It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Free association thoughts before slumber…
Whether or not said ‘controversy’ would hurt the franchise, the story of a studio sacking an up and coming actress so they could recast with a star is not a pleasant one for a studio to have to deal with. Frankly, without going into studio politics, I kinda like the bluntless and cold factual read that this press release feels like. I kinda wish more studios would be this blunt on matters like this. Having said that, I’m wondering if this was partially a fearful reaction from a very small studio that knows that it only has one real revenue stream. Anything that could damage the Twilight brand would be fatal to Summit at this point. So anything that might damage the brand must be dealt with immediately. They can’t afford to sit back as fans complain for six months (about, say, a last-minute release date change from November to July), knowing that the franchise will do just fine. They have everything to lose at this point because they have no idea how the franchise will grow past the initial curiosity/free buzz of the initial installment.
Cute actress and all, but…
Damn, do I live in reverse world, or should actors/actresses drop to their knees every second of the day in humbled, shameful appreciation that they get to do this for a living, and just keep their mouth shut? When you’re an “up and coming” actor and an ENTIRE STUDIO has just written a very public letter about you in a negative light… that’s some scary machinery there and kind of scene you just might have overstepped your bounds.
Imagine if WB acquired sequel rights to WICKED LAKE, and decided SHAWN HATOSY would be a more viable “Half-Idiot” than LUKE Y. THOMPSON. Surely Luke would know to just kinda keep his grumbling private, and not issue some PUBLIC MISSIVE about the big, evil studio.
I’m sure Rachelle Lafevre is on the tip of the tongue of every tweener Twilight fan who knows the material inside and out, but she’s hardly a cottage industry like Sean Penn or Katherine Heigl that she should’ve been even REMOTELY opining about this shit public-wise.
I know a lot of younger, new actors are flashy Hollywood kids with a certain degree of entitlement, but Tarantino was right when he said the people he would meet through acting in his early days never seemed reverent enough about film history, or about the industry.
There’s just a lot of good-looking, often rich kids, who get into the game and kinda take it for granted, not realizing how SUPERNATURAL it is to have that lot in life. This scenario reminds me a little bit of those entitled kids on AMERICAN IDOL or SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE who don’t know music or dance history, are kinda deluded, and maybe know a handful of basic steps or a pop tune or two but have deluded themselves into thinking they know better than “the machine.”
Um… this one seems pretty easy to figure out, not that I give half a shit one way or the other. But Rachelle needs to FIRE her agents/management. Immediately. How do you let them schedule another movie during rehearsals/the beginning of production of Eclipse? THAT’S your bread and butter. THAT’S why you’re getting other roles. Because THAT franchise is what made you a commodity in the first place. It’s not like she’s a big star, or even THE star of the movie. A studio could bend over backwards to accommodate a star like Cruise or Pitt, but c’mon… and all for some Paul Giamatti movie? No offense to him or the rest of the folks working on Barney’s Version, but how do you let that become the priority, if you’re the one in charge of her career? Sure, you get props for getting her cast in the trilogy in the first place, but that goodwill only lasts so long. I’d say she got completely fucked because the people who should’ve been looking out for her career, weren’t. But don’t blame the studio. It’s not their fault she’ll be out of the country. She has no one to blame but Team Rachelle. Bottom line.
P.S. I wish I could go a day without reading a single Twilight story on line. The phenomenon and the traffic it reaps disgusts me.
And yet, as a casual fan of the first Twilight movie and not having read any of the books, Lefevre did stand out in the role. The first time I watched the film and at the end when she storms down the stairs, I said to my partner; that actress really stands out. Will she have a bigger role in the series? I was glad to hear she did.
She has the right flame haired intense look required.
Howard on the other hand is the epitome of bland, white, vapid blandness. I have never seen her in a role where I didn’t think…if Opie wasn’t her dad, she isn’t getting that gig. She may be a nice person; but she is neither intense nor subversively sexual both qualities Lefevre brought to the role.
As to Summit’s response…I suspect they think they legitimately got burned and that is why they issued the statement. Lefevre on the other hand probably thought she really brought something to the role and would never be recast.
