MAGAZINE
NATALIE PORTMAN MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
> CONTENTS
THE USUALS THE DOCUMENT A brief excert on this issue and its contributors. TK
FASHION
LIFE STYLE
A CLEAN UP
SEX
Looking professional, or at least decent at the work place. TK
Easing you on questions you shouldn’t be scare or embaressed to ask. TK
STYLE
BRANIAC
Laws of wearing white, sneakers that suit’s you, lasting first impression. TK
Clapping, Posh Dinning and New Car Smell. TK
A BETTER YOUR Things you should know or you could learn. TK
WOMAN WE ADORE
TECH
Olvivia Munn The sexy, geeky and funny tv co-host of Attack of the Show,talks about her playboy shoot and Iron Man 2 scene. TK
GADGETS Accesories from headphones, usb’s, digital cameras. TK
A MUST HAVE Objects you may need out of necessity or for the hell of it. TK
On this month cover the lovely Natalie Portman posted for Mario Testino, the photographer.
25.THE MANUAL
Aug. 2009
THE ATTRACTIONS HOW THE ACTER BRUCE WILLIS KEEPS HIS COOL IN LIFE BY CRAIG MCLEAN
A short excert about this particular person, whether it be about his/her public life or in an event he/she appear in. TK
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE BY SEAN GALLUP
A short excert about this particular person, whether it be about his/her public life or in an event he/she appear in. TK
THE COMIC WHO GAVE SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE NEW LIFE OPENS UP TO ROCK’S MOST FAMOUS MOUTH BY MICK JAGGER “Most likely to take over for David Letterman” He left Saturday Night Life after six seasons to focus on making feature films and in 2008 Fallon announced he would take over Conan O’Brien’s Late Night job in 2009. O’Brien succeeded Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show. TK
Aug. 2009
THE MANUAL.TK
> STYLE
LAWS OF WEARING WHITE MUCH OF WHAT YOU’VE BEEN TOLD ABOUT WEARING WHITE — THAT IT’S ONLY COOL BETWEEN MEMORIAL AND LABOR DAYS, THAT’S IT’S ONLY FOR VIRGINS — ISN’T TRUE AT ALL. HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW. SPLASHES OF COLOUR How do you make menswear bright and interesting, without overdoing it? A number of designers found the solution for their Autumn / Winter collections: add a splash of colour.
A WHITE BLAZER IS INSTANT SUMMER STYLE Don’t believe us? Pair it with almost anything — dark-blue jeans, a bright checked shirt, flannel pajamas, snow boots — and look in the mirror: You’re ready for whatever fancy barbecue or garden party the season throws your way. (Maybe lose the pj’s before you hit the party.) Two-button cotton-and-linen blazer ($2,145) by Roberto Cavalli; cotton shirt ($475) by Luigi Borrelli; cotton jeans ($187) by Rock & Republic; leather shoes ($640) by Fratelli Rossetti.
WHITE SUITS ONLY LOOK FUNNY ON MEN WITH PECULIAR FACIAL HAIR
OFF-WHITE JEANS ARE MORE FUN THAN KHAKIS
The rest of us, we’re in the clear. Just remember to add some subtle color with your shirt or tie. A blueand-white butcher’s-stripe shirt is just the thing.
By which we mean they’re a little bolder and a lot less likely to get you lumped in with everyone else. Dress them down with a colored polo shirt, or dress them up with a navy blazer.
One-button silk-and-cotton suit ($2,200) by Salvatore Ferragamo; cotton shirt ($135) by Ascot Chang; leather shoes ($600) by Cesare Paciotti.
Two-button wool blazer ($200) by Tommy Hilfiger; cotton shirt ($245) by Robert Talbott; cotton jeans ($250) by Diesel; leather shoes ($295) by Donald J. Pliner.
HOW TO BUY A WATCH SEEING BLUE: CERULEAN TREND FOR MEN You may have noticed, this colour has been slowly sneaking its way onto the catwalks the last two winters bright blue that is, well it’s actually cerulean”.
5
WATCH TERMS THAT WILL MAKE YOU SOUND LIKE AN INDUSTRY PRO
1. Complication Any function of a watch that goes beyond simple timekeeping. Could be an annual or lunar calendar, could be something as basic as a stopwatch. 2. Movement
Slowly but steadily the colour has been coming in a range of Derbys, sneakers, suits, jackets, beanies, pullovers scarves and even socks.
All those bits and pieces inside that
Although difficult to match, a single piece of bright blue can be used as a focal point to enliven up an outfit. Used overall in a more subtle blue, you “may” be able to pull off a retro-futuristicandrogynous look. Like I said it is difficult to pull off. Over do it and you may just look like Lou Bega, a Smurf, or someone from 1992... or all three.
which isn’t to say we necessarily
Aug. 2009
run the thing. 3. Quartz
THE CLASSICS Buy any one of these signature watches and you can’t go wrong 1. Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner Unveiled in 1953, the Submariner was the first watch water-resistant to 330 feet. Its combination of unparalleled elegance and spy-friendly versatility appealed to Sean Connery’s James Bond and none other than Che Guevara. $5,175 2. Omega Speedmaster The first watch to go to the moon by Buzz Aldrin and his Apollo 11 colleagues. Sporty and sturdy, is among the most accurate and affordable you can buy. $3,000
A movement powered by a battery and regulated by the oscillations of a quartz crystal. It’s way more accurate than other watch types— recommend you buy one. 4. Self-winding A type of mechanical watch, containing a rotor on a pivot, that’s wound by the day-to-day movements of the wearer’s wrist. It’s also referred to as automatic.
3. Cartier Santos Designed in 1904 by Louis Cartier himself for Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, this was one of the first wristwatches built specifically for men. The gold-andsteel self-winding version, released in 1978, is now a standard of gentlemanly elegance. $4,200 4. TAG Heuer Monaco Issued in 1969, this stainless-steel classic was the first automatic chronograph to feature a water-resistant square case. $3,195
5. Water-resistant Just because a watch says it’s water-resistant doesn’t mean you should swim or shower with it on. To be safe, only do so if it’s water-resistant up to one hundred meters.
