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Gugu Mbatha-Raw Committed to Authenticity in ‘Free State of Jones’

In the Civil War epic “Free State of Jones,” Gugu Mbatha-Raw had to contend with filming in the Louisiana swamps, which meant dealing daily with alligators, snakes, and lots and lots of bugs.

The “Beyond the Lights” actress sat down with Moviefone to talk about playing a slave who aids fugitive Newt Knight (Matthew McConaughey) and his cause to start a “free state” for escaped slaves and Southerners who were opposed to the Confederacy.

Moviefone: What drew you to this project?

Mbatha-Raw: Well, when I read the script, it was such an epic, visceral story and for me, being British, I didn’t know much about the Civil War. I certainly didn’t know about the Free State of Jones. I didn’t know that Newt and Rachel really existed and that there was this rebellion. For me, the idea of some slaves having some agency and some freedoms, and the fact that Rachel had this thirst for knowledge, teaching herself to read. And so much bravery in the fact that she was transitioning these two worlds, from the plantation to the rebels marooned in the swamps. And, also, just that it was such an epic story and this idea of fighting for your freedom. It isn’t just given to anyone, you have to step up and say you’re ready for it.

Did you do any research for the role?

Yeah, I could have done tons. I did as much as I could. Gary [Ross] has been working on this for over 10 years, so he had a lot of access to some great historians and professors at Harvard that we were able to speak to. I went to Mississippi, to the real Jones county, visited Newt and Rachel’s grave. I went to the real Alice Hotel, which is the hotel in the movie when they take over Ellisville. I read several slave narratives from Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, and watched as many movies and documentaries as I could about the Civil War. There was lots of stuff to get into.

It’s a very American story; did you find things in it that were universal?

It’s a very specific period of time, but for me, I love history and I think we can learn a lot from the past. Especially a true story like this, I just thought the courage of these characters was really inspiring. Why do you think this story is still relevant today? I think the struggle for freedom is ongoing. I don’t think anyone can rest on their laurels and say, “We’re free now, so let’s just chill out.” As is shown in the film, even when slavery was abolished, there was a re-enslavement and I think people have to be vigilant to guard their rights and fight for their rights, always.

I don’t think we ever see you and Matthew kiss in the film. Did you ever film that and it just didn’t make the final cut?

We did, actually. I think that’s more a question for Gary. That’s his vision.

I imagine there were some tough, emotional days on set.

When you’re dealing with this period and what these characters are going through, absolutely. But it’s part of the material. Yes, it was intense, but it was also wonderful to be working in such an amazing world. Being out there in the swamps — I never really shot there in the middle of nowhere. You had to get a boat to the set and just some of the logistics of being on tornado watch and doing indoor scenes because we’re not sure if a tornado’s going to come and ruin our swamp set! There were a lot of physical challenges as well.

You were really in the swamps.

Yes, 100 per cent! Those were all real locations. We were in Louisiana just outside of New Orleans and one of the locations was in the Chicot National Park. I think when you really are out in those remote areas, it’s not hard to imagine you’re in a different period of time. There’s no symbols of modernity, no telephone poles, no buildings. You really have the alligators and the swamps and the birds. So it’s easy to imagine you’re going back in town.And a lot of bugs?

Yes, a lot of bugs. I didn’t get bitten by the chiggers, but it’s not nice at all. I had a few mosquito bites. I got one on my face, which you can see in one scene.

Authenticity!

Exactly. [Laughs]

Did you see any alligators?

Daily! Every day we saw alligators when we were in the swamps. I remember being driven in a sort of go-cart thing, because they couldn’t have real cars out there, and counting nine alligators between the trailer and the set. They were sunbathing. But they left us alone, pretty much. It was the snakes that were more of a worry.

I hope no one got bitten.

Nobody did.

You also have to shoot some some old-fashioned firearms. Did you do any training for that?

Mmm hmm. It was very much on the set. Those particular period rifles, as you see in the beginning battle scene, it’s elaborate to do the firing. I think some of the actors who did the battle scenes had more of a boot camp training on how to load and reload. Most of mine was on set and as you see in the scene with Matthew, where Rachel is learning how to fire a gun, I was pretty much learning as we were shooting that scene.What about the period clothes. Did you, like Jennifer Jason Leigh in “The Hateful Eight,” did you go with full period underwear as well?

I absolutely did! I didn’t know that she did, too. It’s very tricky when you’re filming in humid New Orleans, but Louise Frogley, who was our costume designer … you didn’t feel that you were wearing costumes. These clothes felt so authentic. The pair of boots that I was wearing were actually from the period. They had to be re-soled and they were very, very delicate, but it was very special to wear these garments and dresses and shawls that really were from the time. A lot of them were very fragile. It just gave you a sense of authenticity, I think.

“Free State of Jones” opens nationwide Friday, June 24th.

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June 22, 2016
Cameron Crowe’s First Concert Nearly Cost Him His Life

As the writer-director behind romantic comedy classics like “Say Anything…,” “Singles” and “Jerry Maguire,” Cameron Crowe knows how to spin a good love story. But uniquely among filmmakers, he really understands how to make the romance between someone and the music they love come alive on screen.

That’s why its welcome news that Crowe — who, as vividly depicted in his semi-autobiographical film “Roadies,” his new series for Showtime that delves into the lives of the music-besotted concert tour crews that make arena rock happen from city to city.

Drawing on his deep vault of personal experiences and inside knowledge about life on the road (he was also married to Heart’s Nancy Wilson for over a quarter of a century), Crowe talks about putting his past to work, his last interaction with David Bowie, and the concert that almost ended his life.

On getting up to speed on the current state of the tour business since his heyday on the road:

“It’s a little more mechanized. It’s a little bigger, and smaller. The middle has disappeared, like so many other ways. It’s like, big, big, big flourishes and small, small, small flourishes. I love the idea that bands do living room concerts now, and they tour living rooms. And guess what? They’re great shows. They’re great shows. So I like that and I like expressing that in the show.

“Also, a band like [the series’] The Statehouse Band is kind of struggling to find out what the next phase is. So we’ll find out through the show — like, where do you fit now? You’ve been together for 10 plus years, where are you going to take your audience now to make yourself compelling? That’s a fun issue to get into.”

On staying connected to his memories of joining bands on tour:

“I kept notes on everything — I’m actually doing a collection book now. It’s so bizarre how present the memories are. Not a lot changes. I see a lot of people in the notes from the interview that we’ve done like struggling to find a way to success with integrity. Dealing with failure. Turning failure into a lesson. It’s all kind of stories that I’ve kept writing about.

“And I still have friends that are in bands and I go out and do shows and check out stuff. I’ve stayed researching pretty consistently. And it’s present to me. It’s very present.

“There’s all kinds of stories, and real specific ones, too, about things that happened with crews or one member deviates from the personality traits he’s had up until now. It’s like, it’s a never-ending fresh source to just go to real life. Because when you make it up, it’s never as good.”

