SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 SPECIAL EDITION
DEADLINE PREVIEWS AWARDS SEASON 2017 EMMA STONE
La La Land
BARRY JENKINS
Moonlight
RUTH NEGGA
Loving
J.A. BAYONA
A Monster Calls
MILES TELLER
Bleed For This
SASHA LANE
American Honey
DAVID OYELOWO
A United Kingdom
NATALIE PORTMAN
Jackie
ISABELLE HUPPERT
Elle
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT
Snowden
HOLLY HUNTER
Strange Weather
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CONTENTS
SEPTEMBER 22, 2016
PUBL ISHER
Stacey Farish ED ITOR
Joe Utichi C R EATIVE D IR ECTOR
Craig Edwards
ASSISTANT ED ITOR
Matt Grobar
D EAD L INE CO-ED ITOR-I N -CH I EFS
Nellie Andreeva Mike Fleming Jr.
EXEC UTIVE ED ITOR
Michael Cieply
AWAR D S ED ITOR & COLU MN I ST
Pete Hammond
D EAD L INE CONTR IBUTORS
Peter Bart Anita Busch Anthony D’Alessandro Lisa de Moraes Patrick Hipes David Lieberman Ross Lincoln Diana Lodderhose Amanda N’Duka Dominic Patten Erik Pedersen Denise Petski David Robb Nancy Tartaglione
2-4
FIRST TAKE Pete Hammond previews this year’s awards race.
6
THE DIALOGUE Emma Stone Barry Jenkins Ruth Negga J.A. Bayona Miles Teller Sasha Lane David Oyelowo Natalie Portman Isabelle Huppert Joseph Gordon-Levitt Holly Hunter
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FLASH MOB Premieres and parties at the Toronto International Film Festival
C HAIR M AN & C EO
Jay Penske
VIC E C HAIR M AN
Gerry Byrne
C HIEF OPERATING OFFI CER
George Grobar
SENIOR VIC E PR ESI DEN T, BUSINESS D EVELOPMEN T
Craig Perreault
GENERAL COUNSEL & S.V.P., HUM AN R ESOURCES
Todd Greene
VIC E PR ESID ENT, CREATI VE
Nelson Anderson
VIC E PR ESID ENT, F I N AN CE
Ken DelAlcazar
VIC E PR ESID ENT, F I LM
Carra Fenton
VIC E PR ESID ENT, TV ENTERTAINMEN T SALES
Laura Lubrano
ACCOUNT EXEC UTIVES, F IL M & TV
Brianna Hamburger Tiffany Windju CHR I S CHA PMA N
AD SAL ES COOR D IN ATORS
Kristina Mazzeo Malik Simmons
PROD UCTION D IR ECTOR
Natalie Longman
ADVERTISING INQU I RI ES
Stacey Farish 310-484-2553 sfarish@pmc.com
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ON THE COVER Emma Stone photographed for Deadline by Chris Chapman at the Toronto International Film Festival 2016
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P ET E HA M M O ND
JAZZED UP Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone fall head over heels in Damien Chazelle's musical La La Land.
READY, SET, GO! Academy season begins with a festival spirit. AS DEADLINE PREPARES to launch yet another movie awards season, the initial response to the crop of Oscar–caliber movies from the just-finished Fall Festival trifecta of Venice, Telluride and Toronto indicates this season will be stronger and more competitive than ever. As Sony Pictures Classics co-President Tom Bernard echoed in Toronto recently, “I think, in terms of the campaign, this upcoming season will probably be the biggest one anybody has ever seen.” From the opener at Venice—La La Land—to the closer at Toronto—The Edge of Seventeen—virtually every distributor showed off something to really get the Oscar race in motion. The quality of the films on display
has been astounding. Multiple Oscar- and Emmy-winner James L. Brooks, producer of that Toronto closing night film, told me his industry friends are saying there is almost a surplus of good films on tap so far.