5. Movado Museum Movado—which means “always in motion” in Esperanto—debuted the Museum in 1947. The minimalist timepiece, which features only an hour hand, a minute hand, and a dot at twelve o’clock, still sits in the Museum of Modern Art’s design wing. $995
THE MANUAL. 25
> TECH. A MUST HAVE
THE PALM PRE IS HERE MUCH OF WHAT YOU’VE BEEN TOLD ABOUT WEARING WHITE — THAT IT’S ONLY COOL BETWEEN MEMORIAL AND LABOR DAYS, THAT’S IT’S ONLY FOR VIRGINS — ISN’T TRUE AT ALL. HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW.
HARDWARE Screen It’s the best multitouch screen with 320x480 resolution. But the multitouch! is more accurate, more responsive and just plain better than the iPhone’s Keyboard It’s not good enough for a smartphone. Doesn’t depress quite enough to get a good tactile feel while typing quickly. The fact that each physical key is 30% or so smaller than a virtual key on the iPhone and it would have been much better typing on the Pre with a good auto-correction. Camera It’s a 3-megapixel camera, but when it comes to actually taking pictures, it isn’t any better than the G2 or the iPhone. Like most cheap-o cameras, photos are fine with ample sunlight, but in low-light conditions pictures become grainy—even when using the “flash” on the back, it’s only barely tolerable. Battery Life Going from 8AM to 9PM with at least 20% battery left should be no problem. It’s at the very least on par with the iPhone 3G and G2 battery life, and is way better than the G1’s.
SOFTWARE
APP
Web OS The OS is really where the Pre shines with slick icons, a 5-app launch bar and a three-screen menu system that houses all your applications. The bit of the phone under the screen is a gesture area, which you can use to go back a screen (swipe left) or launch apps from the launch tray (swipe up to the screen).
• Google Maps is actually better on the Pre than it is on the iPhone, loading blocks and scrolling around being much smoother than we’re used to
Dialing To dial a contact, you either have to pull up the contacts app and manually scroll down to the person you want (there’s no alphabet shortcut) or start typing. So, when you have hundreds of contacts, your only reasonable choice is to use the search. Palm just gives you a retro speed dial feature where you can map numbers to particular keys on the keyboard—a clumsy solution for speed dialing. Multitask Launching a new app is just a matter of hitting the Center button (the gray button on the front), and opening something from the launcher or the tray. The new app pops up as a new card, pushing your currently running programs to the side. Pressing the Center button again pops up all your cards, which you can then flip through to find the app you want. Sliding the card up, off the screen, closes it. Music and videos The extra man-hours of getting the Pre to pretend that it’s an iPod for iTunes to sync was well worth it. As for video, it’s essentially what you’d imagine a barebones video player to be, supporting more video codecs than the iPhone (surprise, surprise), but not more than other phones in this class.
• Sprint Navigator (by TeleNav) is an excellent port of the same program you see in other phones—the GPS works smoothly, like in the Google Maps • The photo viewer works the same as the iPhone’s, with swiping gestures, and can upload directly to your Facebook account • The browser works off the latest WebKit build, and is fast and snappy; it should be about as good as iPhone 3.0’s browser, since they both use WebKit • Backup works much like Microsoft’s My Phone, storing your contacts, calendar and tasks, as well as app and system settings on your Palm profile; it comes with the phone, and is useful if you ever have to wipe or replace a lost phone • YouTube quality is just as good as any other phone, even if it does seem to take slightly longer to bring up videos on the Pre
GADGETS WE LIKE TO THROW INTO A BLACK HOLE We love gadgets — we really do. And that’s why, when a gadget fails to measure up to its promise, doesn’t work as you’d expect, or hobbled by a stanky-ass design, we get angry. Well, we’ve had it with crappy gadgets. We’re recruiting the help of a black hole to crush the worst gadgets into nothingness.
• iPod/iPhone Earbuds The crummy earbuds included with every iPod or iPhone are ugly, don’t fit well and deliver terrible sound. They don’t even last very long: Within months of normal use, they often start developing painful buzzes. • Sony MiniDisc This was the worst, it had ridiculous restrictions on copying files, most people gave this horrible format a justifiable pass.
VERDICT Think of it like this. The software is agile, smart and capable. The hardware, on the other hand, is a liability. If Palm can get someone else to design and build their hardware—someone who has hands and can feel what a phone is like when physically used, that phone might just be one of the best phones on the market. I’m bored of the iPhone. The core functionality and design have remained the same for the last two years, and since 3.0 is just more of the same, and—barring some kind of June surprise—that’s another year of the same old icons and swiping and pinching. It’s time for something different. The Pre may have hardware that’s worse than the G1/G2, but the whole package—the software and the hardware—isn’t bad. It’s good. It’s different. That’s something we can get behind. I can’t wait to see what Palm gets dealt in their next hand.
• Motorola RAZR Everyone had this phone, and everybody hated it. So sexy, yet so crappy with everything it did: poor call quality, cheap buttons, bad software on every carrier. • Sony Vaio Series P Lifestyle PC It has a crummy keyboard, short (2hr) battery life, 8.9-inch screen and high price tag, screw this thing. • Apple’s Hockey-Puck Mouse The hockey-puck mouse was an ergonomic atrocity. Who could possibly find a circular mouse comfortable? Perfect peripheral for Cookie Monster, we suppose. BONUS: AT&T Wireless While not technically a gadget, it’s the network that supports one of our favorite gizmos, the iPhone. But good gravy, have you ever seen a carrier that was so good at providing service so badly? It’s infuriating.
> LIFE STYLE. WOMAN WE ADORE.
OLIVIA MUNN
SURE OLIVIA MUNN WANTED TO BE ON THE COVER OF PLAYBOY. BUT THE MAGAZINE ALSO WANTED HER TO BE NUDE INSIDE THE UPCOMING JULY/AUGUST ISSUE, SAYS THE CO-HOST OF G4’S ATTACK OF THE SHOW.
