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#threadcast #leoentertainment #mcb 4/11/2024
Its the 4th day in November, 🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂... What a wonderful day!
Filled with love and laughter ❣!
We specially welcome you to the entertainment threadcast, feel free to get yourself entertained with anything of your choice.... It's all in the spirit of entertainment.....
Andrea Bocelli on his new album, film and 30 years of making music: 'I like to think to the future'
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/andrea-bocelli-new-album-film-30-years-making-115475269
NEW YORK -- It's one of the most immediately recognizable voices on the planet: Andrea Bocelli's tenor is beloved across generations, cultures and borders, known to induce tears in as few as three simple words: “Con Te Partirò,” or in its English performance, “Time to Say Goodbye.”
#newsonleo #leoentertainment #abcnews
This year, he's celebrating the 30th anniversary of his career with a new compilation album, “Duets,” featuring both previously released and brand-new collaborations of his best-known work — as well as a few surprising contemporary covers — and the release of a new concert film, “Andrea Bocelli 30: The Celebration,” which will arrive in theaters on Friday.
So, why duets?
“I've loved voices since when I was a child, and I like very much to share the stage with the best artists and voices. So, this album, there are the best duets that I did in my life,” he told The Associated Press. “From the first, ‘The Prayer’ with Celine Dion, until the last, like ‘Perfect’ with Ed Sheeran and many, many others. And the album has been remastered and remixed. So, I hope the sound can be better."
He says: “The most important thing in voices... is to be recognizable, to give emotion."
Sheeran was an interesting collaboration because when Bocelli first attempted to sing “Perfect," the English singer-songwriter wasn't a fan. “He didn’t like what I did because I sang in a pop style,” he recalls. “He wanted to listen to my voice, like in an operatic style.” So, Sheeran traveled to Bocelli's home in Tuscany, and the song was transformed. “He was right because this song had a huge success.”
When asked if there is anyone he would've loved to add to the “Duets” collection, Bocelli says of course — but “they passed away before I began to sing. For example, I would like very much to sing with Maria Callas or (Renata) Tebaldi or Magda Olivero. Many great, incredible singers. They are not anymore with us, unfortunately.”
Three decades into his career, Bocelli has performed for presidents, popes, and sold-out stadiums across the globe — in addition to having sold nearly 90 million records worldwide, according to a press release. “Reality exceeded my wildest dreams,” he says.
How he reflects on that time should come as no surprise. “I like to sing to the future. Honestly, I don’t like to think with nostalgia to the past," he says. “My first time on stage, for me it is like yesterday. The time is gone so quickly, so fast. And, yeah, now I like to think to the future.”
So, what, then, does he hope becomes his legacy in the next 30 years, 300 years? “In Italy, we have a very famous expression: The people that come after us will judge us,” he says with a translator. “So I can’t force the judge(ment) of the people. But I feel that my audience has a big affection for me, and this is my goal. When somebody in the street comes to me and says (to) me, ‘Thank you for your voice, for your music,’ I think mission is accomplished."
Across “Duets,” Bocelli sings in Italian, English, French and Spanish. “There are many languages, but it’s so difficult. I remember the day I tried to sing in Chinese, only few lines, but it has been so hard for me,” he laughs.
He also performs across genres, working with everyone from Latin superstars like Karol G and Jennifer Lopez to country musicians like Chris Stapleton and Shania Twain. “I would like to try to sing jazz," he says. “But it’s too difficult for me because you must live in an atmosphere, to learn step by step, day by day. I like jazz but it’s too far from the experience of my life.”
There is little he hasn't done across these last three decades, but the ultimate goal now, he says, is steeped in faith. “I have been very lucky and I reached the affection of the people. Now I must try to deserve the affection of the God. It’s more difficult."
But he will continue to perform for those who love him. On Dec. 4, Bocelli's U.S. tour kicks off in San Diego and runs through the month, before commencing again in February and June 2025. The final dates will be held in Napa Valley, California, on June 21 and 22.
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When I see people that spend that many deades in an uindustry, I see nothing but love for the industry beause for some as soon as the mmake money from the industry, they bounce
Oh yes... The love for what ever we are doing will make us to do well.. 🙂😁😁.
Thanks for visiting our threadcast 😊😊❣️❣️..
