Hey again...I do try to be more easygoing in my writing because that's how a dialogue is done, rather than me saying "fuck you, what do you know and fuck you and and by the way, fuck you douche!" You know, like most of the internet conversations.
As for me saying "always pushed to do nude scenes." Well, that's an overstatement really, but it can be pervasive in the B-field. Literally, one casting for a movie a friend might have been interested in had only like 5 female roles, and each one required nudity. A ton of male roles, and no one had to do anything. You also get a lot of smaller movies made by weirdos with some money, and they want to take advantage. Friends have been asked to do auditions in a hotel room (just the two of them), one was asked to basically be some guy's porn slave for a month for a decent sum of money. There's a lot of good guys in the field too, even ones who shoot a lot of money, but there's definitely a lot of dicks. These guys that I know of are all so bottom feeder your Hollywood friend doesn't even need to bother. They're nobodies doing nothing. Totally East Coast and indie. A few may potentially break out, if their talentless movies ever gain any traction, and since they star a few semi-name actors, who knows.
Speaking of dicks, I still disagree about The Sessions. Maybe showing a penis is hard (PUN!) but there's still no need for full frontal female nudity either...especially not like three times. And actually, having the male character stay flaccid works just fine in that context, you don't need an erection since he had trouble anyway. The director could have done it, he didn't want to. I see that attitude a LOT.
Actors and actresses having sex...yep. I wasn't on set so I can't attest directly, but I know of a set that had a ton of sex going on, it was sort of a sexy movie and starred a bunch of early 20 year olds. Did that have to do with the movie, or just getting a bunch of crazy semi-actors who are good looking and young in one location? Don't know, probably a little of both.
If I think of any stories I could post them, but generally they're not more specific than what I posted here...just someone telling me about this or that. Most actresses I've worked with or know who have done nudity have no problem with it, and don't regret it, but many of them also get tired of it after a few years and stop acting or stop doing nudity because it gets to be a little one-trick, and move into other aspects of movies, either behind the scenes or whatever. Only that one friend did it for purely artistic reasons, because she certainly wasn't paid very much and it never really broke out, but while she doesn't regret doing the movie, sort of regrets that her pictures are out there, as she's a very private and shy person. I don't know that she even really thought about pictures being on the internet, to be honest.
* I don’t want to keep referring you as ‘anonymous’. Just provide a nickname to make it personable, my friend. Honestly appreciate your perspective, opinions and observations regarding the industry and the actors.
You can also talk about upcoming movies or the ones still in the productions stage. Casting news (even better if it concerns possible nudity). Just about anything relating to the showbiz or film festivals.
I’m trying to diversify the blog, promoting female newbie’s to the biz and actresses stuck in B-and C-land via in my own pervy way and putting their name out there (I’m not getting paid or doing it as a favor).
The reason I was curious about actors hooking off the set is because it was the director I’m in contact with who brought it up first. We were talking about the growing presence and influence – albeit at a snail pace – of women in front and behind the cam. Something that was unimaginable about twenty years ago when actresses (of B-grade variety) auditioning for a role was sometimes told ‘to work for it’. Now it’s other way around according to him. Some actresses (including future A-listers and veterans of performing industry) are jumping at chance to work with popular and top stars just to “suck his cock”. These performers are setting bad examples to other young artists and worse…using the ‘connection’ to snared roles in the star' future productions or shows he starring in.
He provided couple of names…the actresses who appeared in small roles. Oh God! How I wish I can talk about it here on the blog or with someone related to the biz to get their own take on it but I don’t want to be a douche and abuse the trust he has in me.
But he also dismissed my notion (still think I’m right by the way) that actresses turns down ample roles just due to the nudity involved. I was simplifying things to fit my own past experience from years ago was his opinion. It’s now all about ‘putting your name out there by any means necessary’. He was planning to cast this actress (unknown at that time) in his movie (still stuck in ‘pre-productions stage’) after her glowing performance in a play as stage artist but she dropped out after refusing to perform a very brief love scene with ‘nipple exposed’ for just a second. He was willing to compromise and do implied love scene but she wanted it just to be a kiss, light make-out before cutting away. She wasn’t interested in nudity whatsoever. Period. Unable to reach any type of agreement including other issues with availability (she was busy starring in a stage play). So imagine his surprise to see her topless on a top cable series almost a year later. He later ran into her and brought up the subject. He didn’t go into details what they talked about. Just that she felt doing that the popular show allowed her to receive the ‘visual recognition’ she sorely needed to match her acting abilities. Now she is a regular face on TV-shows and often plays supporting roles in films.
He had to admire her honesty when she was blunt enough to tell him she didn’t think working on his indie flick will do ‘anything for her’. Her rep felt it was unlikely to be released anytime soon or even the completed flick will play on major platforms now that the writer-director didn’t have the same clout he had few years ago after few flops. He reminded me this method of achieving fame and acknowledgement from peers and media doesn’t always worked if you don’t have the talent to match the ‘baring’.
This is my opinion: That’s why you’re confounded when some nudity dodgers do frontal nudity (supporting role) in admittedly heavily plugged big-budget movies.
To make it clear, nudity dodgers refers to actresses (child-actors excepted) who been in the biz for about seven to ten years from their official debut in showbiz (not counting ads and stage work) and who are loud and proud against nudity on-cam (Jenn Hewitt, Kristen Bell, that Buffy chick). The average debutant age is roughly 19-23 – give and take – taking into consideration latecomers such as college graduates Allison Williams and Katie McGrath. As I mentioned before in a previous post, the title ‘nudity dodgers’ is a slight misnomer considering if you’re still in the acting biz after all these years and on the wrong half of the twenties in youth-obsessed Hollywood then parts requiring ‘nudity’ will look appetizing. I don’t need to go far to show you an example. Even if Maggie Grace don’t show her lady bits in Californication – THIS IS IT for her. She can’t avoid or put off doing real nudity if she wants to move beyond supporting roles into portraying major characters. But there are several factors working against her. Her age. Lack of discernable acting talent. Poor work ethics (turned down couple of recurring roles on network crime shows few years ago and rather be optioned for guest starring spots. “I’m not a morning person”. For her the heavy duty of LOST is something of a nightmare and she was pretty open it that the writers and producers had no choice but to work out a solution befitting Shannon). Nothing to fall back on (lack of college education which she often brings up in rather self- deprecating confession). I’m not being pushy here. Just stating a common fact combined with an opinion. Who knows, she may quit the biz altogether or suddenly develop the fortitude to work as TV-series regular again? Some actually do rather than compromising on their principles. But I’m willing to bet within couple of years Maggie the Miss America will flaunt those curves well and proper.
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I may have to tweet her those questions? Shiri mentioned in that podcast she did a while back that she tried out for a lot of different roles post Roswell. She even talked about dancing around topless and wearing pasties when auditioning for Eurotrip. I knew she was playing it kind of safe post Roswell but I had no idea she turned down a lot of roles. I just thought she did not get the parts or that it was just bad luck or being in the right place at the right time or willing to do things outside of your comfort zone. I wonder where she would be now if she got that part in Eurotrip or some other stupid teen comedy? As much as I have enjoyed everything Shiri has done over the years even the god awful stuff. It frustrated me a bit seeing people like Anne Hathaway or Amy Adams become A listers while Shiri was still relatively unknown. I think she was just as good as Amy Adams in Charlie Wilson's War. Anne Hathaway was nothing special in Havoc. Not even the nudity could save her. If Shiri tried out for the female lead roles in Havoc then that's news to me. I learned something new today. Shiri tried out for all the female roles in Roswell before landing the part of Liz Parker. She has said she’s now taking charge of her career and landed the roles on Chicago Fire and Girls without the help of her agent. Shiri has done in my opinion some good movies/TV shows over the years. She's also done some forgettable ones. Yet I own them all. Shiri's web series Dating Rules could have easily been on fox like "The Mindy Project" or "New Girl" in my opinion. If finding her soul mate and starting her family gives her the hunger to succeed and gets her career to take off then Jon was a good catch. Shiri is more than just the girl next door or one that cry's all the time on TV. She's also so funny and a bit of a potty mouth. Some of my favorite stuff Shiri did after Roswell include Carjacking, Undertow, To Love and Die, When Do We Eat?, The Killing Floor I was an extra in this movie so I am a bit bias. The one movie Shiri did that I have yet to see is called The Skin Horse. It was never released. IMDB has some pictures and it looks really good. More than anything I want to see her in a big movie or long running show or as a director. I hope Girls is the start of something good. It pisses me off that they canceled life unexpected so quickly. Then again unlike some former child stars who are no where to be found? Shiri has managed to stay in the business and has steadily worked in most of her life and was able to live comfortably without having to deal with the fame all that much. One thing I do know it's a tough business.
* How do you communicate with Shiri, Earlbny? Most actresses in her category are frankly terrified of replying to questions from ‘fans’ without prior approval. You know…. Rebecca Schaeffer and all that.
It’s incongruous of her to ‘blame’ the agents when they went all out to avoid typecasting her in same characters, sent her scripts most other safety-first actress won’t touch and got her to auditioned for R-rated flicks. This is news to me, my friend. Granted agents can be assh*les but they can only do so much. It must been ‘if this is the type of roles she prefers then we adapt to her wishes’ for them after few years of push and pull method.
