Youtube wunderkind on coming out, finding fame on the internet, and being a musical polyamourist
Troye Sivan: Coming Out in the Age of YouTube
in Interviews, music, SBS, The Feed
Interviews
Building BB8 from Star Wars
in Interviews, SBS, Technology Reports, The Feed, Film
Behind Star Wars BB8 bot - I met the team from Sphero, the makers of the new R2D2.
Ice Cube: Make Your Own NWA Movie
in Interviews, music, SBS, The Feed, Film
Straight Outta Compton shows the rise of seminal gangsta rap group N.W.A.
Ice Cube - a.k.a O'Shea Jackson - and his son who plays him in the film, O'Shea Jackson Jr., sat down with The Feed to talk the controversy surrounding the new film.
In particular, why the film which has Ice Cube and Dr Dre as producers, doesn't reference Dr Dre's history of violent attacks on women.
"People are welcome to do their own version of the N.W.A story. There's been a thousand movies about Elvis, we can tolerate a few more N.W.A movies," Cube told SBS.
"That being said, and that put to the side, this is a situation where you could pick and choose what you want to put in the movie. There are things that are bigger that aren't in the movie."
Foals: It'd Be Nice If We Got Paid More
in music, Interviews, SBS, The Feed
English indie rock band Foals sit down to talk about the changing music industry, and the role of doing nothing as part of the creative process.
Graham Burke: Australia's Biggest Anti-piracy Campaigner
in Interviews, SBS, Technology Reports, The Feed, Film
Graham Burke is the co-founder of Village Roadshow. According to the Business Review Weekly he's estimated to be worth $153 million dollars.
Burke started working in cinemas in country Victoria at the age of 14. He has gone on to be instrumental in backing some of the most iconic movies; Mad Max, The Matrix and The LEGO Movie among them. He runs Movie World, and launched 2DAYFM.
He, as Village Roadshow, is also one of Australia’s biggest political donors. Since 1998, they’ve given close to AU$4 million to both the ALP and the LNP as they campaign for new piracy legislation, and personally lobbied politicians.
It appears to have worked. On September 1st a new code of practice will come into effect around Australia, meaning that if you get caught multiple times torrenting, your contact details will be handed over to copyright holders like this guy.
Are you prepared to sue people for piracy?
Yes, it’s wrong. [They have] been warned, notices issued, that they have been doing the wrong thing. Yes we will sue people.
Are you concerned about the blowback? Because back In the 90s when the record industry started sending out invoices and lawsuits to single parents and grandmothers there was a storm of terrible publicity. Are you prepared for that?
It was really just a couple of instances of a bad news day, where they picked up a couple of instances of a single pregnant mother…
But all it’s going to take it a couple of those and it’s a really bad company story.
Not if its seen in the context that it is theft, and they have been doing the wrong thing, and they’ve been sent appropriate notices, and they’ve been dealt with accordingly. We’re certainly not going to be seeking out single pregnant mothers.
Do you have a list of people who are considered appropriate?
Well the criteria will be a person who is pirating movies. We won’t necessarily know who they are, but if they’re pirating movies on a fairly large scale they’re clearly doing the wrong thing. It’s no different to the highways of Australia where we are pretty damn safe because drunken driving and high speed driving is kept somewhat under control. If there were no laws, if there were no regulations, we wouldn’t be safe out there. And if piracy isn’t addressed, there won’t be a Casablanca, there won’t be a Red Dog, and there won’t be a Gallipoli. There won’t be the business model that allows them to be made.
In the past year there’s been a large take up of Australians getting systems like VPNs (virtual private networks), and it largely took off because people wanted to access Netflix in the United States. I have a concern that with the rise of site blocking and this new code that it’s only going to shift more and more people to that environment. If more Australians are going in to the dark web, how do you go about dealing with that?
That’s why we’re going to put a big emphasis on getting people to do the right thing. I think if people are appealed to in the right way, they’ll react appropriately.
Korea was the country that got the worst epidemic of piracy first. Why? Because they were the first country with high speed internet. It got so bad in Korea that the entire home entertainment industry shut down. Everybody lost their jobs, it closed. It got so bad that the communications industry and the government worked together to address it, and a large part of what they did was a big campaign of be a good downloader, do the right thing. And the Korean results in combating piracy have been very impressive.