Could there be something else going on. Could Summit have wanted to get rid of her and then just used this as a convenient excuse? Could they have though Lefevre was getting to old to play the role of a teen vampire and recast for that reason?
Good thing for the makers of Eclipse though is that the Bryce Dallas Howard curse can’t really make this franchise any worse than it already is so good for them!
Am I the only one who thinks that Rachelle Lefevre is better than the work she’s getting, especially TWILIGHT and its sequels?
The one kind of odd thing I would like to say in her defense is that, well, “Barney’s Version” is an adaptation of (the last?) Mordecai Richler novel. As a Montrealer, I’m sure this is something of a dream part for her and she took it hoping to make it work out with the “Twilight” group, but in the end, well, she made a decision.
Complaining about said decision, of course, ain’t great as she must’ve known it could have gone down like this, though, I wonder if her agents didn’t just keep saying, “No, they won’t do that – you can do both and they’ll accomodate” and she bought it.
Scott, do you think this could really damage the Twilight brand, as you say, to the point where someone would not buy tickets because of loyalty to an actress they know only from Twilight movies?
Nicol, I thought Howard was terrific in The Village, regardless of whatever feelings on the movie (and I happen to really like the first two-thirds or so of it) — though, granted, I haven’t seen her do anything quite so excellent since.
I wouldn’t take Nicol’s comments on BDH too seriously . . . he probably just read somewhere that she was a liberal or that her dad is a liberal. Such is the black & while world that Nicol lives in.
I don’t Jesse, but I’m an outsider looking in with nothing at stake. It wouldn’t be that unreasonable for Summit to be so protective/fearful about their one and only cash cow that they’d be quick to jump on any negative attention of this nature.
Glad to see I’m not the only one who liked The Village. What a gorgeous score…
“he probably just read somewhere that she was a liberal or that her dad is a liberal. ”
That, or she went to college.
Krazy Eyes,
Yeah, you got me. BDH is actually the best, most complex actress that has every existed on the planet. I am just too blinded by ideology to see it.
I know nothing of her politics and did not make an issue of it. I have thought her mediocre in pretty much everything she has done. What, you loved her turns as Mary Jane and in T4? Tell me why? Defend your views if you can. Do not just make blind accusations.
When you make comments like that, it reflects more on how you let politics influence your views than I.
Here endeth the lesson.
Nobody saw Bryce in MANDERLAY?
I hated the ending of that movie, but it was a brave performance.
BDH was Gwen Stacy, not Mary Jane. Not a challenging part, but she was good. I hear she’s good in Branagh’s As You Like It, which I haven’t seen. I’m interested to see her play a bad girl; maybe she’ll surprise us.
Lefevre was pretty good as Jerry Espenson’s call girl girlfriend on Boston Legal, which is the only thing I’ve seen her in besides Twilight. Wasn’t she cast in the US pilot for Life on Mars, but dumped for Gretchen Mol? Or am I thinking of another show?
At any rate, yes, it was a real bonehead play to accept a film that conflicted with Eclipse. Her statement makes it sound as if she and/or her “people” think it’s a piece of cake to reschedule 10 days of a major film shoot for an expendable supporting player. Of course, they obviously assumed she wouldn’t be seen as expendable. Live and learn.
Nicol, if all you’ve seen of Bryce’s work is Spiderman 3 and T4, then maybe you shouldn’t be judging. Was ANYONE that good in those movies? Although in Spiderman she was better than Kirsten Dunst, they should have switched roles.
InSneider, there’s probably a pretty easy solution to your problem about having to read Twilight articles online. I’ll have to think about it and come up with some ideas.
I didn
Bryce Dallas Howard was good in The Village, but since then it has been only downhill. Wasted in terrible blockbusters, awful in arthouse pictures (living in the shadow of Kidman’s perf in Dogville was always going to be hard, but ouch. Manderlay was dreadful anyway, but Howard didn’t help) and now… the bloody “Twilight Saga”. Oh dear.