So, The Hollywood Reporter got Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, Helena Bonham Carter, Amy Adams, and Hilary Swank in a room to have a chat. They did! For over an hour! On video! If you have an hour, you might want to watch the whole thing. The questions aren’t earthshaking, but since the ladies are really talking to each other (i.e., people whose opinions they care about) and not some lowly journalist, they’re more forthcoming than usual. But if you don’t have an hour (who has an hour?!), we have five of the highlights from their conversation all picked out for you.
1.Black Swan helped Natalie Portman feel bad for skinny people.
Natalie Portman revealed that she’s been talking to Darren Aronofsky about making Black Swan for the last nine years, since she was in college. As for how the film has forever changed her perspective? “I definitely see skinny people as sad now.” She means prima-ballerina skinny, and somehow says this in a way that does not make you hate her.
2. Amy Adams gets offered parts Hilary Swank wishes she could have.
Hilary Swank starts telling a story about a screenplay called Welcome to People by Star Trek’s Alex Kurtzman (which Nicole Kidman totally bought a ticket to see!) that she loved and wanted to star in. She met with Kurtzman but wasn’t offered the part … because Amy Adams was instead. As Bening tells Adams at this point, “Don’t say anything you don’t want to say; however, we want to know the dirt.” Adams liked the screenplay so much she starts to cry when talking about how she had to turn it down, because she thought she “couldn’t go there emotionally and be there” for her new daughter.
Bonus: According to the moderator, Scott Rudin is finding it very difficult to get an adaptation of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay off the ground, but, unlike with some of the other properties he owns the rights to, he’s really trying.
4. Lars von Trier is vindictive, but Nicole Kidman still e-mails with him anyway.
The conversation turns to director Lars von Trier when Bonham Carter talks about how she, regrettably, turned down the lead part in Breaking the Waves, which ended up making Emily Watson’s career. “I had a very peculiar feeling of Lars … I didn’t realize this man is a visionary … So I didn’t feel confident,” Bonham Carter says. “Emily played her with a great innocence. [But the script] read very pornographic, to be honest with you.” While still on the subject of von Trier, Nicole Kidman, who worked with von Trier on Dogville, says, “I still e-mail with him. People who are brilliant are difficult. He can be mean and vindictive and all these things, but he says those things about himself.”
5. Milos Forman would prefer actors to act like they are in good movies.
After Annette Bening does a lovely imitation of director Milos Forman, who directed her early in her career, Portman, who worked with him on Goya’s Ghosts, says he gave her this direction once: “You are acting like this is a bad movie! But this this not a bad movie! This is a good movie!” (Too bad that in that case, it was actually a bad movie).
Bonus: According to the moderator, Scott Rudin is finding it very difficult to get an adaptation of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay off the ground, but, unlike with some of the other properties he owns the rights to, he’s really trying.