As part of that there are things that the content industry are going to have to do as well, and one of the other complaints is the amount of time it takes for Australians to get particular kinds of content. You’re in the movie business so we’ll focus on that: you released The Lego Movie, which was made here, but Australians had to wait months and months so you could align the release date around school holidays. And on the back of that you said Village Roadshow wasn’t going to do that again, but we are still waiting for certain kinds of content.
It’s a film that would have no audience if it wasn’t released in school holidays; if you released it in February nobody would go. So you wait until Easter.
In that gap when it was opened in the States and you knew you had to hold off until school holidays to release it, you must have known it was being downloaded in that gap. What was going through your head at that point?
I think The Lego Movie, as it turned out, it was much more than a kids movie. It was just a damn good movie. In retrospect, if we did it again, we would have gone day and date [release]. We didn’t realise how big a movie it was.
You also put on a screening of that film in parliament and it formed quite a key part of how you were lobbying the government. I want to talk about how politics works for you. Because famously Village Roadshow has given somewhere in the vicinity of $4 million.
Over the last ten or fifteen years, but yes, we are contributors. I think companies have a responsibility to their shareholders, they have a responsibility to their staff to provide them with security. And we also have a responsibility to be good citizens Part of that is contributing to charities and political parties to ensure vigorous and good government.
What does it get you? From an outside standpoint I have no idea how the conversation goes between, ‘we’ll give X amount to a political party’… does that give you buy-in when you want to call George Brandis?
I don’t believe it does.
You don’t think giving money to political parties means that they pay attention when they say; Graham Burke from Village Roadshow says he wants to have coffee?
I’d hope I’d get a coffee as a fairly significant employer of people in Australia. But not much beyond that, if the case is not good and strong and proper.
At the very least a choc-top. You’ve been the most influential public person in the campaign against piracy. When you’re going to talk to Steven Conroy or George Brandis or Malcolm Turnbull, how do you pitch?
Piracy is theft and if it’s not addressed there’ll be a whole lot of Australian people out of work, both in terms of the production sector, the distribution sector and the cinema sector. It’s wrong and there are laws in 34 European companies to site-block [sites that enable piracy such as The Pirate Bay] and it’s been very effective. That’s how I pitched it.
If someone was sitting in front of you who had uploaded a torrent, what would you like to say to them?
I’d say; are you aware that what you’re doing is theft? Are you aware that ultimately the final extension of it is that there’ll be a lot of people who lose their jobs, and the richness of the community will be impacted? Because films and TV series won’t get made; there won’t be a business model to get them made.
Increasingly one of the other film companies, E1 Entertainment, has been releasing films directly on to digital platforms. They did it with The Mule, and Infini. Is that something that you would like to replicate in time?
No. For significant feature films there’s got to be some window so that the revenue can be earned in the theatres before it goes to the home entertainment window, at which point you’re tapping a lower cost audience.
If you weren’t also in the theatre business do you think you’d still feel that way?
Totally. The cinema experience, firstly, is a significant part of the revenue chain, but secondly it sets up the respect, the image of the film, for people to want to rent, buy and own it. Cinema puts the film on the stage.
Can you imagine a time where this beautiful palace to cinema doesn’t exist anymore? When films are just going straight to people’s houses and that people have elaborate home cinemas?
People will always want to go out. I have DVDs at home of movies, and I leave them lying there go and see them in the cinema.
When you own a cinema it’s a lot easier.
For me it was a pretty exciting experience when video first came out. My daughters would be looking at videos at home – because we had them when other people didn’t – and then on Sunday they’d say, Dad we’re going down to Doncaster to go to the movies. And the movie they were going to see was one that they’d looked at on Friday night on video. People will want to go out, full stop.
Just lastly before I leave you: are you more of a popcorn person or a choc top person?
Neither. I’m a water person.
Jamie Bell: What Went Wrong on Fantastic Four
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed, Film
He has grown up on our screens. Jamie Bell beat out hundreds of other teenage boys to win a coveted role in Billy Elliot. He went on to win a BAFTA and the hearts of millions. After Tin Tin, Snowpiercer, and Defiance, that kid from the north-east of England raised by a single mum is now also a dad himself. And the Thing. He’s in the rebooted version of Fantastic Four, a film that has been mired in reports of onset tension controversy and reshoots from day one.
