– Evan Rachel Wood’s next film, George Clooney’s The Ides of March (pictured), sticks to her pattern of choosing gritty roles (think Thirteen, Down in the Valley, Mildred Pierce). Her Ides character is embroiled in a sex scandal. So what does Wood say about politicians in the news? She tells Vulture, “Yeah, politicians are also kinky and some of them cheat on their wives and some of them are gay. Like normal people. It’s not really shocking to me.” She also admits to loving Justin Bieber “unashamedly” and holds out the possibility of venturing into music. As for her Ides co-star Ryan Gosling: “I get the feeling [when he walks into a room] that that must have been how people felt when James Dean walked into a room. Just like, ‘Whoa, what just walked in?’ There’s something really special here. It’s that striking. I think he’s the James Dean of now. And he’d better kiss my ass for saying that.”
– Freida Pinto–a young actress very different from Wood–is better known for her beauty than grit. At the Comic-Con Immortals panel she nervously tip-toed with her words. But she reveals much more of herself to Interview Magazine, speaking about what she’s learned on sets and the confidence she’s found. Of her TIFF-bound Michael Winterbottom film, Trishna, based on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, she says “we had better have read the book!” because, “we never had a script.” During the Rise of the Planet of the Apes shoot, her contact with James Franco was limited. “I knew he was in school, and he was always reading his books, so I didn’t want to disturb him.” She knew going into Immortals that “this is kind of going to be a break from acting.” It was Charlize Theron in Monster that cemented her desire to do “something completely transformational,” i.e. be an actor. She also talks about the differences between the directors she’s worked with in her brief career, from Winterbottom and Julian Schnabel (Miral) to Woody Allen (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) and Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire).
– Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited next directing project (his first since 2008), Pacific Rim, is in pre-production; Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, which he produced, is about to hit theaters. As to the why-what-when-where of his project choices, Del Toro tells Wired: “The first thing is, I don’t get attached, or I rarely get attached, to something I’m not generating from the get go. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is no exception. I started working on this project actively about 16 years ago now…And I have not stopped pursuing it actively. So I really just try to get involved in things I feel truly passionate about, and if I happen to be able to control the rights or hold the rights, I don’t let them go. I just hold onto the project until it gets made. If I don’t control the rights, that’s a different matter.”
[Pinto photo courtesy of Interview Magazine]
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