Dan, Murph and Tord survive their third Splendour In The Grass. Much thanks to Tim & Dave from triple j for their excellent Splendour footage.
The Wombats: How to Write a Pop Song
in Interviews, music, SBS, The Feed
The Feed
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.
Channing Tatum Interview
Star of Magic Mike XXL, Channing Tatum talks to Marc Fennell about his previous career as a stripper and how it inspired the Magic Mike films. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/
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
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed
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.
Chris Pratt Interview
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Jurassic World's Chris Pratt Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/
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/
Emma Stone Interview
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed
There's at least one thing that you won't see in The Amazing Spider-Man: The Rise of Electro when it opens next week. And that is the character last made famous by Kirsten Dunst: Mary Jane Watson. She was due to be reprised by Shailene Woodley (best known for Divergent, The Descendants and being the new J.Law). All of her scenes have sadly been cut from the final edit of the big budget sequel though. In the above interview Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone talk about why her scenes were dropped.
The interview then shifts into what my wife has since declared to be Shameless-Flirting-With-Emma-Stone-You-Sleep-On-The-Couch-Tonight territory as the comedienne talks about moving to Hollywood at the age of 15 after convincing her parents with the aid of a Powerpoint presentation and clipart.
More importantly, she also made this face:
Which was pretty great.
George R. R. Martin: Game of Thrones
in Interviews, The Feed, SBS
Meet the man responsible for murdering all your favorite characters. The Feed host Marc Fennell interviews George R. R. Martin about Piracy, Porn and Procrastinating from writing the 6th book. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/
Orange Is The New Black: Cast Interviews
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Crazy Eyes and Morello hung out with Marc Fennell the week before the release of Series 3 of OITNB. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/
Haley Joel Osment All Grown Up
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Osment has returned to Hollywood with Entourage, so he talks to Marc Fennell about growing up onscreen, how the business has changed, and being so famous for one line. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/
Melissa McCarthy Interview
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George Miller: Mad Max Feminist Road?
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed
Mad Max creator George Miller on what originally inspired the story, why he bans CGI on set, and created a feminist action blockbuster. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/
Jeffrey Tambor Interview
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Jeffrey 'George Bluth' Tambor talks to Marc Fennell about his role in Transparent. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/