And this is just the beginning—we still have five months to go! From The Weinstein Company, Lion left no dry eye in the house during its TIFF launch. Mel Gibson’s devastating WW2 epic Hacksaw Ridge drew a 10-minute standing ovation in Venice. That film, like La La Land, is from Lionsgate, which also premiered American Pastoral and Deepwater Horizon to encouraging response in Toronto. Fox Searchlight managed to re-birth their Sundance hit, Birth of a Nation, to big response at its TIFF premieres, and then they picked up what is arguably the hottest title out of Venice and Toronto: Jackie, which drew immediate Oscar buzz for star Natalie Portman, who plays Jackie Kennedy in Pablo Larrain’s wellreceived film. The same director also had his Chilean Oscar entry Neruda
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P ET E HA M M O ND
FESTIVAL FAVORITES Clockwise from top: Birth of a Nation, Lion and Denial all impressed in their Fall Festival berths.
on display at both Telluride and TIFF. And big Fox threw a big event in Toronto for their contender Hidden Figures, featuring 20 minutes of footage and a rousing outdoor concert starring Pharrell Williams, who wrote most of the inspiring movie’s songs. Paramount scored at all three festivals with their intriguing sci-fi entry from director Denis Villeneuve—Arrival—that featured another great performance from five-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams. She also won raves for her work opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Focus Features’ November release, Nocturnal Animals, a Hitchcock-style thriller from director and fashion icon Tom Ford. Focus also brought their Cannes
hit, Loving, and the moving A Monster Calls to showcase at TIFF. Parent studio Universal, meanwhile, did something unusual by making a statement, premiering their big Christmas holiday family animated feature, Sing, to a standing ovation and a concert. Warner Bros. used Telluride to send their Clint Eastwood-directed Sully off to the Oscar wars and immediately drew Best Actor talk for Tom Hanks. Not to be outdone, Disney threw a splashy premiere at Toronto for their wonderful family film about a champion Ugandan chess player, Queen of Katwe. Among the indies, Netflix showed off a slew of documentaries including Amanda Knox and the
devastating elephant poaching doc, The Ivory Game. Leonardo DiCaprio exec-produced the latter, and does the same for the climate change doc Before the Flood, from director Fisher Stevens, in which he takes an on-camera role. Bleecker Street is back this fall with the Holocaust denier movie, Denial, with spot-on performances from Rachel Weisz, Timothy Spall and Tom Wilkinson. Amazon got great response at both Telluride and Toronto for their Sundance breakout, Manchester by the Sea, with many predicting an Oscar nomination for Casey Affleck. Last year’s big Best Picture champ Open Road is following up all that gold for Spotlight with Bleed for This and Snowden getting their first looks on the Fall Fest circuit. Sony Pictures Classics, which always seems to have a ton of films, brought The Eagle Huntress, Toni Erdmann and Richard Gere’s absolutely brilliant performance in Norman (that one scheduled for the 2017 race) to Telluride, and added Pedro Almodovar’s Julieta and Paul Verhoeven’s Elle (with a great Isabelle Huppert performance as a rape victim) to their Toronto mix. A24 launched their Oscar winner Room last year in Telluride, and this year is trying for a repeat awards run with the universally lauded Moonlight from director Barry Jenkins. And to repeat, this is all just the beginning, as we’ll look forward to seeing all these films at our November 5th event, The Contenders, plus many, many more films still to come, promising to make the 2016 race one for the record books. ★
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D THE DIALOGUE
AWA R D S S E A S O N 2016/2017
INTERVIEWS BY JOE UTICHI AND ANTHONY D’ALESSANDRO PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRIS CHAPMAN
EMMA STONE
La La Land
You’ve been doing musicals since you were a kid. What was it like to shoot a movie musical? We recorded all of the songs in the studio—we were rehearsing for about three months ahead of time, but I think only one of the songs that we did together, we actually were kind of lip-syncing to, which was the duet on the hilltop. The rest we sing live in the film, so I don’t know—it kind of has that quality of doing a musical live, because you’re singing live and it’s not this prerecorded sort of energy. I had done one professional musical, but otherwise, it was mostly youth theater, so I didn’t feel like a super expert. —A.D. 6 D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E
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BARRY JENKINS
Moonlight
What is Moonlight about, and where does it come from for you? Moonlight is a coming of age story about a boy growing up in inner city Miami. It’s about identity, and place, and community, and a lot of other different things that are rooted in Tarell McCraney’s play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue— which is a lot to put on a poster, so it’s just called Moonlight. Why is it that stories and voices like these are so underrepresented on screen to this day, when they are a representation of a life that is relatable to so many people? Film is a very expensive art form—it just is. It’s a privilege to make movies. I think it’s interesting that Tarell and I are from this very rough, poor place, and we’ve both come to be these people who create things in arts and letters at a very high level. I think usually those voices, they just don’t have access to the tools; it’s not that the narrative isn’t there, it’s just the means to get it out in front of people are often hard to come by. —J.U.
