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THE COUNTDOWN JANUARY 2018

THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR PGA NOMINEE B E ST P ICTU R E PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA

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GOLDEN GLOBE

®

AWARD NOMINATIONS INCLUDING

BEST PICTURE – DRAMA BEST DIRECTOR

WINNER

ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST FILMS

8

CRITICS’ CHOICE

AWARD NOMINATIONS INCLUDING

BEST PICTURE BEST DIRECTOR BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE

WINNER

B E ST DI R ECTOR ATLANTA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION FLORIDA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY UTAH FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION WASHINGTON DC AREA FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION PHOENIX CRITICS CIRCLE SEATTLE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

ACE NOMINEE

ADG NOMINEE

BEST FILM EDITING

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

AMERICAN CINEMA EDITORS

ART DIRECTORS GUILD

(DRAMATIC)

(PERIOD)

“CHRISTOPHER NOL AN’S FILM IS AN EPIC ACH IEVEMENT–THE VERY DE F INITION OF WHAT CINEMA CAN AND SHOULD BE. ‘DUNKIRK’ IS VISCERAL FILMMAKING THAT CAN TRULY BE CALLED ART.” –CHRIS NASHAWAT Y

F O R

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W W W . WA R N E R B R O S 2 0 1 7 . C O M

“ONE OF THE BEST PICTURES OF THE YEAR.

As A Portrait Of Leadership At Its Most Brilliant, Thoughtful And Morally Courageous, ‘Darkest Hour’ Is

THE MOVIE WE NEED RIGHT NOW.” ANN HORNADAY, THE WASHINGTON POST

“SOME MOVIES ARE JUST SO GOOD That They Make You Feel Grateful To The People That Made Them.

‘DARKEST HOUR’ IS ONE OF THOSE MOVIES.” MICK LASALLE, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“DIRECTOR JOE WRIGHT BRINGS A CINEMATIC DYNAMISM TO EVERY SCENE.” PETER TRAVERS, ROLLING STONE

“A TESTAMENT TO THE POWER OF WORDS.” DAVID EHRLICH, INDIEWIRE

“GARY OLDMAN GIVES A TOWERING, TRANSFORMATIVE PERFORMANCE.” RICHARD LAWSON, VANITY FAIR

C R I T I C S ’

C H O I C E

A W A R D S

N O M I N E E

BEST PICTURE BEST ACTOR GARY OLDMAN ®

BEST ACTOR GARY OLDMAN

© 1995 SAG-AFTRA

SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS NOMINEE

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES

IT TAKES THE POWER OF LEADERSHIP TO UNITE A NATION For more on this film, go to www.FocusFeaturesGuilds2017.com

© 2017 FOCUS FEATURES LLC.

Awards Special The Countdown

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From left: Hoyte Van Hoytema, Robert Elswit, Roger Deakins, Dan Laustsen (back to camera), Rachel Morrison and Janusz Kaminski were photographed Oct. 1 at Mack Sennett Studios in Los Angeles. Hear the DPs discuss the year’s top films at THR.com/video.

FEATURES 22 ‘Channeling Empathy’ Through a Camera They’ve lensed everything from the massive retreat at Dunkirk to a mysterious sea creature by finding a balance with their directors: “He does his thing, I do my thing.

Somehow we both see this movie the same way.”

28 Who’s Making Sure That ‘Everything Is Authentic’ Consultants reveal how they help actors get into fighting (or skating) shape and nail the details for period pieces.

30 Women Giving Voice to Afghan Girls

Carell didn’t have to do either for his role as Bobby Riggs.

Talk about gender inequality.

“Oftentimes women and young girls are the first to suffer in a society where something has gone terribly wrong,” says The Breadwinner helmer Nora Twomey, who teamed with Angelina Jolie on the animated film.

44 Women Warriors at Work Wardrobe pros ensured that strong female characters dress the part, from Wonder Woman’s more covered-up superhero armor to Molly’s Game’s look-but-don’t-touch game-time dresses.

34 Making of Battle of the Sexes

46 ‘The Place Itself Will Become Art’

Emma Stone had to gain 15 pounds and learn how to bounce a tennis ball in order to play Billie Jean King. Steve

From the creepy countryside estate in Get Out to the

Photographed by Charles W. Murphy

T H E HOL LY WO OD R EP ORT ER

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J A N UA R Y 2018 AWA R D S

romantic Italian villa in Call Me by Your Name, the environments characters inhabit are often as vital to the narrative as the characters themselves.

48 World Exploration Nine films remain on the foreign-language shortlist as THR highlights titles from Senegal, Russia, Hungary and elsewhere that examine racism, masculinity and a nation’s moral missteps.

January 2018 Awards

DEPARTMENTS Anti-Trump sentiment arguably powered Iran’s The Salesman to its 2017 Oscar, and global political fault lines could also rock this year’s foreign-language race.

18 How a Pug, a Puffin and a Chicken Inspired Jedi’s Porgs The Star Wars team used realworld animals to bring to life the film’s space creatures.

32 ‘Diverse Stories Are Just Stories’ Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya’s face might be on billboards on Sunset Boulevard, but his focus is on telling stories with meaning and truth.

42 Triple Threats Times Two

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Both Michael Stuhlbarg and Alison Brie find themselves with not one, not two, but three projects earning awards love this season.

From left: Director Jonathan Dayton with Andrea Riseborough and Emma Stone at work on Battle of the Sexes.

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42

A costume sketch for Michelle Williams’ character in All the Money in the World.

“I’m always trying not to repeat myself,” says Stuhlbarg, here in Call Me

by Your Name.

T H E HOL LY WO OD R EP ORT ER

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J A N UA R Y 2018 AWA R D S

BATTLE: MELINDA SUE GORDON/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. CALL: STEFANO DALL’ASTA/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS. SKETCH: COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT.

14 Weight of the World

THE YEAR’S MOST UNRULY OSCAR CONTENDER IS ALSO ITS MOST RELEVANT ®

Rolling Stone

The Boston Globe

Variety

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY NOMINEE

W R I T E R S G U I L D AWA R D S

Film Journal International

Time Out New York

NPR

MARGOT ROBBIE SEBASTIAN STAN

AND ALLISON JANNEY

DIRECTED BY CRAIG GILLESPIE WRITTEN BY STEVEN ROGERS

F O R

Y O U R

C O N S I D E RA T I O N

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A L L

C A T E G O R I E S

I N C L U D I N G

BE ST PICTUR E

JOANNE SELLAR PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON MEGAN ELLISON DANIEL LUPI BE ST DI R ECTOR

BE ST ACTOR

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

BE ST ACTR E SS

BE ST SUPPORTI NG ACTR E SS

VICKY KRIEPS

LESLEY MANVILLE

BE ST OR IGI NAL SCR EEN PLAY

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON

“‘Phantom Thread’ is a work about a master craftsman, by a master craftsman, starring a master craftsman.”

I NDIEWIRE

© 2017 PHANTOM THREAD, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Matthew Belloni EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Alison Brower

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EXECUTIVE MANAGING EDITOR

Stephen Galloway

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Erik Hayden

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PHOTO & VIDEO DIRECTOR

DEPUTY EDITOR

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EDITOR-AT-LARGE Kim Masters

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TELEVISION TELEVISION EDITOR, EAST COAST Marisa Guthrie • TELEVISION EDITOR, WEST COAST Lesley Goldberg • SENIOR WRITER, TELEVISION Michael O’Connell TELEVISION WRITER Bryn Elise Sandberg • MEDIA & POLITICS WRITER Jeremy Barr • STAFF REPORTER Brian Porreca

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PHOTO & VIDEO DEPUTY PHOTO DIRECTOR Carrie Smith • PHOTO EDITORS Chelsea Archer, Lisa Dragani, Michelle Stark • SENIOR PHOTO PRODUCER Kate Pappa ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITORS Tristan Cassel, Jared Rosenthal • PHOTO RESEARCHER Megan Downie • PHOTO & VIDEO ASSISTANT Kayla Landrum • PHOTO EDITOR-AT-LARGE Jenny Sargent DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION, VIDEO Stephanie Fischette • SENIOR VIDEO PRODUCERS Marya Gullo, Victoria McKillop, Laela Zadeh VIDEO PRODUCER Natalie Heltzel • YOUTUBE CHANNEL MANAGER Jason Al-Samarrie • WEB VIDEO CONTENT MANAGER April Salud • RIGHTS & CLEARANCES MANAGER Travis Gollaher LEAD VIDEO EDITOR Victor Klaus • VIDEO EDITOR/MOTION GRAPHICS ARTIST Darin Eaton • JUNIOR VIDEO EDITOR Nebiyu Dingetu • VIDEO PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Dustin Hattier

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F O R

YO U R

CO N S I D E R AT I O N

B E S T

D O C U M E N TA RY

F E AT U R E

“ONE OF THE BEST

DOCUMENTARIES OF ALL TIME.” WINNER

WINNER

CRITICS’ CHOICE DOCUMENTARY AWARDS

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

B E S T D O C U M E N TA RY

B E S T D O C U M E N TA RY

B E S T D O C U M E N TA R Y F E AT U R E NOMINEE

PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA

BEST EDITED DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE) NOMINEE

AMERICAN CINEMA EDITORS

W I N N E R 16 BEST DOCUMENTARY NATIONAL CRITICS GROUPS

“BREATHTAKING. THE YEAR’S MOST

BEAUTIFUL DOCUMENTARY.”

“A NEW HIGH

IN DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING.”

“AS CLOSE TO

PERFECTION

AS ANY FILM CAN GET.”

“ASTONISHING. MESMERIZING. SPECTACULAR.”

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY PHILADELPHIA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY ATLANTA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY NORTH TEXAS FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY SAN DIEGO FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY ST. LOUIS FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY NEVADA FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY LA ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

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++++ THE YEAR’S BEST

“AN EPIC ROMANCE BRIMMING WITH A

DOCUMENTARY.”

LOVE FOR LIFE.”

“

“A STUNNING ACHIEVEMENT.”

++++ STUNNING.

A MESMERIZING PORTRAIT OF A FIERCE ICONCLAST.

A TRIUMPH

OF FILMMAKING.”

F ROM T H E D I R ECTO R O F K U RT CO B A I N : M O N TAG E O F H EC K A N D T H E K I D S TAYS I N T H E P I C T U R E

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++++

EXTRAORDINARY.”

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY WASHINGTON, DC AREA FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

WINNER

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WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY FLORIDA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

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BEST ENSEMBLE

B E S T A C T R E S S F R A N C E S M CD O R M A N D

“‘THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI’ IS AN ABSOLUTE MARVEL. FEATURING STANDOUT PERFORMANCES FROM FRANCES MCDORMAND, WOODY HARRELSON, AND SAM ROCKWELL, THE WRITER-DIRECTOR MARTIN MCDONAGH’S LATEST IS ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR.” CHRISTOPHER ORR,

BEST PICTURE

B E S T A C T R E S S F R A N C E S M CD O R M A N D

+++++ “LIKE THE BEST MOVIES OFTEN DO, ‘THREE BILLBOARDS’ LEAVES AUDIENCES WITH A COMPLEX SET OF EMOTIONS, AND WITH A HARD-TO-DEFINE HINT OF THE PROFOUND… SOMETHING WORTHWHILE AND HUMANE.” MICK L A SALLE,

F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N IN A L L C AT E G O RIE S IN C L UDIN G

BEST PICTURE PRODUCED BY

GRAHAM BROADBENT PETE CZERNIN MARTIN McDONAGH

FOXSEARCHLIGHT.COM/FYC

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2

3 1

Anti-Trump sentiment may well have powered Iran’s The Salesman to its 2017 Oscar, and global political fault lines could also rock this year’s foreign-language race

By Scott Roxborough

S

pare a thought for Toni Erdmann. In 2017, Maren Ade’s German comedy, about the relationship between a workaholic career woman and her prankster father, was the favorite to win the foreign-language Oscar.

Then Trump happened. On Jan. 27, newly elected President Trump enacted Executive Order 13769, the first so-called Muslim ban, blocking visa-free travel to the U.S. from six Muslimmajority countries, including Iran. Asghar Farhadi, whose Tehran-set drama The Salesman was also a foreign-language contender, slammed Trump for the move and said he would boycott the Oscars. And on Feb. 26, Farhadi’s The Salesman won the Academy Award for best foreignlanguage film.

For the 2018 foreign-language hopefuls, real-world events could again intervene to tilt the scales. And again, the film with the most to lose is this season’s frontrunner, another European comedy: Ruben Ostlund’s Swedish art world satire The Square.

The most obviously

political football in the race is Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot, from Israel. The film, a look at the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and the Israeli soldiers who man security checkpoints, has plenty of fans in the Academy. And Israel, which has been nominated 10 times for the foreign-language Oscar, is arguably overdue for a win.

But at home Foxtrot has proved controversial, in particular for a scene in which Israeli soldiers kill a family in their car and then cover up the act. Israel’s culture minister, Miri Regev, has blasted the film, saying it “shames the reputation of the Israel Defense Forces” and “undermines” the country.

Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — a move resoundingly rejected in a vote by the U.N. General Assembly — adds another twist.

Will Academy voters view support for Foxtrot as tacit support for Trump’s Middle East politics?

It’s a similar issue with Loveless, from Russian auteur Andrey Zvyagintsev. Few in the Academy would want to be seen supporting

T H E HOL LY WO OD R EP ORT ER

Moscow or Vladimir Putin, especially with the ongoing investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign ahead of the 2016 election. The irony: Zvyagintsev is, if anything, anti-Putin. His 2014 Oscar nominee, Leviathan, which skewered government corruption, was condemned by the Kremlin, with many officials calling for it to be banned.

Loveless, the story of a divorcing couple whose child goes missing, is similarly relentless in its criticism of contemporary Russia. The director uses the couple’s toxic relationship to portray a decaying and morally corrupt society.

Local, not international, politics color both The Insult, Lebanon’s Oscar contender, and In the Fade, from Germany. The former is a legal drama focused on Lebanon’s sectarian divide (a Christian car mechanic and a Muslim construction worker come to blows over a dispute concerning a rain gutter); the latter looks at the rise of racist violence in Germany through the story of a neo-Nazi who murders the Kurdish husband and child of a German woman.

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J A N UA R Y 2018 AWA R D S

Oscar voters wanting to make a statement without wading into the stickier issues of global politics could take a shine to foreignlanguage entries from Chile and South Africa. Sebastian Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman, about a Chilean transgender woman (played by transgender actress Daniela Vega) who faces scorn and discrimination after the death of her older boyfriend, is a powerful story of LGBTQ identity and acceptance.

John Trengove’s The Wound examines South Africa’s hypermacho and homophobic culture through a story of a closeted gay man tasked with initiating a teenage boy in the traditional ways of manhood. Both have stirred up controversy at home, but both, from the Academy’s perspective, could be safe bets.

Then again, Academy voters, exhausted from the first year of Trump, could be in the mood for a little escapism. In that case, Oscar odds point to On Body and Soul from Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi. The surreal love story, between a woman with autistic tendencies and an emotionally (and physically) crippled man, could be just the respite from politics the Academy craves.

FOXTROT: COURTESY OF TIFF. WOUND: COURTESY OF KINO LORBER. WOMAN: COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS. LOVELESS: ANNA MATVEEVA/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS.

WEIGHT OF THE WORLD

1 Foxtrot topped the Ophir Awards, also known as the Israeli Oscars. 2 South Africa’s coming-of-age drama The Wound. 3 Vega in A Fantastic Woman. 4 Loveless won the Jury Prize in Cannes.

“Perhaps the most impactful documentary of the year.”

ᗂᗂᗂᗂᗂ

“ May be the best nonfiction movie of the year.”

“Icarus casts the depth of deception with an immediacy that’s often astounding.”

“A truly absorbing piece of filmmaking.”

“A wildly timely movie for our current moment.”

ACTOR

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

The Academy has begun its nominating process — members must make their picks by Jan. 12, and the noms will be unveiled Jan. 23 — so, quick, take one last look at the screener pile By Scott Feinberg

BEST PICTURE

ANIMATED FEATURE

Christian Bale, Hostiles

Melissa Leo, Novitiate

The best actor Oscar winner for 2010’s The Fighter got admiring reviews for playing an Army captain escorting a Native American prisoner in Scott Cooper’s Western, but the year-end release was lost in the shuffle, earning just $110,000 from five theaters.

On Dec. 30, Leo, the supporting actress Oscar winner for The Fighter, dropped by the Capri, Hollywood festival in Italy, where she was feted for her portrayal of a vicious nun in Margaret Betts’ narrative feature directorial debut.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

The Big Sick

Coco

Even though the Michael Showalterdirected rom-com, which Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon wrote based on their own lives, scored a Screen Actors Guild Awards ensemble nom and made it onto the AFI’s Top Ten list, it faces an uphill battle for awardsseason recognition. Its latest setbacks: Failing to secure a nomination for either the Casting Society of America’s 33rd Artios Awards or the American Cinema Editors’ 68th Eddie Awards.

Pixar’s latest film, which under the direction of Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina ventures into the Land of the Dead, is an increasingly lively awards-season player. Since dominating the nominations for the 45th Annie Awards with 13, it’s been on a roll, earning noms for an Artios Award and an Eddie Award. Plus, it was just hailed as best animated movie, with the best song, “Remember Me,” at the Capri, Hollywood Film Festival.

SOUND EDITING/MIXING

Icarus

Darkest Hour

Cycling legend/pariah Lance Armstrong has endorsed Bryan Fogel’s film, which exposes Russia’s secret sports doping program — a scandal that got the country banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics — and will host a Jan. 6 screening in New York.

Joe Wright, director of the World War II-set drama, has been tapped by the Cinema Audio Society to receive its Filmmaker Award on Feb. 24, with the organization saying, “Joe knows how to get the best out of every instrument in the filmmaking orchestra.”

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS ®

NOMINEE

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM FROM THE PRODUCERS OF

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JACKIE, SPOTLIGHT AND TONI ERDMANN

“A FANTASTIC MOVIE. DANIELA VEGA IS FANTASTIC IN IT.” -A.O. Scott, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“THE MOVIE IS A KNOCKOUT. EXTRAORDINARY. ELEVATES SEBASTIÁN LELIO IN THE RISING-STAR RANKS OF INTERNATIONAL FILMMAKERS. DANIELA VEGA IS REMARKABLE.” -David Rooney, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM BEST ACTRESS BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY OFFICIAL CHILE ENTRY DANIELA VEGA SEBASTIÁN LELIO & GONZALO MAZA

A FANTASTIC WOMAN

SICK: COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS. COCO: COURTESY OF DISNEY. HOSTILES: COURTESY OF TIFF. NOVITIATE: MARK LEVINE/ SONY PICTURES CLASSICS. DARKEST: JACK ENGLISH/FOCUS FEATURES. ICARUS: COURTESY OF NETFLIX.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, TIME TO MARK YOUR BALLOTS!

F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N I N A L L C A T E G O R I E S I N C L U D I N G

BEST PICTURE PRODUCED BY

J. MILES DALE, p.g.a. • GUILLERMO DEL TORO, p.g.a.

“‘THE SHAPE OF WATER’ IS A WONDER TO BEHOLD.” KENNETH TURAN,

“A STUNNER! A DAZZLING DIVE INTO THE FANTASTIC. YOU’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING QUITE LIKE THIS SPELLBINDING TALE. SALLY HAWKINS GIVES THE BEST PERFORMANCE OF HER CAREER.” JOE MORGENSTERN,

“GUILLERMO DEL TORO IMAGINES A WHOLE WORLD, ONE THAT HAS NEVER EXISTED BEFORE, AND THEN CREATES IT WITH A METICULOUSNESS AND FIDELITY THAT CAN INSPIRE AWE.” MICK L A SALLE,

HOW A PUG, A PUFFIN AND A CHICKEN INSPIRED JEDI’S PORGS The Star Wars: The Last Jedi team used real-world animals to bring to life the film’s space creatures, including the bird-like porgs and the giant horse-like fathiers By Carolyn Giardina

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1 The crystal-covered vulptex creatures live on the salt-encrusted mineral planet Crait.

2 Fathiers are held captive to run races for the entertainment of the people of Canto Bight.

3 Caretakers oversee Luke Skywalker’s island.

or screechy. He wanted them to feel natural and sweet.” The perfect blend was ultimately realized by combining the sounds of a chicken, recorded at Skywalker Ranch; a turkey bird call; and a dove cooing, pitched down.

“It’s actually very simple, but just to find it took forever,” admits Klyce.

Another creature that combined practical effects and CG was the fathier — a cross between a horse, cat and lion. “It runs very much like a cat but has lion and horse features,” Scanlan says. And it was challenging to create because of its size: 15 feet tall and 18 feet long.

The horselike creature becomes a key part of Finn (John Boyega) and Rose’s (Kelly Marie Tran) visit to the seaside town of Left: Scanlan with porg puppets. Right: Another porg from The Last Jedi.

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Canto Bight, where they help a fathier herd to escape. Action sequences like that chase scene involved CG. “We built a full-scale animatronic with [special effects supervisor] Chris Corbould,” Scanlan explains. “It could gallop and buck just as the CG version would, so that the actors were physically on something that they were reacting to, [which helped] when they put together the digital sequences.”

During the wild escape, the fathiers crash through a casino in one of the most challenging scenes. “The entrance through the huge glass window of the casino involved a steel skeleton of one fathier complete with steelshaped head being propelled at speed along a captivated track and through the glass window, shattering glass optics and knocking over tables and chairs,” says Corbould.

For more intimate scenes, “Rian wanted them to be practical so [the actors] could react [to each creature],” Scanlan adds. “We had a mechanical head, neck and upper body. On top of that is a foam latex skin that has been covered in hair — thousands of hairs are singularly punched in one at a time to give the coat to the animal. And a computer-controlled performance system allowed the puppeteers to move the eyes, eyebrows, lips, etc. in a choreographed way to get the expressions.”

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VULPTEX: COURTESY OF INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC. PORG: COURTESY OF LUCASFILM LTD. STAR: JONATHAN OLLEY/LUCASFILM LTD. (3). KYLCE: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES. CORBOULD: KARWAI TANG/WIREIMAGE.

tar Wars: The Last Jedi introduced audiences to a few new worlds and several fresh fantastical creatures living in a galaxy far, far away.

The film, which was among the 10 to make the visual effects shortlist Dec. 18, brought to life these new furry friends by blending animatronics and CG. “Hopefully keeping the audience guessing,” says Neal Scanlan, creature and droid effects creative supervisor.

The fan-favorite porgs, small bird-like creatures that inhabit Ahch-To (Luke Skywalker’s remote island hideaway), were designed as a cross between a seal, a puffin and a pug dog.

“These little characters provided a little moment [for the audience] to take a breath,” Scanlan explains. “So we tried to tap into the traditions of theater and puppetry.”

The porgs that appear on the ground are puppets operated Klyce with rods outside the character.

“Inside are little mechanisms that allow the eyes to move, the mouth to chirp and express and the feet to bounce up and down,” Corbould says Scanlan.

Each of these creatures was operated by four to five puppeteers, dressed in green suits and using green rods, all of which were removed digitally during postproduction. Additionally, fully CG versions were developed for use when the little creatures lift off the ground and fly.

Of course, to fully realize the porgs, the sound team had to give them a voice. Director Rian Johnson “really knew what he wanted,” explains sound designer Ren Klyce. “He didn’t want them to be irritating or irksome

Yes, I Did Say That!

A look at who’s saying what during awards season Compiled by Brian Porreca

“I kicked the fucking door open.”

“It’s the weirdest phone call you can receive.”

TIFFANY HADDISH

The Post co-writer, talking about the first time director Steven Spielberg contacted her about her script.

The Girls Trip breakout, accepting her New York Film Critics Circle award in an 18-minute speech that drew a standing ovation.

HONG CHAU

The Downsizing actress, joking about her newfound fame, adding, “This is the most talking I’ve done in my entire life!”

“Two octogenarians kicking absolute ass.”

TOM ROTHMAN

The Sony chairman, opening up about Ridley Scott and Christopher Plummer rushing to complete All the Money in the World after Kevin Spacey was edited out of the film.

JAMIE BELL

The Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool actor, revealing what Russell Crowe said to him before Bell was awarded a BAFTA in 2001.

“It didn’t sound so much like an accusation as her questioning why he was so interested.”

“I’m sorry, but the world is not kind to women.”

DENIS VILLENEUVE

The Blade Runner 2049 director, reacting to a question about criticism of his film’s depiction of women.

“Cinema is a mirror on society,” he added. “Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it’s about today.”

MOLLY BLOOM

The Molly’s Game subject, opening up about her reaction to a 2014 leaked Sony email in which Amy Pascal said Bloom and the film’s writer-director, Aaron Sorkin, were “sleeping” together.

CAREY WAS WEB’S CUP OF TEA

With her faux-diva request for hot tea on Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, Mariah Carey (in the Oscar race with her song for The Star) scored 2018’s first viral meme, generating more than 200,000 Twitter reactions. Whoopi Goldberg joked, “There should’ve just been people running tea to her.”

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“How was it when Timmy had to grab your crotch?”

ARMIE HAMMER

The Call Me by Your Name actor, venting about the consistent “dumb” and “base level” questions he has been getting throughout awards season.

HADDISH: PAUL ZIMMERMAN/WIREIMAGE. BELL: SLAVEN VLASIC/GETTY IMAGES. BLOOM: MIKE COPPOLA/GETTY IMAGES. HAMMER: JON KOPALOFF/FILM MAGIC. CAREY: @MARIAHCAREY/INSTAGRAM.

“It’s usually just me and my dog.”