On the people who surround and support the bands:

“The ambition is to make friends and family and celebrate the things that you love. I always felt like the whole sex, drugs, and rock and roll stereotype of rock-stardom was so kind of dishonest in a way. Because nobody ever picked up a guitar to get drugs. And they couldn’t play very long because that’s not going to help them write a song.

“That stuff can happen later. But what happens first is like somebody falls in love with a song, or piece of music, and it changes you life. That’s what this whole crew has in common with the people they work for and the actors have in common too. So I like writing about that.”On the contributions of fellow executive producer (and musically talented) J.J. Abrams:

“A lot! He also wrote some music that’s in the show somewhere — a little Easter egg! He was able to set up the original meetings and say like, “Here’s Cameron, my friend for a long time. We’ve been talking about this project for a long time.” “Here’s a story, here’s a show that I want to do as part of Bad Robot. We’ve been pitching to each other for a long time.” So that makes the meeting go pretty well.”

On what he learned from legendary filmmaker Billy Wilder (“Some Like It Hot,” “The Apartment“) while they worked on a book together that he still uses today:

“Let the audience put the facts together. Say ‘Two and two,’ but don’t add it up for them and they’ll love you forever. You always want to not be the guy that says, ‘It’s four! It’s four! It’s four! It’s four!’ It’s like Carla [Gugino] and Luke [Wilson‘s] relationship in the pilot: Don’t keep saying ‘Oh, they’re a work marriage. They’re not a real marriage.’ Just show it and people will get it. So that was a little lesson from Billy Wilder, for sure.”

On why the show isn’t a continuation of “Almost Famous”:

”Almost Famous’ really kind of needed to be that one story, which is getting that one interview that was so hard to get. And that was kind of the thing that was defining about that time and for me. And some of the bands took me in, and some of them didn’t. But the ones that took me in created an adventure that lives and lives and lives. So I thought, let’s tell one story and that’s the story of 1973.”

On his own legendary teenage years touring with the biggest rock acts of their day as a reporter for Rolling Stone:

“Nobody told me that it couldn’t be done! It was only later when people would say, like, ‘Are you kidding me? You did blah blah blah?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah — is that wrong?’ ‘Yes, it’s wrong. You can’t ask Led Zeppelin to just take you on the road!’ But I did.

“Part of it, I think, was being that age. And another part of it was a lot of the journalists in that era were guys that were from a previous era of loving a different kind of music. If you’re, like, Jethro Tull, and they send some guy that could really give a sh*t about Jethro Tull’s music, you’re going to be a little pissed about it. Like, ‘This is our shot as Rolling Stone and he’s this guy that really is like holding it against me that I’m not Miles Davis? Wait, here’s a 16-year-old kid that knows every chord that I’ve played and he’s writing for Rolling Stone — I want to talk to him.’ That happened a lot.

“So they would say like, ‘You’re really the guy? They print your stories?’ I was like, ‘Yeah. But I do have tough questions.’ It’s like, ‘It’s okay. You know the songs. Come with us.’ And that happened again, and again, and again.”

On his last exchange with David Bowie, whom he spent six months following in 1975:

“My last memory of David was doing liner notes for the ‘Station to Station’ expanded release that they did. He wanted me to do liner notes, and I had kept really good records of that session. So I wrote a very detailed set of liner notes about the session and how he created these songs like ‘TVC 15’ and stuff like that.

“I asked to talk to David, and his guy said ‘He’s not doing interviews, but he really wants you to write about the session.’ I thought it was really good, but the note I got back was, ‘He’s a little disappointed. He wanted you to write more about the music and what you thought of the music.’ It was like, ‘Damn — okay, cool.’

“So I went and I did another pass where I talked about how the music felt and what it meant to me and left everything else that was already there in. And it was better. So it was like, ‘Damn — he just did a good edit on me.’ And that was my last experience with David, but I was writing something [before he died] that I wanted him to act in. I loved him as an actor.”

On his ultimate concert experience:

“I would say the first one was where I got to go to a concert all by myself, and it was The Who. I didn’t have a ticket on the floor, but I snuck down on to the floor right before they came on stage and got caught in a crush to get to the stage. And I got pressed to the very front of the stage and couldn’t breathe. And then The Who came on, and they were my favorite band at the time … I didn’t know what was going to happen. I remember thinking, ‘They’re playing “My Generation” right now, and I may die.’

“Then, I got sucked in under the crowd and spit out 50 yards away, and it was the best f*cking concert I’ve ever been to, and maybe still. It was like: ‘All the songs you want to hear; near-death experience; escaping your protective family life — Yes!’

“Roadies” premieres Sunday, June 26th, on Showtime.

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June 21, 2016
Matthew McConaughey Felt a ‘Responsibility’ to Use the N-word in ‘Free State of Jones’

When you’re drawing up your list of best Matthew McConaughey movies, it’s likely you’ll be adding “Free State of Jones,” a drama based on the real story of a Southerner, Newt Knight, who led escaped slaves and poor white farmers against the Confederacy during the Civil War, a war within a war that hardly anyone has ever heard about before now.

Moviefone talked to McConaughey about meeting Newt’s descendants, the inspiration for his Mississippi accent, and having to use the N-word in a pivotal scene.

Moviefone: Had you ever heard of Newt Knight before this?

McConaughey: No, I never had. And most people I talked to had not either. I was introduced to Newt Knight via the script that Gary Ross spent the last 10 years writing.

How did Gary pitch it to you?

He said, “I have this true story that has not been shared or passed down through history. It’s an amazing story about this man who fought to defend his own freedom and his neighbors’ freedom during the Civil War. He fought alongside poor white farmers and runaway African-American slaves. And then, in the third act of his life, after the Civil War ended, he continued to fight for African-Americans’ rights in the South until he was buried in the ground next to his black wife (Rachel, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) when he was 94 years old.”

Quite a life. What resonated the most for you about this role?

Well, one, that it was a great true story that had not been shared. I, like many other people, asked, “Why have I not heard about this? Why did I never read about this?” It wasn’t even passed down through populist folklore. He was a man with a very simple creed and a very simple constitution. He was a man who, if he saw a wrong, he did not know how to ignore that wrong. He had a very clear sense of right and wrong, like that. [Snaps fingers] He didn’t measure the consequence of his actions, but he just took action. This is a guy on whose ideals alone, he was ready to wage a war. And he did. He led the rebellion during the Civil War and then his sense of family broadened after the war. It was about the Family of Men and he became about a cause for the last 45, 50 years of his life

Did you get to meet any of his descendants?

I did. I went to Ellisville, MS, where he’s from. Met quite a few of his descendants, quite a few are partially through the film and I met a lot of them. And then I had a lot of extras that came in from Mississippi and a couple of 100 of them said they would have done this film for free because Newt Knight was a hero to them. And I also heard a bunch of them say, “Those are good people in Ellisville,” which is were a lot of his descendants live.

Had you done a Mississippi accent before this?