We shouldn’t forget the part auditions plays in frustrating and tiring you out as a performer. And Shiri been doing it practically all her life. Somewhere along the line in these last couple of years after LU was cancelled, Shiri decided she probably too old for auditions (and seeing much younger actors must have freaked her out as well) and takes matters into her own hand. Dominik Garcia-Lorido was remarkably candid in a radio interview talking about years of failed auditions forced her to reevaluate herself as an actress until Magic City came along.
Girls should be a marker for Shiri to push away from conservative characters. If the initial reviews of her sex scenes are to be believed we are in for a major surprise, Earlbny.
Why she didn’t she show this kind of initiative, assertiveness and self-assurance early in the career? Even more so if you take in the fact she was a child of Hollywood and knew ins and outs of the biz by the time she was cast in Roswell. That’s perhaps the difference in comparing her to Adams and Hathaway. Amy never resorted to outright nudity (yet) because control is the name of the game for her. She was patient and waited for the right opportunity for roles that played to her strength : almost ingenuous vulnerable quality on par with she-knew-more-than-she-letting-it-on (sorry for my simplification). That’s why it’s remarkable she is playing Lois Lane just shy of the big 4-0, when most actresses her age are put out to pasture in Hollywood. Having said that, Shiri could have played Peggy in The Masters. In fact she would be perfect for it. Always thought Shiri had that period piece vibe to her with her mannerism and style of soft vocal delivery.
I recently caught Shiri in Unstable. Your usual low key TV-movie with another understated work from Shiri. But I only wished instead of the conventional ending it will be more shocking if she was really ‘disturbed’. Both Woody and Samantha in shock of their life when Megan goes ape shit on them after she discovers what the two been up to. But it was Lifetime so you expect the clichéd and corniness to come through every frickin’ time.
Skin Horse intrigues me as well after reading the synopsis. I e-mailed the composer of the movie and if he replies, will post the details on the blog.
UPDATE:
Earlbny responds to my comment:
Shiri is not that big on social media. yes she's on Twitter and Facebook but she's not obsessed like other celebrities. I mostly send her tweets and while she has not answered all of them she answered some of them. I am just a fan with no connections. Most recently she did a live tweet during an episode of Chicago Fire. So part of her job was to answer questions. Sometimes you have to ask her a question that stands out from the rest. Something that will get her attention. She did a live tweet when LU was on the air. It was around the holiday time so I asked her about how she felt being the only kid in town without a Christmas tree (She's Jewish). I also told her that Adam Sandler needs to update his Hanukkah song and add Shiri 's name in it. It may have been silly but she responded. She has even posted a few times on one of her fan message boards just to let us know what she was up to. At one point I think she had her families luck around and see what we were talking about.
It seems like Shiri is very good at making friends. So anytime she works with someone she makes sure to stay in touch with them. This way in the future when she is looking for work or a specific director is looking to cast someone she has a connection. I've seen her work with the people on different projects. She talked about auditions in that pod cast she did. It definitely seems like she is getting a bit old. I doubt Meryl Streep or Tom Hanks has to audition. She did not audition for Chicago Fire or Girls. She used her connections.
I guess if she showed this kind of initiative, assertiveness and self-assurance early in the career things may be difference. One thing Shiri and Anne don't have in common (aside from there chest size) is the fact that Shiri can't sing. She has said she's tone deaf. I did not think she did a bad job singing that one episode of life unexpected.
At this stage of the game will settle for anything. Even just a dark room and a super quick flash. My fantasy is that I get to see Shiri naked and that lots of people start talking about her and her career takes off or at least gets her lots of more work. I truly believe that Lena made Shiri feel comfortable taking her clothes off on camera. Lena does not look like a super model not that there is anything wrong with that. So Shiri may have thought if she can do it so can I. Plus she's not getting any younger and not may be frustrating. Some times a role is too good to pass up. it change your life or give you years if regret. Hollywood is not like the real world.
I read on your blog how former child star Gaby Hoffmann is making a comeback doing her 1st nude scene. I wonder if she made that decision to take it off because she thought it would get more people talking or if she's just a hippie and does not view nudity as a big deal?
Shiri could have easily gone down the path of some celebs who do reality TV, drugs, Porn/Sex tape, or break the law but instead she managed to stay grounded and keep at it. Acting is like music you are only as good as your last single. It's all about the flavor of the month. Some great bands never make big because hey don't have that look or sound.
Some people become an 'it' person over night while other have to work hard for it. Some people play dumb on Purpose.
Shiri would be perfect in a period piece. If she was much older she could have played the role given to Sally field in Lincoln. She has done episodes of Roswell that take place back in the day. She also did that SCI-FI that also took place back in the day. Granted it was not as far back as the masters. Shiri's voice is so cute. I love that little lisp she has. It turns me on.
Unstable was a very low budget predictable movie. I figured it all out within the 1st 5 minutes. Shiri did look great in those running shorts, mini dress made for TV sex scene. The movie would have been 10 times better with a shocking twist at the end. The mentalist on CBS had an episode with the same storyline.
I hope the composer from Skin Horse replies. I would love to hear more about that movie. I remember reading that the male lead past away a few years ago.
On a side note I saw all your post about SXSW and thought that maybe I could give my friend Tyler Stenson a free plug. Tyler who hails from Portland has been making music since the early 2000's. He's an unknown singer/songwriter playing what he calls Elegant Folk. It's not top 40 or commercial. Anyway he just got the chance to play the SXSW Outlaw Road Show playing for his idol Adam Duritz (the lead singer of Counting Crows) . Long story short he's been plugging away making albums and touring around Portland and Nashville. He entered a contest along with over 3 thousand + people and won. So this march he's going to Austin. Feel free to check him out at www.tylerstenson.com (sorry it's not nudity related) lolPeace
* Thanks for more Shiri love and SXSW (Tyler Stenson).
It's true some make it and some contend to stay on the safe path. At least Shiri has a consistency to her career that many performers her age wished they had.
Shiri nude scenes should be in top three on Mr.Skin because she never done anything like this before. Ever. I want it to be the perfect double cele-breast-ion if Maggie Grace joins the topless party around the same time.
There is a cut-off point to auditions particularly when you vying for a role several years younger than your real age and dispiriting to see all the 'juniors' in the same waiting room. I thoroughly understand why the likes of Shiri and actresses over certain age feels it's demeaning to be still chasing after acting spots after all these years. Choices becomes limited too. It's always tough to be forced into a corner without viable options to gamble on so it was clever of Shiri to move more into productions area of movie making.
It's not exactly a comeback for Gaby Hoffmann as she was pretty active in NY indie scene after college(?) but she wanted to be Crystal Fairy and nudity wasn't an issue. Nearly all actresses are far more comfortable with non-sexual nudity than simulating a sex scene with a naked dude!
UPDATED 02/22/2013:
Earlbny:
No problem. Anytime. It's what I do. I am just showing some of my faves some love.
True that. Some of my favorite child stars I grew up watching have left the business for various reasons. Shiri's twin Winnie Cooper comes to mind. Shiri somehow managed to continue working post Roswell even if it was bit parts here and there. I heard her mention that had she not got the job on Roswell she would have gave acting up and went off to college and we might not be talking about her. I have no idea what she does behind closed doors but she also manages to do a good job of staying out of trouble and out of public eye when not working. She seems like her head is screwed on tight and she's very grounded. She's on not one but two name brand shows this year. Not many people can say that.
I am hopping the Mr.Skin server crashes after they upload Shiri's scene. I hope lots of people that remember her from Roswell and people that forgot about her or people who have no idea who she is take notice and start talking about her. I’ve noticed that the Girls IMDB message board is very active. They have a lot of negative posts about Lena and her nude scenes. Just wait till they see Shiri then they will all forget about Lena. Even if nobody mentions anything about Shiri I still be one happy camper. Even without the skin I still get my Shiri fix. Fingers crossed.
I am glad I don't have to deal with that. It's a hard business as it is. It's cut throat. They evaluate you from head to toe inside and out. I guess veteran actors/actresses feel like they have been doing it for so long and made a name for themselves and that they should not have to go through an audition like some new kid on the block trying to make a name for themselves. You give them your all and they pass you over. Or you only get offered certain parts for various reasons. No thank you. I have always found Shiri to look much younger then she really is. She wants to branch out and do it all and directing may be her next chapter in her life. She wants what her childhood crush Fred Savage has. She's wants to direct over 100 episodes of TV. I want her to become a household name either in front or behind the camera. Whatever happens down the road I’ll be there to support her.
Thanks for the info. I had no idea Gabby was active in the NY indie scene. Guess I was not paying attention. When I see sex scenes on TV or in Movies or just naked girls walking around like you described in Crystal Fairy I feel like I am in the wrong line of work. I can't believe they get paid $$ to pretend to have sex. I know it's not glamorous but still. I see why some people don't want to do nude scenes. Americans are not as nude friendly like other parts of the world.
True that. Some of my favorite child stars I grew up watching have left the business for various reasons. Shiri's twin Winnie Cooper comes to mind. Shiri somehow managed to continue working post Roswell even if it was bit parts here and there. I heard her mention that had she not got the job on Roswell she would have gave acting up and went off to college and we might not be talking about her. I have no idea what she does behind closed doors but she also manages to do a good job of staying out of trouble and out of public eye when not working. She seems like her head is screwed on tight and she's very grounded. She's on not one but two name brand shows this year. Not many people can say that.