“He came up to me before that award was announced and said, ‘Listen mate, if you win, mention my name.’ ”

LIZ HANNAH

F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N I N A L L C AT E G O R I E S I N C L U D I N G

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM • BEST ACTRESS - DIANE KRUGER ®

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GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD NOMINEE BEST MOTION PICTURE – FOREIGN LANGUAGE GERMANY’S OFFICIAL OSCAR SELECTION - BEST FOREIGN LANGAUGE FILM ®

IN THE FADE A F I L M B Y FA T I H A KI N

AN EDGE-OF-SEAT THRILLER. Diane Kruger is superb.”

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Deborah Young, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

GRIPPING.

“

DIANE KRUGER GIVES AN EXTRAORDINARILY DEEP AND PASSIONATE PERFORMANCE.” John Powers, VOGUE

A MASTERFUL THRILLER,

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anchored by Diane Kruger’s incendiary Cannes-award-winning performance.”

Anne Thompson, INDIEWIRE

DIANE KRUGER’S PERFORMANCE IS MOMENTOUS.”

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David Edelstein, NEW YORK MAGAZINE

DIANE KRUGER GIVES A FEROCIOUS BUT ” SKILLFULLY MODULATED LEAD PERFORMANCE. ‘‘

Justin Chang, LOS ANGELES TIMES

AMPAS MEMBERS – YOUR MEMBER CARDS WILL ADMIT YOU AND A GUEST ON A MONDAY-THURSDAY BASIS TO NEW YORK CITY AND LOS ANGELES THEATERS – SPACE PERMITTING

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BEST MOTION PICTURE – FOREIGN LANGUAGE

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GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD NOMINEE ‘‘‘THE

SQUARE’ PROBABLY SAYS MORE ABOUT THE TIMES WE’RE LIVING IN THAN ANY OTHER FILM YOU’RE LIKELY TO SEE THIS YEAR.’’ BILGE EBIRI,

★★★★

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THIS IS HIGH WIRE CINEMA.” IT SETS OUT TO MAKE YOUR JAW DROP. AND IT SUCCEEDS. PETER BRADSHAW,

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SAVAGELY ENTERTAINING.’’ JUSTIN CHANG,

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DAZZLING.’’

‘‘

BRILLIANT.’’ RICHARD LAWSON,

CHRISTIAN LORENTZEN,

NEW REPUBLIC

ELISABETH MOSS

DOMINIC WEST

CLAES BANG

TERRY NOTARY

THE SQUARE FROM

R U B E N Ö S T L U N D,

DIRECTOR OF

FORCE MAJEURE

AMPAS MEMBERS – YOUR MEMBER CARDS WILL ADMIT YOU AND A GUEST ON A MONDAY-THURSDAY BASIS TO NEW YORK CITY AND LOS ANGELES THEATERS – SPACE PERMITTING

‘CHANNELING THROUGH A CAMERA

O

n any movie set, the cinematographer often has a symbiotic relationship with the director — Janusz Kaminski, who just shot The Post, has been working with Steven Spielberg for 25 years.

But that doesn’t mean these pros don’t have a lot of opinions of their own, as was clear when Kaminski, 58, met to talk shop with Blade Runner 2049’s Roger Deakins, 68; Dunkirk’s Hoyte Van Hoytema, 46; Mudbound’s Rachel Morrison, 39; The Shape of Water’s Dan Laustsen, 63; and Suburbicon and Roman J. Israel, Esq.’s Robert Elswit, 67. Whether revealing some of the happy accidents that resulted in unexpected and hauntingly beautiful images or bemoaning the challenges of filming in the pouring rain, they share a common experience and language. “It’s so much about chemistry,” says Van Hoytema, who just completed his second film with Christopher Nolan, about relationships with their directors. “In the beginning, you’re very stiff and you’re really feeling each other out and tiptoeing around each other. But then on the next project, you’re very often the only two people that really know each other.”

From left: Elswit, Kaminski, Morrison, Laustsen, Van Hoytema and Deakins were photographed Oct. 1 at Mack Sennett Studios in Los Angeles.

EMPATHY’

THEY’VE LENSED EVERYTHING FROM THE MASSIVE RETREAT AT DUNKIRK TO A MYSTERIOUS SEA CREATURE BY FINDING A BALANCE WITH THEIR DIRECTORS: ‘HE DOES HIS THING, I DO MY THING. SOMEHOW WE BOTH SEE THIS MOVIE THE SAME WAY’ BY CAROLYN GIARDINA PHOTOGRAPHED BY SPENCER LOWELL

ROBERT ELSWIT Suburbicon

JANUSZ KAMINSKI The Post

RACHEL MORRISON Mudbound

DAN LAUSTSEN The Shape of Water

HOYTE VAN HOYTEMA Dunkirk

ROGER DEAKINS Blade Runner 2049

JANUSZ KAMINSKI Oh my God,

there’s so many. Getting an image out of focus into the movie. That’s a happy accident. In AI, when we introduced a little kid in the elevator, it’s looking through a long lens and was out of focus.

And Steven [Spielberg] said: “This is great. Just let him come all the way out of focus, you know, into the shot.”

DAN LAUSTSEN When we shot Solomon Kane, we had a lot of rain and we had fog on the rain deflectors. And the director kept that in the movie. It looks amazing. It was just a big mistake when we did it.

But it looks really cool.

HOYTE VAN HOYTEMA We had some real accidents on the set of Dunkirk. We had one camera

mounted on the wing of a mockup Spitfire that we were going to catapult out in the sea. And the divers were all going to retrieve that camera. But the plane sank to the bottom, in a matter of seconds, and the film couldn’t be retrieved for several hours. The camera was broken. Everything was soaked. But our focus puller, Bob Hall, and our loader, they came up with a plan, and they took the magazine [the casing in which the film resides] to the darkroom and poured fresh water over it and sealed it and sent it back to America in a container immersed in water. And it’s a shot that actually made it into the film. It looked great. I’m kind of almost thinking I should treat all my images with salt seawater at some point.

ROBERT ELSWIT Paul Thomas RACHEL MORRISON

Anderson, whom I’ve worked with a lot, loves accidents. On There Will Be Blood, we were burning a wooden oil derrick, which was supposed to burn a little bit and then we’d put it out. But it caught on fire and couldn’t be put out, so we had to shoot the entire sequence kind of really fast in sort of a crazy way, and it ended up working out really well because of the chaos of that moment. It actually made the scene work in a much more interesting way — it came alive.

more terrified. You can’t say no to the opportunity. And having worked with Denis twice, I had a really good relationship with him, and we have a very similar sort of sensibility. We spend a lot of time in prep, just talking things through. He likes to shoot with a single camera. You know, stuff like that.

Janusz, you’ve said you wanted The Post to look like someone else shot it. What did you mean by that?

DEAKINS In all honesty, not much.

Obviously it’s got parallels because it’s the same world 30 years on, but it’s very much Denis’ own take on the script. It’s a film that could stand by itself. And I’m not [Blade Runner cinematographer] Jordan Cronenweth. I could not light like Jordan. I didn’t even want to go there. I light in a more naturalistic and simpler way. And his style was so much more classic. I couldn’t do that. So you know, I didn’t even really want to go there, frankly.

KAMINSKI In the past, I would visit Roger [Deakins] on the set and see his beautiful lighting, and Roger would say, “How’s that backlight, Janusz?” I said, “No, Roger, on this movie, no backlight.” The idea of deglamorizing the images, I’ve been always interested in that, though the work speaks against what I’m just saying. But I’m interested in the gritty aspect of things. In this movie, I wanted it to look a little bit different than what’s generally expected from me. I didn’t want that classical Hollywood backlight. I want it to look more like I’ve shot something with a limited amount of lights. I wanted to make a movie that feels contemporary, though it’s set in 1971.

Did you tell Spielberg all that?

KAMINSKI No, because certain things you don’t reveal. It’s very tricky. Even after 27, 25 years [working together], you don’t want to give too much information because then you subject yourself to being questioned. And sometimes I don’t really have an answer. It just feels right. We actually do not have conversations. He does his thing, I do my thing. And somehow we both see this movie the same way. I hate to say that we’re only as good as the directors, but to some degree, we’re only as good as the filmmakers we’re working for.

Roger, what was your reaction when Denis Villeneuve said he wanted to make a Blade Runner sequel?

ROGER DEAKINS I think he was terrified. And that made me feel even

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Blade Runner 2049 is a sequel to a classic film with a very distinct look. To what extent did the original inform your decisions about what the new film would look like?

Bob, how has your working relationship with George Clooney evolved?

ELSWIT The first time I worked with

him [on Syriana], he was an actor, and I got to know him pretty well.

His approach is really an actor’s approach to directing. It is very different from someone who is a writer-director primarily or a director. He really looks at what’s going on with the actors. They’re his closest collaborators. And this picture [Suburbicon] is very different because he didn’t act in it at all. He and Grant Heslov, his [producing] partner, rewrote a Coen brothers script, which I’m sure Roger would have shot had it actually gone 15 years ago, when they wrote it. And then George directed. He hired the same storyboard artist who does all the Coen brothers movies and storyboarded the whole film. It was the first time I’ve worked with him where that happened, and it helped a lot.

He actually does focus on the visuals in a very specific way.

Hoyte, you’ve now made your second movie with Christopher Nolan, and the two of you actually went up in Spitfires together?

PREVIOUS SPREAD: SET DESIGN BY WARD ROBINSON AT WOODEN LADDER. ON-SET STYLING BY JARDINE HAMMOND. ELSWIT GROOMING AND MORRISON HAIR AND MAKEUP BY JUANITA LYON AT CELESTINE AGENCY. KAMINSKI AND VAN HOYTEMA GROOMING BY SU HAN AT DEW BEAUTY AGENCY. LAUSTSEN GROOMING BY CHECHEL JOSON AT DEW BEAUTY AGENCY. SUBURBICON: HILARY BRONWYN GAYLE/PARAMOUNT PICTURES. POST: NIKO TAVERNISE/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. MUDBOUND: STEVE DIETL/NETFLIX. SHAPE: KERRY HAYES/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. DUNKIRK: MELINDA SUE GORDON/WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT. BLADE: COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT

What are some of the happiest accidents you’ve had while shooting a film?

VAN HOYTEMA We had a tremen-

dous amount of fun, yes, like two little boys. We wanted to know what the G-forces do to your body and how the light changes. And to understand what it is to sit in a small sort of Plexiglas-encased cabin and feel that claustrophobia. And at the same time, feel the magnitude and the space around. There’s a lot of physics and things that really sort of directed how we were going to shoot it because we were very much interested in showing the difficulty of that very thing. Not only the beauty and the gracefulness of it, but the difficulty.

Shooting Dunkirk with Imax 65-millimeter cameras, what were some of the challenges you faced?

VAN HOYTEMA We did a lot of engi-

neering on this because there are just no off-the-shelf solutions. So we did a lot of tinkering, coming up with mounts and rigs to put cameras in places where you normally wouldn’t see them. Dan

Sasaki from Panavision built us snorkel lenses so we could actually have an Imax camera vertically in cockpits — so we could literally operate it by just twisting the lenses, or we could have the camera straight up and we would poke out like a little alien. We also were on the beach the first two weeks in Dunkirk, where there’s all that fine sand and the salt seawater. And keeping that out of the equipment is a huge challenge as well. So we built splash backs for the cameras that opened in certain ways so we could easily reload because an Imax camera has only two minutes of film on it.

And then we wanted to go underwater, too.

HOYTE VAN HOYTEMA

Dan, you and Guillermo del Toro have worked together on several films as well. What was your reaction when he first showed you the script for The Shape of Water?

LAUSTSEN This was a love story

between this girl who’s not

“THE OLD PACE WAS MUCH SLOWER, AND YOU COULD TELL THE STORY WITH THE CAMERA. RIGHT NOW, IT’S JUST GETTING SO FAST.” DAN LAUSTSEN

talking and a fish. And I was like, “What is this about?” It was so weird; how can that be interesting? And he talked about how this would be a black-andwhite movie. Of course, nobody wants to pull the money out for that. Normally, you’re shooting color, and you’re making it black and white in post, and then you have both options.

But we didn’t want to do that.

And then we couldn’t find the money, so we decided to go color again. All the cinematographers in the world want to shoot black and white. Of course, I’m very pleased about the [finished] movie.

Rachel, Mudbound was your first film with Dee Rees. How did you meet, and what sort of first conversations did you have?

RACHEL MORRISON Dee and I sort

of knew each other from the indie circuit. We had both been mutual fans of each other’s work and knew each other a little bit socially. Mudbound was a book originally, and so the script that she sent me was sort of the first pass and then she was going to be doing another pass that was putting a little bit more of herself into it. But from that very first

script, it was so relevant on so many levels. It’s sort of my dream period. I came up in photography, and Dust Bowl-era photography is a lot of the reason that I got behind the camera in the first place. So she had me at [the mention of the] 1940s, and then everything else was kind of a bonus. From the first conversation, it felt like this was a good one to do.

You shot for just 29 days in Louisiana during the summer. What conditions did you face?

