Jeers to the Hollywood Reporter for convening a year end discussion with high-profile producers round-table without a SINGLE WOMAN! Please don’t tell me a single female producer was not available.
Here are two points, from the conversation of note:
Laurence Mark: on How Julie & Julie got made:
Mark: “Julie & Julia” happened, without question, because of Meryl Streep. We all know it, Meryl knows it, Sony is certainly happy to say it.
And Ivan Reitman talking about casting Vera Farmiga and the discussion he had with his son writer/director Jason.
I’d say the biggest disagreement we had was over Vera Farmiga, who is a wonderful actress but she was eight months pregnant about two months before he started shooting. He said “Look, I wrote it for her, I think she’ll be perfect.” And she was as big as a house! As a producer, I have to say to him, “I know she’s a great actress, she’s going to be great in it, but she’s got to be someone George Clooney is going to fall in love with.” There were all kinds of actresses who wanted to play this part, bigger names than Vera was at that moment, so I kept saying, “Well, how about her?” But he just hung in there. I had to really defend his decision, and I know he agonized about it enormously. There were a couple rough opening scenes — first days — that he reshot at the end of the schedule to give her a little more time to get into shape. Apart from that, there was really no downside.
Thank goodness Jason stuck to his guts.
And our second jeer of the day goes to CNN and this story, When Actresses Turn Ugly which is basically about the fact that Mariah Carey wore no makeup for her part in Precious. How does wearing no makeup make you ugly? Unacceptable.
Awards Watch: Producers Roundtable (Hollywood Reporter)
When Actresses Turn Ugly (CNN)
Yet another reason I will continue to see Jason Reitman movies.
Oddly enough, I was more attracted to Carey in the last scene of Precious than I have been since her pre-Glitter days. I was never a fan of her overly tan image, but she’s actually kinda cute in ‘normal mode’.
It’s awfully ‘nice’ of Ivan to admit that he was basically being a schmuck, but that his son proved him wrong.
“Ugly”? Carey looks more beautiful in “Precious” than I’ve ever seen her.
Melissa, I just called out CNN.com by writing a comment lambasting the site for posting an article with that title based on such a pathetically misogynistic premise, that a woman can be neither beautiful nor worthy of an academy award unless she gets “ugly,” meaning dares to show her real, unadorned, unmade-up face. I’m awaiting moderation of my comment; it will be interesting to see if it gets added to the growing list of similar complaints from other CNN viewers.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Yuck.
Mariah Carey was INTENTIONALLY filmed sans make-up for Precious. And she even said, when interviewed, that she found it liberating and it immensely boosted her confidence. GOOD JOB, CNN!
Isn’t it time the press paid at least some attention to an actress’ ability, rather than focusing so much attention on what she looks like? Where, for example, will we find the next Meryl Streep? The next Kathy Bates? They would not find work if they were starting their careers today.