I am hopping the Mr.Skin server crashes after they upload Shiri's scene. I hope lots of people that remember her from Roswell and people that forgot about her or people who have no idea who she is take notice and start talking about her. I’ve noticed that the Girls IMDB message board is very active. They have a lot of negative posts about Lena and her nude scenes. Just wait till they see Shiri then they will all forget about Lena. Even if nobody mentions anything about Shiri I still be one happy camper. Even without the skin I still get my Shiri fix. Fingers crossed.
I am glad I don't have to deal with that. It's a hard business as it is. It's cut throat. They evaluate you from head to toe inside and out. I guess veteran actors/actresses feel like they have been doing it for so long and made a name for themselves and that they should not have to go through an audition like some new kid on the block trying to make a name for themselves. You give them your all and they pass you over. Or you only get offered certain parts for various reasons. No thank you. I have always found Shiri to look much younger then she really is. She wants to branch out and do it all and directing may be her next chapter in her life. She wants what her childhood crush Fred Savage has. She's wants to direct over 100 episodes of TV. I want her to become a household name either in front or behind the camera. Whatever happens down the road I’ll be there to support her.
Thanks for the info. I had no idea Gabby was active in the NY indie scene. Guess I was not paying attention. When I see sex scenes on TV or in Movies or just naked girls walking around like you described in Crystal Fairy I feel like I am in the wrong line of work. I can't believe they get paid $$ to pretend to have sex. I know it's not glamorous but still. I see why some people don't want to do nude scenes. Americans are not as nude friendly like other parts of the world.
We should expect some hate for Lena. It’s a gender thing. Mostly guys (some with fake female ID) just being plain cruel. But the women are far more patronizing with that ‘brave’ nonsense in every other review and articles. You can’t win with our better half sometimes and the hypocrisies. If the actress is slightly more curvy, the praises goes overboard. They see nothing wrong with the nudity and in fact expressed delight for enhancing the show. But imagine if it was Allison Williams or let say Kate Upton full-frontal in that shower scene. “Was it necessary?”, “Exploitative” are some of the choice words I’m pretty sure will be utilized. The feminine insecurity rearing its ugly head.
I’m a firm believer you can’t have the cake and eat it too. Shiri must choose either raising a family or becoming full-fledged film-maker. Unlike acting, helming a series or a movie is incredibly tough and demands all your energy and focus. IMHO and experience, the toughest job on the set. It also requires the balancing act of firmness and compromising in equal measure. I’m behind Shiri all the way though and certain she will work out something. My wish always been to see her shift into more unconventional portrayals. Her stint on Girls will propel her towards that direction. My guess she will join a top agency few months down the road and I’m confident Shiri will soon appear in major productions in some capacity.
Sex scenes are no fun for the girls. Trust me. Especially for the ones performing it for the first time. You can usually non-sexual nudity in one take (with close-ups and if the actress is actually a competent performer) with actresses more or less in control, supervising the process on the monitor after the shot to determine it doesn’t go beyond what been discussed and agreed upon. Love scene is a different kettle of fish altogether. It requires fake intimacy but nonetheless something the female performer isn’t stoked about even if the male lead was hot. But there are protection in place (angles and positions of the cam) and guidelines of yes-and-no pertaining to the physical accessibility between the parties involved. As a result sex scenes in mainstream American movies has become less realistic than it was in those pre-and-post Basic Instinct years. You just know the guy isn’t copping a feel when he palms the actress breasts but merely covering her nips from over-exposure.
I’m a firm believer you can’t have the cake and eat it too. Shiri must choose either raising a family or becoming full-fledged film-maker. Unlike acting, helming a series or a movie is incredibly tough and demands all your energy and focus. IMHO and experience, the toughest job on the set. It also requires the balancing act of firmness and compromising in equal measure. I’m behind Shiri all the way though and certain she will work out something. My wish always been to see her shift into more unconventional portrayals. Her stint on Girls will propel her towards that direction. My guess she will join a top agency few months down the road and I’m confident Shiri will soon appear in major productions in some capacity.
Sex scenes are no fun for the girls. Trust me. Especially for the ones performing it for the first time. You can usually non-sexual nudity in one take (with close-ups and if the actress is actually a competent performer) with actresses more or less in control, supervising the process on the monitor after the shot to determine it doesn’t go beyond what been discussed and agreed upon. Love scene is a different kettle of fish altogether. It requires fake intimacy but nonetheless something the female performer isn’t stoked about even if the male lead was hot. But there are protection in place (angles and positions of the cam) and guidelines of yes-and-no pertaining to the physical accessibility between the parties involved. As a result sex scenes in mainstream American movies has become less realistic than it was in those pre-and-post Basic Instinct years. You just know the guy isn’t copping a feel when he palms the actress breasts but merely covering her nips from over-exposure.
UPDATED 02/24/2013:
Earlbny:
Whether you love or hate Lena she's on the cover of this month issue of Rolling Stone. She's an ‘it’ girl and a role model to some and overrated to others. It's a gender thing just like you said.
It's definitely a gender thing. Most guys want some model type body and can't bear to look at a normal looking young woman like Lena. She does not fit the mold. Woman on the other hand are all about Girl power when they don't look like a model. I give Lena props for baring it all on her show. However I am starting to find it to be a bit excessive. At least Shiri will come in and save the show. While Shiri may not have a body like Alison Williams or Kate Upton she also does not have a body like Lena. I think or hope heads will turn and people will take notice when Shiri makes her appearance on the show. For some people nudity = SEX. Or gross for some people when the nude person has some meat on the bones. Then you have those people that complain that there is not enough male nudity.
Whether you love or hate Lena she's on the cover of this month issue of Rolling Stone. She's an ‘it’ girl and a role model to some and overrated to others. It's a gender thing just like you said.
It's definitely a gender thing. Most guys want some model type body and can't bear to look at a normal looking young woman like Lena. She does not fit the mold. Woman on the other hand are all about Girl power when they don't look like a model. I give Lena props for baring it all on her show. However I am starting to find it to be a bit excessive. At least Shiri will come in and save the show. While Shiri may not have a body like Alison Williams or Kate Upton she also does not have a body like Lena. I think or hope heads will turn and people will take notice when Shiri makes her appearance on the show. For some people nudity = SEX. Or gross for some people when the nude person has some meat on the bones. Then you have those people that complain that there is not enough male nudity.
I just read something about how while working on Life Unexpected Shiri also took online courses to get a degree in psychology. It bothered her that she never finished college. If I was in her shoes I would not go back to school. So props to her. She's got her head screwed on tight and is very grounded. I am sure she will on what's right for her. I wonder who's the bread winner in the family Shiri or Jon? I hope her stint on Girls will propel her into more unconventional projects as well. She definitely has the goods. I hope her stint on Girls make her a household name and have people fighting over her.
When I was a kid you got more blurred/scrambled skin on Playboy then you do on most shows today. I think I saw a nipple. LOL. Sex still sells though even if they wear clothes in the process. Look at Shiri 's role on short lived ABC show Six Degrees. That role was all about sex. Yet we didn’t see the goods. Just bra and underwear. Man was she hot. I am drooling just thinking about it. I have noticed they use every trick in the book and every camera angle to avoid showing the goods. Speaking if sex scenes have you seen the movie Sex is Comedy? That movie was about the making of a sex scene. It was a foreign film. The woman in my family have told me that they will be so pissed off if the movie version of 50 shades is not X rated. I have not read the book nor do I have any interest in it. I know the basic plot. I told them that its common for movies to get edited down to an R rating or PG 13. While 50 shades may be an exception most X rated or NC17 films - Showgirls comes to mind - are a tough sell.
To be fair, there is a lack of proper male nudity. Cable folks should lead the way in depicting full-frontal nudity without merkin for girls (STARZ and HBO are trying hard to implement all natural grow-it-out instead of the carpet-like artificiality. Maybe we will see end results before end of this year) and full blown erection (fake or not). Again the media plays a huge part in determining the outcome by reactions and so far it’s been lopsided.
To be fair, there is a lack of proper male nudity. Cable folks should lead the way in depicting full-frontal nudity without merkin for girls (STARZ and HBO are trying hard to implement all natural grow-it-out instead of the carpet-like artificiality. Maybe we will see end results before end of this year) and full blown erection (fake or not). Again the media plays a huge part in determining the outcome by reactions and so far it’s been lopsided.
Good for her. College degree is important and as clichéd as it may sounds – something to fall back on if you take in the account Hollywood treatment of actresses over 40.
More than anything I want Shiri character to be more than about the nudity itself. Yeah. I know it sounds strange coming from a shallow f*ck like me. I want meat and bones to Shiri role rather than a buffer between Lena and her boyfriend. It will be pointless if she shows T-and-A but still portraying the same mousy persona which she is not in real life. I want to see something truly brazen, spunky in her attitude. Something that going to surprise the hell out of lot of people and perhaps earn critical recognition for the role.
Jon owns a restaurant? At least he’s not a house husband. Those guys are in for a rough time because sooner or later the wifey will cheat on them.