“I “I WAS A HUGE DONKEY KONG FAN… I’M A BIG ZELDA FAN.”
was an immediate ‘No’,” she says. “Unless you are like 40 and you have to prove something I don’t think it’s necessary for me to be naked. I just thought it would be a total sellout on my part. But it became like my favorite thing to tell everybody that I got the offer.” Two weeks after originally popping the question, the magazine called back. “My publicist said, ‘They want you to do it non-nude and it would be their first two-month issue.” Munn agreed but still had to undergo what she describes as a stressful photo shoot in which a stylist constantly tried to get her to wear outfits that barely classified as clothing. “It was probably the most tense shoot I’ve ever been on,” she says. “I had this idea of (a shoot that was) fun, flirty, sexy and very summery.” The stylist brought out black leather, platinum and spandex offerings and a “one-piece bathing suit, all fishnet, and that basically exposed everything,” she says. “It was like a TV movie.” IN THE END, the Playboy cover, on newsstands Friday, shows her in a bikini. “I am happy with the cover,” says Munn, who appeared as a “Babe of the Month” two years ago. “I’m in a red bikini with lots of makeup and I’m in a pool. I’ve done it before but now it’s in Playboy.” Inside the new issue, she also has an image where she is topless, but has hair draped to cover her chest. “I was really excited to get the cover. I wouldn’t do Playboy nude but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the girls inside of
GAMER PROFILE: OLIVIA MUNN Olivia Munn, is a techie. “I’m obsessed with any kind of laptop and the Flip-type cameras,” she says. “I always carry three cameras with me at any time for my website and my blog (www.oliviamunn.com).” WHEN IT COMES TO GAMES, she says, “I consider myself a casual gamer. I don’t really have much time in my life to play. I’m still trying to beat Call of Duty 4, which is like the lamest thing I could ever admit.”
Here’s a look at the July-August issue of Playboy with Attack of the Show co-host Olivia Munn on the cover. Playboy has 15 additional free photos of Munn at www. playboy.com/ oliviamunn (you have to agree to accept emails from the magazine).
it,” she says. “I’m very proud of doing it. Part of doing it is experience. But I walked away from it going, uhhh, this kinda blows a little bit.” Viewers will get to see more of Olivia in an awkward situation next month when Attack of the Show celebrates its 1,000th episode with a two-hour special on July 9. “It isn’t my thousandth episode,” says Munn, who joined the tech news/entertainment show three years ago, just over a year into its run. “I am very proud that I have been part of the later years and …what we have created. There is no other show like it out there that is an afternoon show that is 100% live and is just people hanging out.” One of the highlights during the special will be a replay of Munn’s audition for the show. “I am wearing a wifebeater (T-shirt) and no bra. I guess during that time was my hippie stage,” she says. “And the moment before we went on I said to myself, ‘Just be yourself.’ … Whatever it was (co-host) Kevin (Pereira) and I had this chemistry.” Munn has some other career highlights ahead of her. She has a part in the upcoming films Iron Man 2 and Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carell. “All my scenes (in Iron Man 2) are with Robert Downey and one other actor. I don’t know how much I can say,” she says. “We were (improvising) and it came to me (to say a line) … (Later) Robert said, ‘Can we just stop a second and give Olivia a round of applause. She is rocking it. That made me feel good.”
HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU STARTED PLAYING VIDEO GAMES? “My parents didn’t let us play for a while, so I was maybe nine by the time we got an Atari and we all had to share a GameBoy. Before then, you remember the old Olympic games on the computer, you could do the sumo wrestling and the pole vault, that’s when I started.” FAVORITE GAME GROWING UP? “I was a huge Donkey Kong fan. That’s why it was so amazing when we had Steve Wiebe on our show. He was trying to beat the record. … And Zelda, I’m a big Zelda fan.” CURRENT FAVORITES: “Because it DONKEY KONG is my biggest enemy now it would probably be Call of Duty 4, but it’s so good. I also like Assassin’s Creed. A lot of people thought that it was a little bit more slow-paced but I enjoyed that.” GAME STYLE: TWITCH OR THINK? “I prefer think games. I like to take things at a little bit slower pace. I’m usually playing a game at 1 in morning. ... My body is tired but I am still awake. I can just sit back and take it in more..” A CERTAIN ACHIEVEMENT YOU ARE PROUD OF? “This is going to sound really girly and dorky and I apologize to anyone reading it, but I am really proud of myself for my ability to play Tetris. I am like a prodigy 14 years too late.” “LAST NIGHT I PLAYED …?” “Now I am going to sound really Asian. Last night I played (the Mahjong-like) Shanghai (Taipei) on my computer and I also played Scramble. I’ve Googled it and found it free online. It’s addictive.” “I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO PLAYING… “Star Wars: The Old Republic and also Jack Black’s new game Brütal Legend.”
BRUTAL LEGEND SCREEN GRAB
HOW BRUCE WILLIS KEEPS IT COOL BY SEAN GALLUP
I’M PRETTY SURE Bruce Willis lied to me, and I’m pretty sure I liked it. He made me feel that the two of us-men equipped with a certain tough cynicism, men who know that this whole celebrity machine is overblown, men, damn it, who have lived--could be straight with each other. When Willis, who was in Alcoholics Anonymous and now occasionally drinks, began to rave about the dangers of booze (perhaps provoked by my repeated references to his 1980s Seagram’s wine-cooler commercials), and I countered with a question about a YouTube video of him looking a little plowed at a recent Nets playoff game, he smiled. He paused. And then he said, “Jet-lagged.” Yes, I thought, dude was jet-lagged. I’ve been jet-lagged and mocked Cybill Shepherd and cursed
on national TV. Almost. “Sometimes I overestimate my ability to function under duress with less than enough sleep. We all have trouble sleeping. Do you have trouble sleeping?” And then Willis moves on to something else, and I think that, maybe, actually, Bruce Willis knows that I know he might be lying, and he respects me enough not to pretend he’s not. We’re both men who understand that I have to ask him something that requires a lie, and he has to deliver that lie. That’s the thing about watching Bruce Willis act: it’s not just that he’s so incredibly cool--it’s that he makes you feel like you’re cool too. Unlike George Bush’s, his smirk is inclusive, a charming plea for forgiveness for being a tough guy. He is the bouncer who listens to you