When the film was launched and the casting was announced there was a lot of criticism – a lot of it racist. If you were talking to these people who complained, what would you say to convince them that they should go see this film?
I think everyone is entitled to their opinion. I have very strong opinions on a lot of things. If it’s something that people love and they’re read since they were a kid they’re going to have very passionate feelings. The truth of the matter is, I don’t think this film strays too wildly away from what the comic book was and is. This is very much a Fantastic Four movie, and people deserve a good movie.
There’s been lots of reporting around Josh Trank’s role in this film. Famously he’s been let go, or fired, or quit, depending on who you ask, from Star Wars, which shares a producer with Fantastic Four. Even 20th Century themselves have said that there were bumps in the road, so - could you set the record straight? What were the bumps in the road?
I think that’s probably something you have to ask 20th Century about; my job as an actor is to turn up and play the character I’ve been asked to play and in that regard I had no issues with Josh Trank. Josh was someone who was very committed. He steered this massive ship it, and was very available to all of us actors I consider him a close friend of mine, so my experience was fantastic.
Traditionally with these sorts of computer generated characters, you act in your body suit and then it’s completely animated. I read they kept your actual eyes. Is that right?
I think they’ve tried to maintain something about my face. Josh always felt the windows into any character was the eyes, so maintaining my eyes, or at least a resemblance of my own eyes, would be moving and something the audience would be able to connect with and remember that there was something under all that rock.
Because this is the second time you’ve acted underneath digital makeup, for lack of a better term. If you could go back and talk to yourself before you had done Tin Tin what would you say to yourself about that process of getting a great performance in that environment?
It’s a very immersive thing; there’s something about the technology that have to break through so they can actually pick up what it is you’re doing, what kind of articulations you’re using; what feelings you’re really feeling. On Tin Tin I was just getting used to the technology. And there was the Spielberg effect as well; you’re just so in awe every day you turn up on set that you’re nervous. But on this I took all those lessons and threw myself in 100 per cent.
When you were a kid after making Billy Elliot you had a father son relationship with the director, and went and lived with him. As time has passed, as you’ve become a parent, do you still have that dynamic? Are you still very close with him?
We’re still very close, and I definitely consider him a very good friend of mine. Now growing up and being a father on my own you eventually move on, you separate. But he’s definitely a big influence in my life, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity he gave me at such an early age.
On the topic of family, I did enjoy your tweet the other day about trying to put sunscreen on a child. It’s ridiculous.
It basically goes everywhere else but the kid.
You’re a single dad raising a kid on your own; what’s the best lesson you’ve learned?
Man, that’s an hour long conversation! It’s a thrill, it’s challenging, it’s work… but it’s just love isn’t it? It’s what you’re supposed to do. They’re so fragile and so small. I’m having a great time with it. It’s such a unique relationship, and such a great chance to get to know another human being. So I’m really enjoying it. I love it.
Bill Hader: Porn Stars & SNL Anxiety
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed, Film
Bill Hader is one of Saturday Night Live's best breakout stars. After eight years of sketches he's making his mark on movies with breakout roles is Superbad, Skeleton Twins, Inside Out, and now as a romantic lead in Trainwreck.
I think something people don’t know about you is that when you first went out to Hollywood it wasn’t to do comedy; you ended up doing assistant editing. What was the original plan?
The original plan was to move to LA and become a filmmaker. From a young age that’s what I was interested in - being a filmmaker and not so much performing. I performed in little plays here and there. What happened was – and this happens a lot – you spend six years in Los Angeles just trying to pay the bills doing jobs like being a production assistant or assistant editor or a post-production PA or a runner and you don’t have time to be creative. You don’t have time to do your own thing because you have no money, you’re broke.
You mean your time working on the Playboy Channel wasn’t creative?
It wasn’t creative at all! Are you familiar with the show?
Familiar in the sense that we’ll definitely put clips in…
Night Calls was a phone-sex talk show and people would call in live – it was my first live TV experience - people called in live with fantasies. It was hosted by two porn stars. And my job was to sit with a dozen porn stars off to the right, and they’d say, ‘all right Bill, get Cynthia and Candy ready’. And I’d go, ‘Cynthia! You’re a cowboy’. They had all these costumes there, and they’d go and do their thing. All my roomates were like ‘that must be really awesome’, and I’d say, ‘no, it’s actually the saddest thing on earth. I felt so embarrassed all the time’.