No, I hadn’t. I listened to the wonderful maple-syrup voice of Shelby Foote, if you’ve ever seen Ken Burns’s documentary on the Civil War, he’s the sage that wrote a great book on the war. To hear him talk is just beautiful. It’s a whole different type of music than I have. But after a couple of months of work on it and finding a whole bunch of bootleg tapes of interviews he had done, that’s where I started. I started with him and then turned it into Newt.Gugu told me that you and she did have a kiss, but it didn’t make the final film. Does it matter to you if it’s in there or not?

No. A lot of times you do scenes and when you watch the film [after it’s been cut], you think, “Do I miss it?” And if it stands out and you missed it in the storytelling, then it’s kind of important. But if the story’s well told … you’re gonna lose a lot of scenes that are great scenes, but if you watch the movie as a whole — not just as a scene in particular, but as an overall way to tell the story — then the story’s not calling for it. So I didn’t miss it in the story of the telling; it’s insinuated. Rachel and Newt live together. They have a child, so obviously they were intimate. And I think the way Gary handled that scene [where they first spend the night together], I think was more powerful in that it goes out on her seeing this feather bed that’s for her for the first time.

During one of Newt’s speeches, you use the N-word. Did you find that hard?

It was a responsibility is the way I looked at it, especially in the context of the scene. It was a scene where Newt was using it to expose the word and really put it out there and shine a bright light on it in all capital letters, so to speak. We have a tendency, all of us in some ways, to sweep things like that under the carpet, to put it in the closet. Don’t say that, don’t do that, let’s act like that doesn’t exist. In this context, Newt was doing it in a very responsible and almost incentivizing way to expose that word, that nasty word. Personally, I think you put it out there in front of a light and and let’s examine that, let’s examine what its historical meaning is, what its present meaning is. And understand how it hurts. It was a hard but beautiful scene that we did.

Another key scene is when the Confederate Flag is taken down. Was that an emotional moment on set?

Yes, somewhat. A lot of people on the set that day were from Mississippi, and Gary’s got a great story about the man who actually took it down in the scene. It’s a very important symbol and it makes me want to talk about the value of symbolism and the difference between symbolism and action. After that flag came down in the Civil War, when Reconstruction was over in 1876, there were other varying implementations of enslavement that were reinforced in the South. The Klan rose up. The North had Civil War fatigue and pulled out and went home and a lot of things went back to how they were before. So the symbol is one thing, but the work to do and the action to change is another. I think the example there is that no matter what the symbol is, we’ve all got work to do.

“Free State of Jones” opens in theaters nationwide June 24th.

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June 21, 2016
Matthew McConaughey Brought ‘Everything’ to ‘Free State of Jones’

Director Gary Ross tackles real-life tyranny and oppression in “Free State of Jones”: the Civil War drama is the result of a decade of his research into a little-known historical figure, Newt Knight (Matthew McConaughey), a Southerner who fought against the Confederacy on behalf of the poor farmers whom the soldiers were continually stealing from and victimizing.

Moviefone sat down with the director to talk about filming on location in the swamps of Louisiana, how he took inspiration from the life of “12 Years a Slave‘s” Solomon Northrup, and what the Civil War was really about … and why it still matters today.

Moviefone: How did you first find out about Newt Knight?

Gary Ross: I found out from a movie studio. There was a treatment from a guy named Leonard Hartman, who’s credited on the movie. It was just the bare facts of Newt’s life and what he did. I just never heard of this before, I didn’t know who he was. It led me to an exploration, a two- or three-year research process where I found out not just about him, but Southern Unionism in general and how much more prevalent that was than I’d ever thought. This was not the only example of Unionist resistance against the Confederacy from inside the Confederacy. I studied with some of the best historians. I studied formally at Harvard with John Stauffer, who’s head of the American Civilization department. I learned a lot from him. There was a lot of preparation that went into making the world of Newt Knight make sense to me, because I had to make sense of who he was.

Did you have anyone else in mind to play Newt?

Yeah, because I’d done it 10 years earlier, there were people who danced through my mind. But movies don’t happen for a reason the same way they do happen for a reason. For a long time, it didn’t happen, because the right guy hadn’t stepped into Newt Knight’s boots. And when it did, and it was Matthew [McConaughey], it felt so organic and right that it was very clear.

What did Matthew bring to the part?

Everything. Matthew was everything. I can study all the books I want, but until you embody the spirit, the fierce moral commitment, and the clarity of Newt Knight and his sense of truth, until you get all those things, none of it means anything. And Matthew brings all of that with him. And he’s a Southerner. That doesn’t hurt. And he looks just like Newt Knight, and that doesn’t hurt either. [Laughs]

How difficult was it filming on location in the swamps, where Newt and several escaped slaves hide out?

I don’t think there’s a way to recreate the minute detail. I was really moved by a passage written by Solomon Northrup that was not actually included in “12 Years a Slave,” but he was marooned in the swamps for a year. And he wrote probably the best, most vivid account of that. I knew I had to capture that correctly. We scoured the state of Louisiana for it and we finally found one in Chicot Sate Park. It really was an incredibly preserved swamp. Hard to film in. We had to go to the location in boats every morning.Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays a former slave who ends up marrying Newt, said there was a kiss between her and Matthew, but we don’t see one in the final film. Why is that?

It’s so funny. There’s this onus … it’s not really the through-line of the movie and the story. They have a family together, they get married. It’s almost like people think there’s an obligation to show intimate moments between people. I’m happy to do it. I’ve shown them before. But in this particular case, it almost felt like a diversion from the through-line of the narrative of what the movie wanted to be about. And I don’t think there’s a rule that you have to show the first kiss between a man and a woman who end up in a relationship. You see the relationship organically formed, beautifully formed. It was a very beautiful relationship. Newt Knight deeded Rachel 100 acres of land, making her one of the few African-Americans women to own land in the South. I almost didn’t get that in the film. It’s hard to get in everything.

It’s depressing that so many of the same things are still happening today, like voter suppression and debates about flying the Confederate flag.

Yes, absolutely — but also, don’t forget, I started this 10 years ago and sadly these are themes that are relevant in almost any decade. And they were certainly relevant 10 years after the war, when African-Americans had to fight for their voting rights and the 15^th Amendment had just been passed. And they stay relevant in every era. Freedom is, sadly, a constant struggle and something for which one has to constantly fight. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. Is there relevance to today? Yeah, absolutely.

In terms of the Confederate flag, which has caused so much attention this year. Newt Knight fought against that flag. But no sooner did that flag come down, then people were being re-enslaved immediately in Reconstruction. So the symbol means a lot and it means a lot today. But the vigilance to change the DNA of the culture sadly is an ongoing struggle.

How important do you think movies are in the debate of national values and what we do as a society?

Well, I think that more and more, it’s where we do learn our history. I don’t know that that’s good, necessarily, because I’ve learned a lot of my history academically. But I realize there’s a responsibility in that. That’s one of the reasons I footnoted the movie and I have a website where you can go see what this is based on. But I think film plays an incredibly important part — and I guess it always did — in the popular interpretation of history. It’s the story that we tell about ourselves at any particular moment and the way that story morphs and changes reflects on that particular moment that you’re at politically and culturally. We’re in a period right now where people are shining more and more light on this era and what it was really about.