and smiles as he’s tossing you from the bar. He made audiences feel cool as the fast-talking, smartalec private eye David Addison in Moonlighting. He did it in three Die Hards, Pulp Fiction, Sin City and somehow in that movie where he puts words in a baby’s mouth. Can he still make us feel cool in Live Free or Die Hard, the fourth installment of the action series about a normal NYPD cop who always finds himself in the middle of absurdly dangerous terrorist plots? “I’m a gambling man by nature,” Willis says of returning to a franchise that started in 1988 and had its last installment 12 years ago. He admits that the second and third Die Hards were not great but says this one takes a retro action-movie plot (it’s pretty much WarGames meets WarGames) and makes it look contemporary. This isn’t last year’s Rocky movie, a wrap-up story about an old man. This is full-on, actionhero bombast. So the risks weren’t just that the movie would be bad, or that a 52-yearold man would look silly jumping and diving, but that no one would care, that action movies are the westerns of our day, a product of ‘80s American supremacy that can’t be resuscitated. Also, the risk was that Willis would break something on his body. “They played a Jedi mind trick on me and said, You’re getting older and shouldn’t do your own stunts, so of course I did my own stunts,” he said. He shows me, after some prodding, the spot near the bridge of his nose where he got 28 stitches after getting kicked in the head. “I just rubbed dirt on it and kept going,” he said, smirking. Really? “Yeah, just rubbed some dirt on it.” Seriously? He raises one eyebrow, either amused or disappointed or both. “No.” HE’S A LITTLE bit like the older brother, the alpha male who defends by playfully attacking. Early in the new film, there’s a scene in which Willis yanks a guy out of a parked car for trying to get to second base with a college student. She yells at Willis’ character for intervening, calling him John. He tells her that he hates when she calls him that. So she calls him Dad. It’s kind of creepy, the fun we’re supposed to be having assuming a college kid is his girlfriend, and it gets one to thinking about Willis’ dating life. When I ask him about it, he turns the question on me so that I’m the creep: “That thought never crossed my mind--of asking Mary Elizabeth Winstead on a date. No one has come up with that question. That’s good. I’ll tell her you asked about that.” I let out a little embarrassed giggle because it even feels cool to be made fun of by Bruce Willis. “Bruce Willis is a pimp, dude,” says Kevin Smith, the writer-producer who plays one of the villains in the movie and was such a fan growing up that he had Willis’ popblues album, The Return of Bruno, in his car’s cassette
player at all times. “Bruce Willis made me start drinking. I’m not a fan of alcohol. But when Bruce Willis sings about golden wine coolers, you have to get your drink on. I showed up at parties with Seagram’s wine coolers, and people would say, ‘What are you, crazy? We have a keg. We have vodka.’ But no. I’m Bruce Willis smooth.” It’s that coolness that lets Willis walk away, John McClane--like, from disasters that might have destroyed other careers: Hudson Hawk. Talking-baby movies. Movies with Matthew Perry in them. Investing in Planet Hollywood. Giving his kids odd names. Endorsing George Bush. People just don’t abandon Bruce Willis. Despite the cuffed Levi’s 501 blues he stills wears, he somehow stays with the times--Pulp Fiction, Friends, the Beavis and Butthead movie, Sin City. It’s because he never put himself on a different level from us. “Could you ever picture yourself hanging out with Sylvester Stallone? Could you picture hanging out with Arnold Schwarzenegger? No,” says Smith. “But you could with Bruce Willis. He acts like your friends. He talks like your friends.” AND HE’S LIKE that all the time. “He’s so relaxed on the set,” says Timothy Olyphant, who plays the main villain in the new movie. “It was one of those sets where you can feel the money flying out the window and you feel the pressure of it all. And he was like, ‘Settle down. Just get this right.’ He gave me a great deal of confidence.” Smith concurs. He tells a story he has told before about when Willis, a producer on the film, had Smith rewrite a scene he was in to remove some of the exposition. The studio wanted to discuss their objections to the rewrite. “I was there when A SCENE WITH BRUCE WILLIS, AS JOHN he made that call,” says Smith. MCCLANE, AND JUSTIN “He was talking to some higher-up LONG IN THE 2007 MOVIE, DIE HARD 4: muckity-muck at the studio. He kept LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. saying, ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh.’ And then he said, ‘Let me ask you this: Who is your second choice to play John McClane? Thought so.’ And then he hung up. It was just as cool as that.” A SEAGRAMS PRODUCT. Willis, of course, tells me, grinWHICH BRUCE WILLIS ning, that that’s just an “anecdote” DID SEVERAL COMMERCIALS PROMOTING SEAand that Smith is a “storyteller” and GRAMS WINE COOLER. that he and I, we know it’s not true. And right then, that story is no longer true. I BELIEVE WILLIS when he tells me that it doesn’t matter to him that this is the first Die Hard that’s not rated R, but even I can tell that it bums him out a little. “It’s hard to do one of these without cursing,” he says of portraying a character associated with one exuberantly vulgar catchphrase. “But if that’s your criteria for seeing a movie, counseling may be in order.” If McClane has softened a little, so has Willis, who once sang a song on Letterman about the thrill of killing Sad-
dam Hussein. “My political point of view has moved more toward independent,” says one of the few actors known as a Republican. “People would rather see me as a conservative than as a liberal, but I have lots of liberal notions.” And he does keep turning all the desk lamps in the halls of the hotel off. He figures people like to identify him with the GOP partly because it makes him seem rebellious within Hollywood and partly because we like to see our heroes as rugged, libertarian individualists. Which leads him to lament living in a time when Isaiah Washington is fired for calling a gay Grey’s Anatomy co-star a “faggot.” “I hate to think we live in a time when you can get fired from your job because of what you say,” he says. “He didn’t punch anyone. I think we’ll think differently with hindsight.” Clearly, not all his notions are liberal. But he is famously liberal in accepting that his ex-wife Demi Moore has married a much younger man, Ashton Kutcher. For this he thanks-and this lets you see how insular fame is--Will Smith. “He was very wise, and I want to give him credit,” Willis says. “He told me, ‘You put the kids first. As an adult, a couple years will go by, and you’re fine.’ It was good advice, and I was smart enough to take it. And to pay it forward to my friends.” It’s hard to believe, but Willis honestly seems cool even when he’s using the phrase “pay it forward.” HE DOESN’T LIKE that his private life is reported on, or that he has to do interviews like this one, but he understands that the world isn’t how he’d like it. “Everything is entertainment. The news is entertainment. Sports is entertainment. It’s all just one big game show,” he says. And the Internet, oh, he does not like the Internet. “The Internet is a big dark hole. What if the Internet was the lead mugs that everyone in Rome was using that led to the end of that civilization? What if 20 years from now, the Internet led to the downfall of the world?” So, yeah, he has his weird side, this bald man in a red T shirt and crisp blue jeans, telling me things that aren’t quite true, trying to end the interview early, clearly disgusted by my occupation--but it’s a likeable weird. When I leave, he does perhaps the strangest alpha-male thing of all, something I’ve never heard an interviewee do. He nods approvingly and says, “Good job.” You can’t be Willis-smooth unless you play the game to the end. *
““COULD COULD YOU YOU EVER EVER PICTURE PICTURE YOURSELF YOURSELF HANGING HANGING OUT OUT WITH WITH SYLVESTER SYLVESTER STALLONE STALLONE OR OR WITH WITH ARNOLD ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER? SCHWARZENEGGER? NO, NO, BUT BUT YOU YOU COULD COULD WITH WITH BRUCE BRUCE WILLIS. WILLIS.””