So that being your first live TV experience was there any useable lesson from that you could port over to Saturday Night Live?
None at all.
When do you did land on SNL, I’ve heard you were really nervous, that it was five seasons before you felt comfortable. Why so long?
It was really rough! You’re always on shaky ground there. Each week you just want to get airtime, you want to get on air and prove yourself. I’m not by nature a very competitive person. I shy away when I feel like people are being competitive. It’s like they’re throwing a ball at me and I never catch it and throw it back. I let it bounce off my chest and roll over there and walk off.
Competition is like the DNA of SNL…
Seth Myers and Amy Poehler taught me that you’re right, competitiveness is the DNA of SNL but we don’t have to be competitive with each other. We are an ensemble. So yeah, my thing didn’t get picked, but I’m a fan of Kristen Wiig and I’m a fan of Kenan Thompson, and their thing is getting picked and I’m in that sketch, so do your best job. And that’s what I always tell new people when they’re new - that your whole job on that show is to bring two funny things to the table every Wednesday and committing to every sketch on that show. That’s all you can do.
Good lesson for life really.
That’s all you can do. Everything else is out of your control. So just do that. And do the best job you can. So once I felt comfortable in that and you go over the whole thing of ‘this person hit, and I didn’t’ - it was a great lesson in how showbiz works. There’s no reason for why things work and don’t work. What I was happy with is that everybody was [up and down] but we all stayed friends. Everybody was cool with each other. And that took four years to understand that. We’re all good with each other.
The first time I did Vinni Veducci, the Italian talk show host, everyone applauded because they knew I needed that. I’d been going for seven or eight shows with nothing. Everything original thing I brought up to the table died, nothing was working. So when Julia Louis Dreyfus was hosting and I did Vinni Veducci everyone applauded and I felt like I belonged here.
But not everyone on SNL had such an august comedic streak in their family. I understand your dad did stand up at one point?
He did stand up while I was growing up. I never saw his act, but he would tell me later about it. But he stopped because it was me and my two sisters and we were really young, so my mom was like, ‘go back to being a truck driver’. So he went back to being a truck driver.
Does that give you an indication of how good he actually was?
I don’t know. He’s hilarious. And I think the thing that my dad helped me with is that he introduced me to great comedy at a young age. I don’t think I would be doing what I’m doing if he hadn’t done that. My friends liked certain things, butwhat he showed me was never the popular stuff – it was Monty Python, Spinal Tap, and early Woody Allen movies.
The stuff that you take into your heart as a young comedy fan.
Yeah, I was seeing that as age six. That was comedy. If asked to define comedy I’d think Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It wasn’t a sitcom.
And it’s not like now when everything exists on Youtube and everything’s searchable. When you find stuff like that you think, this is mine. There’s a sense of ownership.
The reason I gravitate towards that is it reminds me of the stuff my dad used to like.
Bill Hader, you’ve been a pleasure to talk to.
Thanks buddy. You too.
The Wombats: How to Write a Pop Song
in Interviews, music, SBS, The Feed
Dan, Murph and Tord survive their third Splendour In The Grass. Much thanks to Tim & Dave from triple j for their excellent Splendour footage.
Albarn keeps his sunglasses on, but opens up about Blur's recent surprise album, North Korea, and the Britpop phenomenon
Damon Albarn: Blur & North Korea
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed, music
Blur. They are one of the most iconic British bands of all time, and after over a decade apart they reformed with lead singer Damon Albarn to create an album largely recorded in one tiny Hong Kong studio.
It’s been eighteen years since Blur performed as a band in Australia, and Albarn has a reputation for being slightly difficult in interviews…
I hope you don’t mind me wearing sunglasses I just haven’t had any sleep in about five days, I’ve got terrible jetlag.
It doesn’t look that bad.
You don’t know you haven’t seen it.
If I asked very nicely, would you consider taking them off?
I don’t normally do it, I just feel really tired.
I love the story about how the album came about. My understanding is you were on your way to festival in Japan, which didn’t happen. So how do you find yourself in a studio in Hong Kong? How did that come about?
I don’t know, we were just like, find us a studio.
How different is it recording now to recording when you were eighteen?