MORRISON It was brutal. We had

initially set out to shoot it in January and, of course — between financing and casting and all those things — the next thing you know we’re in the South in July and on a plantation with no respite from the heat. The two interiors had no windows.

There was no way to air condition them, even if we hypothetically could. “Mud” was in the title. If it wasn’t raining — in the South in the summer, you get one or two thunderstorms a day — we were creating mud. So you’re in the middle of a sunny scene, and two minutes later it’s pouring and then you’re cleaning off all the gear and shuffling through

ROBERT ELSWIT

“ I GREW UP UNDER POLAND’S COMMUNIST REGIME WHERE YOU COULDN’T DIRECTLY SPEAK ABOUT CURRENT POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SITUATIONS IN THE COUNTRY.” JANUSZ K AMINSKI

and trying to find some continuity with what you’ve been doing before.

Were there instances where it would start raining and you’d just decide, “OK, this scene’s going to be in the rain”?

MORRISON There was actually a lot

of scripted rain. And we had this idea of almost a reverse cover set — that if it started raining, we would go and grab the scenes that were intended to be in the rain.

The problem is that it rains there for 20 minutes and then stops. So there was a lot of starting something and then having to figure out ways to match to the thing that you had started. The logistics were really tough.

Dan, you had a 60-day shoot but just a $20 million budget. How did you handle that?

LAUSTSEN It’s a pretty small movie

moneywise, but it looks pretty big. Of course, it was challenging because we couldn’t afford all the stuff. We had to fight for all the equipment, so we shot with a very small camera pack. And we had to fight for every crane day.

Ninety-five percent of the movie is in the studio, and when we were outside, we were in the rain all

the time. We were doing artificial rain — big night setups with a lot of rain. And because we were shooting in the wintertime, we had to heat up the rain because it was so cold. We had a lot of problems because it was so cold and the actors could not stand it. Poor Sally [Hawkins] was standing there with a small jacket on. It was pouring down rain for hours.

DEAKINS It was almost like he was talking about Blade Runner.

We had a different budget, but the more money the budget has, then the more expectation and the more you push yourself to do stuff. We had the same issues.

We were shooting outside on the backlot for some scenes, and both Denis and I said that we’re not shooting outside unless it’s gray, overcast and raining. We shot some work on a tank that we built on a backlot in Budapest. It was about 160 feet by 80 feet, quite a big tank to shoot this night exterior, with wave machines and this storm sequence. And of course, the water had to be heated because it was the end of October or November. It was almost freezing. But it was really kind of nice — you would get a happy accident because all the water started steaming. You got this fantastic

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steam. So every evening, I had to stall before we started shooting so I could get this steam so everything matched.

You also used water in some of the sets to create reflections and movement. How did you do that?

DEAKINS There’s this one char-

acter that Jared Leto plays — I wanted his interiors to always be about moving light as though he had this sunlit interior in this world that’s full of fog and snow outside, but he’s created this artificial kind of world. So I just started trawling the web, looking at different architects and the way they used light, discovering things like, if you have water on a ceiling and you put light

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through it, you get wonderful acoustics. And so it was all kind of a progression.

Bob, both of your movies — Suburbicon and Roman J. Israel, Esq. — were shot in Los Angeles.

ELSWIT I feel terrible because every-

one’s had a struggle. Everyone’s in the mud and it’s raining and it’s cold, and I just had a great time. It was like 80 degrees, and we were outdoors. We had these wonderful sets that were air-conditioned.

It was the opposite of a struggle.

We had all this money. I’m being serious, actually. They were very simple. Both movies were done in L.A.. I got to go home at night.

Didn’t have to live in some other country. So, yeah, I was very lucky.

then we just thought, “Well, I don’t see any difference.” And I just thought at that point that the time had come to start shooting digitally. I don’t really do anything differently.

MORRISON That’s a good moral to the story. Shoot more in Los Angeles.

But even though they were both shot in L.A., they have very different looks. How did you achieve that?

ELSWIT Well, the film versus

digital discussion is one I don’t enjoy having very much. But on the Denzel Washington movie, he wanted to shoot on film. So did the director [Dan Gilroy].

And George wanted to shoot [Suburbicon] digitally. And they do have a distinct look. And I actually hope to talk to somebody here [who can] explain how to do it because my digital work seems a little bit homogenized and a little clinical looking. And I sort of fight against that a little bit. When I shoot film, it sort of automatically happens. But that’s really, I think, the real difference.

They’re very different movies.

Suburbicon was a stylized period film with naturalistic light. And Roman J. Israel, the Denzel movie, was a little more theatrical and a little bit different in terms of lighting. But I think when I look at them, I have no style. I have no idea what I’m doing usually, and it just sort of grows out of conversations with the director and whomever the production designer is. I still have a real hard time figuring out how to work digitally in a creative way where it doesn’t seem — “clinical” is the word that keeps coming to mind.

I was thinking, the original Blade Runner had such an effect on me when I was in film school so long ago. And I haven’t seen the [new] movie yet, but the trailer, the scale of it … (To Deakins) I think somehow you’ve figured out how to [shoot on digital].

DEAKINS I’m fed up with this [film versus digital] conversation.

I think it’s what’s in the frame and …

ELSWIT … It always is, isn’t it?

But do you approach it at all differently?

DEAKINS No. Actually, the first film I did digitally was In Time. And we made the decision to shoot that digitally because of the kind of film it was. We wanted it a bit synthetic, but we were only going to use it for part of the film. And

women. It’s all different now. Now it feels more of a community, and I really like that.

VAN HOYTEMA I totally agree. We have, in the camera department, a little bit over 50 percent women now, and it feels good.

Switching gears, Rachel, there is still a limited number of females shooting Hollywood movies today.

What has your experience been as a woman in this business?

Could each of you to name a director, living or dead, with whom you’ve never worked but would like have liked to, and why?

MORRISON My hope is that

DEAKINS Andrei Tarkovsky. He was

it’s changing and changing fast.

There’s a real sort of palpable momentum out in the universe.

Not so much politically right now, but at least in the Hollywood universe, where there’s a real push to get more women directing and better roles for women and certainly for cinematographers. There’s still very few of us. I think it’s mind-blowing that there’s 51 percent women [in the population] and 4 percent female DPs. Probably .05 percent female gaffers, female key grips. And it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Our world is dealing in emotion, which is something that I think women are known for doing quite well. It’s really about channeling empathy into visual imagery. My experience: I’ll never know what happens behind closed doors or why I don’t get hired for something, but I’ve never had an experience that made me feel any less than. The big trick is just to get to a point where we’re just considered DPs, and we’re not female DPs. When you think of the word “doctor” or “teacher,” you don’t think gender. And it would be nice to get to a place where “DP” meant either and “director” meant either and “gaffer” meant either.

a great director. I love his films.

MORRISON Oh, there’s too many for

me. Tarkovsky’s one. Kurosawa.

Sofia Coppola. Wong Kar-Wai. Emir Kusturica. Sofia has a really incredible sense of visual language in conjunction with really different storytelling. Every film she makes is quite different but beautiful in its own way.

LAUSTSEN Bernardo Bertolucci.

Really classic moviemaking, telling the stories for the cameras and not afraid of that.

ELSWIT Truffaut, I think. Or JeanPierre Melville. Either of those guys. That era of French film is sublime.

KAMINSKI I would go with David Lean. Definitely.

VAN HOYTEMA It’s difficult, though, because your agent will ask, “Who do you really want to work with?”

And the people that you very often love, that make the most beautiful films, you kind of feel unneeded or unwanted. It’s like, “Can you add to that?” So maybe you should choose to work with the people that you don’t respect to death but just think are good filmmakers, and together you can maybe do something more interesting.

ROGER DEAKINS

Are the rest of you seeing more women on crews?

LAUSTSEN I always try to get some

women in the camera department.

And in the lighting. For me, it’s a very big deal to get some women in departments there.

ELSWIT It’s a big change in the past 10 years. I think I have three women electricians right now working on the show I’m on.

Two of the loaders and one of the assistants are women. And it isn’t just the traditional roles. It used to be the script person, all the hair and makeup people, were

Hear trade secrets from the industry’s most sought-after cinematographers at THR.COM/VIDEO

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GETTI NG IT RIGHT

WHO’S MAKING SURE THAT ‘EVERYTHING IS AUTHENTIC’ Film consultants reveal how they helped actors get into fighting (or skating) shape and nail the details for period pieces By Mia Galuppo

I, Tonya

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ecades ago, Sarah Kawahara was approached about working on a skating routine for Tonya Harding. “Her manager at the time had asked me to choreograph for her, but it didn’t feel like the right time, so this feels like I went around full circle,” says the figure skating pro, who consulted on I, Tonya. To get star Margot Robbie ready to skate at an Olympic level, Kawahara worked with the actress three to four times a week for four months. While Robbie grew up skating on hockey skates, she needed to learn five sequences on

the longer blades of figure skates — plus, she needed to mimic Harding’s style, which was very athletic and powerful. “She was a great student, and I told her that if she started earlier, she could have been a contender,” says Kawahara, who also Kawahara choreographed Will Ferrell in his comedic routines for 2007’s Blades of Glory. “She needed to bring the character to life and not just learn to skate.” Asked to compare her two star students, Robbie and Ferrell, Kawahara laughs: “It is kind of like comparing apples and oranges. Or maybe apples and bananas.”

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e wanted to make sure everything was authentic,” says tennis pro Vince Spadea, who was responsible for the choreography and coaching behind the tennis drama Battle of the Sexes. Heading into production, star Emma Stone had minimal tennis experience, so they would practice together for several hours a day, focusing on basics while also mimicking Billie Jean King’s swing style.

Spadea was mindful of the time period.

“During that era in the ’70s, they used different grips and held the racket differently.”

While choreographing the film’s titular match, Spadea would watch footage of the actual event for hours, clocking the speed Spadea and placement of shots. During the filming of the climactic match between King and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell, pictured), Spadea pulled double duty, acting as both choreographer and Carell’s body double, which meant running back and forth on the court and then, between takes, checking the monitor to make sure what he had just done looked genuine. “I remember not being able to breathe very well that day,” he says with a laugh.

Phantom Thread

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n early 2016, Mark Happel got a Facebook message from his friend, Phantom Thread costume designer Mark Bridges, asking if he’d be interested in taking on an A-list actor as an intern. “About a week later, Daniel Day-Lewis and [director] Paul Thomas Anderson were sitting in my fitting room,” says Happel, director of New York City Ballet’s costume workshop, who was tasked with teaching the star sewing, draping and designing for his role as a dressmaker in 1950s England. “We started out very basic, things like picking up a pair of scissors,” says Happel, adding that they’d work for days on seemingly mundane tasks like cross stitching and buttonholes. “Some Happel would find it all tedious, but he seemed fascinated. He was like a sponge.” Day-Lewis and Happel worked together for the better part of a year. As they moved on to advanced skills, Happel helped the star make a dress for his wife, Rebecca Miller, based on a Balenciaga design. “In the film, he paces when he is waiting for a client to come out of the fitting room, and he did that when we were doing fittings on his wife.”

The Post

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s a journalism professor and Washington Post alum, R.B. Brenner is a stickler for accuracy, a partiality he carried over to his work on Steven Spielberg’s Pentagon Papers drama The Post, starring Meryl Streep as publisher Katharine Graham and Tom Hanks as editor Ben Bradlee. Brenner worked with the film’s set designers to rebuild the paper’s 1971 newsroom, focusing on small details like finding the right six-ply carbon paper, reporter’s notebooks and Linotype machines for the set. “[The film’s property master] Diana Burton would work like a reporter.

She would call me and say, ‘In 1971, what would be the correct Associated Press machine where photographs would be sent to newsrooms?’ ” recalls Brenner, who also led a three-hour crash Brenner course with supporting and background actors on the paper’s hierarchy and how a story goes from reporting to page. “It matters to top-notch actors in their process that the world feels authentic,” says Brenner. “When journalists see this film, they will be like, ‘Wow, they really sweated the details.’ ”

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TONYA: COURTESY OF NEON. BATTLE: MELINDA SUE GORDON/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. PHANTOM: LAURIE SPARHAM/FOCUS FEATURES. POST: NIKO TAVERNISE/PARAMOUNT PICTURES. SPADEA: AARON DAVIDSON/GETTY IMAGES. KAWAHARA: VIVIEN KILLILEA/GETTY IMAGES FOR NEON. HAPPEL: OWEN HOFFMANN/PATRICK MCMULLAN VIA GETTY IMAGES. BRENNER: COURTESY OF SUBJECT.

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ometimes, even Oscar mainstays like Daniel Day-Lewis and Meryl Streep need help getting into character for an award-worthy performance, especially when a role requires transforming into an eccentric fashion designer or the first female publisher of The Washington Post. Luckily, consultants are available in every conceivable field to help actors and productions perfect moves from triple axels to tennis backhands and nail such period-revealing details as notebooks and buttonholes. THR spoke to several of the experts who helped bring verite to the screen in 2017 by tracking down a 1970s Linotype machine, teaching Emma Stone to volley and helping Day-Lewis design a dress for his wife.