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v a G ho W ic m o C The
th o u T o Up ous M s n e Fam p O ife Most L NewRock’s ICK BY M
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JAGG
Mick Jagger “Jimmy Fallon,” This month, frequent subject Mick Jagger turns the tables, posing the questions to Saturday Night Live funnyman Jimmy Fallon.
Jimmy Fallon:
Mick! How are you? MICK JAGGER: I’m fine, how are you? JF: I’m doing really good. So you’re in Paris? It’s awesome over there. I went there once. MJ: Did you? JF: Yes. It was pretty fun. MJ: It’s spring in Paris now. JF: Oh, you can’t beat that. Isn’t this great--interview magazine. [Jagger laughs] Say, didn’t Andy Warhol do the Rolling Stones tongue? MJ: No. It was done by a guy named John Pasche. I went into a corner shop in London run by a family of Indians and there on the back wall was this calendar, and on it was the disembodied tongue of Kali. So I bought the calendar and I gave it to John to update. JF: No way! MJ: And I think it was first used on the album cover for Sticky Fingers, which has the zipper on it--which Andy did. JF: Oh. See, I always thought that Andy did the tongue itself. MJ: No. If you look at it, it doesn’t really look like Andy. JF: Did you know him well? MJ: Sure. Well, I knew him as much as anyone could know him, I guess. [laughs] I just recently did this thing for a traveling Warhol [art] show, where they asked me some questions about him, and I did it in reverse--I did it as Andy. JF: You answered as him? MJ: Yes, and the guy asking the questions never gave me any feedback, whether he thought it was funny or not. [Fallon laughs] All Andy used to say was [in a soft, deliberate voice] “Wowwww” and “Oh, really?” Stuff like that. Not a lot of conversation, you know.
JF: [laughs] I heard this great story about Andy--that he wanted to open a restaurant where you weren’t allowed to bring anyone. People would have to sit by themselves and eat. There would be just one chair at each table. MJ: Oh, yeah? I never heard about that one, but I know he was serious about this idea: He thought of these things called Andymats--vending machines with food in them, and he’d do all the designs for them and they’d be on the streets. [Fallon laughs] He was crazy about things like that, about making money from licensing. And he really loved doing commercial things that were very much a part of your everyday life, rather than things that were just in museums. [imitating Warhol again] Andymat. Oooh. That sounds fabulous. JF: You know, I got to see one of the Campbell’s soup paintings at somebody’s house once, and I was really psyched. But then I realized he did a zillion of them. MJ: He did lots of everything. JF: Everyone’s got the Campbell’s cans. They’re everywhere. They’re like Starbucks.
Have you ever been to the Warhol museum in Pittsburgh? JF: No. MJ: It’s a fun place. Andy used to keep all his stuff, his invitations and theater ticket stubs and swizzle sticks from drinks or whatever, all the detritus of life, and he’d put it all in garbage bags and label them by the day or the week--I can’t remember exactly how he sorted it. They’re all
kept in the museum, and they just started [showing] them. JF: Why is the museum in Pittsburgh? MJ: That’s where he came from. JF: Oh, wow. I never knew that. I thought he was a New Yorker. MJ: His parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe and they came to Pittsburgh. JF: I’ve got to do my homework. MJ: Yup. Now, I didn’t know that you were in Almost Famous [2000]. what part did you play? JF: Oh, man! I play the band’s second manager. Actually, I had a line where I said, “You think Mick Jagger’s going to be out there trying to be a rock star--” MJ: “--when he’s 50?” [both laugh] I’ve got it now! JF: Yeah, I had a full-on beard, too. It was my first beard ever. Have you ever grown one? MJ: I used to have a long, sort of Russian-type beard. I don’t remember what year it was. I think it was the end of the ‘70s, or the beginning of the ‘80s. It was quite distinguished, but it was really hard to keep clean. JF: It’s the worst thing ever! When I first started growing it, it was patchy and weird looking. People with real beards would look at me and say, “Nice try.” And then you have to trim around your lips and everything. It was just silly, you know? It was hard to even drink--whatever you drink gets soaked up in your mustache. MJ: And whatever you eat. You have to clean it all the time--what a pain in the neck. But some people like it. Did you find that girls liked it? JF: You know, I think they did. Maybe I’ll grow that thing back. [laughs] I’m from upstate New York, and this one guy I know grows a beard every win-
“THEY PUT ME IN A FUCKING TIME MACHINE!” ter. His wife says, “Oh, John’s growing his beard--it’s winter.” [laughs] It’s like, come on, can’t he just wear a sweater? I mean, this isn’t the mountain times, where you need it to be warm. Wear a scarf! MJ: The hibernation look. JF: Exactly. You’re a human, you’re not a bear! [both laugh] MJ: You’re still doing Saturday Night Live? JF: Yes. We’ve got two shows in a row. Jon Stewart’s hosting this week, and next week is Ian McKellen. MJ: I was once at an Oscar party with Ian McKellen. JF: He’s a good man. He came to see a show in January and he came right up to me and said, “Hi, I’m Ian McKellen and we’re going to do some sketches together in a few months.” I said, “Yeah,” and he goes, “Are you going to laugh during the sketches?” Because I do that sometimes. But I was like, “Hey! Whatever happened to first impressions?” [both You know, I laugh] I mean, get off think they did. my back! Maybe I’ll grow MJ: He didn’t want you that thing [beard] back. to laugh in the sketch, is that it? JF: I guess not. But I don’t do it on purpose, you know. I just do it because I’m having a good time. MJ: It’s hard not to, with the audience there. JF: Exactly, because everyone’s laughing right at you. From five feet away. MJ: When we did that sketch together last
December, it was quite hard. You work on the timing in the run-through, but the timing’s so different with the audience there. JF: Completely. We came through on air, though. That was the best. And the dress rehearsal was cool, too. I still have that on tape; where you said “Fuck” in the run-through. MJ: [laughs] I remember. JF: [in a British accent] “They put me in a fucking time machine!” [laughs] Oh, God, it was so funny. That was my favorite thing I ever did, ever, in the history of anything. MJ: That was a good one. I got so many calls about that. JF: That’s awesome. Man, that was great. That guest spot on The Rutles [a spoof of the Beatles] TV show that you did: Was that the first comedy thing you did? MJ: I honestly can’t remember. It’s like going back to the ancient Romans or something. [Fallon laughs] I used to do lots of chat shows and comedy in that kind of way. JF: Right. Did you ever listen to comedy records? MJ: I used to have Lenny Bruce records. And Pigmeat Markham. JF: Who? MJ: There used to be these black comedians who used to do the Apollo. Moms Mabley-JF: --I know Moms Mabley. MJ: Well, Moms Mabley was one and Pigmeat Markham was another-sometimes Pigmeat would dress up as a woman, which is very English, in a Monty [Python] way. We Brits dress up as women, but they’re not glamourous women, if you know what I mean. JF: [laughs] Exactly.