Remembering Quincy Jones: 10 career-spanning songs to celebrate his legacy
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/remembering-quincy-jones-10-career-spanning-songs-celebrate-115474532
Few artists have legacies so mammoth their very name could be considered synonymous with the music industry, but then again, most musicians are not the prodigious producer Quincy Jones.
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The larger-than-life figure died Sunday night at his Los Angeles home, surrounded by his family. He was 91 and scheduled to receive an honorary Academy Award later this month.
Across his career, the 28-time Grammy Award winning Jones worked with everyone from Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson with hundreds in-between. The best way to celebrate his legacy, of course, is to listen to the music he made.
Read on, and then listen to all of the tracks on our Spotify playlist, here.
Those looking to kickstart their Jones listening journey at the very beginning of his career could do so with “Liza,” from his first album, “Jazz Abroad,” a joint release with Roy Haynes. For everyone else, look to his arrangements on 1963's “Ella and Basie!,” an album by Fitzgerald with Count Basie's orchestra. Moving from just vocals and bass before building into its own grandness — not to mention, a delightful scat solo from Fitzgerald — “Honeysuckle Rose” from the album is an exemplar of Jones' jazz brilliance.
Teenage heartbreak met its match on Lesley Gore's “It's My Party,” recorded when its pop singer was still in her own adolescence. Jones produced the record, with its addictive melodies, percussion and cheerful horn section — emotionally and diametrically opposed to its narrative tale of a girl getting dumped by her boyfriend for her best friend on her birthday. You'd cry, too, if it happened to you.
Jones' legacy is defined by an idiosyncratic ability to master various American musical forms with an apparent ease. That is the case of this canonized cover by Frank Sinatra, “Fly Me to the Moon,” from Sinatra's 1964 album, “It Might as Well Be Swing,” arranged by Jones. The producer set the song to a punchy, swinging rhythm and wistful flute, and the rest is history. You can also thank Jones for “The Best Is Yet to Come.”
Jones scored the 1967 film “In the Heat of the Night,” which includes its R&B-gospel title track, “In the Heat of the Night,” performed by his good friend Ray Charles. It is soul committed to wax, amplified by the inclusion of a lusty tenor sax solo.
Perhaps Jones' best-known production partnership is the one he had with Michael Jackson, working with the King of Pop on his culture-shifting albums, 1979's “Off the Wall," 1982's “Thriller” and 1987's “Bad.” The pair met while working on the 1978 movie “The Wiz" — Jones worked on its soundtrack, and Jackson was its star. “Don't Stop ‘Til You Get Enough," with its inventive disco-funk, ambitious production and Jackson's signature falsetto set the stage for the massive career to come.
Put it in the pantheon of great piano ballads: On Jones' 1981 album “The Dude,” James Ingram takes over lead vocal duties for “Just Once,” the big-hearted and bigger-feelings track.
What songs are more immediately recognizable? An elongated drum and bass lick introduce “Billie Jean,” one of the great genre-averse pop songs of all time, from Jackson's record-breaking “Thriller" album. Here, Jones' production is post-disco, but still funky, still prescient. And time tells the greatest tale: “Thriller” sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and has contended with the Eagles’ “Greatest Hits 1971-1975” among others as the best-selling album of all time.
And now for something completely different: In 1982, Jones worked with Donna Summer on her self-titled album, a dance-forward record that includes the synth-y pop single “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)," which earned a Grammy nomination for best R&B vocal performance, female.
Nearly four decades ago, some of the biggest stars on the planet — Jackson, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson and Bruce Springsteen among them — came together for an all-night recording session. The result was “We Are the World,” a pop superhit overseen by Jones, the 1985 charity record for famine relief in Africa.
Lionel Richie, who co-wrote “We Are the World” and was among the featured singers, would call Jones “the master orchestrator.”
Back in 1976, Jones produced the Brothers Johnson's R&B hit, “I'll Be Good to You,” and then re-recorded the track with Ray Charles and Chaka Khan — an ebullient number with contemporary production, completely transforming the classic.
this looks like someone very legendary, wait I'm not too familiar with this person. Ok compared to Micheal Jackson who's the best?
They are just listing the numbers of great artist that he has worked with or come across during his musical days...
