As an actor two time Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman has created some indelible characters—Midnight Cowboy’s Ratso Rizzo and Tootsie to name a couple—but from an early age he dreamed of being a professional pianist.
“I wanted to be a musician but I was never talented enough,” he says, “so I’m not a musician. I have small hands—and by the way there is no correlation to your hands and personal parts—so I can’t reach much more than an octave.”
In the new film Boychoir he shows his musical side playing a choirmaster to a group of talented youngsters. During the film’s making he tinkled the ivories on screen and off, spending his downtime duetting with director François Girard.
“As far as François and I noodling on the piano,” he says, “I would have preferred it was only me. He was busy lining up the shots, but he did noodle, so there was a bit of competitive noodling.”
As a young man he studied classical piano but when it became apparent he’d never turn pro, he tried his hand at acting. “I had been flunking out of junior college and somebody said, ‘Try acting. Nobody flunks acting.’”
Enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse, he shared a room with Robert Duvall and studied with Gene Hackman.
“No one told me I was a good actor,” he says. “No one told Gene and there was a third person, Duvall, and we hung out together. They are both much, much older than me. If someone was to say to the three of us in those early days that we were going to be successful, forget about being movie stars, everyone would have laughed. It’s kind of a freak accident that it happened to all three of us.”
Hoffman’s big break came in the form of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate. Robert Redford was considered for the part but director Mike Nichols rejected the traditionally handsome actor—“ You can’t play it,” he told Redford. “You can never play a loser.”—in favour of the unknown Hoffman. The Graduate made him a star and is now considered a classic, but almost fifty years later he remembers how the critics savaged his performance.
The barbs hurt at the time, but he doesn’t let them get under his skin any more. “Critics are… I shouldn’t say,” he laughs, “I don’t know if anyone grows up saying, ‘When I grow up I want to be a critic.’”
Years before Mekhi Phifer played the stern-faced “Dauntless” enforcement officer Max in this weekend’s The Divergent Series: Insurgent, he displayed a dauntless attitude that got him his first acting job.
The year was 1994, the movie was Spike Lee’s Clockers and over 1000 people showed up for an open casting call.
“I went with my cousin,” he says, “not knowing anything about the audition or open casting call process. Spike Lee auditioned me about seven or eight different times. I had to read with Harvey Keitel and Isaiah Washington and do improvisations. I had never done that type of stuff before so to have gotten that was a whirlwind; I just thought that was the norm. That’s how you cast movies—a thousand people come in.”
He won the lead role and parlayed that success into a string of memorable characters in movies like 8 Mile and TV shows like ER, where he played Dr. Greg Pratt for six seasons and the Dr. Who spin-off, the sci-fi series Torchwood: Miracle Day.
“I am a big fan of sci-fi,” he says. “and that was part of the allure [to signing on for the Divergent series], but the other part was that it was good. I’m not looking for one particular genre or one particular type of film I usually just gravitate towards what’s good.”
He plays Max, leader of Dauntless, the warrior bloc of a Big Brother style government that has divided the post-apocalyptic Chicago into five factions. In the new film his job is to hunt down and capture fugitives Tris (Shailene Woodley) and boyfriend Four (Theo James) because she is she is divergent, a person who cannot be pigeonholed into just one designation.
“He’s not a villain at all in any way shape or form,” he says. “He’s tasked with protecting the society and I really feel that he believes in expunging the divergents and the rebel factions. He’s not doing it in a malicious way. He’s not getting pleasure from other people’s pain. He looks at it as a necessary evil.”
Phifer hasn’t read the Veronica Roth books that make up the source material for the films—“For me it seemed like more fun to do the series and then read the books and compare.”—so he’s not sure what’s going to happen with his character, but he hopes Max comes back for next year’s instalment Allegiant – Part 1.
“I don’t know what’s happening next so I’m on the journey with the audience,” he says. “I would love to see some of who he is come full circle.”
Sean Penn is back on the big screen this weekend in The Gunman, his first leading role in almost four years. It can’t rightly be called a comeback because he never really went away. Supporting roles in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Gangster Squad have generated column inches, but in the last five years he has devoted more energy to raising money for earthquake relief in Haiti than to being a movie star.