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RUTH NEGGA
Loving
What did you respond to in the story of Mildred and Richard Loving? For me, there’s so much goodness in these two people—a humanity and an openness, and sort of a non-cynical energy that really shines through. Watching the footage of them, it’s quite clear that they’re essentially just really good people, and that love that they had for one another is respectful, almost polite, old-fashioned, deep love. You can’t help but be beguiled by them. Watching the documentary on the couple, The Loving Story, you see that they’re quite different people in their private lives than they are on camera. Yeah, that’s quite distinct, isn’t it? We had the archival footage, and Nancy [Buirski]’s documentary, but I think that was the interesting journey for us to navigate: how they would be when the cameras weren’t on? I think it just organically sort of happened. —J.U. 8 DDEEAADD L ILNIEN.C RDSR L ID NSEL I N E EO.CMO/ AWA M / AWA
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J.A. BAYONA
A Monster Calls
The story is an incredibly moving grief parable. Was that what attracted you to it? I was overwhelmed the first time I read the book— I was surprised how many ideas it had in common with my other films. What was more attractive to me is the way it talks about storytelling, and how somehow the movie would give me the chance to explore storytelling, trying to shed light on what is the ultimate meaning of what I do as a filmmaker. All of the cast have intensely painful, emotional moments that must be hard to leave at the door when wrapping the shoot. How were those moments for you? Well, we had a readthrough, but we also did a good amount of rehearsals. When you work with actors, you need to create the space—and sometimes you need to avoid creating that space. For example, it was very important to create the relationship between the mother and her son, so we spent a long time before starting to shoot, and we visited amusement parks. That created an immediate relationship. —J.U.
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“EITHER I’M A PSYCHOPATH IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING, OR I AM YOU.”
SEPTEMBER 30
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MILES TELLER
Bleed for This
Why do you think Vinny Pazienza took the risks that he did, when he could have been paralyzed as a result? I think that’s what’s interesting; In Vinny’s arc, he doesn’t make these huge jumps. He kind of is this person when you first meet him, and even in the face of paralysis, literally risking life and death, but being paralyzed from the neck down was something that was a very real risk. I’m so fascinated by those people. I love anybody with that warrior mentality. I love that you have a doctor telling you this is impossible, and there’s just something in there that says, “Not for me.” I think that is so interesting. Let alone, this guy’s a boxer, so he’s already doing it in the ring, but then to show that fight outside the ring, I thought that was a beautiful part of the story, and I love guys like that. —A.D.
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SASHA LANE
American Honey How did Andrea Arnold and this project come into your life? Well, I think by fate, as far as literally everything that led up to it. I feel like it was meant to happen. She just came up to me on the beach, but the conversations we had, the feeling I had of feeling really whole—it just felt right. It was very much a new beginning; it was starting a pathway for: this is what life could be like. It doesn’t have to be how I had it, or how [the character] Star had it. Did you feel everything coming together from the get-go, or did it take a while to find your working chemistry with Andrea? As soon as I met her, I remember asking her, “You want me? This is how I look.” And she was like, “That is so beautiful; of course.” And that’s when I was like, “I’ve been waiting for somebody like you.” Everything—every little conversation we had—life was putting the puzzle pieces together. Like, this is what happens when you’re just open, and you have nothing left to lose. You pay attention more. —J.U. D E A D L I N E .C O M / AWA R D S L I N E
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DAVID OYELOWO
A United Kingdom
What were your research tools in coming to understand Seretse Khama, and developing your approach to the role? The book was where it started for me, and it’s been a long journey; a six-year journey. Susan Williams’ Colour Bar was our jump-off point, but the fantastic thing about Seretse, [his wife] Ruth and the history of Botswana is that these events took place 70 years ago, so his family members are still around. When we were still in the middle of research, Naledi, his sister, was still alive—she passed away recently. Muriel, Ruth’s sister was still alive. They were huge sources of information for Guy Hibbert, our writer. There’s numerous books and articles written. And always, I find shooting in the place where the events happened is invaluable. We literally refurbished the house they lived in, and shot in that house. You just feel that. —J.U.