Look, the Civil War was about slavery. It was fought on the part of the Confederacy to perpetuate slavery. That’s what they say. So there’s no doubt about that. But for many, many years, you had people, even in schools, teaching “it’s not about slavery, it’s about other things. It’s about state’s rights…” It’s about slavery. If you read Alexander Stephens’s Cornerstone Speech — he was the Vice President of the Confederacy — he’s really clear what the Civil War’s about. We live in a time when, I think, the lights are being turned on and people are beginning to look more at the truth of that era. And I hope this is a small contribution to that.

“Free State of Jones” opens in theaters June 24th.

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June 20, 2016
‘Orange Is the New Black’ Star Selenis Leyva Teases ‘Beautiful’ Journey Gloria & Sophia in Season 4

Selenis Leyva‘s ready to do some more time in Litchfield Penitentiary.

The “Orange Is the New Black” actress is back in stir for a fourth season as Gloria Mendoza, the former prison kitchen chief who in the new season now finds herself working back under the watchful eye of recently-restored-to-glory Red (Kate Mulgrew), even as the now-privatized prison itself faces a major influx of new inmates. And then, of course, there’s the prospect of a likely inevitable and most certainly explosive confrontation with Sophia (Laverne Cox) once she’s released from the SHU hole Gloria maneuvered her into. The actress offers up some early prison chatter:

Moviefone: Did this new season cause you to rethink Gloria in any ways?

Selenis Leyva: You know what? I think that she’s been really well-established, and we’re going to see her just grow from here. I think that Season 3 was crucial and critical in the development of who Gloria is, and it’s solid. It’s a solid foundation. So now we’re just going to see her continue to evolve, but we know who she is. She’s been set up nicely.

Does she see her position in the prison further challenged with all these new faces coming in and the shakeup that’s happening?

There’s a lot of challenges this season. A lot of people are bringing in different dynamics, and Gloria is dealing with so much. She’s trying to keep herself sane this season. And she’s trying to stay out of whatever mess is happening with the groups, and the tensions, because she has so much on her plate.

Do you get to mix it up with the new faces at all?

They’re everywhere. You’re going to see. You’re going to have new faces coming at you from every corner, every direction. They’re everywhere.

Was that new influx exciting for you as a cast?

It is exciting. It’s always exciting. Listen, we have our core people that we are so in love with and attached to. These new guys, they come in and they shake it up a little bit for us, and you’re going to see how we’re going to try to control that.

Gloria’s got a little unfinished business–

She has a lot of unfinished business!

–with Sophia, who was still in solitary the last time we saw her.

Yeah, she has unfinished business, and we’re going to explore that this season. I think the journey that Sophia and Gloria are taking this season is really beautiful. It’s a really well-written story, and these women have a lot more to grow and learn from each other. So I’m really excited about what the fans are going to say when they see where they go.

To have your storyline zero in on those two characters’ interactions and be able to work so closely with Laverne Cox — for you, what was the takeaway?

It was a gift. I have a transgender sister, and from the very beginning I said to Laverne, “I’m going to be watching you closely,” and I shared why. We had a good cry because one of the things that we do have in common, Laverne and I, is that we have great mothers. And that her mother has been such an amazing advocate and supporter of Laverne, and my mother has been that to all of us, especially my transgender sister.

So we have a lot in common, that Laverne Cox and myself. She’s a good friend, and she does an amazing job with Sophie, and I am really grateful for that.

Have Laverne and your sister had a chance to meet?

Yes, they have!

How’d that relationship kick off?

My goodness! My sister was so happy and excited. She was, like, geeking out. I handed Laverne — I think it was after the first season — a GLAAD Award and I presented it to her. And that night, my sister was there. It was a really special moment.

“Orange Is the New Black” Season 4 premieres June 17th on Netflix.

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June 16, 2016
Oprah Winfrey Goes Behind the Megachurch Pulpit in ‘Greenleaf’

“You’ve got to have sin or you don’t have a show,” Greenleaf,” a new scripted drama set inside the scandalous behind-the-scenes world of a black megachurch that she’s executive producing and acting in for her OWN network.

And who would know better than Oprah?

After all, during the course of her 25 legendary seasons as America’s preeminent daytime talk show host and her journalistic career that preceded it, along with the empowering message of self-improvement she’s long championed — and often in tandem with it — she’s showcased her share of real-world stories involving crime, sin, corruption, scandal, dalliances, betrayals, selfish acts, foolish mistakes, falls from grace and all sorts of human frailties that derail people of every class and color.

So when the television icon has reconnected with her considerable dramatic roots — she’s been, after all, Oscar-nominated for her acting work in “The Color Purple,” and was a producer on “Selma,” among other prestige film and TV projects — she recognized the rich reservoir of stories, both moving and provocative, that could be told about a fractured family at the center of a Southern church serving a large African-American congregation.

But as someone who’s had her own church traditions loom large in her life, as Winfrey told guests at “Greenleaf’s” L.A. premiere, the stories to be told were not any sort of indictment of religious institutions — just an unflinching look at the personal test, trials, and transgressions of the Greenleaf family as they navigate their lives within the realm of a dynasty of spiritual service. Think a less flashy, more grounded iteration of “Empire,” with sermonizing and soul-saving in place of hip-hop and hit-making.

“I’ve been hearing stories and been a part of stories and telling stories for as long as I can remember, since I first sat in church in Mississippi when I was three years old,” said Winfrey, who joked that her recitations in the pews were the beginning of her broadcast career. “Church is my root, is my foundation, is my center, is my life, and everything that I am today came up out and through and within the structures of the black church.”

She noted that as the series — which centers around the prodigal-like return of Grace Greenleaf to her family’s megachurch fold after a long absence following her sister’s mysterious death, an event that prompts her to both reconnect with her brood and reopen long festering wounds — developed, creator Six Feet Under,” “Dirty Sexy Money”), who is white, brought a familial knowledge of the inner workings of a church to the table, but she frequently reminded him of the additional elements involved in traditional black churches.

“We’re more than church. It is our community, our doctor, our nurse, our comforter, our psychiatrist,” she said. “So I loved the idea to use that platform of the church, and made the church as a foundation for real storytelling about sin, because you don’t have a good show without sin. Sinning, and all the issues that face everybody in their lives at one point or another — jealousies, and betrayals, and lies, and deception, finding the truth, but most importantly, the truth of who you really are.”

“That’s what this series is about,” Winfrey, who also plays a recurring role as Mavis McReady, Grace’s aunt, who lives at a distance from the church community running a blues club, continued. “It’s about people you know, about people you wish you didn’t know. It’s about things that happened in your life and the things you’ve seen happen in other people’s lives. Being able to use this form of expression is really a glorified and sacred moment. So it’s not just about television, but using television to say something meaningful.”