Alec Baldwin joked on penultimate episode (?) of 30 Rock the network content biz is a dying a slow death. This new generation is desensitized to sex and violence largely due to Internet. The interactive aspect of it (sexting, web-camming) has made them quite ‘open’ about everything. More sexually aware and experienced. You have 20-something female columnist gushing about meeting a male porn star and perhaps get him alone in ‘hotel room’ for one on one interview. The embattled porn industry have been taking in newbie and filtering out the lesser ones almost at weekly basis now (the quality of female talents is simply breathtaking and we are not talking about the white trash or troubled background variety associated with the biz. Just go to soft-core sites and even Brazzers/Bang Bros and you know what I’m talking about). You have aspiring actresses barely into their 20’s open to on-screen mainstream nudity like never before. The popularity of Girls and AMC Walking Dead incredible rating success is increasing proof of new breed of consumers turning their back on ‘lame’ network shows. Series like Six Degrees belongs on a cable channel where sex and nudity are usually quite effective in covering plot shortcomings, maintaining audience interest and provoking discussions on the social media. Lifetime is slowly inching towards edgier stuff but outright nudity is probably out of question right now.
More familiar with nude clips from Sex is Comedy. LOL. 50-shades will be rated R. It’s a certainty but your loved ones are going to be sorely disappointed with the nudity discrimination. I don’t see any likelihood of genital nudity of any kind from male star besides the abundance of ‘man-butt’ action. Full frontal is likely to be required of the female lead. MPAA are strict but they are also world-class bootlickers when dealing with major studios. Concessions will be agreed upon. The problem is that E.L James has the final approval on the script and if my source is right – the casting as well. That’s why the slight delay with the screenplay and jitters by producers dealing with film productions illiterate like James. But she should understand the fear or phobia majority of Americans seems to have with on-cam sex/nudity.
Regarding Skin Horse, Greg (the composer) isn’t replying to my info request. Maybe you will have better luck. Here is his e-mail.
nudist Emily Ratajkowski : by Olivia Malone [Spring] 2013
22-years old French model Ophelie Rupp : Xevi Muntané [Harper’s Bazaar]Spain - March 2013
SXSW 2013: Bryan Poyser, 'The Bounceback'
By Elizabeth Stoddard on February 20, 2013
Poyser's other film work includes Dear Pillow and Lovers of Hate. He's been nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards for these films. The writer/director formerly worked as Director of Artist Services at the Austin Film Society, and now serves on the AFS Board of Directors.
Slackerwood: How are you feeling about the upcoming premiere of The Bounceback (at the Paramount during SXSW)?
Bryan Poyser: I really can't wait. I know I'm gonna be gut-wrenchingly nervous right before the show, but I'm so happy that so many of our out-of-town cast members are going to be there for it. They're all really proud of the movie, as are the folks behind the camera, and so I think we're all just really excited to finally share it with an audience.
What was the casting process like?
Poyser: The casting process was really the longest, and at times most frustrating, part of the process. It was over a year from the time when we all got the script where we wanted it to be -- myself, the co-screenwriters, the producers -- and started sending it out to agencies, to when we actually started rolling camera on the movie.
A big part of that is because it really is an ensemble film -- there are essentially six leads, and that's a lot of people to mix and match. At one point we had all six of the leads and it looked like we were going to shoot in February of 2012, but then one person dropped out, then another two, and we ended up having to push the movie 'til May while we scrambled to find the right people.
But, the cast that we ended up with was the exact cast we needed all along. When you're making movies, eventually the Power of Serendipity takes over and setbacks turn into great leaps forward.
How did you choose locations for The Bounceback? Did you mainly stick to the downtown Austin area?
Poyser: I only wanted to shoot in places that we could actually identify and name in the movie. So, if we were gonna shoot in a popular Mexican restaurant, the characters were gonna call it El Azteca; if the characters went to a honky-tonk, they were going to the Broken Spoke, etc. We weren't going to make up any fake places. I wanted to keep it as authentic as possible, for the benefit of Austin audiences for sure, but also for people who don't live here.
I think the city of Austin has grown in the popular imagination so much in the last 20 years, since Slacker, basically, that people are eager to see a genuine representation of its unique culture, in the way they want a movie set in New York to really portray New York, or a movie set in San Francisco to show off something about that city's singular character.
Were there any unexpected issues that popped up during filming? How did you handle them?
Poyser: We spend nearly a week shooting on Sixth Street. We were doing nights, so we'd shoot 'til dawn and see the whole lifecycle. Frankly, it was more than a little disgusting. Lots of drunken brawls, arrests, stumbling, littering, puking, public urinating. And that was just the crew. Ha! But seriously, it was a real challenge to stay focused on the work we were trying to do as all this chaos surrounded us. But, that chaos is a big part of the movie and was necessary to include.
However, I can say that any romantic notions I have of our lauded downtown entertainment district have been completely erased. Nowadays, I pretty much only go down there for SXSW or to see movies at the [Alamo Drafthouse] Ritz. Although that might also just be because I'm old.
What are your thoughts about making movies in Austin/Texas?
Poyser: I've been lucky to be part of the film community here for nearly 20 years. I came here right after Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez burst on to the national scene, so even back then, it felt like I was part of something, even as a lowly UT undergrad making my dinky little student films. And, even though still no Austin filmmaker has "popped" as big as those guys did, an exceptional community of independent filmmakers has developed here, a community that the world pays more and more attention to every year.
It's undeniable that we've got something special here, with multiple Austin filmmakers showing their work in the top film festivals in the world every year. Just in the last couple of years, you had Jeff Nichols show two films at Cannes, Heather Courtney win an Independent Spirit Award, Andrew Bujalski screen his newest at Sundance and Berlin. And, you've got filmmakers like Terrence Malick and David Gordon Green using Austin as a home base to do their thing.
But the great thing about all this activity is that it's still a small, supportive community of people who like to roll up their sleeves to help -- an editor on one movie is a director on another, an actor in one movie is a producer on another, and everyone goes to everyone's rough cut screenings to give feedback. The only thing that might upset the balance is if any one of us actually starts making money on our movies. Fortunately that hasn't happened yet. Or should that be "unfortunately"?
Where do you love to take a break during SXSW? Any favorite downtown spots for food or drink to recommend?
Poyser: Two words: Thai Passion. It's on W. 7th Street between Colorado and Congress, not even a block away from the Paramount. Great Thai food. Cheap, open late, and never too crowded to get a table. I eat there almost once a day during the festival.
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Eniko Mihalik : PdH Spring/Summer 2013
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Frida Gustavsson is featured in showy photos done by Camilla Åkrans for Anja Rubik‘s 25 Magazine.
What Does the Sundance Festival Tell Us About the Future of Film?
by Steve Ramos on February 20, 2013
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| The marquee of the Egyptian Theater in Park City |
The deal making begins weeks before the celebrities touch down in Park City, Utah, a pop-up center of the universe for the culture industry during the ten-day run of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Open Road Films buys the Steve Jobs biopic jOBS, starring Ashton Kutcher as the Apple co-founder, long before audiences clap, yawn, or both at its Sundance Closing Weekend premiere. Other movies including Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey, and No, featuring Gael García Bernal, also arrive with deals intact. The pre-fest deals, as well as decisions by filmmakers from former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl (Sound City) to Shane Carruth (Upstream Color) to take on a DIY release model, lead to an inevitable question: with the ability to build communities of fans and supporters 24/7 on digital platforms, are the time, energy, and money spent getting in and getting to Sundance still necessary?
Yet the Sundance Festival continues to grow, with 119 feature-length films representing 32 countries and approximately 40,000 attendees coming to town for the 2013 edition. One thing is clear, according to Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford and his team: Sundance is busting Park City at the seams.“There’s no more room to grow,” John Cooper, director of the festival, says, speaking at Main Street’s Sundance House on the festival’s opening day. “There just isn’t.”
For ten colorful days, life is turned upside down in Park City, a small ski-resort town nestled in the mountains outside Salt Lake City. The uptick of Sundance 2013 is one of the more vibrant marketplaces in recent memory, with film industry executives buying all sorts of movies, including the Joseph Gordon-Levitt feature directing debut Don Jon’s Addiction and Lovelace, starring Amanda Seyfried as Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace, at a level that makes one believe the economy is truly recovering, at least in the world of cultural commerce.
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| A Park City tradition: posters along every open inch of Main Street |
But the deal making, along with the brand-sponsored interview suites and lounges — that’s the business side of Sundance.
On the creative landscape, it’s not about the place as much anymore, despite all the energy, time, and money spent by filmmakers like Fire in the Blood director Dylan Mohan Gray, who travels from Mumbai in order to present his documentary about the AIDS crisis in Africa and the blockade of low-cost antiretroviral drugs by drug companies.
“I often think about that, all the energy and resources being spent to come here from Mumbai,” Gray tells us, speaking at the end of the festival. “One of my producers is currently stuck at an airport trying to get here. Now, I wanted to come, and I can tell you the film is getting lots of attention back home for premiering here at Sundance. But I do think about the future and the role film festivals will play.”
Here are five trends that sparked to life at Sundance. It will be interesting to see how they change the cultural landscape for the rest of 2013.
1. Holistic crowd funding, from startup production costs to community building to the DIY release of the film
Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky, co-directors of Indie Game: The Movie, an intimate look at the high-pressure world of independent game developers, return to Park City as panel participants after having helped usher in the Kickstarter generation of crowd funding and DIY distribution with their debut documentary. |
| Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky, co-directors of “Indie Game: The Movie” |
Over tacos and PBRs at a local snowboarder hangout, Pajot and Swirsky joke about how their crowdfunding model seemed so alternative last year; now, in a brief 12 months, it has quickly become a strong option — if not the indie biz model of choice — for 2013 Sundance filmmakers like Jehane Noujaim and her team for the Egyptian democratic revolution doc The Square and 99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film, a crowd-based, cinematic response to the Occupy Movement led by directors Audrey Ewell, Aaron Aites, Lucian Read, and Nina Krstic.