F O R

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WOMEN GIVING VOICE TO AFGHAN GIRLS

‘Oftentimes women and young girls are the first to suffer in a society where something has gone terribly wrong,’ says The Breadwinner helmer Nora Twomey, who teamed with Angelina Jolie on the film By Carolyn Giardina

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he animated film The Breadwinner, based on the children’s book of the same name by Deborah Ellis, follows an 11-year-old Afghan girl named Parvana whose father has just been imprisoned. Under the Taliban regime in 2001, women were not permitted outside their homes without a man; Parvana disguises herself as a boy so that she can get work and feed her family.

Behind GKIDS’ critically acclaimed feature (which earned a Golden Globe nomination and 10 Annie nominations) are two women — director Nora Twomey and executive producer Angelina Jolie — who hope their story about a strong female protagonist living a difficult life in Afghanistan will resonate with viewers in a way many animated films do not.

“Sometimes the struggles of women are very subtle; sometimes they are very open and public. Oftentimes women and young girls are the first to suffer in a society where something has gone terribly wrong,” Twomey tells THR during

a Nov. 20 interview. “The Breadwinner expresses something, more than anything else, about the preciousness of young girls in our world.”

Jolie, who is known for her international activism, has been doing human rights work connected to Afghanistan since 2001, when she took her first trip to Pakistan to work with Afghan refugees; she has built two schools in Afghanistan. “Life for so many people in Afghanistan is so hard, and they are still in danger of radical groups taking over,” she

The Breadwinner is in theaters in the U.S.

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says. “I hope this film is also just a reminder of these extraordinary families who have gone through so much.”

Jolie notes that Twomey “was the right person to direct this — male or female. It’s not just a film that she had the heart and soul but the intellect and capability and leadership and strength to steer the ship.”

One of the biggest challenges in the film was getting the ending right. “The concern we had shared, which was an important one, was how do we leave this,” Jolie says, noting that the film is set 17 years in the past. “In Afghanistan today, the situation for girls and children there — many people there — is still very dire. Fifty percent of girls are out of school, and more are illiterate. About a quarter of the children are breadwinners, between 5 and 14.”

Near the end of the film, planes are seen making an air strike on Kabul. “You don’t want to suggest that these planes coming in were going to suddenly free the people, that it suddenly was all right,” explains Jolie. “We talked about how complex this was, and Nora handled it extraordinarily well.”

The film’s impact has been felt far beyond the awards circuit, with Twomey participating in screenings and discussions at such institutions as the United Nations as well as one in Washington, D.C., attended by Rula Ghani, the first lady of Afghanistan.

Working with Girl Rising, a nonprofit that targets girls’ education and empowerment, the filmmakers on Nov. 2 co-hosted a screening and conversation for young girls at Los Angeles’ Museum of Tolerance.

Twomey has found that at screenings of The Breadwinner, “with very young children, the questions they ask are quite extraordinary. ‘What is it like for a young girl now in Afghanistan?’ and this comes from a 6-yearold. To see animation being used to explore these things is very unique.”

Indeed, at the Museum of Tolerance screening, one child wrapped up the Q&A by asking, “Will there be a sequel?”

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JOLIE: GEORGE PIMENTEL/WIREIMAGE (2). BREADWINNER: COURTESY OF GKIDS.

From left: Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, Knox Leon Jolie-Pitt, Zahara Jolie-Pitt, Vivienne Jolie-Pitt and Angelina Jolie meet voice actress Saara Chaudry and Twomey at the Breadwinner TIFF premiere.

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‘DIVERSE STORIES ARE JUST STORIES’ Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya finds his face on billboards on Sunset Boulevard, but his focus is set on telling stories with meaning and truth

By Patrick Shanley

You were nominated for a Golden Globe and a SAG Award over the course of a couple days. What did that feel like for you?

It was a mad couple days. My phone lost a lot of battery. I was out and my friend voicemailed me and said, “You’re nominated for a Golden Globe.” It’s been a surreal time. I had to keep shopping that day, so I just kept shopping.

works on levels for people who don’t experience racism. They enjoy it as a genre film, but the reason why they can enjoy it is because Jordan understands the AfricanAmerican truth that he’s trying to portray. To stay loyal to that, and to be specific, allows it to travel.

One of the images from the film that has been iconic is the shot of you staring into the camera with tears in your eyes. Did you know that would be such a memorable moment when you shot it?

No, I didn’t know. I only realized it the other day — that it was a thing. There was a poster on Sunset [Boulevard] and I was like, “Oh shit! This is a thing!”

And my friends keep sending me memes of my face.

You’ve got Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther and Steve McQueen’s Widows coming out. Is it a priority for you to work with black filmmakers or filmmakers who are telling diverse stories?

I think diverse stories are just stories. I don’t think “diverse” is an add-on package. Things that are not diverse are weird because that’s not accurate. We live in the world and there’s so many different people, so I just think I want to show the world. I like three-dimensional characters — it’s just more interesting when you get on set. All the filmmakers recently have been black, but I just want to tell stories where the character that I’m playing is more than an archetype that he

This is an American film from an American filmmaker, but it has resonated with audiences worldwide. What do you think it is about the film that’s relatable for so many people?

Racism isn’t just in America. …

Alienation is felt worldwide in different capacities. That’s what Jordan does: He taps into an inner truth by telling his specific truth, so everyone gets it and it

Kaluuya and Williams in Get Out, which nabbed a Golden Globe nomination for best picture, musical or comedy, and a SAG Award nomination for outstanding cast.

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↑ “I usually think that once I’ve done a job, it kind of disappears, but this is a film that doesn’t disappear,” says Kaluuya.

needs to be for the function of the story. I got that with something like Sicario with Denis [Villeneuve]. It’s a perspective. I think it’s just filmmakers who actually live in the world and tell honest world stories.

How much has your life changed since Get Out came out?

My life is different in the way that I have a lot more air miles. I mean, it just creeps up on you.

I don’t see it differently; I just do what I have to do. I’m doing it for the reason I’d do anything before — I just support this film. I support Jordan. I’m just like, “Let’s go on this ride.” I think maybe a year from now I’ll be able to see how much it’s changed because right now I’m still in it. It’s like that Dave Chappelle joke he said the other day: “You’re too close to the elephant — all you can see is the penis-like skin.” Maybe a year from now if you ask me, I can tell you what the whole elephant looks like.

KALUUYA: AMY SUSSMAN/INVISION/AP. GET: JUSTIN LUBIN/UNIVERSAL PICTURES.

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ince the release of Jordan Peele’s racial satire Get Out, the face of Daniel Kaluuya — with fear in his eyes and tears streaming down his face — has been everywhere, from internet memes to promotional posters stretched across the busiest streets in Hollywood.

The British actor, who already has picked up Golden Globe and SAG Awards nominations, stars as Chris, a young man whose white girlfriend (Allison Williams) takes him to visit her parents’ home, where he finds himself in increasingly troubling straits. Kaluuya, 28, spoke to THR about the lasting impact of Get Out and what’s next for him.

MAKING OF

Battle of the Sexes

Emma Stone had to gain 15 pounds and learn how to bounce a tennis ball in order to play Billie Jean King.

Steve Carell didn’t have to do either for his role as Bobby Riggs. Talk about gender inequality By Pamela McClintock

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MELINDA SUE GORDON/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX (2)

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very great tennis player has a signature gesture or move before serving.

A head roll or a shoulder shrug or a racket twirl or some other idiosyncratic tick. For Billie Jean King, it was bouncing the ball twice before serving. Never less, never more.

Emma Stone became an expert at it. In late winter and spring of 2016, she spent scads of time with King on a tennis court studying how the 74-year-old Grand Slam legend snapped the ball on the asphalt two times before launching it across the net. Stone wanted to get it right. “It was my first time portraying a real person,” says the 29-year-old recipient of 2017’s best actress Oscar. “Every scene was so immensely important.”

Battle of the Sexes, Fox Searchlight’s dramedy about the immensely important 1973 tennis match between King and world-famous chauvinist Bobby Riggs — a pivotal moment not just for tennis and feminism but also for television, with more than 90 million viewers tuning in to ABC’s live broadcast in 1973

— could end up making a bit of history of its own. If Stone ends up getting nominated for another Oscar — and she’s already picked up a Golden Globe nom, as has co-star Steve Carell, who plays Riggs — it’ll be the first time that an actress has been nominated for playing a real-life athlete.

Or possibly the second, if fellow Golden Globe candidate Margot Robbie also gets an Oscar nom for playing Tonya Harding in I, Tonya.

The point is, unlike male actors, who get nominated all the time for playing real-life jocks — from Gary Cooper in The Pride of the Yankees to Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher, this is the first year there’s been a decent chance it could happen for a female star.

Maybe even two.

Originally, Danny Boyle was going to direct Battle of the Sexes. The idea was the brainchild of Boyle’s longtime producing partner, Christian Colson (he came up with it while watching the 2012 London Olympics). “The more we looked into [a Billie Jean King movie], the more we felt like

1 “It’s a story so deeply worth telling about a woman who is so admirable and game-changing,” says Stone (pictured with Carell as Riggs) of why she took on the role of six-time Wimbledon singles champ King. “It was a no-brainer to immerse myself in that world.” 2 Married directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris goofed around on the set during a scene re-enacting the famous news conference in which the players promoted their gender-bending tennis match.

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1 Sarah Silverman (left) stars as Gladys Heldman, who helped King form the Virginia Slims Women’s Tennis Association in protest of prize-money inequality between female and male players. Martha MacIsaac (middle) and Natalie Morales star as two of the other players making up the “Houston Nine.” 2 One of the many stunts Riggs staged to talk about why women are inferior. 3 Stone listened to King’s voice on earphones to master her speech as well as her serve. 4 Alan Cumming (left) and Wallace Langham. Cumming plays Ted Tinling, a well-known fashion designer on the circuit who made the dress King wore during her match with Riggs.

it was delicious material,” says Colson. Boyle and Colson took the pitch to Fox Searchlight, where Boyle has his directing deal, and the studio thought it was delicious, too, agreeing to a budget of $24 million. Next stop was screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who’d worked with Boyle and Colson on Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours.

After Beaufoy signed on, all three met with Stone, who in 2013 was in London shooting Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight. Then they flew to New York City to talk with the woman whose life they were all about to put up on the screen.

They didn’t need King’s life rights to make the movie — she’s a public figure — but wanted her input. And King wanted to give it. Beaufoy remembers one 10-hour session in King’s New York apartment when she pored over every word of his script, which deals as much with her tennis career as it does with her

marriage and the lesbian love affair with Marilyn Barnett — a hairdresser played in the film

by Andrea Riseborough — that broke it up. “She went through it page by page,” Beaufoy says. “She was correcting details and saying, ‘We need to do this, we have to do that.’ But I would tell her that there’s a dramatic reason we need to show this, and she’d say, ‘OK, I get it.’ ” Not surprisingly, King was particularly concerned about the sex scene between her and Barnett. “She kept asking how far we were going to go,” says Beaufoy, who assured her that it would be tame enough for a PG-13 rating. “We told her that people just needed to know it was a sexual relationship. She told us that kissing would be great.”

But then, in 2015, Boyle departed the project. He decided to leave Battle of the Sexes to make T2 Trainspotting, the longgestating sequel to his 1996 punk

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‘Women Couldn’t Get a Credit Card Without a Guy’

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BATTLE: MELINDA SUE GORDON/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX (4). VINTAGE: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES.

How the real Battle of the Sexes broke TV records, scored a victory for feminism and inspired Donald Trump By Rebecca Sun

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It was the first and only tennis match to attract a Super Bowl-sized audience.

Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs’ match on Sept. 20, 1973, drew nearly the same number of U.S. television viewers as the Miami Dolphins-Minnesota Vikings matchup four months later. Still, few remember the football game. Everybody remembers the Battle of the Sexes.

More than a TV event, it was a giant cultural “happening.” Such stars as Glen Campbell, George Foreman and Jim Brown were in attendance at the Houston Astrodome, as was a live pig (King’s pre-match gift to Riggs) and a human-sized Sugar Daddy lollipop (Riggs’ gift to King). “There were handsome gladiators with no outerwear, nubile maidens with no underwear, zillions of celebs ranging from out-of-work Tarzans to out-of-work Monkees,” Sports Illustrated’s Curry Kirkpatrick wrote of the scene.

Multiple Battles of the Sexes have been restaged since then, including Jimmy Connors’ 1992 win over Martina Navratilova, but none have had anywhere near the same impact. Not even Donald Trump was able to revive the magic; King says the president tried for more than a decade to mount a showdown between Serena Williams and John McEnroe: “It never came to fruition because the only thing Serena would have to gain is money if she beat him, but if she loses somehow …”

At the Astrodome, of course, King defeated Riggs in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. According to the champ, now 74, the victory could not have come at a more critical time for feminism. “We were a great example of the women’s movement,” King says of women’s professional tennis of the 1970s. “Women still couldn’t get a credit card without the signature of a guy.”