Merle Dandridge, who plays Grace, said she recognized the sensitive and powerful writing when she read the first script. “That’s how I knew that I was going to be in good hands,” she said. “It’s not tackling the church. It’s being within the church and understanding what’s going on in the church, and talking about the pros and cons of the church with love and affection for it.

“I also felt ‘Well, it’s about time,’” the actress added. “It’s about time we talk about this topic. It’s about time that things that might have hurt people that we shed light on and humanize those stories. Maybe somebody can get healed by it.”

Dandridge said she’s looking forward to seeing the conversation “Greenleaf” sparks among its viewers. “I think the dialogue that’s going to start from this show is one of the wonderful things, and one of the reasons I wanted to do this show so much. Because when your work, when your art can create those kinds of conversations, when it can start people having a dialogue and an actual understanding amongst people who might be on polarized lines, I feel like that’s art worthwhile, and that’s the kind of art I’ve always wanted to do.”

Keith David, who plays Grace’s father and the church’s spiritual patriarch Bishop James Greenleaf, feels the series is an eye-opening depiction of a world he recognized well. “I knew him,” he said of the role. “When I read the script, I recognized him. I was raised in a church. I have lots of friends who are ministers. Having wanted to be a minister myself, I’ve been to a lot of churches. I’ve met this man. I recognized him immediately, and I loved him on the page.”

“I believe that it’s going to be wonderfully resonant for people,” David said. “I think they’re going to really like what they see.”

“I thought this whole concept of the megachurch and nighttime drama smashed together was so interesting because I had never seen anything like it,” said Kim Hawthorne, who plays Grace’s ambitious, confrontational, and holier-than-thou sister-in-law, Kerissa. “People are really going to see that we’re normal people, that the church is a church, a place of worship, but also a business, and that the first family has just as much drama and shenanigans going on as anyone who’s coming to the church to worship.”

“I’m not preaching to people,” Winfrey told me. “But at the end of an episode, [if] you just go, ‘Hmmm. Hmmm….’ I’m just looking for ‘Hmmm.’ Three M’s — three M’s, not five! Just “Hmmm. That’s interesting. Yeah, what was that?’ You know? So I’m trying to drop little whispers of light into people’s lives.”

“Greenleaf” premieres June 21st on OWN.

June 16, 2016
Celebrity Life Is ‘a Minefield’ for George Lopez

George Lopez‘s early life reads like a chicano Charles Dickens story.

Having been abandoned by his mother and raised by a grandmother who had little love to give, Lopez’s childhood was one full of taunting and neglect. But, as an adult, he’s turned his tragedy into material for a successful run in the stand-up comedy world. Then Sandra Bullock approached him to star in his own series, “The George Lopez Show.”

When Lopez joined primetime television in 2002, there had only been three previous Latino celebrities who starred in a major network TV show: I Love Lucy”), Chico and the Man”) and House of Buggin’”). The show ran successfully for five seasons and earned an even larger audience in syndication in Nick at Nite’s line up. Since then, Lopez’s career has been non-stop.

Adding co-host (Emmy Awards), host (Latin Grammys, “Lopez Tonight”), and best-selling author (“Why You Crying?”) to his resume, Lopez has been called one of the “Top Hispanics in America” by TIME magazine. His return to television, “Lopez,” was just renewed for a second season and offers a side of Lopez that he has yet to fully explore.

Moviefone: I’ve watched a few episodes of “Lopez” on TV Land, and I know it’s semi-autobiographical. What led you to that concept?

George Lopez: You know, when we went to TV Land, they said to me, you know we’ve seen “family” George, we’ve seen the “stand-up” George, we want to see the George that nobody sees. I thought that was a great concept because of the misconception that people think that because you’re successful or Latino, that everything is great, people are great and money fixes everything, and I don’t think anything could be further from the truth. I think you attract people that are not right. You don’t know sometimes, in meeting people, in dating, even in business, you kind of go through, like, a minefield. I thought that was a great way to approach the show, and I think we’ve been successful in showing a life — and a side — that no one had seen before.

What the show represents well is something a lot of first and second generation American-born Latinos are going through, and that is the feeling of being torn between two worlds. Do you feel that way, especially when it comes to your own children? Do you think that they are torn, and what do you do to help navigate that?

My daughter, who’s 20, I don’t think is as culturally identified with being a Mexican like I was. You know, the times changed, there’s more information now. I like the fact that she has her own image of herself. For me, I don’t even think at 55, that people’s perception of Latinos change. This is a great way to show people that we have a sense of humor, we have problems like everyone else. I didn’t want to make it just one particular color because that doesn’t appeal to everybody, but the fan base that I had seems to like the fact that we made a show that crosses a lot of cultures.

One of the fun elements of the show is its variety of guest stars. One of my favorites was Ed Begley Jr. because he was just so unexpected. Do you have a list of dream guest stars?

Ed Begley Jr. was great … the episode where he goes through my house, telling me I’m using too much power because he’s such an advocate for clean energy and those things. But maybe, someone like Pepe Aguilar or Pitbull or someone people wouldn’t expect to see. Vicente Fernandez would be amazing, like a mentor. Or, Tom Jones; I met him at a concert. I want him to be my, almost like a ghost, a guy you always run into at the same place who gives you advice because he follows you on social media. So he would be like, “Hey, I’ve been following what’s going on, want to know what I think?” and I would be like “no!” but then he gives you an answer, and it’s an answer that’s good.

Speaking of social media … I follow you on Facebook. You’re very active, and interactive with your fans. What led you to start communicating with your fans on social media, and how do you take their feedback?

You really kinda get one good punch in, a lot of negative … and I block … I block a lot of people. If people give a criticism that I think makes sense, then I answer some of them; I don’t answer some of them. Most people in the public eye don’t answer any because people have a thin skin. I particularly have a tough skin because of the direction I chose to take people on and to be a voice in politics as well as for Latinos. Now, with Donald Trump, I get a lot of right wing people coming at me hard, telling me he’s going to deport me, even though I was born in Los Angeles! I think, if you’re going to talk about ignorance and people not being intelligent, you’ll have things to talk about forever.

I was born in Los Angeles, too, and I know you’re a big Dodgers fan. What do you think of the Dodgers this season?

I’d like them to finally wrap one up! In 2018, which is only two years away, it will be 30 years since we’ve won. So to think that the Marlins have won a couple of championships, the Red Sox, the Cubs look good, and we’ve put a lot of money into that team. Well, everybody that buys tickets has an investment into the team. We would like the Dodgers to go deep into the playoffs, not just make it and get wiped out. They play good until they get to the playoffs. You don’t want to be that team that plays good all year, makes it and then … chorro … at the end.

“Lopez” airs Wednesday nights on TV Land.

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June 15, 2016
Robert Forster Looks Back on His 25-Year Trip to ‘Twin Peaks’

If there’s any actor who could be comfortable resting on his laurels, it would be Robert Forster. But here he is, at 74, still part of Hollywood’s most successful and intriguing properties.