I think everyone is a lot more confident, and less reserved, and more trusting of our instincts. That was the great thing about Hong Kong; there was absolutely no pressure. No one knew what we were doing, and we didn’t think we had to necessarily achieve anything; it was just a nice thing to do. It was literally a way of using our time, so I thought, we’ll make it in five days and put it out next week.
You also found your way into North Korea, and there’s the song Pyongyang; why was it important to go to North Korea?
It wasn’t in the context of this record. I just had this experience and I had all this stuff to say about it, and that song in particular lent itself to that eulogy for a fallen city.
People have preconceptions about North Korea; what was the biggest preconception that you had?
There’s an Englishness in everything from Dr Dee to Parklife, a love of English history. I read that some of that evolved during that American tour before the explosion of the 90s.
Very much so. We found ourselves touring around America to quite a noticeable level of indifference. We definitely developed our stamina of touring. Any process which is difficult you’re going to benefit from it, if it doesn’t kill you.
My songwriting became a sort of imaginary England under the imminent influence of American mass culture. It just felt like, this is going to happen to us. What we’ve seen there is going to happen to us. This is an invasion that is about to happen, and it did happen in a sense.
In terms of the music you put out and the influence you had around the world - are happy with the impact that you had?
It has definitely been adopted by another whole generation. It’s really extraordinary for us, being in our late forties, to see kids having this strange connection with this stuff that we wrote when we were kids.
You can never really imagine that until it happens. I suppose clearly something resonates within those songs that is still meaningful today. Which is great. Lucky us, really.
I found it was quite a magical place in that everyone was under a spell. I found the people really interesting and, on a human level, really nice. I’m aware how terrible North Korea is, but you’re never allowed to see that.
Porter Robinson: DJing with Robots
How Dance Dance Revolution inspired a love of robots and raps.
He is one of the world’s most popular DJ’s. And he can sing with robots. Porter Robinson was just an 11 year old kid in rural North Carolina until he discovered the game Dance Dance Revolution. It sparked a deep personal love of all things electronic. Robinson began tinkering with electronic music & was signed to a record label before he finished school. At just 23 years old he plays to crowds of literally thousands at the biggest music festivals around the world. His last album Worlds shot to the #1 on the iTunes Dance Chart. But Porter Robinson is different to other DJ’s belting out bangers. Robinson has bucked the trend to create music that exists in a virtual world constructed with synthetically voiced raps, odes to Space Invaders and yes, he sings duets with Robots. If you’ve ever thought that dance music is mindless Porter Robinson is the man that will change the way you think.
Amy Schumer Interview
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed
There are certain constants in the universe: death, taxes and that every week someone will post a two thousand word thinkpiece about American comic superstar Amy Schumer. She is easily the most talked about comedian in the world right now. She stars and runs her own Comedy Central show Inside Amy Schumer, she made Time's Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, she’s hosted the MTV Movie Awards and won a Peabody Award - and now she has written and starred in her own movie Trainwreck. Here is the Full Interview:
Those are your notes? They look like little football plans.
Yes. I have a one year old and I let him right the notes for me.
I have the world’s worst handwriting. You have a one year old? Girl or boy?
Boy. He decided to wake up at 4.30am this morning.
So did I. Am I your baby?
Yes you are.
Is making your baby laugh is your favorite thing in the world? I have a little niece and making her laugh – there’s nothing I love more.
What’s your favorite tool to make her laugh?
When she’s getting changed she starts crying, so I duck down and then I pop up and go, ‘BAAAA!’ and she thinks it’s the funniest things in the world. She likes to stand up in front of you and fall back, and she just thinks it’s hilarious. Are you teaching your baby any signs?
He’s already kind of talking….
What? At one? Whatever, genius baby.
He sits there and goes, ‘bye bye!’ And I’m not even gone yet.
Maybe he’s telling you something?
When you started the process of making this movie, I’ve read there were three things movie studios want you to do.
When I found out they wanted me to be in the movie, they were like, ‘we need you to do three things. Be yourself, have fun, and stop eating food.’ And I went, ‘excuse me?!’ They were like, you’re going to be doing nude scenes! Do you want to take off your shirt and scare everybody, or do you feel like, ‘wassup, mother*ckers!’
The thing that is great about brand Amy Schumer is it’s all about body positivity, and sex positivity, and that’s super rare.
