really lovely to see. There are light moments in Manchester, but having been introduced to you through that, it’s nice to see you, for example, juggling French fries. [laughs]  Oh yeah, that’s funny! Have you seen the movie more than once? Because that happens in the blink of an eye. Yeah, that was one of the reasons why I really — well, one, I got to have a love storyline with Saoirse Ronan, who’s just the most amazing actress, and that was one of the things that really drew me to doing the movie to begin with. But also, it is very light and it is very fun, particularly the musical theater aspect to it, which I wanted to do so badly. And I’m not a singer, but I love the idea of singing, and just committing yourself whole-heartedly to something. And giving yourself over to it even if it is really stupid — like even if you’re part of a stupid high school theater production, there’s something amazing and so earnest about giving yourself over to that, which I really wanted to do.

Lucas Hedges with Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird. (Photo: A24/courtesy Everett Collection)

I imagine the set being like a giant high school cast party. It truly was. I was saying in an interview earlier today that I’d go over to Beanie’s house and we’d watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. It just felt like summer camp. It was essentially the summer in Los Angeles a year ago, and I had never really lived in L.A. before, and it just felt like a new realm of experiences and excitement and fun. And, god, I’d give anything to do it all over again.

Both times I saw the film, my immediate reaction when it ended was to think, No, keep going! I hear that they’re doing a Call Me by Your Name sequel, so they should do a Lady Bird sequel. [laughs]

I’m going to ask you a difficult question that I’m not sure anyone else could answer: How does the experience of doing a scene with Saoirse Ronan compare to doing a scene with Frances McDormand? Interesting! (Deep breath) Well you know, it’s so bizarre, because ultimately — I mean, I’m still so new to acting, but it’s like, how do you exist with two different human beings? Like when you meet one person who’s entirely different from another person, it’s not going to be the same; it’s going to be entirely different. It’s the reason why we have some friends and not others, it’s the reason why we marry one person and don’t marry the other. So getting to act with Saoirse was a completely different world from getting to act with Frances, because they’re completely different people at completely different stages of their lives. I mean, Frances in Three Billboards is sort of like this iconic figure who’s broken and is fighting for what she believes in to the point of, she’ll fight till her death. And that’s kind of, I think, true for who Frances is. I think Frances represents a lot of what Mildred represents. And Saoirse is a unicorn. Saoirse is like this majestic creature from a far-off land, and I think that’s true even when she’s playing a girl from California. She is a unicorn even then. The thing that stands out for me of getting to work with Saoirse is her eyes. She just has the most magical eyes, and you can get everything from looking into her eyes. And that’s sort of my experience working with both of them.

Lucas Hedges and Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. (Photo: Merrick Morton /Fox Searchlight Pictures/ Everett Collection)

Three Billboards is much more emotionally intense in a lot of ways. But it’s also very funny. That was very apparent from the script, is that it was sort of dark and twisted in its humor. It’s also crazy that this movie was written and made way before Trump became president — not that it has anything to do with the president, but the craziest stuff is happening in American and it’s very timely. I have no idea how to really take in any movie that I’ve been in, just because I don’t know how to divorce it from the experience of making it, but I wonder what it’s like for people to see that movie right now.

When you have those intense, emotional scenes — the scene where you’re holding a knife to John Hawkes’s throat in Three Billboards, even the coffee shop scene in Lady Bird — how do you get yourself into that head space? I’m still learning how to get into the head space of those scenes. But music is really big for me; music can get me lost in a world very easily and bring me back to a time in my life that’s similar to the one I’m exploring in the scene. And also just energizing my body, really moving around and getting my breath going and activating my solar plexus. It’s a lot of sort of boring actor-y things that help me a lot. I lean on music most of all though.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

Beanie Feldstein on her dancing, cheese-eating ‘Lady Bird’ role and her breakout year

‘Lady Bird’: How Greta Gerwig gave wings to her Oscar-buzzing directorial debut

Three Billboards’ director Martin McDonagh on Tarantino comparisons, telling off priests, and making an American hero of Frances McDormand

Sam Rockwell on channeling American rage in ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’

2018 preview: The 50 movies we’re most excited to see

[gwynnew]

Woody Harrelson calls 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' a masterpiece

Woody Harrelson is known as a straight shooter, so when he speaks this highly about a film, fans should pay attention. In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Harrelson plays a small-town police chief who incurs the wrath of a single mother (Frances McDormand) seeking justice for her daughter’s  killer. The darkly comic drama from writer-director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths), is “a real masterpiece,” according to Harrelson, balancing “the darkest possible premise” with “humor” and “emotion.” As the actor told Yahoo Entertainment, “I’ve never seen audiences respond to any movie like this.” Watch the video above.

Harrelson (who is also starring in this month’s biopic LBJ) had nothing but praise for his Three Billboards director and co-stars. Frances McDormand, he said, is at “the top of her game… that part is such a great part, and boy does she nail it.” As a corrupt cop, Sam Rockwell gives “maybe his best performance,” said Harrelson, “and he’s never been anything but great.” As for McDonagh, Harrelson described him as “Coen brothers-level, which is the highest and best it gets in this industry.” (Harrelson worked on the Coens’ No Country for Old Men, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2008.)

Woody’s final word on Three Billboards? “I feel really lucky to be a part of it.” Who needs a publicist when you’ve got Woody?

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri opens in theaters Friday.

From ‘Cheers’ to ‘Hunger Games,’ watch Woody Harrelson share his favorite behind-the-scenes moments in our Role Recall:

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

Sam Rockwell on channeling American rage in ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’

Watch the trailer for Kristen Stewart’s directing debut, ‘Come Swim’ (exclusive)

Laurence Fishburne on ‘Last Flag Flying’: ‘We don’t tell this story often enough’

Allison Janney plays mommy dearest to Margot Robbie in official ‘I, Tonya’ trailer

[kevinpolowy]

See how 'Three Billboards' pulled off Sam Rockwell's most shocking moment in behind-the-scenes clip (exclusive)

In perhaps the vilest moment in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the seven-time Oscar-nominated drama from writer-director Martin McDonagh, Sam Rockwell’s brutish cop Dixon casually beats the pulp out of local advertising impresario Reed Welby (Caleb Landry Jones) — the man who owns the titular signs — before tossing him through a second-story window.

It’s a shocking moment within the film’s story, about a grieving mother (Frances McDormand) who wages a publicity war against her local police force for not finding her daughter’s rapist and murderer. But it’s also a technical coup for the filmmakers, all captured in a single shot without one cut.

In a clip from the upcoming digital and Blu-ray release’s bonus features, you can get a behind-the-scenes look at how McDonagh and company executed the shot (watch exclusively above). It involved a stunt double, some swift stair work by Jones, and a truckload of cardboard.

“It’s a very violent, brutal scene,” explains director of photography Ben Davis. “And the violence is all the more believable because there are no cuts within the sequence to remind you that you’re watching a piece of fiction.”

In other words, they kept it real.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is available on Digital HD Feb. 13 and will be released on DVD and Blu-ray Feb. 27.

Watch: Woody Harrelson compares Martin McDonagh to the Coen brothers:

Read more on Yahoo Entertainment:

How ‘Three Billboards,’ ‘Shape of Water’ have suddenly become the Oscar favorites

Sam Rockwell on channeling American rage in ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’

About that ending of ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’: Sam Rockwell and Martin McDonagh reveal their theories (spoilers!)