Paul McCartney, Will Smith, Ice-T, Michael Caine pay tribute to Quincy Jones
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/ice-michael-caine-pay-tribute-quincy-jones-115471900
NEW YORK -- Reactions to the death of Quincy Jones, who died Sunday at age 91:
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“He was supremely talented, and I felt privileged to have known him for many years. He was friends with George Martin, the Beatles’ producer and, between the two of them, produced some very fine music. Quincy or ‘Quince’ or ‘Q’, as he was known, always had a twinkle in his eye and had a very positive, loving spirit which infected everyone who knew him. His work with Michael Jackson is, of course, legendary and he had so many other strings to his musical bow,” Paul McCartney on Instagram.
“Quincy Jones is the true definition of a Mentor, a Father and a Friend. He pointed me toward the greatest parts of myself. He defended me. He nurtured me. He encouraged me. He inspired me. He checked me when he needed to. He let me use his wings until mine were strong enough to fly,” - Will Smith on Instagram.
“I woke up today to the Terrible news that we lost Quincy Jones.. Genius is a description loosely used but Rarely deserved. Point blank, Quincy was the MAN. I won my 1st Grammy with Quincy and I live with his Wisdom daily,” Ice-T on X.
“My Celestial twin Quincy was a titan in the musical world. He was a wonderful and unique human being, lucky to have known him,” Michael Caine on X (Both Caine and Jones were born March 14, 1933).
“Today, we say goodbye to the legendary Quincy Jones—a musical giant whose genius reshaped our world and left an enduring legacy. Rest well, Quincy. #legend,” Morgan Freeman on X.
“R.I.P to my mentor #QuincyJones, you’re the reason I became a composer at 16… Long live the musical king,” Wyclef Jean on X
“He asked, where are you from? Philly I replied, his eyes twinkled and he talked about the Uptown Theater. I was so thrilled to meet Mr. American Music himself. I literally kneeled because he was a King. Thank you Mr. Quincy Jones for giving us all the sound,” Colman Domingo on X.
“A masterful musician, composer, and orchestrator, who left his mark on the American musical culture. A man of soulfulness and swing. 'If music be the food of love , play on,'” Wendell Pierce on X.
“We’ve lost a pure unadulterated genius. 20th century music carries his imprint,” playwright Lynn Nottage on X.
“Quincy Jones was so much more than just a musical genius. He was a raconteur, film artist, and a good man. We were very lucky to have had him,” Lee Grant on X.
“My hero. truly one of the greatest minds the music world has ever known. he was so kind to me, so wonderful, such an influence. his legacy and his music will live forever. thank you for everything, Q. you were the dude,” Harry Connick Jr. on Instagram.
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Hugh Grant spent half his career in rom-coms. Now he plays monsters, and he's never been happier
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/hugh-grant-spent-half-career-rom-coms-now-115482357
NEW YORK -- After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
“Sorry about that,” he apologizes. “Tech hell.” Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the “devil’s tinderbox.”
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“I think they’re killing us. I hate them,” he says. “I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous.”
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant’s new film, “Heretic.” In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they’ll soon regret visiting. They’re welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in “Heretic,” a horror thriller from A24, Grant’s turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in “Love Actually” is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
“It was a challenge,” Grant says. “I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you’ve climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up.”
“Heretic,” which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of “A Quiet Place.”In Grant’s hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's “Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey from rom-com idol to horror villain and his abiding affection for “The Sound of Music.”
GRANT: Yes, thank you. It’s not easy for any actor.
GRANT: It’s hard to remember which was the writers, which was me. But I’m pretty sure doing the Jar Jar Binks impersonation was my idea.
GRANT: No, I didn’t. I just thought it would be fun if the character did that because it’d be just weird. And, in fact, what’s odd about me is that I’ve never seen a "Star Wars” film.
GRANT: I can’t. They’re too frightening for me. I watched “The Exorcist” when I was too young and I’ve been in counseling ever since. I watched one by mistake recently, which was “Midsommar.” I thought it looked like a jolly, Swedish comedy. I put it on one evening for my Swedish wife who needed cheering up and she’s still very, very traumatized.
GRANT: It’s fascinating, isn’t it? I don’t know. Maybe these are the end of times, the end days, the apocalypse. We know it deep down but for some reason we won’t confront it. I don’t know, but it’s wonderful that it sends people into the cinemas.