Isn’t that sad? It’s so revolutionary that someone who isn’t a size zero to say, ‘yeah, I do think I’m f*ckable.’
When you went to Comedy Central and said you wanted to do Inside Amy Schumer, did you say, ‘this is what I think the point of view of our comedy should be?’
No, it was just what we think is funny. But that is so inherently a part of me that it just comes out. It wasn’t a choice, it’s just how I am, how the head writer Jessie Klein is.
Was there a moment you realised that’s what you were going to become known for?
I thought that but for my R special Mostly Sex Stuff. I thought this was stand-up that I didn’t grow up hearing; a woman speaking about this stuff. I’m sure it was out there, but it didn’t reach me. So I thought I’ll be this for people.
There is that moment where female comics, not necessarily of their own making, become spokespeople for feminism. Are you comfortable with that role?
Yeah. I think people don’t know what feminism means. If anyone’s not for women’s equality, they should be in jail. I think people think it’s man-hating angry meanies, but it’s not. It’s just equality. It’s so weird. I don’t even know what that model’s based on, because the feminist movement, those chicks were awesome, and they weren’t actually burning their bras or any of those things that we started to imagine they were.
I loved your Star Wars front cover. And Mark Hamill said he’s excited about the prospect of you doing Episode 8. If you could play any Star Wars character, what would it be?
Jabba the Hutt. Just gain so much weight. I’d love it. Stop bathing. Maybe I’ll just do that.
Gillian Armstrong: Australian Film Pioneer
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed
When Gillian Armstrong burst onto the scene with her film My Brilliant Career she because the first Australian feature film director in over 50 years. She is a pioneer. She turned Cate Blanchett and Sam Neill into international names. She talks about her experiences with rampant sexism in the early days of her career, how far we've really come as an industry. She also explains why she resisted directing arguably her most famous film Little Women and she reveals the biggest bullshit artist in Hollywood
Cara Delevigne Interview
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed
They are the 3.5 million dollar eyebrows. That’s how much Cara Delevigne’s modelling career is estimated to be worth. Scouted at the age of 10 years old, she’s walked catwalks for every brand from Chanel to Victoria Secret, Tom Ford to Topshop. She was 2013’s most googled and reblogged fashion figure. She’s been on the cover of Vogue four times.
And she just pulled the plug on it all.
Was there a moment where you realised that you had to take control of your career? That you couldn’t just keep on doing what you were doing?
There were a couple of moments. It took a while to get into my head that I had to change something. You can’t just say ‘hold on, these are my reins’.
[When I was modelling], I was young and I liked people telling me what to do all the time, because it was easy and I could do what I wanted otherwise.
It’s hard because models are seen just for their outer, what they look like. So it’s hard to get people to respect them as people otherwise. There are certain occasions where you’re treated like cattle.
Now that you’ve stepped away from the modelling world, and you’ve got a string of films coming out, you’ve got a bit of distance. Is there something you’d like to change about the way the fashion world treats models?
Yes, more for the younger girls. It’s getting younger and younger, and there are so many models, so they kind of pick you up squeeze you and push you away. That’s kind of what they want. Models don’t have a long-lasting thing, so if you get to a certain age and you haven’t taken control of your own career it’s not the fashion world’s fault. It’s your responsibility to do that.
After seeing this film Paper Towns, nobody is going to call you model-turned-actress.
That’s all I’ve wanted.
How long have you harbored that? I read you wanted an acting agent for your tenth birthday.
Probably since around that, ten, thirteen.
How does that conversation go with mum and dad? Because most kids aren’t asking for that at that age.
Are they not? Really? I just was. I felt like I came out of the womb wanting to act and do music. I was doing plays when I was really young, and I loved watching films. I was like, ‘how else do I do that? I need an agent. Guys, help me out?’ They said, ‘no you have to finish school.” Mean!
Bastards, how dare they.
I know!
Paper Towns is your first big starring role, but I was fascinated to discover that there was a chance you might have been Alice in Wonderland as well. How did that transpire?
I was still at school. I went to a very artsy school, and they sent a sheet with a couple of words on it and said ‘however you want to do it, film it yourself with a video camera’. So it wasn’t really a script, it was just a poem you were meant to do by yourself.