1 Stone began training for Battle of the Sexes immediately after wrapping La La Land, for which she won the Academy Award for best actress. She gained 15 pounds of muscle for the part, thanks to a rigorous exercise program and protein shakes. 2 Bill Pullman (left, with Tom Kenny) stars as Jack Kramer, the co-founder of the Association of Tennis Professionals who refused to honor King’s request that women be paid as much as men.

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masterpiece (the follow-up ended up tanking at the box office in the U.S., grossing only $2.4 million). At some studios, that would have been game, set, match, but Fox Searchlight went ahead with the movie anyway, replacing Boyle with Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the husbandand-wife team behind the studio’s 2006 sensation Little Miss Sunshine. The couple had made only one feature since Sunshine, 2012’s Ruby Sparks, which fizzled at the box office ($9.1 million), but Searchlight was eager to work with them again, anyway. And they were eager to work with Fox Searchlight. They gave an immediate yes.

The first thing Dayton and Faris did — after meeting King — was send the script to their

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old Sunshine star Carell, who remembered watching Riggs on TV as a kid, though he never took the player’s wild displays of misogyny too seriously (“If I’m going to be a chauvinist pig, I want to be the number one pig,” was one of Riggs’ signature lines). “I was 11 years old when the match took place,” Carell says.

“Even at that time, I knew Bobby was kidding. You could see if someone’s heart was connected to what they were saying, and it wasn’t. It was for show.”

Luckily for him, Carell was already a decent tennis player (he has a court at his L.A. home), so he didn’t require much training to play a semi-out-of-shape 55-year-old retired pro. Stone, however, was a different story. All that hoofing on the set of La La

THIS PAGE: MELINDA SUE GORDON/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX (2). NEXT SPREAD: STONE: DALE ROBINETTE/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. CARELL: COURTESY OF TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX.

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Land — which she had wrapped just before starting prep on Battle of the Sexes — had left her in decent shape. But she was still far too lithe to play a professional athlete. Dayton and Faris put her on a physical fitness program, having her lift weights, do cardio and drink protein powder shakes filled with almond milk and coconut oil. Within a couple of months, she’d bulked up with 15 pounds of muscle.

Meanwhile, Stone had been working with a dialect coach to master the cadence of King’s speech (“I would keep Billie Jean’s voice in my ears on headphones throughout the day,” she says).

All that was left was to teach Stone how to play tennis, a sport the athletics-averse actress had never bothered to learn. She got a couple of lessons from King — they started by simply tossing a tennis ball back and forth — but the more intensive training came from Vince Spadea, a former ATP

Tour pro who once beat Roger Federer (he also served as Carell’s body double on the film).

Principal photography began in April 2016, with the 35-day shoot roaming all over the Los Angeles area — sets on the Fox lot, a hotel in Long Beach, a house that once belonged to singer Connie Francis. The old Los Angeles Sports Arena in Exposition Park (which was torn down in September) was outfitted to look like the Houston Astrodome, where the match between King and Riggs took place. But one of the biggest unanticipated challenges for production designer Judy Becker was finding green tennis courts.

In 1973, tennis courts weren’t painted the blue they are today.

“The governing premise was that we were going to make a movie that looked like it was made in 1973,” says Dayton. So along with the green tennis courts, long sideburns and vintage Buick

WINNER

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LeSabres, Battle of the Sexes further exudes the era by draping the screen in gauzy retro lighting, courtesy of cinematographer Linus Sandgren, who had just filmed Stone in La La Land (and, like Stone, would soon be winning an Oscar for it).

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While they were shooting the movie, the presidential election was in full swing, and back then it looked very much like Hillary Clinton would be the next occupant of the Oval Office — the perfect moment, Beaufoy assumed, for a movie

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1 “I was 11 years old when the match took place,” Carell says. “Even at that time, I knew Bobby was kidding.” 2 Riseborough (left) plays Marilyn, King’s lover.

The world didn’t know that King was gay until 1981.

about female empowerment and the triumph of feminism. “We were very excited,” he says. “We thought we’d have the premiere at the White House, since Hillary Clinton is a friend of Billie Jean’s.

We had no idea what was really going to happen.”

In a way, what did happen made Battle of the Sexes all the more timely (if not necessarily successful at the box office; it’s grossed only $12.8 million since its September release, although it could get a boost from the Jan. 7 Globe ceremony). Stone certainly

sees a topical poignancy in the movie’s plotline. “The conversations that are going on in our country and around the world are eerily relevant to the microcosm of what’s happening in the film,” she says. “It’s upsetting in terms of how far we have to go, but it’s

still a really inspiring story.”

Beaufoy agrees, though he sounds like he’s still missing that White House premiere. Says the man who wrote the script, “The film is becoming more and more horrifyingly relevant as time goes on.”

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS SPIRIT AWARDS ®

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WINNER

BEST PICTURE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

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ONE OF THE TOP 5 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

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JURY PRIZE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

“ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR.” -J O R D A N H O F F M A N , THRILLIST

ACADEMY AWARD

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OFFICIAL RUSSIA ENTRY

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F R O M T H E D I R E C T O R O F “ L E V I AT H A N ”

A FILM BY ANDREY ZV YAGINTSEV

TRIPLE THREATS TIMES TWO In a rare feat, both Alison Brie and Michael Stuhlbarg find themselves with not one, not two, but three projects each earning awards love this season

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lison Brie and Michael Stuhlbarg will be busier than most stars in the awards race this season. Both appear in Steven Spielberg’s newsroom drama The Post (Brie plays Katharine Graham’s daughter Lally and Stuhlbarg plays New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal), which earned six Globe nominations. Brie, 34, also saw her Netflix series GLOW (she plays an amateur female wrestler) get noms from both the SAG Awards and the Globes, and she stars in her brother-in-law James Franco’s The Disaster Artist, which earned a Globe comedy nom.

Stuhlbarg, 49, stars as a quiet and loving father in Luca Guadagnino’s Globe- and SAG Award-nominated drama Call Me by Your Name; he also plays a Russian-speaking scientist in Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (which earned seven Globe nominations). Both spoke to THR about their projects and the awards whirl ahead.

ALISON BRIE ‘After GLOW, I became very … picky’ GLOW’s female-first message really resonated with audiences, especially after the election. Did you expect the fan response?

BRIE When we were in production,

we all thought we were about to have our first female president. We were midseason when the election happened. After, it became clear that the show was really needed to lift spirits. In many ways, 2017 was a very dark year in our country, and we are fighting battles that we didn’t think we’d still be fighting. What people have responded to about the show is just the positivity.

my mentality was work-focused.

After, the bar got set so high that I didn’t want to do another project that wasn’t meaningful. This is not to say that going forward I will only do a job if it has a strong feminist message. I just didn’t want another project to come out that I wasn’t equally as proud of.

With The Post, it was an amazing stroke of luck that it came my way, but it was one of a small few that I entertained working on.

After GLOW, I became very … picky.

Were you able to rehearse before filming The Post?

BRIE After I got the role,

[Spielberg] told me, “I don’t like to rehearse, so good luck and I

will see you on set.” Which gave me a weird amount of confidence because I thought, “If he isn’t worried, then I shouldn’t be.”

You star with your husband, Dave Franco, in The Disaster Artist. Do you give each other notes?

BRIE We definitely do not give each other notes, but I do talk constantly about every project I am doing. It was fun to be working on the same thing, but he is not as talkative as I am, so it was a challenge to get him to rehearse our scenes together. We’d be getting ready for bed, brushing our teeth and I’m like, “Let’s run lines! Just the ones for tomorrow!” He would finally be like, “Fine.” — MIA GALUPPO

GLOW and The Post both center on women navigating maledominated spaces. Do you gravitate toward these types of projects?

BRIE The choices I was making

pre-GLOW were very different than the ones I was making after booking the show. Prior to GLOW,

1

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1 GLOW 2 The Disaster Artist 3 Brie (right) with Streep in The Post. 4 Call Me by Your Name 5 The Post 6 Stuhlbarg (right) with Michael Shannon in The Shape of Water.

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MICHAEL STUHLBARG

Crema, where we shot it, that the pronunciation of many things and many of the colloquialisms are different in the north than they are in the south, so I had to kind of relearn some things I had learned.

‘I love challenges, curveballs’ What did you find interesting about your role in Call Me by Your Name?

STUHLBARG That he was a Latin and Greek scholar, that he spoke Italian, that he had a 17-year-old son that he seemed to have a very affable and loving relationship with, and an interesting relationship with his wife as well. There were some scenes that we shot that the audience, as it turns out, is not privy to. The original cut of the film was around three hours and 40 minutes. There was a lot of material that was excised for the sake of telling the story in the way that Luca wanted to tell it.

What’s unique about del Toro’s directing style?

STUHLBARG He did something at the beginning of the process that I’ve never had happen before: He gave us biographies about the characters — this huge history of who this man was, where he came from, where he studied, what his favorite books were, what he never left home without. He just wanted us to know at the heart who these people were, and I took that completely to my own heart and tried to utilize as much of it as I could.

BRIE: AUSTIN HARGRAVE. STUHLBARG: TAYLOR JEWELL/INVISION/AP. GLOW: ERICA PARISE/NETFLIX. DISASTER: JUSTINA MINTZ/A24. POST: NIKO TAVERNISE/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX (2). NAME: STEFANO DALL’ASTA/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS. SHAPE: KERRY HAYES/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. CHALAMET: DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES. HEDGES: ROB KIM/GETTY IMAGES. JONES: RAHAV SEGEV/GETTY IMAGES.

Have you talked to Luca about a sequel?

STUHLBARG His heart seems set on it. The novel that this is based on has a 50-page epilogue about what happened later on, so I think he thinks we might be able to go deeper into what happened to them and who they became. I’m absolutely in if he wants me to be.

How much did you know about Abe Rosenthal before The Post?

STUHLBARG I didn’t know any-

thing about Abe, so I started jumping into the research as to who this man was and how he fit into the story of the Pentagon Papers. I watched a lot of interviews with him and tried to absorb as much about him as I could given the time that I had.

And Steven is always, and was in this instance, a collaborator.

In my research I’d found some stuff that I thought was interesting about Abe, in particular one anecdote that he seemed to be repeating over and over again

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Do you see any way these three roles are tied together?

in many of his interviews, so I brought it into Steven, he loved it, and we found a place to put it into the film.

Did you know Italian when you did Call Me by Your Name?

How did you decide to do The Shape of Water?

STUHLBARG I got a call saying that

[Guillermo del Toro] wanted to meet me. I had no idea that he knew who I was, so it was a huge surprise. We seemed to hit upon a commonality between the two of us, which was a love of making art. He has tons of sketchbooks, as do I. He gave me the script at the end of our meeting. It’s such an amazing combination of styles: It has Cold War intrigue.

It has romance. It has magical realism. I said yes immediately.

5

And then I learned later on that I’d have to speak Russian, which was a whole other kettle of fish.

STUHLBARG No, I went to a tutor in New York who was actually from the south of Italy. And then, I learned when I arrived in

More Multi-Movie Men Comedy, drama, horror — three actors under 30 show their versatility in acclaimed turns across genres

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T H E HOL LY WO OD R EP ORT ER

STUHLBARG I would say the commonality between the three may just be the generosity and encyclopedic knowledge of the directors.

They’re all remarkable filmmakers, beautiful human beings, and so excited about the work that they do. And I’m always trying not to repeat myself. I love challenges, curveballs, whether it’s speaking Italian or Russian or any opportunity to be across the table from Meryl Streep or Tom Hanks, actors I adore and love, who I’ve respected for years. — REBECCA FORD

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TIMOTHEE CHALAMET

LUCAS HEDGES

CALEB LANDRY JONES

He’s received critical acclaim and a Globe nom for Call Me by Your Name; he also appears in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird and the Christian Bale starrer Hostiles.

The Manchester by the Sea star plays the son of Frances McDormand’s character in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and also is in Lady Bird.

He plays the creepy younger brother in Get Out, gets beat up

by Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards and appears briefly as Willem Dafoe’s son in The Florida Project.

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Wonder Woman LINDY HEMMING

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ostume designer Hemming continued with what her peer Michael Wilkinson had created for Batman v. Superman, but her version “had to be more practical because [Gal Gadot] did a lot more fighting [in Wonder Woman],” says Hemming, who used urethane, which is “softer than plastic,” to make the combat-ready suit. A corset was crafted on the inside to anchor it to Gadot’s figure. Hemming adds that she looked at the shapes of modern sportswear for inspiration. “I was taking those style lines from sportswear and trying to put them into the new armor and making sure there was something about it that was recognizable to younger people instead of being too archaic in shape.” ← Gadot’s Wonder Woman leaves her island to help protect

the citizens of the world during World War I.