MJ: And Peter Sellers used to have these great records he’d put out. He’d do all kinds of characters. And then there were Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. JF: Oh, yeah. They had a dirty routine--Clive ... someone and Clive. MJ: I can’t remember, either. We did a bit with them for a radio show, which Zack Morris, played by actor Mark-Paul Harry Gosselaar, answer the “brick phone” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
I’m not sure ever came out, where we were interviewed by them as Clive and whoever it was. JF: Derek! Derek and Clive. MJ: Yes! We were interviewed by them as Derek and Clive. I’m not sure what happened to it. JF: No way! I’ve got to see if I can get that on eBay! They were unbelievable. MJ: Charlie (Watts, the Stones’ drummer] used to play drums sometimes with Dudley Moore in a club--I think I’m right. JF: Wow. I did the Tarzan sketch from Beyond the Fringe with Eric Idle last year at a benefit for Dudley Moore at Carnegie Hall. I got completely into Beyond the Fringe after that. MJ: That was one of the first alternative comedy programs. But, of course, there was The Goon Show before that. JF: With Peter Sellers, right? MJ: Yes. And then there was a whole flood of English satirical comedy shows, and then there was Monty Python. That’s the history lesson of English comedy, I guess. JF: Thank you. [laughs] MJ: But I’m not a [continue on page TK]
NATALIE PORTMAN IS MUCH, MUCH MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE. CRAIG MCLEAN
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The Oscar-nominated galactic queen who has been faAnderson’s 10-minute short that appears before the main mous for more than half of her short life walks into a quiet feature. It’s remarkable because it’s so much better than Turkish cafe near her home in New York’s East Village. Nata- the two-hour film that follows. And because in it Natalie lie Portman arrives on her own, sans entourage. The maitre Portman disrobes and acts out a sex scene. d’ greets her warmly but unfussily. ‘Nice to see you again...’ She listens patiently, hands clasped in a little fist, peach- ‘I THINK IT’S BEAUTIFUL and I think it’s tastefully done and I love the short,’ says Portman. ‘And it still wasn’t like perfect face upturned, beauty spots on each cheek, as the full nudity.’ waiter reads through a list of today’s specials, all of which Well, it was and it wasn’t. Hotel Chevalier is about contain meat or fish. She doesn’t interrupt to tell him that a young couple, played by Portman and Schwartzman, she’s vegetarian. Eventually he finishes and she says that reuniting for a (possibly final) tryst. It’s a perfect little she’ll have the shepherd salad with a side of tzatziki. Tap two-hander, Schwartzman strange, fidgety and sad, Portwater will be fine. man enigmatic, elegant and sad. It’s all rendered just so: SHE’S NOT A VEGAN, though she has been trying to phase Peter Sarstedt’s ‘Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)’ is the out eggs. ‘But I don’t think I could do it. It’s really hard for soundtrack. Cigarettes are smoked brilliantly. And when travelling, especially if you want to maintain your protein you see Portman naked and leaning in profile on a dresser, levels.’ She refuses to wear leather, but will wear wool. ‘Alshe’s posed deliberately, artfully, bony elbows protecting though I don’t think I have a lot of wool clothes. And I sort her modesty. Rodin’s ‘Thinker’ with a xylophone of ribs and of made a no-buying-anything-new rule. I just have a lot a gamine haircut. But she’s definitely starkers. of stuff,’ she says with a tiny pout. ‘And I figured: look, if I And yet, and yet ... Natalie Portman doesn’t do nudity. need something, if my running shoes have holes in them That’s what she said, that’s what everyone said. The actress and I don’t have running shoes any more, then I’ll get new was a paragon of principle, a hugely talented brainbox ones. But you know, I have 40 T-shirts, I have 20 pairs of who happened to be both bombshell and bewitcher, who jeans - you get so forced into believing [that you need all rewrote the rule book for young Hollywood hot shots. ‘It this stuff]. Maybe it’s a New York thing.’ confuses people to think that someone so completely beauIt’s also surely a her-job thing. People must send Portman lovely clothes for red-carpet events and the like. ‘Most of the time I give them back. Because it’s not like you wear them ever again. Also, a lot of them are samples and you have to give them back. It’s very Cinderella.’ Even the Zac Posen stuff? (The New York designer sees Portman as his muse.) Yeah, but again, I don’t really wear them again - except a lot of my friends started getting married this year. So all of tiful could be a first-rate actor, too,’ says veteran director a sudden,’ she smiles, ‘I actually do wear fancy dresses.’ Mike Nichols, to whom Portman is very close. ‘It’s hard to But dress sense isn’t the thing that preoccupies most grasp, but it’s happened. It’s happened a few times before, people when they think of Portman. It’s undressing. If with Garbo and Louise Brooks.’ you go down to the multiplex today, to see director Wes Portman was shocked by the response to her first Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, you’re sure of a big movie, 1994’s Leon, in which she played a 12-year-old girl surprise. Not from the film - three bickering American having a tender but uncomfortable-to-watch relationship brothers (Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson) with a hitman. The media response and the dodgy letters travel across India by train - which is Merchant Ivory by sent to adolescent Portman didn’t sour her towards actway of Jackass. No, the remarkable thing is Hotel Chevalier, ing per se, ‘but towards acting in stuff that was sexually
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PHOTOS: fanpop
She’s a Harvard educated, eco-minded, rights campaigning, non-leather-wearing vegetarian who also happens to be an Oscar-nominated actress ... Natalie Portman is much, much more than just a pretty face. Now, as her latest film hits our screens, the intergalactic star bares all to Craig McLean.