GRANT: It is. Talk about the end of days. To me, one of the gloomiest signs or omens is the gradual closing of cinemas — and not just that, where I live in London, but the closing of bars. The bar where I met my wife, which was party night every night of the week, is now largely closed. I think the fact that we’re all staying in, staring at our devil’s tinderboxes is deeply tragic, or watching things on streaming by ourselves with maybe one or two other family members. These things should be collective experiences.
GRANT: My ability to gauge what’s entertaining, I used to be very proud of it. In the old days, my old career, I used to say, “I’m not so proud of my acting but I’m proud of the fact that the films I’ve done, on the whole, have been entertaining and I’ve been good at choosing them.” And then, suddenly overnight, I became very bad at choosing them. I don’t know, I lost the zeitgeist, I suppose. That can happen. Now, I feel like I’ve found something again. If the character amuses me and I think I’m going to enjoy being that person, then I tend to do the job. Sometimes, when actors are enjoying it, it works.
GRANT: Yes, I’ve got nothing else to go on. And I’m not the lead character, the film doesn’t rest on me. I don’t have to worry that much if it does well, medium or badly. I just go by: Do I think I’m going to have some fun in this?
GRANT: The big shift was after “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” That was sort of officially the end of romantic comedy for me. Nothing much happened after that in showbiz terms. I went off and did political campaigning and I was quite happy, in fact. But in drips and drabs, strange little projects, like the Wachowskis' “Cloud Atlas,” then Stephen Fears came along with “Florence Foster Jenkins” and “A Very English Scandal.” “Paddington 2.” These interesting, complex, often not very nice, narcissistic weirdos started to emerge from the woods.
GRANT: Looking back, I was very lucky. I had Richard Curtis on the one hand, who is not only a gifted comic writer – he can just do flat-out comedy like “Black Adder” – but he’s an unrecognized dramatist. Those comedies are based on pain. The comedy is there to deal with pain. It’s people with unrequited love, lost love, bereavement, brothers with mental illness — proper pain. So I was lucky with him.
And I think I was very lucky with Marc Lawrence who just had a wonderful gift for the celebration of life. He actually likes people, which is so weird. So films like “Music and Lyrics” have a very sustaining and uplifting buoyancy to them. He’s an unrecognized talent.
GRANT: You know who really loves them? The most surprising person in the world. Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino pushed his way through a crowd at a party in London once to say, (does Tarantino impression) “Man, I loved ‘Music and Lyrics’ and ‘Two Weeks Notice.’” He told me the whole plot of both films and how he was watching one of them on a plane and the plane landed and he had to rush off to a DVD shop to buy the disc so he could watch the end of it. I thought maybe he was joking but I don’t think he was. Someone told me at his cinema here in Hollywood, a rather cool, 35mm-showing theater, he’s been showing “Music and Lyrics,” no less.
GRANT: Yes, my enthusiasm for that film has spread. I’ve just been invited to a 60th anniversary next year in Salzburg. I might go. I might wear lederhosen. Or I might wear a white dress with a blue satin sash, as I did in school when I played Brigitta Von Trapp.
GRANT: Yeah, I was at all-boys English school and I played, I think, the third youngest daughter.
GRANT: The older I get the more I love song and dance. I find myself watching a lot more Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, things like that. Because life is so stressful and the news is so ghastly that it’s hard to watch very serious stuff and pick yourself up afterwards. I did watch “The Zone of Interest” coming over from London the other day. And I have to say that’s just about as good as filmmaking gets. Short of “The Sound of Music,” obviously.
GRANT: Yes, weirdly it has, and it’s hard to say why. Is it a sort of exorcism or something? I don’t know. Way back in my 20s, when I started out acting, the only thing I thought I could ever bring to entertainment was doing silly characters, doing voices. I did them as a kid to the point where I drove people mad. I was never myself. My parents and my school teachers used to say, “Come on, just drop it. Who’s the real Hugh Grant?” So it was a bit weird to have a career as a leading-man romantic comedies where I didn’t get to be anyone unusual or weird. So I feel like this is something I can do, and quite like doing. At the same time, I learned some tricks of film acting and got a little bit better.