COSTU M E DESIGN

Women Warriors at Work

Wardrobe pros ensured that strong female characters dress the part, from Wonder Woman’s more covered-up superhero armor to Molly’s Game’s look-but-don’t-touch game-time dresses

By Booth Moore and Stephanie Chan

The Post ANN ROTH

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or Steven Spielberg’s 1970s-set drama, the veteran Roth was charged with creating newspaper publisher Katharine Graham’s (Meryl Streep) wardrobe, from pussy-bow blouses to a scene-stealing caftan that seems to epitomize the duality of her character. Graham wears it in one of the most pivotal scenes in which she has to decide whether to publish the Pentagon Papers. Joined by a sea of influential men after hosting a dinner party, she looks out of place but is actually the most powerful person in the room. “The caftan wasn’t based on real life; it’s just what I decided,” says Roth, who found the Indian fabric in Edison, New Jersey. “I made every single stitch she wore. And, yes, the clothes do follow a story arc. Meryl and I always do that.” → Streep plays Katharine Graham, the first female publisher of The Washington Post,

who inherited the top job after the death of her husband.

All the Money in the World

7 Makeup and Hair Marvels

I

The teams on the Academy shortlist helped create aliens, an iconic figure skater and a British prime minister

By Carolyn Giardina

JANTY YATES

n Ridley Scott’s crime thriller, Michelle Williams plays Gail Harris, mother of kidnapped teen John Paul Getty III. Though Harris lacked the Getty fortune, she asserted her power through her wardrobe, as shown in this sophisticated check-pattern dress and matching button-up jacket she donned during her divorce negotiations. “That’s an original. It basically fit her like a glove,” says costume designer Yates, who borrowed from Italian and English costume houses (Tirelli, Annamode and Angels) and purchased from vintage warehouses in Naples and London’s Portobello Road. “We had 26 suitcases, and I had 14 rails of vintage clothing to fit on Michelle when she walked into the hotel suite.”

← Yates describes Gail’s (played by Williams) overall appearance as having a “casual Jackie O feel.”

Molly’s Game SUSAN LYALL

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yall created 90-plus costumes for poker princess Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), who never wore the same outfit twice. “The first stop is the book itself. Molly Bloom writes a lot about clothes, specifies labels of shoes and purses,” says Lyall of the memoir from which the film was adapted. She sourced clothing from Roland Mouret, Altuzarra, Alexander McQueen, Balmain and Dolce & Gabbana. “[Molly] used fashion like a weapon of war, and she’s empowered by the tool of her sexuality,” adds the designer, citing the black-nude lace dress Molly wears for the first game she hosts. “She looks almost naked. She made a calculated move to be as feminine as possible to transmit to the men in the room that maybe if they play cards there, women like her will flock to them.”

Bright FX makeup department head Christopher Nelson says Joel Edgerton is an “extremely expressive actor,” which helped him in playing the Orc cop, who was covered in prosthetics.

Darkest Hour It took more than three hours for Gary Oldman to transform into Winston Churchill with prosthetics, plus a body suit “to match his unique body shape,” says makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji.

Ghost in the Shell Scarlett Johansson’s Major needed “a flawless, slightly inhuman quality,” says Jane O’Kane, makeup and hair designer, who applied reflective and luminous pigments to the star’s skin.

↑ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Along

with Drax and Gamora (pictured left and center, respectively), the sequel featured TaserFace, whose color scheme “was fun and bright,” says prosthetic makeup department head Brian Sipe.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi WONDER: CLAY ENOS/WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT. SKETCHES: COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES (2). MONEY: FABIO LOVINO/SONY PICTURES. POST: NIKO TAVERNISE/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. GRAHAM: RON GALELLA/WIREIMAGE. STAR: JONATHAN OLLEY/LUCASFILM LTD. MOLLY’S: MICHAEL GIBSON/STX FINANCING. BLOOM: JEFF SPICER/GETTY IMAGES. GALAXY: COURTESY OF MARVEL STUDIOS.

MICHAEL KAPLAN

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aplan used everything from haute couture to hot rods as references for the Last Jedi wardrobe, which he built in studio using his own millinery, jewelry and clothing design teams. Director Rian Johnson’s take on Princess turned General Leia (Carrie Fisher) was different from the approach of J.J. Abrams, who “was much about practicality,” says Kaplan, adding, “Coming on to Episode VIII, the script had more humor, more color, more flamboyant locations.”

He dressed Leia in a softly tailored metallic tweed cape and coat and statement earrings that wound around her ears. “One of my references was a photograph I found of Queen Elizabeth wearing a military cape,” says Kaplan. “She had much more of a regal look than she had in Episode VII because that’s what Rian wanted.” ↑ Says Kaplan of The Last Jedi, “There are wonderful strong

women, much more than we’ve seen before in a Star Wars film.”

I, Tonya Margot Robbie wore makeup and prosthetics to play figure skater Tonya Harding from her teens through her 40s. This included four wigs that hairstylist Adruitha Lee permed twice each.

Victoria & Abdul The period film transforms Judi Dench into Queen Victoria and Eddie Izzard into Prince Bertie, who was given a beard and deeply contoured eyes by makeup/hair designer Daniel Phillips.

Wonder Jacob Tremblay, who plays a boy with a facial deformity, wore silicone head, neck and face prosthetics along with contact lenses, custom teeth and a hand-tied wig, says makeup designer Arjen Tuiten. ↑ Chastain

plays Bloom, who hosted high-stakes poker games in L.A. and N.Y. → Bloom’s 2014 book was adapted by writer-director Aaron Sorkin.

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P R O D U CT I O N D E S I G N

‘The Place Itself Will Become Art’

From the creepy estate in Get Out to the romantic Italian villa in Call Me by Your Name, the environments characters inhabit are often as vital to the narrative as the characters themselves By Patrick Shanley

M

aking a house into a home was the challenge presented to production designers on many of this year’s top contenders.

From an Italian villa in the 1980s to a single apartment above a movie theater in 1960s Baltimore to a foreboding estate dripping with Kubrickian influence and imagery, the settings that grounded Call Me by Your Name, The Shape of Water and Get Out all came with their own unique hurdles.

“The house had to be the perfect theater for the sensuality in this love story,” explains Samuel Deshors, production designer on Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name.

“The relationship between interior and exterior was crucial.” The film — which centers on the romance between a young man (Timothee Chalamet), living with his affluent Italian-American family in Northern Italy, and a visiting grad student (Armie Hammer) — required a setting that reflected the sybaritic nature of its story, with the added challenge of being a foreign-set period piece.

“For the ’80s, we did a lot of visual research and found historical photos and family pictures for mood ideas, which we used for the interiors but also for all the exterior sets in the film,” says Deshors. “In the estate, there are very few modern elements [from the ’80s] in the furniture and decoration. We wanted a

strong contrast between the weight of the past and modernity in daily objects, as if this family was anachronistic in their own house.”

The scenes featuring the Perlman family’s villa were shot on the single location estate, which was important for Guadagnino and his crew, who were working on a limited budget and dealing with “capricious weather” in Italy. That was a particular challenge when it came to the fountain (which plays a large role in many early scenes between Hammer and Chalamet), as it wasn’t a part of the original home and had to be built by Deshors’ team.

“We built it in the garden of the villa, selecting big, flat rocks and carved stones from the stone dealer’s stock,” says Deshors. “It was hard work and also the most important set of the film in terms of budget and preparation time.”

A far different patrician manor lies at the center of Jordan Peele’s Get Out, a social thriller that wrings its horror from its commentary on racial injustice. In Peele’s mind, the home of the story’s white, upper-class antagonists, the Armitages, was in upstate New York. The film, however, was shot mostly in Fairhope, Alabama. That provided a

TH E SHAPE O F WAT E R

“Our imagining of it was a grand room above the theater built in the 19th century,” says Austerberry of Elisa’s flat. “I picked this AngloJapaneseinfluenced wallpaper [left] that’s from the mid-19th century.”

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CA L L M E BY YO U R N A M E

NAME: COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS (3). SHAPE: KERRY HAYES/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX (2). JONES: JUSTIN LUBIN/UNIVERSAL PICTURES. KEENER: COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES.

Giving the Perlmans’ estate a lived-in quality was key. “We were looking for an old family house with a timeless, classic look,” says Deshors.

“We wanted it to seem as though the villa had been in the Perlman family for generations.”

unique architectural challenge for production designer Rusty Smith. “I just kept thinking that this type of home had to be there somewhere [in Fairhope]. Finally, we went down one driveway, and we came around a corner and it was that house. It’s exactly the shot that’s in the movie.”

The house, originally made with bricks to “look old” and surrounded by the woods on an expansive 18 acres in Fairhope, had just the WASP-y quality Smith was looking for, but getting the owner to grant access to a Hollywood film crew was no easy task. “I spent an hour and a half trying to sweet-talk him,” says Smith.

Smith’s sales pitch worked, and the crew scored the location. Comparisons to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining abound when Smith describes the Armitage home. “You have to feel like there’s nowhere to run,” he says. “It was right off the road, but it gave the illusion that you’re in the middle of nowhere.”

In contrast to the more welcoming austerity of the Armitage home’s upper levels — replete with regal leather-bound chairs, a luxurious study and sprawling grounds

— is its basement, which features heavily in the film’s most terrifying scenes. While the majority of the shoot took place in Fairhope, the basement set required a road trip to nearby Mobile and an abandoned schoolhouse and former Confederate hospital where “every low-budget horror film in Alabama shoots,” according to Smith. “That whole basement is, like, divided between three filmmakers: The game room is Kubrick, the hallway is David Lynch and the operating room is David Cronenberg.”

For the game room, where the film takes its most crucial narrative turn, Smith “found this wood-paneled room that had this weird coffered, fluorescent ceiling that was right out of The Shining.” The focal point of the room — and the scene — was a stuffed, mounted deer head. The animal harkens back to an earlier scene and underscores Chris’ (Daniel Kaluuya) helplessness. It was “crucial” to the film, but it took a lot of searching to find just the right deer. After much foraging, Smith and his team finally found the perfect deer on Craigslist, and, yes, they named it.

In Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, production designer Paul Austerberry was tasked with creating a much more intimate space for the film’s lonely, mute protagonist Elisa (Sally Hawkins). “Guillermo wanted her apartment to be very minimal. No art. The place itself will become art,” notes Austerberry.

To transform Elisa’s humble flat into a work of art, Austerberry took more than a few hints from the film’s title. Several aspects of the room are influenced by the literal “shape of water,” from Elisa’s beautiful, antique chaise longue to the walls of the apartment itself.

“We chose that couch for its shape,” says Austerberry. “We wanted this curvaceous shape to go with the curves and everything in that apartment. It was a little like waves.”

For the apartment’s blue interior walls, Austerberry took inspiration from the “most

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famous shape of water” — The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, a 19th century woodblock print by Hokusai. “It’s like an iconic shape of water, literally,” says Austerberry. His team superimposed the painting over the set wall and then painted the wave in tinted blue plasters onto its surface. “I wanted it to be the wave engulfing, crashing over doorway,” he explains, “so [anyone] entering this room would be engulfed by water — or the shape of water, anyway.”

GET OUT

The chair Chris (Kaluuya) sits in while getting hypnotized by his girlfriend’s mother (Catherine Keener) is leather, similar to the chair he scratches at when confined in the game room.

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F O R E I G N - L A N G UAG E

World Exploration

Nine films remain on the foreign-language shortlist as THR highlights titles that examine racism, masculinity and a nation’s moral missteps

‘Racism Hits All of Us’ Fatih Akin’s dark revenge drama considers the many victims of hate through its story about a woman whose son and Kurdish husband are murdered by neo-Nazis By Scott Roxborough

You have to look closely to see it: GERMANY Tucked on the inside of Diane Kruger’s ankle is a tiny anchor tattoo. When In the Fade got accepted to the Cannes competition in 2017, director Fatih Akin made Kruger a bet: If her performance — as Katja, a German woman who vows revenge after a neo-Nazi kills her Kurdish husband and their child — won Cannes’ best actress award, she’d get ink. It did, and she did.

“She’s German. She pays her debts,” says Akin, laughing. The film has marked both actress and director. Since his 1998 debut, Short Sharp Shock, Akin, the Hamburg-born son of Turkish immigrants, has been trying to tell a story about German racism. “But I never had the right story,” he says. “It took nearly 20 years to find it.”

The breakthrough came in November 2011. News broke that a series of killings in Germany’s Turkish and Kurdish communities were not, as had been suspected, the work of gangs or local crime syndicates; rather, they were systematic

murders by a neo-Nazi terror cell calling itself the National Socialist Underground, or NSU. Akin, like many Germans, became obsessed by the NSU revelations and the resulting court case — the trial of alleged NSU mastermind Beate Zschape, which is still ongoing.

The themes of violence and racism, of the conflict between ethnic Germans and the children of immigrants, were ones Akin had explored before, most prominently in Head-On, which won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear for best film in 2004, and in his follow-up, 2007’s The Edge of Heaven, winner of the screenplay award in Cannes.

But with In the Fade, the director wanted to go further. By casting the blond, blue-eyed Kruger — whom he had met by chance at a party in Cannes in 2012 — Akin aimed to show a link between perpetrator and victim, between the terrorist and the victims of terror.

“I wanted to show that racism hurts the ethnic Germans as much as it does the Kurds and Turks — that racism hits all of us,” he says. “I didn’t want the film to

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be pigeonholed as just about the margins of German society. This goes to the core.”