I made it into this very strange schizophrenic crazy person doing it. And I guess they really liked it, so a couple of months later I was in his house, meeting Tim Burton and being like ‘I’m 16, what am I doing here, this is so weird.’
So in that scenario, what’s your pitch, are you saying ‘Hi, I’m Cara! What do I do?’
You don’t pitch yourself in those things. Especially because I was still at school I was taking it very seriously, and was always in character. Being weird.
After Paper Towns you have the mega-blockbuster Suicide Squad coming out and I read – feel free to correct me if this is entirely wrong – but is it true that they have an on-set psychiatrist in case you become too villainous?
I can’t tell you.
Really?
You read that?
Yeah. Adam Beach is out there telling it on red carpets.
He is? I can’t tell. I don’t want to get in trouble. I’m already in trouble.
Star Wars vs. Cancer
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed
What would you do if you discovered that you had an inoperable tumour in the back of your head? Would you fly halfway across the world to meet Luke Skywalker?
35 year old Queenslander Adam Harris is a dad, a husband, a filmmaker but above all he’s a Star Wars fan. He also has an inoperable growth in his head that doctors found days after the birth of his 2nd child. It was a discovery that changed everything in Adam's life.
He made a decision to fulfil a life-long dream. He took his 6 year old son (and mad-keen Star Wars fan) Jack Anakin Harris (yes, his middle name is Anakin) on the ultimate Star Wars pilgrimage to Lucasfilm and the biggest Star Wars event in the world. He raised an enormous amount of money on Kickstarter (with the surprise backing of Tara Reid and David Arquette) and brought along a documentary crew as well. He meets everyone from the original special effects designers right through to Luke Skywalker himself.
But this is more than just a feel-good piece about a hard core Star Wars fandom. This is a story about the power of fantasy & modern mythology to help people power through very real and very dark experiences. And above all it’s a story about - dare we say it - A New Hope for a man who has been through a lot and has come out lightsabers swinging.
The diagnosis spurred Adam to do something he had always dreamed of; travel with his son to Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California, the world’s largest fan convention. The two visited Lucasfilm and met Mark Hammill.
“I never thought in a million years I’d ever get to meet Luke Skywalker,” said Adam.
Adam dreamed of making a documentary of their trip, called My Saga, about how Star Wars fandom united fathers and sons. Adam believes the trilogy spoke to him so much as a child because of a strained relationship he had with his own father.
Adam’s parents met and had him very young, and eventually divorced when he was still a young child.
“They did the best they could, but there are a lot of things that happened in those years that I can never let go on and forget,” he said. “As a father you can make the right or wrong decisions and there were a lot of wrong decisions.”
After his father left, Adam lived with his mother and brother, and found himself falling prey to his father’s worst characteristics.
“I became my father,” he said. “I was a very aggressive young man who took his anger out on people.”
Over the years, Adam has learned how to make peace with his past, and avoid the pitfalls of his own upbringing. Of particular importance to him is Luke’s scene with his dying father, Anakin.
“I think that’s what I want from my dad. I wanted to save him from the things he’d done wrong,” Adam said.
“I look at Jack, and he has saved me. Jack did what I couldn’t. I’m a very lucky man.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger Interview
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Amy Poehler Interview
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Marc: I have one person who has made me cry multiple times, and I have one person who has made me laugh multiple times…
Amy: Well I’m going to make you cry this time, and Pete’s going to make you laugh.
Pete: During this interview.
This is going to be a very emotionally confusing interview. Pete, do you set out to make people cry when you make movies?
P: I feel like if you cry that means you’re into the movie, and that’s the whole point. To reach out, to connect, to say something to you. Even if it’s about monsters or bugs or cars or whatever, it about you in some way. That’s the hope.
A: It seems like you’re easy to cry though. Seems like you’re always on the verge of tears.
Yes, that’s true. There’s an interesting story about how you got into this film. You came in at quite a challenging period where they didn’t know quite what to do with your character, Joy.
A: I didn’t know that at the name.
P: Our crying to you wasn’t a tip off? “Amy, help us, please!”
M: I’ll just assume that’s how all contract negotiations go.
A: I came in last and had the benefit of them having recorded some stuff. A lot of the art was cemented, and the story was really there, and they were just trying to figure out how to create a character that doesn’t drive everybody crazy, because she’s kind of intense.
Poehler! Poehler doesn’t drive anyone crazy!