GRANT: The big thing for me was I learned to trust myself a bit more when you’re actually in front of the camera. There’s a terrible danger when people do film acting. They’re so frightened of this big, pressure moment that’s coming up that they sort of pre-rehearse and think, “I’m going to say the line this way, and it’s excellent that way, and I shall just try to reproduce that on the day.” But that’s no good. You’ve got to reinvent it on the day.
The prep work should not be how you’re going to say the lines, the prep work should be — well, for me, anyway — a kind of absurdly prolonged in-depth marinade like a piece of old meat that you leave soaking for weeks and months in sauce until it’s full of flavor. So my marinade takes the form of very, very painstaking, minute examination of the script: Why do I say this? Why do I do this? What happened in childhood for this person to behave like this? What was his mother like? What was his father like?
In the case of Mr. Reed in “Heretic,” it’d be: Let’s look at some serial killers. Let’s look at some cult leaders. Let’s look at some atheists. It’s funny how important costume is. Suddenly some thing, one thing, one visual, physical thing makes you go: That’s him. With Mr. Reed it was the idea of double denim. I don’t actually wear double denim in the film but I realized, yes, he’s Mr. Double Denim. He thinks he’s a groovy teacher at university, the one who’s down with the kids, making jokes.
GRANT: Yeah, that’s true. But doing it on those romantic comedies, I’m not sure I really got anywhere particularly. I wasn’t really creating monsters. It’s easier when you’re creating monsters. I’m fascinated by the bizarre, weird distortions that human beings twist themselves into emotionally, intellectually, physically from the trials and tribulations of life. I’m not sure that any of my characters in the romantic comedies were sufficiently twisted to fully get my juices flowing.
GRANT: Not necessarily from the point of view of religion. But there is a part of me — probably a not very attractive part of me — that likes to smash people’s idols. Anyone I feel is being a bit too smug or too pretentious, I don’t like to see that. I like to just take them apart a little bit. My mother did it. She didn’t like me or my brother being too up and she’d find some way to bring us back to ground level.
GRANT: I agree.
GRANT: It’s a very good question that I do not have the answer to. As a matter of fact, there is one thing sitting on my desk in the other room here which is pretty weird and relatively fresh. I agree, I’m not quite sure where to go from here. Maybe it’s song and dance.
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Music Review: State Champs’ self-titled album is enjoyable, quintessential, predictable pop-punk
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/music-review-state-champs-titled-album-enjoyable-quintessential-115482356
New York pop-punk band State Champs’ self-titled album is one fans of the genre have heard before — a band musing about awkward interactions at parties, overthinking their romantic relationships and scorning the mundane. Across 12 tracks, the album is charming, but unchallenging.
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Typically, when an artist chooses to name an album after themselves, they’re communicating something — that this is their most definitive work, the release they most identify with. In the case of State Champs, the album released 14 years into their career stays true to the angsty identity they established in their early music, while expressing a reluctance to branch into something more.
In a collective statement, the band described the record as embodying all of State Champs’ discography, and it’s true. The new album’s tracks could belong to their debut EP in 2010 or their last album, 2022’s “Kings of the New Age.” There’s something to be said for consistency, but overwhelmingly, their matured pop-punk coupled with risk aversion leans more into the safety of pop territory than punk.
A good example of this is the first song, “The Constant,” all peppy drums, sultry guitars and punctuating tambourines; it launches into an energy that is carried throughout the record. The instrumentals are edgy, but the lyrics are surface level. “Do you think I deserve this/Keeping me in the dark/While you got what you wanted," frontman Derek DiScanio sings.
He declares a similar thesis five songs in at “Too Late to Say,” over drum-heavy production: “When there’s a good thing coming/I turn around instead/I’m getting good at ignoring it."
Influences from iconic bands in the genre like All Time Low and Blink-182 are heard throughout. Lyrics are generic and universal, avoiding any real controversy. Even profanities are meticulously placed to be affectual and nonthreatening — even more reserved than what you’d find on an Olivia Rodrigo record.
Across the album, State Champs wrestle with self-doubt. It takes on a few forms. On “Just a Dream” and the closer “Golden Years,” the band is stuck on the past, unsure of the future. “'Cause now it takes everything in me/Putting the past up on a shelf/And falling in love with something else,” DiScanio sings on the latter track.