More importantly, crowd funding is no longer relegated to the beginning, funding phase of projects. It’s holistic now, providing a method for raising funds as well as building brand awareness and the community support necessary for a successful DIY release, if that’s what an artist wants.
“It seems so long ago that we were last here at Sundance,” Pajot says, laughing. “I used to think about self-distribution as just me and Jaime touring with our film, but now I see us as part of a major movement.”
2. Transformation of celebrity spokespeople into interactive brand ambassadors
Celebrities still stop traffic and publicity done Sundance style continues to be as wild as ever. Nicole Kidman comes to Park City to promote her film, the thriller Stoker, and documentary veteran Greg Barker gets caught in the tumult when he and his Manhunt crew, a trio of former CIA officers, are overwhelmed by the celebrity actress, her entourage, and the paparazzi and locals hoping for a photo.Moving past the throngs of fans outside the Eccles Theatre, whether they’re lining up for Kidman or Kutcher or Gordon-Levitt, it all feels like a final gasp of classic red carpet publicity in an industry that’s becoming more and more about community building in a digital space.
Much of Sundance’s celebrity pizazz seems as familiar and quaint as interviews at a corporate-branded lodge in Deer Valley. And there are hints at the digital reinvention of celebrities into something more than simple famous faces.
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| The HP Lounge, one of many Sundance branded spaces along Main Street |
Start-ups like Wishclouds come to Park City to Beta test their next-generation digital retail site that takes celebrity sharing to new levels of interactivity via personal lifestyle tips and picks. Rally.org, the San Francisco–based, crowd-sourced fundraising start-up, comes to Park City to transform classic “branding houses” and their mountains of “swag” into a pipeline for their “Cause Economy,” in which celebrities and consumer brands can collaborate for charitable causes.
Suddenly, all the Main Street hubbub and its rooftop bars feel small by comparison.3. Diversity of storytellers and storytelling, with more women at the forefront
At Park City, the goal is to keep the spotlight on those bold filmmakers responsible for the type of challenging dramas that are a Sundance trademark, as well as a fixture at the alternative Slamdance Festival, running parallel at its intimate locale at the top of Main Street. Actor/director/producer James Franco receives lots of attention for his boundary-pushing movies Kink, a documentary about a San Francisco–based BDSM porn website, and Interior. Leather Bar., an imagining of the cut scenes from the 1980 Al Pacino film Cruising, but festival spotlight and coverage quickly shift to the welcome fact that the number of female directors match their male peers in the 16-film US Documentary Competition category, a positive milestone for an industry dominated by men for too long. |
| Writer/director Liz W. Garcia |
Mainstream tales like Jill Soloway’s Afternoon Delight, featuring Kathryn Hahn as an LA wife and mother who befriends a stripper named McKenna (played by Juno Temple), and actor/filmmaker Cherien Dabis’s Jordan-set marriage drama May in Summer sparkle brighter thanks to their sensitive storytelling.
Writer/director Nadia Szold, at Slamdance with her searing drama Joy de V, the story of a Long Island con artist (Evan Louison) whose life turns upside down when his pregnant wife Joy goes missing, helps remind Park City audiences that a female community of filmmakers can offer stories and techniques every bit as diverse as what’s on the opposite side of the gender fence.
“I’m committed to making art and making movies and remaining as independent as possible,” Szold tells us, hanging out at the Sundance Channel suite with her co-star Louison. Szold says she pushed herself away from the editing table and completing her next feature to come to Park City and promote Joy de V. Since she’s at Slamdance, she may not have the chance to meet all of her Sundance peers face-to-face, but rest assured, she’s making an artistic contribution to the female filmmaker community that’s every bit as strong.
4. Merging of digital art and feature-length film into a new, transmedia experience and something more sustainable
As Sundance continues to champion digital technologies and the convergence of cinema with transmedia art installations, Park City’s shuttered Anderson’s Lumberyard, a set of sprawling warehouses transformed into the exhibition space New Frontier 13, becomes more and more important to the festival. On an opening-weekend media day, Australian artist Lynette Wallworth guides visitors to her 10-seat planetarium installation “Coral: Rekindling Venus,” which is touring multiple sites across the US. Joanie Lemercier, a founding member of the visual group AntiVJ, installs “Eyjafjallajokull,” a 3D audiovisual mapping based on the 2010 Icelandic volcanic eruption, and another AntiVJ team member, Yannick Jacquet, joins Mandril and Thomas Vaquié to mix painting and projected light for “Cityscape 2095,” a futuristic, 3D cityscape. |
| Rapper and New Frontier artist Yung Jake |
While there’s also a strong film contingent featuring Wrong Cops, a new work by Quentin Dupieux, the majority of the New Frontier section takes place away from festival cinemas and in the exhibition space. In fact, thanks to Rap artist Yung Jake, New Frontier leaves behind its Park City footprint and engages its audience digitally via an augmented-reality app that goes beyond the mind-bending work of his music videos like “Max Moiyer.”
“I’m going to perform here at Sundance, but I also want the work to reach beyond Sundance,” Jake says, working busily on his laptop while sitting on the New Frontier floor.
5. The departure from place-based entertainments like film festivals — a creative shift in the digital landscape
A crisscross of bitter cold nights and unseasonably warm days leads to bouts of the infamous Sundance flu. Sundance is a ten-day marathon that tests one’s patience and stamina. It doesn’t need to be. It can become something permanent, 24/7, and more fluid.For years, Sundance has been the home for challenging films willing to test the boundaries of independent cinema. Now, it’s time for that home to take place in a digital landscape.
Perhaps a traditional Sundance festival will continue as a more intimate place for past Sundance heroes like Drake Doremus, whose love story Like Crazy won the 2011 Grand Jury Prize, to return and celebrate new work, this time with his Like Crazy actress, Felicity Jones, starring in the Bergman-like melodrama Breathe In. But multiplatform release patterns and production and marketing models are quickly changing, and it’s hard to see Sundance remaining unchanged in such an evolving industry. Really, 29 years from now, it has to be different.
Still, by the closing weekend, like every closing weekend, breakout dreams happen at Sundance. It’s the one hope that keeps the festival’s mythology going and arguably makes Park City a beacon every year.
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| The fairy tale story of Sundance 2013 is “Fruitvale” director Ryan Coogler. |
This year, director Ryan Coogler’s true life drama Fruitvale is the fairy-tale story, the winner of this year’s Dramatic Audience Award and Jury Prize. Coogler’s film about Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), a 22-year-old African American man shot by BART transit police at the Fruitvale station on New Year’s Day 2009, should be an art-house hit when the Weinstein Co. opens it in theaters later this year.
Thanks to Sundance, Coogler’s life has changed; now Sundance itself has to change, too.The 2013 Sundance Film Festival took place January 17–27 in Park City, Utah.
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Can Playboy Survive Without Nudity?
"I read it for the articles." It is a cliché because of Playboy, and now that Hugh Hefner's empire is leaning out of the "smut" business, the real boss is betting you actually will read them — or at least buy mobile content with lingerie instead of naked ladies — when Playboy launches its first iPhone app later this year.
The Wall Street Journal has a big look at the current state of your dad's favorite nudie magazine. Things are rocky, at best, at Hef's house. The company is making more money off less revenue thanks to some shrewd business decisions from Scott Flanders, the company's first CEO without the last name Hefner. In some ways, Flanders is fitting in. Making money helps. In other ways, he's not — he had to undergo sensitivity training for hitting on Playmates when he first started. But he's still doing better than former CEO Christie Hefner, who left the company in 2009 after company stock hit a record low — her husband was eventually mired in an insider trading scandal spanning some of the time she spent heading the company.
Flanders, in edition to making Playboy more lean, is pushing mobile. The confines of the app world, of course, have pornographic boundaries when you want to make money, at least legitimately. But it appears Apple may finally be willing to open the gates of the App Store:
This winter, the company, long barred from Apple's digital storefronts because of its pornographic associations, will package a nudity-free version of its content together for the launch of its first iPhone app, featuring lifestyle tips, articles from the magazine and, of course, photos of beautiful women.Even as Playboy has cut its circulation, it has developed a surprisingly successful tame version of itself on social media — its Instagram feed is one of the most popular — and on the newsstands, where a lingerie-only version of the magazine doesn't need those extra, uh, racks over the top two-thirds of the cover. And the magazine is still publishing great articles — the new issue has a long read on the embers of the Arab Spring and the latest in the still great "Playboy Interview" series, this time with Jimmy Kimmel.
So, mobile readers will have to actually read Playboy for the articles, with a little lingerie on the side. This could totally work. What could go wrong?
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More of Gavin here and here
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| Emily Florence Shaw |
Watch DIIV’s NSFW video for “Wait” featuring Sky Ferreira
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Naked and damned
By LEIGH WITCHEL
February 20, 2013
February 20, 2013
COMMENTARY = NOT THING
Juliana F. May/MAYDANCE. New York Live Arts, 219 W. 19th St.; 212-924-0077. Through Saturday. Running time: 55 minutes, no intermission.