In the film he plays Special Forces military contractor Jim Terrier. By day he protects foreign workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo but he moonlights as a hired gunman for big corporations. His assassination of the Congolese Mining Minister forces him to flee the country and changes the course of his entire life.
It’s what Penn jokingly calls “geriaction,” an action movie starring a middle-aged actor. Other than that, don’t expect to hear him speak a great deal about his new film. “Honestly within a week after I’ve finished shooting a film I’ve almost forgotten it,” he said recently.
In February he was honoured with an honorary Cesar Award for “choosing his films with sensitivity and commitment.” At the ceremony the “legend in his lifetime” watched a clip reel spanning the width and breadth of his career, including excerpts from Dead Men Walking, Mystic River and Milk.
Later the actor said, “I remember playing none of those scenes. I remembered the movies [but] I saw myself in scenes with actors I didn’t even know I’d ever worked with!”
To jog Mr. Penn’s memory here’s a “compenndium” of some of his memorable roles:
1. In Milk Penn won a Best Actor Oscar playing the real-life Harvey Milk, a native New Yorker who became America’s first openly gay man to be elected to public office. Penn fully embraces Milk, from the thick New York accent that characterized his speech to the goofy grin that endeared the real-life activist to his supporters, both gay and straight.
2. This Must be the Place is a rare thing. I speak of that elusive beast Pennigma Seanun comoedia—the Sean Penn comedy. He plays a retired and world-weary American rock star living with his wife (Frances McDormand) in Ireland. This is Sean Penn like we’ve never seen him before. With poufy hair, black toenail polish and affected vocal cadence—like Andy Warhol on Quaaludes—he creates an intriguing, strange character.
3. In Hollywood dramedy Hurly Burly Penn played against type as Eddie, the hyperactive casting agent. It’s an emotionally raw performance—witness Eddie try and use cocaine to snort away his troubles—but one without the studied glumness that he frequently brings to the screen.
4. Fair Game could be re-titled One Hundred Minutes of Sean Penn Yelling ‘If We Don’t Tell the Truth No One Will!’ He’s Joseph Wilson the real-life whistleblower who claimed the Bush administration falsified information about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Penn is passionate, crafting a performance so big it has it’s own gravitational pull.
5. Finally there’s All the King’s Men, a movie memorable for all the wrong reasons. Penn is a fine actor, but as Willie Stark, (loosely based on Louisiana governor Huey P. Long) he is so over-the-top it’s as if he’s acting in a different movie than the rest of the cast. It’s a vein-popping, arm-waving performance that suggests that maybe he should lay-off the Red Bull.
“Insurgent,” the second in the “Divergent” trilogy, takes one of the oldest dramatic tropes—the fear of the “other”—and blows it up into a teen epic about dystopia, guilt and artfully tossed pixie haircuts.
The backstory: In “Divergent” a Big Brother style government has divided the post-apocalyptic Chicago into five factions: the altruistic Abnegation sect, the peace loving Amity, the “I cannot tell a lie” Candor group, the militaristic arm Dauntless and the smarty-pants Erudites.
At age sixteen all citizens must submit to a personality test that will help them decide which faction they will join. Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) is from an Abnegation family, but chooses to join Dauntless, the warrior faction charged with protecting the city. During her training it’s discovered she is divergent, a person who cannot be pigeonholed into just one designation.
At the beginning of the new film Tris, her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and boyfriend Four (Theo James) have escaped the world of factions and are living off the grid. They are fugitives from Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet), the head of the Erudite faction and an evil brainiac who desperately wants to get her hands on Tris. As a 100% divergent Tris is one of the few who can unlock the secrets of a mysterious box that holds the key to the future of humanity. As revolution brews against Janine, and the fascism of the factions, Tris does the only thing she can do to stop the bloodshed.
“Insurgent” takes place against a broad backdrop but that large canvas is painted with one very simple free-to-be-you-and-me-message. There is talk of class warfare and revolution but its bottom line tutorial on acceptance and “just because you may be different doesn’t mean you’re bad” is a potent lesson for teens.
The framework the solid message hangs on is a bit creaky, however. When characters aren’t explaining plot lines—whether it is by way of truth serums or Janine’s monologue to herself—they do inexplicable things, excusing them by saying, “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I have to do it.”
