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On Feb. 26, Los Angeles will become what La La Land promises: A city of stars.
But before the envelopes are opened, we’ve got inside intel on the nominees.
Mark Rogers
It might not be visible but it’s always there, keeping us on the ground.
“I didn’t want them to physically mimic what the others were doing,” he says.
They don’t mind a little bit of work."
Mark Rogers
Joe McGovern
Denis Villeneuve
There’s a deafening hush that permeatesArrivalregardless of the action on screen.
Turns out it existed behind the cameras, too.
“No drama, no yelling.”
“I deeply love silence,” the French-Canadian says.
“Silence makes you listen more closely.
And I know for actors, it’s precious to keep concentration.”
This kind of consideration is entirely characteristic of Villeneuve.
“He was confident in telling this intimate story,” Adams says.
As big as it would get, he’d always remind us of that."
Her costar Jeremy Renner was equally impressed.
“He’s a gentle, thoughtful man,” Renner says.
“I didn’t realize until after I saw the completed film just how visual he is.
I walked out of the film thinking, Now that’s a goddamn director.”
For whom silence may be golden indeed.
But at least they could take comfort knowing their director was right there with them.
“He’d be crying behind the monitor,” says Michelle Williams.
“He was living it with you.
You could hear him weeping.”
The accomplished playwright set three weeks aside for rehearsal before shooting his third film.
“Kenny loves actors and likes working with actors I think that’s the most fun for him.”
“There’s not a word in the script that Kenny didn’t think about,” Affleck says.
“And his answers are just the beginning of a conversation.
I loved arguing with him all the time.
He argues with love.”
“Musicals are a hard sell for today’s audiences,” Chazelle says.
That he gloriously did.
“No genre better simulates the feeling of falling in love,” he says.
It’s a gift for us that Chazelle is so young.
We’ll be buying tickets on his dreamship for decades.
The film’s three major battle scenes are epic, the carnage gruesome.
“I know what I’m doing,” he adds.
I think it looks like 100 million bucks."
To star Andrew Garfield, it’s ancient history.
I fell in love with him," Garfield says.
“He’s done things he’s not proud of and he’s worked through that.
He hasn’t abdicated responsibility for that at all.
And that’s not easy to do.”
Whether the industry has forgiven him remains to be seen.