May, winner of New York Live Arts’ first Jeff Duncan Award for choreography, described her show as a “modern-dance opera” that was “part Stephen Sondheim and part the B-52s,” but you won’t hear a scrap of either. Somewhere between writing the press release and making the piece, she switched gears and ended up with a postmodern version of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
The dancers in Juliana May’s stripped-down new piece end up baring more than mere emotions.She uses the dance floor as a dog track of despair. Two men and one woman go round and round, at first in a sprint, then making tense, quick gestures. One man, the tall, thin Ben Asriel, sets up folding chairs and a low table while darker, scruffier Kayvon Pourazar has a repetitive, pointless argument with a slender Maggie Thom.
When your attention shifts back to Asriel, he’s sitting buck naked, and the other two strip shortly after. The argument — fragments of a marital spat — repeats endlessly, pointlessly. In a way, it’s much like real life, except here nobody’s wearing any clothing.
There’s some nervous humor while they’re parading around nude, and Thom complains to no one in particular that she’d rather “know what your a - - crack looked like so it wouldn’t be a surprise.” But most of the show is in earnest. Again on the march, the trio forms a locomotive and gropes one another. Sometimes it seems smutty, sometimes as innocent as toddlers. They go round and round, until disappearing, without warning, behind a curtain.
The rest of the piece has more dancing in it. The three move in obsessive repeating snippets, together but never combining.
A new argument starts up. The same angry statements — “Why are you being so nice to me?” — get bounced from person to person, and finally Thom sings them. Here’s where the piece gets into trouble: The cast are trained dancers, not actors or singers. Thom could barely be heard over the recorded score.
As the stage dims to black, the music gets louder and louder, hammering like a drum corps. There’s a crash, and it’s all over.
If the piece wasn’t always coherent, at least it had its moments. May seems more interested in her process than her product, but she was able to expose emotions as well as skin.
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An Evolutionary Answer to Why Straight Women and Gay Men Are Friends
Psychologists have previously hypothesized that gay male/straight female friendships experience such a high success rates because of the lack of sexual attraction, the feeling of body acceptance (a 2009 found that women with gay friends reported feeling more sexually attractive and proud of their bodies than women without gay friends), a more honest rapport and a better appreciation for each others personalities. All of these studies (cited here), however, focused mainly on straight women' reasoning and not gay men's.
Now researchers at the University of Texas - Austin have theorized an evolutionary purpose to straight women/gay men friendships and how they are helpful to mating. Using a sample group of 88 heterosexual and 58 homosexual men, researchers showed their subjects the fake Facebook profile of a person named Jordan. For women, Jordan was either a straight woman, a straight man or a gay man. For the men, Jordon was either a straight woman, a gay man or a lesbian. Other than gender and sexual orientation, the profiles were identical.
Subjects were then asked to imagine being at a party with Jordan where s/he gave them romantic advice on something like "how to interpret an interaction with an attractive member of the opposite sex." They were then asked how seriously they took the advice. Both gay men and straight women perceived the advice offered by each other as being more valuable than the advice offered by their own orientation, straight men or gay women.
The psychologists claim that this is because straight women and gay men don't see each other as sexual threats or sexual competition. The team reports in Evolutionary Psychology:
Our results suggest that straight women and gay men perceive mating advice provided by each other to be more trustworthy than similar advice offered by other individuals...the emotional closeness shared by straight women and gay men may be rooted in the absence of deceptive mating motivations that frequently taint their relationships with other individuals.Of course, these findings come off as rather clinical and removed from a person's conscious motives to be a part of a friendship. I would say that I am friends with my gay friends not for an evolutionary purpose, but for the same reasons that I'm friends with anyone — common interests and compatible personalities. (If that sounds boring, feel free to sub in "glitter, glitter and MORE GLITTER.") I'm also a tad resentful of the notion that I take my female friends' advice less seriously because I worry that they might be in sexual competition with me. In the immortal words of Lesie Knope, "Uteruses before duderuses."
Then again, maybe I'm the exception and the rest of you base all of your friendships in how they increase your chances to get laid. Somehow, I don't think that's right and that you're all better than that. Still, we should probably all discuss it with our gay husbands just to be sure.
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Gag Order: Sex Workers Allege Mistreatment at Kink.com
By Kate Conger
When news broke last week that Peter Acworth, the founder and CEO of local porn company Kink.com, had been arrested for cocaine possession, many were surprised by the misstep from a man who's built his empire on a strict code of ethical behavior and transparency. He's been lauded in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times for revolutionizing the porn industry and improving the neighborhood around the Armory, his headquarters at Mission and 14th streets. Kink is also the subject of the eponymous James Franco-produced documentary that premiered at Sundance. So the details of Acworth's arrest — police discovered the drugs while investigating a complaint about a makeshift shooting range inside the Armory — seemed in stark contrast to his usually upstanding image.
This image has been essential to Kink's success. While the idea of any porn company in the neighborhood might raise a few eyebrows, Kink's BDSM content sparked protests when the company moved into the Armory in 2007. (If the recent Fifty Shades of Grey craze hasn't turned you on to the acronym yet, it stands for bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism.) Whatever the fetish, Kink.com caters to it; the company hosts nearly 30 subscription sites, offering everything from foot worship to gangbangs to electric play to bondage.
Acworth responded to the opposition the way he often handles criticism — by pointing to his ethics and opening the Armory doors. Part pornographer, part activist, Acworth has devoted himself to demystifying BDSM for those outside the lifestyle and protecting those within it. Kink outlines its tough ethical standards in its lists of models' rights and shooting rules, both of which are posted on the site. These tenets protect models and go a long way in combating the critics who are quick to conflate BDSM with abuse.
However, even as Kink flourishes — it's nearly doubled the number of sites it operates since moving into the Armory — doubts about its ethical standards linger. The company attracted unwanted attention last summer when it abruptly switched its cam girls' pay rate and sparked a debate about its commitment to models' rights.
Now, two former models allege they were denied workers' compensation when injured on Kink sets, one of whom further states she was coerced into a performance that left her with long-lasting injuries and was offered money in exchange for keeping quiet about those injuries. Other workers claim to have been terminated or chose to resign when they questioned Kink's business practices, including the use of an erectile dysfunction drug called Trimix.
These allegations threaten the company's conscientious reputation, and conflict with the stories offered by current directors and models who say their experiences inside the Armory have always been ethical and enjoyable.
Some of Kink's current problems may stem from dangers inherent to the industry. Sebastian Keys, a performer and assistant director on Kink's gay sites, explained that the use of male enhancement drugs is common throughout the gay porn industry. "It's just kind of expected," he says, noting that sometimes companies provide the drugs, while other times performers are expected to provide their own. He says the use of these drugs in the industry is common because some straight male performers are "gay-for-pay" — meaning they pursue gay porn jobs for the higher pay rate — and need enhancement to help them perform their scenes. (Acworth says, "There may have been a time in the past where ED [erectile dysfunction] medication were more common in gay porn especially, but this is no longer the case.") Other models take the drugs to get through the long hours required for a porn shoot. Keys points out that some men who use the drugs have the appropriate prescriptions, while others do not.
Use of these prescription drugs has occurred throughout the industry, not just at Kink, though they come with significant risks for the models. Sandy Bottoms, a sex worker, activist, sometime SF Weekly contributor, and co-director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, a nonprofit that works for harm reduction in the adult industry and the destigmatization of sex work, says, "Legally, non-prescribed use is not supposed to happen. But in all industries, people do things to enhance their work."
(Like many people in the adult industry, Bottoms uses a pseudonym to keep her work and personal life separate. She and the other performers quoted in this story are not identified by their legal names.)
Like Viagra, Trimix provides a long-lasting erection; however, unlike the popular pill, Trimix is injected directly into the penis and the results are immediate. In normal doses, the injections are safe, but higher doses can result in priapism, an erection that lasts for longer than four hours and requires medical attention in order to be reduced.
A former Kink employee who requested anonymity expressed concern over the dosages and reported that at least three models had experienced health complications, including priapism and fainting, as a result of Trimix use. Keys says that though he has used Trimix in the past, his experience was without incident. He also claims that Kink had stopped relying on the injections approximately four to six months ago because of the risks involved.
When asked whether Trimix injections had stopped, Acworth says, "We have a firm policy against giving prescription drugs to models or allowing models to share prescription drugs. I met with directors and all production crew last year to reiterate this policy and communicate that it would be considered a very serious offence for these things to happen." He adds, "I can tell you this: after the meetings I hosted last year, if I found that any employee had provided a prescription drug to a model, that person would be fired. We simply do not tolerate it."
The potential legal quandaries revealed by former Kink models challenge Acworth's ethical claims, and this isn't the first time he's been called out for going against his models' rights and shooting rules.
Last summer, Maxine Holloway found herself at the center of a debate about fair wages when she tried to organize her fellow cam girls in protest of a sudden pay decrease. Cam girls perform in what's essentially a digital peep show — they appear in a public video chat room, where customers can request a private performance. Once the private chat starts, customers pay by the minute to keep the live video streaming. Kink abruptly switched its cam girls from earning a base rate to earning a 30 percent commission; when Holloway took action, she was promptly fired.
At that time, Acworth denied Holloway had been fired and claimed that she was put on temporary leave because her cam shows had become unprofitable. (Holloway alleges her supervisor told her she was one of the cam department's top 20 models just days before her dismissal.)