Woodley’s expressive face and eyes (not to mention the perfect Vidal Sassoon haircut) bring humanity to the story and Miles Teller’s smarmy villain character is a fun mix of Alex Delarge and Courage the Cowardly Dog, but much of “Insurgent” feels too generic to really be of interest. The action packed finale, for instance, puts Tris through her paces but none of the stunts feel real enough—thanks to the CGI—for there to be any real sense of jeopardy.
“Insurgent” is a curious thing. It’s a movie that sings the praises of being different and yet presents the story in as generic a way as possible. If it truly believed in its main thesis it would take more chances.
With the release of “The Gunman” Sean Penn joins the ranks of middle-aged actors looking to Neesonate their careers. Liam Neeson famously made the leap into action movies later in life, a move that has revitalized his career and generated millions of box office bucks.
Penn, fresh from the gym and frequently shirtless, plays Special Forces military contractor Jim Terrier who protects foreign workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo by day and sidelines as a hired gunman for big corporations by night. His he assassination of the Congolese Mining Minister (Clive Curtis) forces him to leave the country, his job and girlfriend Annie (Jasmine Trinca) behind. Eight years later he’s back in Africa. This time around instead of killing people he’s trying to do some good but three armed killers determined to do him in throw his humanitarian mission off track. His past has caught up to him and if he is to survive he has to return to his old ways.
Thrillers don’t get much more generic than “The Gunman.” It has all the elements of “Bourne Identity” or “Taken.” There are exotic locations, guns galore and loads of handheld camera, what’s missing is the thrills. Despite suitably menacing performances from heavyweights like Ray Winstone, Javier Bardem (despite his Foster Brooks drunk routine), Idris Elba and Mark Rylance everything is so by-the-numbers it’s as if the script (based on the 1981 novel The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette) was written to pay homage to older, better thrillers rather than offering up anything new.
Sloppily written—the “mess with the bull and you’ll get the horn” bull fighting climax takes place in present day in Catalonia even though they banned the sports years ago—with clunky dialogue and loose ends galore—what happens to Annie’s adopted baby?—“The Gunman” is unlikely to give Penn the necessary Neesonudge to reinvent his career.
In his new film former werewolf Taylor Lautner gets a premium rush out of making exactly the kind of movie you’d think Taylor Lautner would make.
In “Tracers” he plays Cam, the annoying kind of bike courier who pops wheelies on the sidewalk and stunt drives through traffic. In other words he’s the kind of bike courier who only exists in the movies.
On one of his wild rides through NYC he crashes into Nikki (Marie Avgeropoulos) a cute parkour enthusiast and thief. He hangs out with her and her crew—a group of like-minded hustlers who spin and twirl and jump where normal thieves might creep and tip-toe—learning the tricks of the trade and falling under the spell of Miller (Adam Rayner), a Fagin-like character who sets up their robberies and says things like, “That’s the past, all we have is the present.”
Cam owes beaucoup bucks to a loan shark (Johnny M. Wu) and in and attempt to make some fast cash, and impress Nikki, he joins the gang and commits several crimes. When Miller announces he wants to do one last, big score, the stakes are raised.
“Tracers” is the kind of teen movie that thinks anyone under the age of twenty will be satisfied with the barest minimum of entertainment. A pastiche of loud music, good looking young people, brooding glares, and, of course, star-crossed-parkour-loving lovers, it’s a music video writ large with the emotional depth of 1980s metal power ballad.
Front and canter is Lautner who undisputed mastery of the running and jumping required to ace the role suggests that he may have a bright future as a gymnast should this acting thing not work out for him.
Rayner brings some brooding intensity to the role of Miller, but everyone is saddled with either clichéd or silly dialogue. When handing out parkour advice to her young student Nikki channels Yoda and tells him, “If you want to vault the car, don’t look at the car, look at where the car isn’t.” With that in mind if you want to get something more than flash and trash out of “Tracers” don’t look at the movie, look at where the movie isn’t.
Richard Crouse interviews “Insurgent” star Mekhi Phifer on playing Dauntless leader Max.
“I didn’t know anything. That’s the thing with this series. I still don’t know where the character is going, that’s not typical for filmmaking. Usually you read the whole script and you know what’s happening from beginning to end and you adjust accordingly. So it is interesting playing this because I have no frame of reference to where he’s going.”
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