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NATALIE PORTMAN
Jackie
What was it that stood out most to you about Jackie Kennedy? It was really nice getting to approach her with Pablo [Larrain]’s guidance, because I think he wanted to have this really well-rounded point of view, where you’re seeing all of these different aspects of her. It wasn’t like, “She was this way.” It allows for the mystery of a human being, that they’re many different things at different times to many people. As far as things I didn’t know about her, there’s so much—the fact that she had this ironic wit that people always commented on; that she was the person you wanted to sit next to at the dinner party, saying the most interesting, funny thing at the table; that she took this real control over her family’s story, and that she really had a deep understanding of history, to know that the story you tell is the one that lasts. Those were new ideas, because I had seen her, as most Americans do, in this cultural memory, as this fashion icon who lived through a tragedy—this superficial, basic knowledge of her. —A.D.
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ISABELLE HUPPERT
Elle
You went to TIFF with three very different films this year. How important is it to you to pursue a diverse assortment of roles? It is important, but it’s all about meeting certain people—certain directors—and it’s not something you can predict. But this year has been quite nice. I wouldn’t say they were three completely different characters, because in fact I think there are common points between the character from Elle, and the character from Things to Come. These are two women not willing to be victims, and succeeding in turning whatever happens to them into something more positive. —J.U.
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JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT
Snowden
In making the film, what did you learn about Edward Snowden that you didn’t already know? I asked myself, “Edward Snowden, I’ve heard the name, but what exactly did he do? Why did he do it?” And I actually couldn’t answer the question for myself. So I had to dig in, and I certainly learned a lot. Everyone in the world wants to know why Snowden did what he did, and of course, lots of people have lots of different opinions. The question is, why blow the whistle? Why not complain through internal channels? I learned about this story of a congressional hearing that happened just a few months prior to him making his disclosures, where the Director of National Intelligence was called before Congress, and was asked, “Is the NSA collecting millions of private records on private citizens?” And he said no. He lied, under oath, to a senator. So, if Snowden’s boss’ boss’ boss’ boss was lying under oath to a senator, how is an employee—a technology guy complaining under proper channels—going to make any difference? It’s obviously not. —A.D.
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HOLLY HUNTER
Strange Weather
What was it that you responded to in the first read of the script? I think that the script is really beautiful, and it has an unusual structure, and unusual aspects to the characters. There’s a tremendous amount of humor. There were also a lot of monologues in the script, which pose a particular challenge on film, and I loved the idea of trying to figure out how to deal with that. I loved the words. I didn’t want them to change; I thought that they had a certain kind of magic about them that I think the film really protected, in the final cut. It’s a portrait on the page that I thought avoided a lot of cliches about grief. Is a great role immediately recognizable to you on the page? I think great roles come along rarely for anyone—man, woman, twenties, thirties. They’re tough to find. We, as moviegoers, we see the rarity of a really great role, so when one does come along, you recognize it. This was a wonderful role that immediately leaped off the page. —J.U.
■ Photographed by Chris Chapman at the Deadline Studio at TIFF 2016. Retouching by Basia Hrymowicz/tweakproductions.com. Special thanks to Image Skin Care Canada, Calii Love, Commune, Dan Gunam, and Silverline Studios. See additional photos and video interviews from the Deadline Studio at TIFF 2016 at Deadline.com/AwardsLine 18 OO MM / AWA R D SRLDI N 1 8 DDEEA D DLLIINNEE.C.C / AWA S EL I N E
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★ | flash mob
R EX/SHUT T ERSTO CK
TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, SEPT 8-18 Top row: J.A. Bayona & SIgourney Weaver; Amy Adams & Jeremy Renner; Darren Aronofsky, Natalie Portman & Pablo Larrain; Marc Platt & Emma Stone; Leonardo DiCaprio & Fisher Stevens. Middle row: Scarlett Johansson, Reese Witherspoon, Tori Kelly & Jennifer Hudson; Keleigh Sperry & Miles Teller. Bottom row: Mark Whalberg; Michelle Williams; Casey Affleck, Kenneth Lonergan & Matt Damon; Chris Pratt; Nate Parker.
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