Now, Acworth describes the incident as "my biggest mistake of 2012." In explanation of the sudden pay cut, he says, "Due to the structure we had in place at that time, I think we did a very ineffective job of discussing this change with the models and getting their feedback prior to executing the change. The change was perceived as rushed and delivered without notice or respect. I am very sorry for how this ultimately went down." He also notes that commission systems are standard for cam sites across the industry; while this is true, Holloway observed that other cam sites she'd worked for typically offered a commission between 60 and 80 percent.
Holloway and three fellow models pursued a lawsuit against Kink, which was eventually settled out of court.
The experience caused Holloway to question the ethics on which Kink is formed when we talked last year, before the settlement required she no longer speak publicly about her experiences working for Kink. Before being fired, she said, she had had only had good experiences with the company. After the ordeal she felt less trusting. "There's a difference between being unethical or unfair and being illegal. I think a porn company is responsible for all those things, especially when you have your ethics, your mission statement, and your values right there on the front page of your website. You're not just responsible for being a legal company," she explained last year.
Another model involved in the lawsuit, Coral Aorta, continues to model for Kink. Initially she worried about retaliation after filing the lawsuit. "I kind of expected directors or people working at Kink to bring that up with me, to be like, 'Oh, Coral, you sued us. What the hell?' But no one ever has." In fact, she's enjoyed working in the Armory in the months since then. "Obviously it's going well because I keep coming back for more."
Not every cam girl has been happy since the lawsuit, though. Eden Alexander, a model who has performed for Kink's cam site as well as other porn sites and did not participate in the lawsuit, claims Holloway's firing created a culture of fear in the cam department. She says models became afraid that voicing concerns meant risking their jobs. "You're in a position where if you don't follow along, you're going to lose shoots," she explains.
Bottoms agrees that the fear of losing work is legitimate. "Blacklisting happens," she says. "It can be unsafe to be a whistleblower."
Aaliyah Avatari, who formerly performed under the name Nikki Blue and famously lost her virginity during a live Kink broadcast in January 2011, says she was blacklisted after the controversial performance. "They're very picky and choosy," she claims. "If a model whines too much, they won't work with her anymore."
Alexander also attributes the new commission system with creating a cutthroat environment in which earning a living wage meant pushing her boundaries, something she felt Kink's shooting rules should have protected her from doing. These rules state that models' limits must be respected at all times.
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| Eden Alexander and her partner Sebastian Keys have had mixed experiences working for Kink. |
Upon mentioning the burn to her supervisors, Alexander says she was called into a meeting in which she was asked to admit to throwing the zapper against the wall and thereby causing the misfire. She denies throwing the zapper, but claims, "They told me that there was no actual workers' comp claim, that I am never, ever to even utter the words 'workers' comp,' that I'm never to tell anybody that there was a workers' comp meeting. However, since I'd been such a good model and an example employee, they are going to give me the difference back for all of my cam shows since the commission system started. It's not workers' comp; it's a reward. It's a bonus for being an excellent employee. And they made it very clear that I could go with their version and take the money, which was not very much money, or I could just go with no money — I could just leave."
Acworth vehemently denies her account of the meeting. "In case of injury," he says, "there is no way an employee would tell a model that she was not entitled to workers' comp, and there is no way our HR department would refuse workers' comp to anyone with an injury. That's just not how we operate."
In response, Alexander produced a bank statement with an image of the check she was given after the meeting. It is paid from the cam department's account, in the amount of $745.07. The memo line reads "residual for May 2012." The check is handwritten — not a typical payroll check.
Avatari says she was never offered workers' comp for injuries sustained during the virginity shoot. "It took me months to heal after I lost my virginity," she claims. "I had to have vaginal reconstructive surgery. There was no compensation for that. Honestly, I was lucky I had insurance at the time."
Avatari says the shoot was plagued with problems — she could not be fully penetrated at first, she claims, and the male model performing with her switched directly from anal to vaginal contact without taking proper measures to cleanse himself in between. She eventually stopped the shoot because "I was in a lot of pain," but took a break to collect herself and then completed the scene. Afterwards, she explains, "They had a doctor inspect me right after to make sure I didn't need stitches, but after that there was no more aftercare."
After she healed, Avatari claims she tried to work with Kink again, but says they wouldn't hire her. "My porn career has been shattered completely," she explains.
Alexander was able to return to Kink after her injury. Her goal, she says, was to be cast on The Upper Floor, another of Kink's websites, and thereby escape the toxic cam department. She claims to have often performed for free on The Upper Floor, and that when she was asked to represent Kink at the Folsom Street Fair last fall she thought her chance at a casting had finally arrived.
On stage at the fair, she estimates that she was caned and whipped for 35 minutes. "I've never received a beating like that before in my life," Alexander says. "I have permanent scars up and down the backs of my thighs. It was all things that I had consented to, but I didn't know quite the brutality of what was about to happen to me until I was in it."
Of this incident, Acworth says, "There was never any mention of work on The Upper Floor on this occasion," adding that "following the scene, Eden gave no feedback to the effect that she was upset by the markings."
But according to his own shooting rules, she shouldn't have to say anything. The rules read, "Models must be informed about the possibility of being marked prior to the shoot, and they must explicitly agree to being marked in a way that lasts more than a few hours. ... Heavier marking beneath the skin, including blue/purple bruising, should not be substantial, even if the model consents." If these rules had been followed, Alexander should never have sustained permanent scars on her body. Acworth says the shooting rules were not in effect at the fair, even though Alexander was filmed and footage was posted BehindKink.com, a Kink site devoted to promoting the company. "Since Folsom Street Fair is very much a BDSM practitioners event, and because no shoot was shot at the fair for the purposes of publication on our paid sites, the shooting rules were not in effect for it."
However, Alexander's experiences aren't representative of every model at the company. Sebastian Keys (who is Alexander's partner) and others say they've always received ethical treatment while performing. Coral Aorta holds that pushing boundaries isn't necessarily a bad thing. "I've always felt that my limits were tested, but not in a way that I didn't like," she says. "It's more been in a way that I've grown and learned what my body can take." Aorta also described an instance in which she had tried to push through bondage scenes while her hand was numb, but the director stepped in to stop the shoot.
Lorelei Lee, a model and a director at Kink as well as the co-writer of About Cherry, a film about the porn industry, says, "As a director, it is my biggest fear that a model will walk away having had a bad experience and not having communicated that to me." In an e-mail response to questions about on-set safety at the Armory, she explains, "From the minute a model walks in the door to the minute he or she leaves, every employee he or she comes in contact with ... knows that it is their responsibility to care for the model's emotional and physical safety above all else. That is absolutely unheard of for a porn company. This model of respect and conscientiousness becomes a part of everyone's interactions within the company, so that everyone there treats each other with more care. It is such an amazing place to work."
Princess Donna, a longtime performer and director at Kink, says that models are ultimately responsible for stopping a scene that breaches their limits. During her very first BDSM shoot with a New York company, she says, "I was crying and crying, which was not against their shooting rules. There was a male dominant and a male videographer and a female photographer. I kept looking to her to save me, you know? But then I realized, that's what safe words are for, and it's my responsibility to say what I can and can't handle."
What Alexander's and Avatari's experiences do show is that even at a company known for its high ethical standards, infractions can slip through the cracks.
Even if one of the leaders of ethical porn falters, the principles behind the production still exist. Princess Donna says of her work, "I consider myself an artist. I think what I make is much more than jerk-off material. It's for people to explore their fantasies and let go of shame. I think it's a huge public service." For critics, she offers, "Obviously we are going to be under scrutiny because people think it's torture or something. It's funny to me because Kink is probably one of the only places that asks you what you want to do or not do explicitly before the scene occurs."
Acworth agreed with her views on combating shame, writing, "I grew up with an intense desire to be tied up and was very confused. It was only when I found porn that I started to come to terms with my sexuality. In my opinion, it is a very good thing for there to be as much diverse pornography out there as possible."
"I worry that people will use a criticism of Kink.com as ammunition in the war on sex," says Siouxsie Q, a sex worker, activist, and producer of This American Whore, a podcast about sex work that has been asked to change its name by the radio program This American Life. "When I was young and coming out as kinky, I watched Kink.com and thought, 'Whoa, that's close to my desire.' It was very validating to see that kind of porn out there."
When she first moved to the Bay Area, Bottoms says, "I was super excited to see this kinky hardcore company with a mission statement. People love the company and they do really awesome stuff. Removal of them would be detrimental to the local adult industry." She adds, "My hope has always been that unionization would extend to the sex industry," and says unionization might help models obtain ethical treatment from all porn companies, at all times.
Siouxsie Q defines ethical porn as sexual imagery in which "everyone involved feels justly compensated for their time and energy, every action both on and off camera is consensual, and the porn that is being documented captures some semblance of authentic desire."
Holloway puts it more bluntly: "It's really easy to make ethical pornography. To make unethical porn, you have to actively do something fucked up."
Kink.com Responds to SF Weekly Cover Story, and SF Weekly Responds to Those Responses
Kink.com's CEO Peter Acworth issued a statement which suggests that SF Weekly's Kate Conger used unreliable e-mails as the basis for much of her research and that the story was hastily assembled.
In fact, Kate has been working on the story since June 2012 when she was researching the controversy over Kink's "cam girls." As for the e-mails, the story was reworked to remove any mention or discussion of those e-mails or the allegations they contain.
From Peter Acworth: "Today the SF Weekly chose to knowingly and carelessly publish a cover story with serious flaws and dubious sourcing -- including forged emails and false accusations. Despite the fact that we proved, to the satisfaction of the journalist, that major factual problems existed with the piece, the article was run with few changes.