A: Or she drives them so crazy that they’re used to it.
P: Around the bend, the whole way.
The first day we worked together, we said, let’s not even record, we just wrote. We’d read through all the scenes and add to it, so the next day we already had some of Amy’s brain infused into it. But a lot of the time we’d record as it was written three or four times and she would just start going. This is what you want, because you want the character to feel real and spontaneous. Not ‘I am reading a script’, but ‘it came out of my mouth because that’s what I’m feeling right now!’
There is this interesting history you have personally with taking moments of crisis and turning them into fun. There’s a great story I read with you and a set of handcuffs and your best friend.
A: When I was a little kid, and I was in fourth grade, somebody brought handcuffs to school, which is already its own story. It was an older brother thing, I think? And me and my friend handcuffed ourselves together and then threw the key away, and we couldn’t find it. It was my first taste of being a celebrity. I was walking around and we were handcuffed together, and we were excited, and we were going to have to go to the police station together.
I remember the very distinct moment when my friend started to cry, saying ‘we’re never going to get out’, and I was thinking, ‘this is amazing! Think of the stories we’ll have forever! We’ll always be the handcuffed girls! We have this whole thing now!’
I grew up in a very sleepy town with very loving parents so I had to create my own danger, and ever since then it’s just been about being a celebrity.
So much of this film is about happiness and sadness being two sides of the same coin. When did you land on that? Was it an overarching idea to make a point about mental and emotional health?
P: Absolutely.
Was there a starting point? Because I know you tell a story about how you were observing your 11 year old daughter at the time.
P: Ellie was 11, and as a little kid she was a rambunctious, goofy; a running around and talking to everyone kind of kid. And then when she got a little older her teachers would say, ‘Ellie’s a quiet child.’ We’d say, ‘who?’
That change reminded me of my own childhood which was difficult. I think that’s what the film talks about. Everyone’s been a kid or has a kid, and it really speaks to the difficulty of growing up.
Has the process of making the movie, and thinking about going on inside people’s heads – has it changed the way you look at your kids?
It’s changed the way I talk to them. It’s a tool to talk to them because when you have young boys especially, but kids in general, you can’t sit them down and say, ‘what are you feeling?’ They just don’t answer.
What I love about this film is that it doesn’t underestimate the emotional intelligence of children. As a culture, we’re really okay with showing violent images really early and just assuming that our kids will just catch up and be okay with that. But we don’t assume they’re ready emotionally for things. And they are. All parents want to know is, ‘what is my kid thinking? How are they feeling? How can I make them happy?’
My boys are six and four and you think to yourself, I have plenty of time before they start feeling all these feelings. And that’s not true. They’re feeling them now, just in different ways.
Of the many characters that you’ve played the one that will stick in many people’s minds is the Hilary Clinton impression you did on Saturday Night Live. Hilary’s running for President right now; has she asked you to campaign with her yet?
No, but it was so fun to do those scenes, because it was a time when everybody was paying attention to the race. Any time you’re on a weekly political sketch variety show, a live one, it’s really nice when people know what’s happening. It was a really exciting time to be on that show.
I was pregnant with my first kid, and my wonderful old Italian obstetrician died the day before my baby was born. I was at SNL when I got the news. And there’s nothing scarier than a really big pregnant woman bursting in to tears. Jon Hamm was the host then and he came over and asked, ‘what’s wrong?’ I said ‘my OBGYN just died, and I’m due tomorrow’. And he just said, ‘I’m really going to need to you get your shit together.’ Going from crying to laughing that quickly, sharp turns like that; they add years to your life.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee: Inventor of the World Wide Web
Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, PayPal, E-Commerce, Wikileaks, Anonymous even LolCats would not exist without this man. In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee created the web and irrevocably changed the course of humanity. He's been speaking in Australia and gave his one and only broadcast interview to Download This Show.
And if you'd like to know more on the topic of Net Neutrality, here's a piece I made for Hungry Beast in 2011
Chris Pratt Interview
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Conchita Wurst Interview
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Conchita Wurst burst on to the world stage at Eurovision 2014. Now she's got a new album, a sausage named after her, and a message for all the haters. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/
Dr Cornel West Interview
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Iconic author, activist, academic and public intellectual Cornel West talks about entrenched racism in America and Australia. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/