After making his mark early in his career in artistic ’60s fare like “Heroes” and “Breaking Bad,” franchise films like “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” to critically acclaimed dramas like Alexander Payne‘s “The Descendants.”

Most recently, the actor reprised his role as Army Chief of Staff Edward Clegg in “Twin Peaks,” with all signs pointing to the rich likelihood that Forster will take on the role of Sheriff Harry S. Truman, which as he reveals is a part he was originally offered but couldn’t accept when the show was first conceived over 25 years ago.

Moviefone: With “London Has Fallen,” it must be fun to be a part of something that’s turning into a pretty cool action franchise — and you don’t have to run and shoot and everything else that Gerard Butler does.

Robert Forster: I never work on the action part. I am safely away in the war room in the White House, which variously we’ve shot in Shreveport — we shot one of the pictures there, and the other one we shot in the lovely London. So these are good for me. I’m not involved in the action part. Though the action guys kill themselves to make action movies.

It’s been a long time since I have been involved in the action part, where you don’t have much chance of getting killed, but you’ve got a lot of chances of getting bruised up and banged up and nicked up and spending 12 hours a day on a set. Movies are great in general, action movies are especially tough on the guys who do the action, but I have luckily these days become a high-ranking general. They started out my career as a private in “Reflections in a Golden Eye,” and now I’m a general.

You’ve got another man in uniform coming up, this time a cop in uniform, playing for David Lynch in “Twin Peaks.” What was exciting about that collaboration, and also maybe a little daunting about stepping into a role that another actor had previously played?

Well now, first of all, I am under compulsion to not speak about that role. I can now say they’ve announced the fact that I’m in the picture — and 216 other cast members. What a big cast! David Lynch, what a good guy he is. He wanted to hire me for the original, 25 years ago, for a part, and I was committed to another guy for a pilot that never went. So I didn’t do the original “Twin Peaks,” which would have been a life-changer. It’s a gigantic hit if you remember those years, a phenomenon. But I didn’t do that.

But later, he hired me in “Mulholland Drive,” which was going to be a television series, but did not [become a series]. Didn’t get on the schedule. So he bought the picture apparently and shot some more things and made it into a great movie, “Mulholland Drive.” And this time, I got a call from my agents and they said, David Lynch is going to call you. When he called me five minutes later, he said, “I’d like you to come and work with me again.” And I said, “Whatever it is David, here I come!”

So whereas I cannot talk about the role, I can tell you that he is one of the great artists in this business, and he does things that … when he needs something, everybody pulls hard and makes it happen. What else? He’s one of those guys who, after a shot, you hear “action,” you hear “cut,” you hear a few minutes of him rolling around in his mind, and everybody’s quiet and waiting to hear what he’s going to say. And sometimes he says, “Shoot it again,” but sometimes he says, “Okay, we got it. Move on.” This is a guy who knows a great shot when he does it, and can move on. It’s an art form to know how strong your shot is, and whether or not that’s going to fit with your needs.

He’s an artist, and there aren’t many. Alexander Payne, also. These are good guys and good directors. And Quentin [Tarantino]. Gee, I’ve worked with some fine directors, going back to John Huston and Robert Mulligan and some good ones. What can I say about that? Working with David was a real joy, and I’m hopeful that I get a chance to live long enough to get a chance to do it again.

At this stage in your incredibly prolific career, what do you look for? Are you happy to just find a job that lets you get out and do your craft? Or are there still some special boxes in your goals that you’re hoping to check off?

I wish I had that list and that set of boxes. I have never, ever known what is going to come around the corner. And the first thing I have to do when my agent sends me a script and says, read this and we’ll talk about it later, I read it and I have to decide whether I can actually deliver, whatever it is their character requires. If I feel that I can do that, then we continue to talking.

But that’s my first job: to find something in the role, or find something in myself and say, I can deliver this. Because the thing you want to do, the thing the actor wants to do is get on the set and deliver. So there are some things that I wouldn’t want to take a shot at. And I didn’t want to do negative characters. There was a long time when I only did positive characters. Then somewhere in the middle of my career I was broke and I had to take a bad guy and did a bad guy in “The Delta Force,” which was a 1984/5 I guess. And I got stuck in bad guys for 13 years. I didn’t do a good guy again until “Jackie Brown.”

Sometimes you don’t know what you’re going to get offered. Sometimes you don’t get offered what you want. Sometimes the things are out of left field. Sometimes they’re fun, and sometimes they’re comedy. I love doing comedy. I love getting a laugh. I remember the first time I did a play in Rochester, New York. After my college graduation I said, “God, I don’t want to be a lawyer. I want to be an actor. I wonder how you do it.”

And I got a part in a local play, “Come Blow Your Horn.” And somewhere in the play I invented a laugh, and it was so rewarding and so, what’s the word when you’re drunk? … intoxicating … that I decided that is what I want to do. I want to be an actor. I love getting that laugh. So if you give me a box to check off that says “Gets Laughs,” that’s the one I want.

And I hope we get to see you working with Quentin again before he…

Before he quits! Before he gets to his tenth picture.

Yeah, before he fulfills this horrible promise he’s made. We need more movies from him!

Those are the kinds of promises I hope guys don’t actually fulfill.

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June 14, 2016
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Reveals What Makes the Perfect Revival Series

Are we about to enter an era where we can check in on our old TV pals Ross and Rachel as they get their AARP cards? Where Jerry and Kramer have the same amount of hair as George? When the Bradys’ bunch includes exponentially larger generational broods? Or when the latest crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise reaches the last unexplored planet at the edge of the galaxy?

We live in an age of Franchise Entertainment, and while the film industry seems to be leading the charge on an endless stream of revivals, reboots, and re-imaginings, television, too, has proven susceptible to the twin power of brand-name and nostalgia. It’s not just a concept or a locale we want to revisit: it’s characters we’ve invested in, and with whom we’ve shared a good degree of our TV-watching lives.

“The idea is if you can present the show so that the people will remember it and it’s familiar to them, but it’s still new and fresh for the new generation of fans,” Ted Sarandos, the Chief Content Officer at Netflix, the game-changing streaming service and wildly successful TV-franchise-reviver, told me recently. “And it’s not easy to do with every show and every storyline or every actor.”

Although famous for its technical algorithms that help the company understand and even predict the tastes of its viewers, there is no hard-and-fast formula employed when it comes to choosing old favorites to revisit — but certain factors make compelling cases. Consider the “Full House” follow-up “Fuller House,” he suggests.

“I think ‘Fuller House’ was a really well-formed new take on the old story, and it could exist as nostalgia, but more importantly, it also has to hold up as a new piece of storytelling,” says Sarandos. “So if we can get that sense that that’s happening in the script, or in the writers, the passion and enthusiasm for the show with the cast, that’s all that has to be there.”