In the Fade doesn’t offer any easy answers. The film’s controversial ending, if anything, only raises more questions about the true meaning of justice. But it has succeeded in what Akin says was his primary goal: “stirring things up.” The film’s success in Cannes and at the German box office ($2.5 million) has put a renewed ↑ Kruger, who plays Katja (with Numan Acar as Katja’s husband), met with family members of murder victims for her research.

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focus on rising right-wing extremism in the country.

“If people see it because of Cannes, because it made the Oscar shortlist — hell, because they like the dress Diane wore on the red carpet — I don’t care,” says Akin. “As long as it means they pay more attention to what’s happening, then it’s been worth it.”

But when it comes to the Academy Awards, there’s another reason Akin will be paying close attention. He’s made a bet with Kruger that means he literally has skin in the game. If In the Fade gets nominated for best foreign-language film, the director has to get a tattoo of his own — “something incredibly cheesy and very L.A.” — to show off at the Oscars.

4 MORE CONTENDERS CH I LE

ISRAEL

LE BAN O N

SWE D E N

A Fantastic Woman

Foxtrot

The Insult

The Square

Transgender actress Daniela Vega plays a waitress and aspiring singer whose lover dies, leaving her to deal with his family, who view her identity as a perversion.

Samuel Maoz’s drama centers on the grief of a soldier’s parents (Lior Ashkenazi and Sarah Adler) as they learn that their son has died while serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.

J A N UA R Y 2018 AWA R D S

Ziad Doueiri’s politicized courtroom thriller revolves around a spat between a Palestinian construction worker and the owner of a balcony he did some work on.

The Palme d’Or winner from filmmaker Ruben Ostlund skewers the Swedish art world scene with a biting satire that co-stars Elisabeth Moss and Dominic West.

A Tale of Song and Survival Out of Africa Alain Gomis’ Felicite offers a raw look at a single mother whose passion for music helps her endure the harsh realities of life in the Democratic Republic of Congo By Jordan Mintzer

Born in Paris to a Gallic mother and Senegalese father, writerS E N E GA L director Alain Gomis has always had one foot in France and one in Africa. His 2001 debut, L’Afrance, dealt with the plight of an illegal immigrant from Senegal scraping by in the City of Light, while 2013’s Aujourd’hui centered on a man living the last day of his life in Dakar. For Felicite, Gomis worked for the first time in the Democratic Republic of Congo, composing a feverish tale of song and survival on the streets of Kinshasa. Loosely scripted and loaded with energy, the film — Senegal’s first-ever Oscar foreign-language submission — is a raw and realistic portrait of a singer (Vero Tshanda Beya) trying to make ends meet while caring for her teen son who was recently injured in a motorcycle accident.

Were you surprised that Felicite was shortlisted?

Yes and no. On the one hand, Felicite is a small film and we definitely don’t have the same means to campaign for an Oscar as everyone else. But on the other hand, I’ve always been persuaded that my films would be able to touch people outside of France or the countries where they were shot, because as a viewer you can really project yourself into any character or place. So why not into the story of a singer in Kinshasa?

reminded me exactly of the character I was thinking of, and even if she doesn’t play Felicite in the film, I decided it would be better to shoot in the DRC.

Kinshasa is also a character in the film.

The city has practically no infrastructure, which means you constantly have to fend for yourself. Such a setting perfectly fit the story because Felicite cannot rely on the government or anyone else to help her: She can either fight for what she needs or lie down and accept her situation. In a place like Kinshasa, you’re always facing your limits as an individual; it’s a powerful way of questioning the human condition.

Along with Felicite, another key character is the live music accompanying the story.

There was always this idea to confront two different types of music in the movie, but at the script stage I didn’t really know how that would happen. I already knew the film would feature the Kasai Allstars, who led me to Kinshasa in the first place, but it was only when I started location scouting there that I came across the [Kinshasa] Symphony Orchestra. So I quickly integrated them into the story as well, with music playing an even bigger role than I had initially planned.

Will you set your next film in Africa or in France?

What originally drove you to make the film?

FADE, LOVELESS: COURTESY OF CANNES. FELICITE: CELINE BOZO/STRAND RELEASING.

The script was inspired by a kind of woman I’ve encountered many times in Senegal — a woman who’s strong and extremely resistant to the forces around her. Then, almost by accident, we switched the setting to Kinshasa when I saw videos of the [local band] Kasai Allstars performing there. The lead singer

I’m actually working on two projects right now: One takes place in Kinshasa, because there is still so much I want to explore about the city.

The other is set in a completely different place and time: New York in the 1950s. ↓ Gomis says that when he met Beya, who had no prior acting experience, he was “really blown away by her force and conviction.”

→ Matvey Novikov, who plays the young boy in Loveless.

A Broken Family and a Fractured Nation Loveless uses a couple’s troubled relationship to delve into contemporary Russia’s moral issues By Vladimir Kozlov and Nick Holdsworth

When director Andrey Zvyagintsev first got the script for Loveless, RUSSIA a drama about a divorcing couple who must come together when their son goes missing, he was baffled by just one thing: the film’s title.

“I decided to make it a working title and later find a better one,” Zvyagintsev recalls of Oleg Negin’s script. “I had other ideas — for instance, Battlefield. But I got used to this title and even began to love it because in a very precise, surgical way, it expresses the main issue of our film.”

Zvyagintsev describes the film about the Moscow couple (played by Maryana Spivak and Aleksey Rozin) as a story “about how people who have been married for 12 years are entering a streak of complete misunderstanding and inability to find a common language and, moreover, develop hatred for each other.” For Zvyagintsev, “loveless” means not just the absence of love but the antithesis of love, “something bigger than banal hatred or cold indifference.”

Loveless is Zvyagintsev’s follow-up to his 2014 Oscar-nominated Leviathan, which won multiple international awards but was harshly criticized at home, with many accusing the director of deliberately painting Russia in a negative light.

The same criticism has been leveled at Loveless, for its cynical view of contemporary Russian life.

“I know that I am honest to my films and my films are honest to reality,” says Zvyagintsev. “As a director, I primarily think about the degree to which the artist is free and can speak openly.”

Most criticism of Leviathan, which centers on government corruption, came from Russia’s culture ministry, which had provided some funding for the film. For Loveless, the director chose not to use government funding. He says he feels there are still opportunities for filmmakers to express themselves in contemporary Russia. “As long as there is a free voice of the artist,” he says, “we need to express ourselves in an honest way.”

→ Borbely’s

character hopes to make her dreams come true.

How a Pair of Deer Hold Together a Love Story

The Wound Cuts Deep Into Masculinity, Sexuality John Trengove’s film explores the initiation ritual of the rural Xhosa community in South Africa By Scott Roxborough

For his directorial debut, John SO UTH AF R I CA Trengove ventured into unknown territory: setting his tale of same-sex desire within the secretive world of ulwaluko, the traditional circumcision rite by which a Xhosa boy becomes a man.

The Wound follows Xolani (firsttime actor Nakhane Toure), a lonely factory worker who, every year, joins other men from his village in the mountains, where they initiate a new group of teenage boys in the ways of Xhosa manhood. But when Kwanda (Niza Jay), a defiant initiate from the city, discovers Xolani’s closeted love affair with another man, his entire existence begins to unravel.

Trengove collaborated with several Xhosa, including co-producer Batana Vundla and, to co-write the script, novelist Thando Mgqolozana, author of A Man Who Is Not a Man, which follows the trauma of a young Xhosa whose circumcision has gone wrong. But the director was still hesitant about his problematic presence as a white gay filmmaker telling this black African story.

“In another place or time, I wouldn’t have made this film,” says Trengove.

“It was a big ethical issue for me to tell this story. But it was a story that wasn’t being told, about a community that had been grossly overlooked and grossly stereotyped.”

Trengove and his team spent five years interviewing hundreds of Xhosa men who had gone through ulwaluko, focusing particularly on gay men and their experiences.

“The ritual is a crossroads for these men, when they have to choose to either conform or live in the closet or move away from their community,” says Trengove.

The cast of The Wound is made up entirely of Xhosa men who have gone through ulwaluko and who brought their personal experiences to the set. “For the ritual scenes, I didn’t direct them in a conventional sense. It was more like a documentary,” says Trengove. “The same goes for the homophobic aspects of the story: There was real homophobic feeling on set, and a lot of comments were improvised.”

Even before The Wound was released, the Xhosa royal family called for it to be banned, claiming it disrespects the ulwaluko ritual.

Trengove and the cast received death threats. “The film is obviously controversial and can be divisive, but it’s been embraced, especially by the black queer community in South Africa,” he says. “The film has moved beyond me and beyond us.

It belongs to the community now.” ↑ Young men are circumcised and then spend

time in the wilderness learning about masculinity from their elders in The Wound.

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How do you cast a deer?

That was the challenge Ildiko Enyedi H U N GA RY faced when she set out to make On Body and Soul. The feature, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, is a surreal love story set in an abattoir. Endre, a shy slaughterhouse supervisor, and Maria, a socially awkward quality control manager, find they (literally) share the same dream: Every night they meet, as two deer in the woods, and fall in love.

For Enyedi, making her return to filmmaking after a 17-year absence, the hard part — after casting stars Geza Morcsanyi and Alexandra Borbely as Endre and Maria — was finding the buck and doe to be their ruminant alter egos. She enlisted the help of Zoltan Horkai, an animal coordinator whose credits include work on such blockbusters as Spy Game and Hellboy II. “He’d never gotten a request like this,” Enyedi says. “A deer is a wild animal. You really can’t train a deer.”

In fact, it took five months of working with Goliad, the buck, to get him used to the presence of the small human crew before Enyedi was ready to shoot. “The doe was easier: She’d already been in films; she was a professional,” says the director. “I chose her because of her face: She looks so much like Alexandra. You might think all deer look alike, but I did a real casting. Put these deer faces up one by one and you see how different they are.”

To film the animals, Enyedi approached the scenes as if they were human actors, framing with classic long, medium and close-up shots. “The trick was to avoid the Discovery Channel approach, where you are just observing an animal from afar,” she says. “Here we really framed the deer the same way we framed human actors; we framed them in a Hollywood way, and we edited the same way we’d edited our human scenes. It draws the audience in, makes them more perceptive to the animal’s facial expressions, to their body language.”

The result: The deer appear to give performances as touching and subtle as the film’s human leads. Their wilderness love story plays out with as much drama and tension as anything happening between Endre and Maria.

The trick worked so well, Enyedi says, that she had to abandon plans to use a stand-in for the doe. “We thought we could use another female if the original got tired, just for wide shots in the distance,” she says. “But at the end of the first day, we knew it wouldn’t work. The audience would notice it wasn’t her.”

J A N UA R Y 2018 AWA R D S

WOUND: COURTESY OF KINO LORBER. BODY: COURTESY OF TIFF.

On Body and Soul follows a man and a woman who have the same dream: Every night they meet as two deer in the woods By Scott Roxborough

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Marilyn’s First Award Was a Nude Named Henrietta

↑ Monroe held her award between actor Richard Basehart (left) and FPAH vice president Jose Jasd at the FPAH’s first awards dinner on Jan. 26, 1952.

The Hollywood Reporter, Vol. CDXXIV, No. 1A (ISSN 0018-3660; USPS 247-580) is published weekly; 39 issues — two issues in April, July, October and December; three issues in January and June; four issues in February, March, May, August and September; and five issues in November — with 15 special issues: Jan. (1), Feb. (2), June (4), Aug. (4), Nov. (3) and Dec. (3) by Prometheus Global Media LLC, 5700 Wilshire Blvd., 5th floor, Los Angeles CA 90036. Subscription rates: Weekly print only, $199; weekly print and online, including daily edition PDF only, $249; online only, $199; digital replica of weekly print, $199.

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J A N UA R Y 2018 AWA R D S

LOOMIS DEAN/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

In 1950, what’s now called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association had a split-off group called the Foreign Press Association of Hollywood. (The dispute was over some of the original organization’s members not being professional journalists.) The FPAH is now mostly forgotten, save for one memorable act: It gave Marilyn Monroe her first major award in 1952 at Santa Monica’s Club Casa del Mar. (That seaside brick building is now the Hotel Casa del Mar.) The Henrietta — named after FPAH president Henry Gris — was shaped like a tall, nude woman holding a flower.

The group had the prescience to choose Monroe for its International Stardom Award, given to the “best young box-office personality.” (They gave the same award that night to Tony Curtis.)

Monroe, then 25, had done a dozen or so minor films, with her standout turn being a small role in John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle. Her explosion into megafame came in December 1953, when she appeared nude in Playboy’s debut issue and then a month later married Yankee star Joe DiMaggio. She was then said to be receiving 25,000 fan letters a week. The FPAH lasted one more year before folding back into the HFPA. “It was too much for the studios to deal with two different groups,” says HFPA archivist Elisa Leonelli. “By coming together, they ended up forming a much stronger organization.” — BILL HIGGINS