provocative when I was young’. At this point in our conversation Portman, 26 now but still with the proportions and doll-like features of a child, titters - there’s no other word for it - nervously. ‘It was so extreme,’ she continues, ‘the circumstances and the outrage and puritanical raging against it. As a 12-year-old [it was] just horrifying - you don’t think: “Fuck them!” You’re just like: “Oh my God, this is the worst thing that’s ever happened.” And I think my parents felt really guilty: “Did we do something wrong?”’ Before and after Leon, Portman, an only child, and her super-supportive, super-protective parents (dad a fertility doctor, mum a housewife) tried to do things right. She’d wriggled free from the Hollywood tractor beam even before she felt its pull - while she continued with her schooling in a well-to-do area of Long Island, on screen she hid her real identity (Natalie Hershlag) behind Portman, her grandmother’s maiden name. She took another jailbait-ish role in the wonderful Beautiful Girls, but as she advanced into her teens refused more sexually provocative roles in Romeo + Juliet, The Ice Storm and Lolita. She agreed to be in Star Wars Episodes I to III, but only if she could do the films in summer holidays. Portman retreated even further into ‘real life’ by taking a psychology degree at Harvard, the gravity (in every sense) slowing her shooting-star trajectory. ‘I don’t care if going to Harvard ruins my career,’ she said at the time. ‘I’d rather be smart than a movie star.’
[ CLOCKWISE ] NATALIE PORTMAN AND CLIVE OWEN IN “CLOSER”. A SCENE FROM “HOTEL CHEVALIER” WITH OWEN WILSON. A FASHION HEADSHOT OF NATALIE PORTMAN.
ked on set or something?’ ‘No!’ she exclaims in response to this dumb question. ‘It wasn’t that I wanted to do it. They shot that stuff without my knowledge. And it was sort of like a conversation after SHE WAS, THEN, a principled young actress, smarter than the fact.’ the average bare-all starlet. So, in Closer, 2004’s sexually It wasn’t in the script you read? charged chamber piece in which four beautiful people ‘No. And doubles were never discussed.’ (Portman, Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Clive Owen) fall in Was nudity in the script? and out of love and lust, she asked Nichols, the director, ‘No.’ to remove scenes in which her character - a pink-haired So that must have been a bit of a surprise to see ‘you’ stripper - gets her kit off. In her first real adult role, her naked on screen. instincts were bang on: her performance was stunning ‘Mmmm...’ Portman nods slowly, elegant eyebrows archenough without disrobing, and she won a Golden Globe ing. ‘And I was sort of fundamentalist about it. Which is and was Oscar nominated. why it ended!’ Then, in this year’s Goya’s Ghosts, an arthouse film made She doesn’t think she has any rational explanation as to in Spain with director Milos Forman, she insisted on a body- why she agreed to go nude for Anderson, other than ‘somedouble being used for scenes where her character is naked. times I just feel like changing rules a bit. I get into modes ‘That wasn’t by choice in Goya’s Ghosts, by the way,’ she where I feel like I wanna experiment with my acting.’ interjects. ‘But that’s sort of a boring conversation.’ Thus the first film she did after completing the overIs it really? blown Star Wars trilogy was the $2.5m Garden State, a ‘Uh-hnuh!’ she murmurs - with a smile and a mouthful of scruffy, lovely, cheapo indie that was the directorial debut tzatziki - in the affirmative. of Scrubs star Zach Braff. Another example: while she was ‘Is there a Spanish law that you’re not allowed to be nain Berlin filming V for Vendetta, the [continue on page TK]
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> BACK OF BOOK. LEFT-OVERS
THE COMIC WHO GAVE SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE NEW LIFE OPENS UP TO ROCK’S MOST FAMOUS MOUTH BY MICK JAGGER
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student of it. I’m only recalling bits of what I remember. I was never really a great fan, one of those people who go around doing a whole sketch. I can’t stand it when people, fans, do a whole sketch for you. It’s crazy. JF: [laughs] I know what you’re talking about. But you know what? I’ve done that many times. MJ: But you’re allowed to do that; you’re a comedian and that’s your gig. It’s different when the guy who comes to repair the lamps does it. JF: [laughs] Exactly. [in a thick New York accent] “Say, did you ever see that thing where Adam Sandler was ...” [Jagger laughs] And you sit there for 20 minutes. MJ: And then he gets stuck and-JF: --he can’t remember the end to it! [both laugh] [in a thick New York accent] “Oh man, what does he say again?” MJ: Do you think that different countries find it difficult to appreciate each other’s comedy? JF: I think so. Because-MJ: --Some of it translates but some doesn’t. JF: I think it’s very rare that it does. Saturday Night Live isn’t played in England, is it? MJ: I know it did play, but only on cable channels. I’m not sure if it still does. JF: When I went over there--I was doing [the HBO miniseries] Band of
Brothers and I was in England for two weeks--I was watching BBC and they kept showing [the old comedy show] Fawlty Towers. MJ: Fawlty Towers is still played, yes. JF: For Christ’s sake, how does that still play? They only did, like, 15 episodes! [laughs] I said, “Did I go back in time? There’s no way Fawlty Towers is on.” There’s this new guy in England named Chris Morris. He really makes me laugh. MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE MJ: He’s funny. Have you seen Ali G? BY CRAIG MCLEAN JF: Oh, Ali G is fantastic. continue from page TK MJ: Does that translate for you? JF: For me it does, because I love British humor. controversial Wachowski Brothers-proMJ: He’s a really strange tyke. [laughs) duced comic-book adaptation in which There are lots of gags within gags, so she played a shaven-headed terrorist, many double things in his humor. He’s she took time off to make a short with outrageous, he’s completely anti-PC. German director Tom Twyker (Run A couple of weeks ago he went on Lola Run, Perfume). Another example: the BBC and he said these outrageous ‘I’ll go do a big-budget movie that I things--I mean, they’re not particularly thought I’d never do.’ She doesn’t outrageous because it’s Ali G and it’s elaborate here, but I’m guessing Mars a joke. Attacks!, in which she played the presiJF: A complete joke. dent’s daughter. MJ: But the BBC apologized for it. [FalAnyway, ‘I get impulses to do stuff lon laughs] It’s ridiculous because we and they’re not always explicable. all know that Ali G’s not a real person. And they often turn into my favourite JF: When I was in England I also experiences.’ Of which, she says, Hotel watched this thing called The. Day Chevalier is emphatically one. But Today, which is a fake news show. now a cloud is passing over Portman’s MJ: I don’t know that one. sunny features. JF: It had a fake sports guy and a fake weather guy, and that’s what kind of ‘THE THING IS - and maybe I’ve made me do “Weekend Update,” the brought it on myself by talking about news segment on Saturday Night Live. nudity so much - it’s still the thing At the time, Lorne [Michaels, Saturday that people talk about more than the Night Live’s executive producer] was short. And that’s the thing that makes asking me to do it and I was like, “Well, me think maybe I shouldn’t have done if I can do anything as remotely funny it. It’s not that I regret the actual thing. as this, I should do it.” So, when are But it really depresses me that what you coming to New York? I think is a wonderful film, that I’m MJ: I don’t know. really happy with - and Wes put a lot JF: Isn’t there an Enigma [a film Jagger of time and energy into planning shots produced, along with Michaels] preand writing the script, it’s very minimiere soon? mal, very exact - and then at the end MJ: Yes. That’s in April some time. I’ll literally half of any article or review be coming in for that. about it has been about the nudity. JF: I got invited to that one. ‘I’m really not prudish about doing MJ: We’ll go and have a drink. Listen, nudity,’ she continues. ‘I think it’s you have a good time. It was nice talkbeautiful in films, and sex is such a ing to you. big part of life, and nudity is obviJF: [laughs] You’re the best, man. ously our natural state. That’s not my issue. My issue is that I feel it takes
something away from what you’re doing. And also that it can be used afterwards for different purposes. Misappropriated.’ Nudie clips that end up on YouTube? ‘Yeah. My picture ended up on porn sites,’ she says, face aghast. ‘So that’s the dilemma more than ... the artistic decision of it is a no-brainer to me. But it’s not the way it used to be; it doesn’t show at a film festival, you know?’ PORTMAN LIKES TO investigate, to be specific, to focus. This autumn she’s cover star and guest editor of an issue of American school maths magazine Scholastic Math: ‘[Maths] made me excited about life, to consider the limitlessness of the mind and what we can do with it.’ She’s visited Rwanda to make a documentary for the Animal Planet channel, highlighting the plight of gorillas. And rather than ‘just’ be the face of a charity visiting this or that beleaguered country, she works with the Foundation for International Community Assistance (Finca), which offers micro-financial investment to women in developing countries. It’s a very under-the-radar - and unshowy charitable initiative. ‘Well, yeah, because I wanna do something meaningful. They ask you to do 4,000 charity things a year and all of them are worthy. But I don’t think you can really make an impact unless you do [just] one thing and really devote yourself. And it’s been important to me.’ Portman was born in Israel (her family moved to the US when she was three) and in 2004 spent six months doing Middle Eastern studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She became involved with Finca after reading that Queen Rania of Jordan was a supporter. ‘I CONTACTED HER because I was interested in doing some sort of Israeli/ Palestinian initiative with women, and she’s the most high-profile Palestinian woman in the world. And also someone I really admire. She’s just supereloquent and smart and compassionate and doing great things. So I hoped to do something with her, and she
directed me towards micro-finance. ‘It’s amazing,’ she continues, her unblinking eyes shining eagerly. ‘It’s less of a charity than sort of an expansion of opportunity. It’s opening up banking services to the poor.’ She reels off figures: worldwide, 2.5bn people don’t have access to banking services; half the world - 3bn people - live on less than $2 a day. And 70 per cent of them are women and children. ‘So it’s giving to these women, like, $50, and they start their own businesses, or augment their existing businesses. Then they pay back their loans, so the loans recycle. It is,’ she repeats (like the kid she was not so long ago), ‘pretty amazing.’ She’s hopeful that western society is on the brink of a paradigm shift - that the mark of a mature capitalist culture is not conspicuous consumption and excess, but restraint and moderation. ‘Absolutely!’ And true to form, Portman has looked into this issue properly. ‘There’s this book I love called The Future of Life by EO Wilson, about the environment. It’s basically aimed at business people who just think about infinite possibilities, infinite expansion - but the earth is limited! It’s very short term to think we can just accumulate and make as much as we can. If you wanna think longer-term economically, there are better ways.’ Alert, inquisitive, Natalie Portman likes to be stimulated. At Harvard she was tutored by - and became research assistant to - law professor Alan Dershowitz (famous outside academia for his role in the defence of Claus von Bulow). ‘She’s not one of those Hollywood stars who plays on her stardom to have you listen to her on other issues,’ he says. ‘She’s worth listening to because of her own inherent intelligence, experience and background.’
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LIFE ACCORDING TO NATALIE PORTMAN What’s your favorite fashion item? My Te Casan shoes, because I love finally being able to have pretty vegan footwear. Also my new warm weather jacket - it makes every day feel like summer. What items do you never leave home with out? My keys. ID. Cash. My phone. Is that too honest and boring and common? What trait do you most dislike in others and yourself? In others, I dislike pretension. In myself? I try to make everyone happy. When’s the last time you lied? I don’t know. And cried? Just the other night. I cry a lot. What’s the biggest green crime you may be accused of? Flying. I need to cut down and carbon neutralize simultaneously. Your most valuable possession? My health. What makes you happy? Being in nature, with animals.
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