Hinting that there are even more fan-favorite series revisits in the planning stages, Sarandos said “the thing we’re really excited about upcoming is ‘Gilmore Girls.’ And it’s a whole different way of presenting the same stories.” The hotly anticipated return — spearhead by creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, who left the original series in a conflict with its then-network over a creative issue and was denied a chance to bring to the conclusion she planned — will feature four seasonally-themed, 90-minute episodes.

“That’s another one that’s a multigenerational love for that show has never stopped — in fact, it’s grown,” he explained. “That’s kind of the magic recipe for these shows. The ones that go away, usually the cult gets smaller and more intense. But sometimes they get bigger, and ‘Gilmore Girls’ is one where the cult got bigger.”

One of the key attributes of the “Gilmore Girls” revival that attracted Netflix was that “it was going to be true to the original, which was really important. Everyone was going to participate, everyone was coming back,” says Sarandos. But there was a more intangible lure as well.

“The thing that I kept hearing leading up to that meeting and to that pitch was how many really amazing mother/daughter moments have happened around that show — in life and on the show,” he explained. “Women who tell the story in our own offices, in my own family, in my own life, are people who have really had special moments watching and enjoying that show with their mother, a very special part of that relationship.”

It’s hardly surprising that television, with its in-home intimacy and its series’ often lengthy relationship with viewers, has become to look so favorably — and successfully — on delivering new stories starring well-loved characters overseen by their creators and played by the actors who originated them. The landscape of television that’s so seemingly infinite today first expanded on the power of the rerun, recycling its most beloved TV shows to fill first whole timeslots during the day and giving them new life

“Gilligan’s Island” and “The Brady Bunch,” for example, may not have been critical darlings during their mildly amusing primetime network runs, made for enduring, engagingly kid-friendly fare in after-school syndication long after they were cancelled, and became classics to generations not yet born when they first aired.

Later, in the advent of cable television, whole networks built their identities by re-airing shows of yesteryear, in the way MTV co-opted “The Monkees” for retro-hip music cachet and how Nickelodeon’s Nick at Nite was built on ’60s-era sitcoms, eventually spawning the broadcast shrine known as TV Land. But soon enough, viewers wanted to know: what happened after that final episode? Thus, beyond indulging in viewing nostalgia with reruns, TV fans were also occasionally rewarded with revivals of their most beloved shows, first pioneered by Baby Boomer favorites.

The prototypical police procedural “Dragnet” was among to pioneers: after an eight-season run that ended in 1959, it returned with new episodes featuring lead character Sgt. Joe Friday eight years later for another three seasons.

“Star Trek” perfected resurrection: following its original rabidly cult-favored but ratings-challenged three seasons, it returned again and again, first as an animated series, followed by a hit movie franchise, a succession of high-rated syndicated series and then back to network, and over again to movies, sometimes with familiar names and faces, sometimes with brand-new casts of characters; now in its 50^th year, a bona fide pop culture phenomenon after humbler beginning, Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi parable is a series again, helping launch a new-cutting edge streaming service.

Since then, all manner of TV brands were dusted off and revisited, very often giving its faithful following a chance to catch up with favorite characters in fresh new phases of their lives — these aren’t follow-ups in title only: they’re specific continuations. Over the years, everything from icons like “Leave It to Beaver” to cult idols like “WKRP in Cincinnati” to pop-culture-reference-generator “The Brady Bunch” (several times over, always in a puzzling new format) with members of the original cast — and often the creative teams — on board.

Today, largely kicked off by Netflix’s resurrection of “Arrested Development” — another critically admired but low-rated series with a passionate fanbase that, like “Star Trek,” only grew in stature and size after its network demise — in a clever move that helped announce the streaming company as a creator of original content.

Since then, Netflix has become a television powerhouse, partly due to its successes re-launching “Arrested,” “Fuller House,” and soon “Gilmore Girls,” prompting a diverse group of networks to mimic the trend: traditional broadcaster Fox revived “The X-Files” and has “Prison Break” on deck; pay cable’s Showtime has Twin Peaks” forthcoming.

No one’s being pitched harder on series revivals than Netflix. “There’s a lot of pitches,” says Sarandos, who’s entertained more than his share of meetings, but has resisted the easy impulse to make the subscription service a reboot specialist even as its vast library of series lends itself ideally to the model.

“It’s not very practical or even desirable to do many of them,” he said, “But the ones that have worked well, I think it’s one of those ones like ‘Fuller House,’ which has been such a success because ‘Full House’ never really dropped out of the culture. It’s been on TV non-stop since it originally aired. So there are two generations of families now who grew up on that show who love it.”

A double-edged aspect of Sarandos’s job includes taking meeting with some pretty legendary television talent with resurrection notions that he has to often say no to, which he admits breaks his heart. “It does, it does,” he shrugs. “But it’s always such a thrill [to meet with them].”

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June 13, 2016
Josh Brolin Was ‘Blown Away’ by ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Story

No matter the era, Josh Brolin has a pretty firm handle on Hollywood.

If you missed brothers Joel and Ethan Coen‘s most recent movie, “Hail, Caesar!,” you’ve got a new opportunity to check out the flip-side of “Barton Fink,” their poison-pen take on the conflicts between Hollywood and creativity. The film, which features Brolin as a studio fixer — the squasher of potential star scandals detrimental to box office business — is, even with its somewhat cynical lens trained on spoiled celebrities with bad judgment, a loopy love letter of sorts to a bygone cinematic era where even the by-any-means-necessary fixer’s just doing his best for the image of the system and its stars.

The second in a now-emerging Brolin Acting Dynasty — his dad, James, paved the way; daughter Eden is following in his footsteps — Brolin, who brings a distinctive heart and conscience to a role that might have been played one-note ruthless, has a keen sense of what Hollywood was, is, and will likely be, as he preps for the most anticipated role of his diverse and much-admired screen career: the Mad Titan himself, Thanos, in two upcoming “Avengers: Infinity War” movies.

Moviefone: What I love about your Eddie Mannix is how much he loves Hollywood. Tell me about finding that element of this guy, who you might think is going to be this brutal, leg-breaker, studio-fixer type, but he has — in his mind at least — Hollywood’s best interests at heart.

Josh Brolin: I do, I truly believe that. He has his boss’s interest at heart. And his boss, his business, is Hollywood, so I think he’s very loyal in that way. He’s kind of like a mafioso in that way: it’s like, whatever the godfather says is what you do.

But I also think. as an aside for him, he truly appreciates and loves it, which is like, I’m just thinking about it now because it’s been a while. When he goes into the confessional, and he’s just like, “What’s the right thing, and what’s the thing that I want? And the right thing would be able to get money, but is that really the right thing? Being bought off, is that the right thing? Whereas here, I feel like a laborer: it’s a pain in the ass. I’ve got girls with mermaid sh*t on who are pregnant, they don’t know who the father is. They’ve got another guy who’s disappeared who’s a drunk, who he’s probably f*cking some extra.”

