– In this week’s Eat Pray Love EW cover story, Julia Roberts reveals that she declined the option to have a spit bucket, preferring to actually eat all of the food during the Eat portion of the film set in Italy. The 7 to 10 pounds Roberts gained was exactly what her character needed to do before moving on to the praying and loving; an authentic rediscovery of her taste for life and abandonment of joyless eating (and living). As for Roberts’ working relationship with director Ryan Murphy–a healthy one, since they’re working together again –Roberts says “one of the things I love the most about Ryan is that he has a real legitimate answer for everything. There’s nothing that he hasn’t considered weeks before I’ve thought of the question.”
– Two other actors with a healthy working relationship (displayed in The Devil Wears Prada and Julie & Julia) are Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci. They are reteaming, this time as star and director, for Mommy & Me with Tina Fey in tow as Streep’s daughter. Sony has just picked up the comedy, the same studio that backed Streep’s Julie & Julia. Streep explained her working relationship with Tucci in an interview with Bon Appetit, while promoting Julie & Julia:
Stanley and I are often on opposite sides in a very famous Charades game every Christmas. We’ve been at each other’s throats like married people for a really long time, many years. We knew each other in that way and I just sort of am in love with him from afar anyway with the totality of the man, from his acting to directing work and in every way. So does everyone who knows him. He’s just real treat to work with. It wasn’t a tough job to imagine being in love with him.
– DreamWorks has picked up another, more low-brow, comedy reports Deadline. Reply All, written and executive produced by Phil Johnston, is a vehicle for The Hangover‘s Zach Galifianakis, who plays a guy suffering the consequences of selecting the “reply all” button on an imprudent e-mail. Galifianakis is busy: next up is It’s Kind of a Funny Story from Focus, then Due Date with Robert Downey Jr. from director Todd Phillips, not to mention The Hangover 2, due out in May 2011.
– On the other side of the dramatic spectrum is depressive Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier’s latest, Melancholia, which is currently filming with Kirsten Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland, Stellan Skarsgård, John Hurt, Jesper Christensen, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Charlotte Rampling. The film’s press notes describe it as “a psychological disaster movie” about the end of the world. The press release also notes Dunst’s appreciation for Trier’s ability to portray female characters as more complex than traditional Hollywood-perfect beauties. Actually, he prefers to torture them–and often the audience–as he pulls painful performances from the likes of Bjork. Gainsbourg must appreciate this ability as well, choosing to work with him again after Trier’s very controversial Antichrist, which brought her critical acclaim.
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