But there are standouts, like the palm-muted power chords of “Clueless,” driving bass of “Light Blue” and the explosive, lovesick brooding and gang vocals of “Save Face Story." They’re not reinventing the wheel here, but in those moments, their customariness works.
Overall, State Champ’s eponymous album colors comfortably within pop-punk’s lines, choosing familiarity over experimentation. It makes for a predictable but enjoyable album, evoking the image of a suburban house party or while practicing tricks at the skatepark.
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Q&A: Cillian Murphy on following ‘Oppenheimer’ with the Irish drama ‘Small Things Like These’
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/qa-cillian-murphy-oppenheimer-irish-drama-small-things-115483742
Cillian Murphy didn’t read “Small Things Like These” looking for a film to do. He was simply a fan of the author, Claire Keegan.
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Her story, nominated for the Booker Prize, was a work of historical fiction about the Magdalene laundries in Ireland and an ordinary man with repressed trauma who can’t force himself to look away over Christmas in 1985. The beauty of the prose and complexities of the themes lingered in Murphy’s mind. The Irish actor had also been thinking about starting his own production company. Miraculously, the rights were available.
As a nod to the film, opening in North American theaters on Friday, Murphy and his producing partner Alan Moloney named their company Big Things Films.
“We were like, if you call it Small Things Films, it would show a real lack of ambition,” Murphy said with a little laugh. “We thought better call it Big Things Films.”
“Small Things Like These” was made after “Oppenheimer” but before the Oscar win, which Murphy is still processing. Work is keeping him busy, though. His company already has another film in post-production, “Steve,” based on Max Porter’s novel “Shy.” And in September, he started filming the “Peaky Blinders” movie.
Murphy spoke to The Associated Press, before heading off to “Peaky Blinders,” about being a “serial re-collaborator,” the humbling and passive experience of winning the Oscar and pitching Matt Damon the film during a night shoot on “Oppenheimer.” Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
MURPHY: It’s a seemingly simple story, but it’s actually incredibly complex the way it talks about society and complicity and shame and guilt and secrecy and fear and all those things. I felt like it had a lot to offer audiences.
MURPHY: It’s a male protagonist written by a woman, but it’s a story about women. That was quite interesting and unconventional. And the story really begins when the film ends. The real drama happens afterwards. And I think that’s just so unconventional and quite radical. The reason Bill is the man that he is, is because of what happened to him as a child and this act of charity that his mother experienced. And then these awful acts of cruelty that these other girls are experiencing — that’s what’s bringing him to this place in his life.
Claire had actually said in a podcast, someone said “oh it’s such an heroic act” and she said “no, he’s not a hero, he’s just someone who's having a nervous breakdown.” I thought that was really smart. And that’s kind of how I tried to play it.
It all comes back, as it tends to with men, in middle age. They begin to really sense their mortality and they have kids of their own. That’s when it all seems to come crashing down on them. And it’s so beautifully observed by Claire and Enda (Walsh).
MURPHY: I’m a kind of a serial re-collaborator. I just love working with people again. And I really firmly believe you got the best work from trust and from friendship. Enda I’ve worked with in a theater like four or five times and, and he’s just generally brilliant. I knew that he loved Claire’s book and that he would understand that world. And Eileen, it’s very hard to act 20 years of history, but when you have 28 years of history, you get it for free. She’s just a phenomenally powerful actor. She can kind of do anything.
MURPHY: My producing partner was working with Matt on the U2 documentary about Sarajevo, and I was working with Matt on “Oppenheimer.” It was a pincer movement. I remember it was like a night shoot in the desert somewhere, and we were waiting for the rain to pass or the lights to be fixed. And he was telling me about Artists Equity. I said well, I happen to have this script, and I gave it to him. He’s got such great taste. He’s such a great filmmaker and actor, just a legend and just a lovely human being. He just really understands these sorts of stories. And immediately he said, yeah, we’re on.
MURPHY: I’m not aware of it, really, because it feels so brand new and so fresh. You know, it’s very hard to kind of speak about it because it was a hugely humbling and almost passive experience, because you don’t really have any control over other people voting on the work that you did. But if it allows us to tell the sorts of stories that I’d like to tell, which have a point of view, which have something to say, then I’ll take it.
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