All the craziness of the children that he’s trying to round up and make sure that they behave. And yet, that could all go away, and he could make three times the money, but he doesn’t want to because it’s like … because it’s his life. This is what he does. This is what he knows.

When you did your research — and I know you did your research — on the real-life Eddie Mannix, that inspired the character and that era? What captivated you about that time in Hollywood history? And what made you go, “God if I was around then, there’s no f*cking way I could live with this?”

As an actor … the amount of debauchery that went on was kind of unprecedented. You could never get away with, I mean, look at me. Look at my life. I stopped trying to get away with it, because you can’t get away with it, because there’s too many iPhones. There’s too many people. There’s too much social media. It’s like, everybody has a walkie-talkie basically now. You know? And back then, it wasn’t like that. Therefore, people’s shadow sides, people’s dark sides, were able to manifest and continually manifest …

… I mean, I read and heard so many stories, man. And I’m like … guys who were making, on the average, $30,000, got into the movie business and were suddenly making the equivalent of $500,000,000 a year. I mean, all that breeds, for the most part, is wrongdoing. You know? And yet, Eddie, the real Eddie, when I researched him, is not a nice guy. I mean, really not a nice guy. So it’s more a hybrid of like, I can’t remember the PR guy’s name, but it’s more Thalberg, Mayer…

Howard Strickland.

Yeah, Strickland, exactly. It’s like those four guys wrapped into one. He’s much nicer. Even though he was a tough guy, he really cared. That’s what came across, is how much he cared about these kids.

Did the Hollywood system ever try to control you? Or did they let you do your thing and let the chips fall where they may?

It depends on the personality too, man. I don’t think that I was insulting. A lot of people rebel, and in their rebellion, they’ll be insulting. I think I ended up doing what I did, but I think I was nice to work with. I was always professional.

So I think that naturally … it’s not cosmetically naturally, but the fact that I found the Coens, and the Coens found me, and that I really enjoy working with them and they really enjoy working with me because we have similar sensibilities. There’s not a lot of pretense there, but we also like, we like manifesting stories that we find interesting, as opposed to pandering to something that we think is going to be the most successful. So I’ve been very lucky in that way.

People say, “I like your résumé, I like what you’ve chosen.” I always appreciate that. I would still do “Jonah Hex” again. I don’t like the way it turned out at all, but I do think that there’s a good movie there. I think my intention was right. You’re never going to be perfect, man. You just do your best.

Your dad came up during the shift of power, from the studios to more in the hands of the talent and the filmmakers. Do you like to hear war stories from his days in the trenches?

Yeah, he didn’t have a lot of war stories. He was under contract at Fox, I think, first, and then Universal. So I do remember: I didn’t grow up in LA, but I do remember the whole, like, “This is what you’re going to do.” He was on the tail end of that. I mean, he was in the ’60s and ’70s, and we’re talking about the ’50s and ’40s, where I think it was much more like, you’re going to do six movies for us this year, and you can’t work for another studio, or a studio has to buy you out from us. All that kind of stuff. That wasn’t really … that didn’t really exist.

But my dad was being, what do you call it, what’s the word? Groomed, to be an actor. Had to go to dance class, and had to go to fencing class, and all that stuff. Then I think he was let go. They were like, this guy’s not going to work out. Okay, so we’ll let him go, and then another studio may pick you up and try to do the same thing. So, yeah, those kinds of stories I got to hear, and they weren’t horror stories at all. It was just a totally different mentality. Now, it’s much more individualized.

Now that your daughter Eden’s career is kind of catching fire, do you feel like you’ve got war stories you want to share with her? She works in a different Hollywood than the one you came up in.

Yeah, it is a different. There’s more opportunity now, in like TV being almost a better, more creative medium. It’s a great time for her. It’s an amazing time. Hollywood’s always changing, man. It’s always changing. Why do you think it’s so different now? It’s always changing. It’s changing with the times. It’s changing with the economy. But it comes down to: What do you want to do? You want to work obviously, but you also want to tell good stories.

Or when I saw “Manson’s Lost Girls,” I go, “Okay, that’s a Lifetime movie” — the general perception of a Lifetime movie is it’s not going to be very good. And not only do I think it was pretty decent, but I thought she was amazing in it. I thought she had created a full-blown character. And I go, “That’s when the individual’s talent overwhelms you being manhandled, nothing but manhandled.” I think people really started to see that talent. She’s starting to work more and more. So the talent’s winning out right now. We’ll see.

You famously get to slap George Clooney, and there’s another kind of confrontation with Ralph Fiennes and Alden Ehrenreich, which is not physically an altercation, but a real actor-director showdown. Have you seen that kind of stuff go down on sets? Have you seen it get heated and tense and almost dangerous?

Huge. Not dangerous, ever, but hugely tense, hugely tense. It was kind of like the David O. Russell thing. Nobody should see that. That’s just part of what it is. And it’s also really fun. Sometimes days are so fun, you’re like, “I shouldn’t be being paid for this. It’s just ridiculous. What we’re doing is ridiculous.” But at the same time, it depends on the movie, the mood of the movie, the tone of the movie, what it is you’re doing.

That’s why I call it a profession of humiliation, because you go out there and it’s a total unnatural act, what you’re doing. You have to manipulate yourself into certain mindsets that may not be so attractive in order to fulfill the vision of the director or the script that you’ve chosen to do.

But yeah, things can get really wacky. I enjoy it thoroughly. I like when they get tense. I like when they get fun. I like the whole thing. That’s why I do it. It’s a very colorful experience. My whole thing man is I get to my deathbed at the end of my life and I look back and I just have one big chuckle before I go. And so far, it’s working. And the more that the Coen brothers are involved, the better it is for me.

“Avengers: Infinity War” is going to be a singular film experience that you’re going to be asked to talk about most likely to the end of your days. So, tell me, where are you now as far as your anticipation, your excitement, for the whole thing, and to go fully into character rather than these cameos that you’ve done?

Yeah, I sat at a table and I listened to the story from beginning to end, which was … you know, sometimes you go around and you go, “Oh, it’s a great movie. Or this is a great experience,” and you kind of know that it’s not. This is the opposite.

First of all, from a publicity point of view, or an interest, I’ve gotten more publicity playing Thanos, even though I haven’t done it yet, than all other movies combined. If there’s any blurb of publicity at all for me, it includes Thanos in some way or another. “By the way, he’s got “Hail, Caesar!” coming out. But don’t forget about Thanos — that’s coming out,” which is amazing, which is really cool.

Then the other side of it is really how much it means to people. It all comes down … these stories … these Avengers stories all come down to this conclusion, and that’s our involvement. Basically, my character against everybody. And it’s really fun what they’ve chosen to do with the story. I think it’s brilliant, personally. I was blown away, and had goose pimples pretty much 50% of the time that I was listening to what was going on, and pretty amazed that I’m going to be involved in it. So it’s a big thing that’s coming up.

“Hail, Caesar!” hits DVD and Blu-ray June 7th. “Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1” is due in theaters May 4th, 2018.

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June 7, 2016