SF Weekly comment: "I do not feel that the sourcing is dubious. I think the main area of contention in this article is the models' accounts of their experiences. I was told by Kink's spokesperson and Mr. Acworth himself that they were not interested in devaluing anyone's story of their own experience. I sought out models who reported good experiences at Kink and we printed their stories as well.
"As far as 'forged e-mails' are concerned, none of that content appears in the article. Kink did raise serious doubts about the veracity of the e-mails in question, which I am now looking into, and will write about when I feel that I can represent the issue with the highest accuracy.
"There is also an insinuation in the paragraph above that I find it very important to correct -- that Kink had been provided with early drafts of the story. This is absolutely not the case. I would consider it unethical to provide anyone, aside from my editors, drafts of a story. There is no truth to the statement that the story was run with little changes -- no one at Kink saw drafts and therefore could not say what was changed and what was not."
Peter Acworth: The story "Gag Order" paints a bleak picture of life at Kink. It's not rooted in reality -- nor in the tenets of ethical journalism. When we originally agreed to speak with the Weekly, they began asking questions that, to those of us who work here, did not seem to have any basis in fact. When we asked for support of those claims, the Weekly quoted e-mails they'd received from a source who'd originally tipped off the investigation. The emails turned out to be forged, and the journalist admitted to Kink management that the e-mails were fabricated."
SF Weekly: I don't think it paints a bleak picture at all. I think it points to the extreme differences in experience from one model to the next. Several longtime models and directors are quoted about their positive experiences at Kink.
"Again, the content of the e-mails does not appear in the story. I certainly did not fabricate the e-mails in question. Until I have consulted further with e-mail forensics experts, I am not prepared to make any statement about the veracity of the e-mails."
Peter Acworth: We invited the journalist in to review the original e-mails on our servers, and speak with several of our employees about some of the other accusations. She was visibly distressed to find out that that she'd been lied to, and we suggested that she contact other people to verify the rest of the claims."
SF Weekly: "This is true. Once again, however, these e-mails are not mentioned in the story in any way. I did review Kink's copies of the e-mails and am now consulting with several e-mail forensics experts in order to fully understand the issue."
Peter Acworth: "Though we'd been told repeatedly that it was a tight deadline, we expected that it would be held until the rest of the claims in the piece could be double-checked for veracity. Unfortunately, only hours later, the piece went live. Sections related specifically to the forged e-mails were excised -- but there was no further verification of other, similarly sensational claims in the article. In fact, there was no mention of the forged e-mails, or the fact that readers might have good reason to question those other claims as well."
SF Weekly: "There was no reason to expect the story to be held. I informed Mr. Acworth of the printing time when we arranged to meet. We never discussed altering that time, and I told him that, regardless of the e-mails mentioned here, we still intended to print a story about models' varied experiences. Because one source may have lied to me does not mean that every other source has lied as well.
Peter Acworth: "Instead, 'Gag Order' is rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations and sometimes blatant falsehoods. Many of them could have been disproven (or proven, for that matter) with a simple phone call. To a doctor. To a director. To other models on a shoot. A review of our HR records could easily have shown that models who were allegedly "blacklisted" after a complaint continued to work with us for months afterward. Models who were supposedly "paid off" for silence could be checked against actual payment records in accounting. There are many such examples. Unfortunately, none of that was pursued.
"We understand that as a company that employs over 130 people and shoots over 1000 scenes a year, that we can't make everyone happy. We're not perfect, and we do our best to correct mistakes when they happen. We don't expect everyone to love us or what we do, and we don't expect that everyone will think a BDSM porn company can have ethics. What we do expect is that a major alt-weekly, upon realizing that there was at least one major source with an agenda and outright fabricated claims, would hold a story until other sources could be verified as well."
SF Weekly: "I do not know why this would be an expectation. This supposed 'major source' does not appear in the article at all. In fact, my most 'major source' is Acworth himself, who is quoted from beginning to end. I have worked hard over the last nine months to verify the claims brought to me and feel confident in the story as it stands. I was never asked by Mr. Acworth or anyone else at Kink to hold the story, and I brought the issues raised in the article to his attention."
Peter Acworth: "We were told repeatedly that this was a tight deadline, but that's no excuse for shoddy journalism. We welcome the chance to engage with the Weekly now that said deadline is past. In the meantime, we ask that they take down the story in its current form, and work with us to correct it. We also expect an apology."
Peter Acworth
CEO and Founder, Kink.com
SF Weekly: "I also hope to continue to work with Kink in the future. In this statement, they have brought to light the allegedly forged e-mails. I am currently trying to determine if they are indeed the subject of an elaborate digital attack and they have been extremely helpful in this research."
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The Weinsteins Didn't Get 'The Canyons' Because They Wanted Final Cut Over Paul Schrader
With the buzzed indie movie starring Lindsay Lohan and James Deen landing at IFC Films a couple weeks back, THR reports there were some other contenders in the mix -- namely Harvey's VOD shingle Radius and Magnolia. The latter filled their sex 'n controversy quotient by nabbing Lars Von Trier's "Nymphomaniac," but a deal with Radius was scuttled after they asked to retain final cut -- something that director Paul Schrader "balked" at. Certainly, the specter of Harvey Scissorhands looming in the editing bay is always a risk (he reportedly wanted to make some changes to "Killing Them Softly," but producer Megan Ellison prevented that from happening) but it's not the first time outside help has been suggested for Schrader's movie.
“The film is so languorous. It’s an hour 30, and it seems like it’s three hours long. I saw this as a pranky noirish thriller, but Schrader turned it into, well, a Schrader film,” screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis told the New York Times. And there have been disagreements between the producers and Schrader over the opening of the movie, which he has refused to reshoot at their request, while a cut was shown to Steven Soderbergh who offered to edit the film.
But, for better or worse, Schrader's complete vision is what we'll get when the movie is released this summer.
HBO’s True Detective: The Cast So Far
News has been breaking regularly about HBO’s new crime series: True Detective. The show will most likely enter production soon and fans of The Wire in particular are waiting on pins and needles for the latest tidbits because the show looks to bring HBO back to the contemporary crime underworld. While series plot details are thin we are privy to a most of the main cast members at this point. Here are the True Detective cast members that we can confirm so far:
 Matthew McConaughey (Rust Cohle) |  Woody Harrelson (Martin Hart) |
Michelle Monaghan (Maggie) Kevin Dunn (Maj. Quesada) |  Tory Kittles (Det. Papania) |
Michael Potts (Det. Gilbough) Alexandra Daddario (Lisa Tragnetti) |  Elizabeth Reaser (Laurie Perkins) |
Lili Simmons (Underage Prostitute) Jay O. Sanders (Televangelist) |
 Brad Carter (Victem’s Ex) |
Wow what a show-stopping cast! We’re sure this cast is going to expand a bit more before it hits HBO’s air so check back once in a while for the latest faces. No premiere date to report just yet as the show hasn’t even been produced yet.
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Miles Teller Interview: ’21 and Over’ Star Talks Real-Life Shenanigans, Getting Naked With Skylar Astin, and ‘The Spectacular Now’
by Nick Romano
Following ‘Project X‘ and the Sundance hit ‘The Spectacular Now,’ Miles Teller stars alongside Skylar Astin (‘Pitch Perfect‘) and Justin Chon (‘Twilight‘) as the over-the-top partier in ‘21 and Over.’From the minds of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who both brought us ‘The Hangover,’ the flick follows two buddies who surprise their high school bestie, Jeff Chang, with a crazy night out on the town for his 21st birthday, even though he’s got the job interview of his life early the next morning. Expectedly, once Jeff gets too drunk to handle (and everything seems to fall into chaos), the night quickly becomes one of mayhem as the duo try to get him home and sobered up before morning.
We had the opportunity to briefly chat with Teller about, among other things, the making of ’21 and Over,’ the one scene with Skylar Astin he’ll probably never forget, his Sundance hit ‘The Spectacular Now,’ and taking a break from acting. [WARNING: this interview contains minor spoilers.]
I was looking at the description of ‘Are We Officially Dating?’ [currently in post-production] and it reminded me a little of your character in ’21 and Over’ – that sort of “have as much fun as possible”-type of guy. And before ’21 and Over,’ you were in ‘Project X,’ so I was just wondering what it is about this type of character, this type of movie that appeals to you.
I legitimately thought this script [for '21 and Over'] was the funniest script I’d read in a really long time. I think Jon and Scott have a really good voice, they’re really tapped into the youth and what’s going on. ‘Are We Officially Dating?,’ that character is completely different. That’s somebody, you know, he’s got a full-time job, and this and that, and [‘Are We Officially Dating?'] is post college so he’s not really doing keg stands, and wearing Mardi Gras beads and playing beer pong with ethnic Serbs. It’s a little different.
And with ‘Project X,’ I don’t know, that was just a small little bit. And that was fun to shoot ‘cause that was just like 200 extras, go from 7 PM to 7 AM, and just like have a… there’s a midget running around, there’s a DJ, and it was a shit show. So, I don’t know, I mean I do like to party.
Your character in ’21 and Over’ is the quintessential party animal. Are there any crazy nights from your past that helped you play him?
I’ve had a bunch of ‘em. [laughs]
What’s the craziest one?
I don’t know, man, I can’t really remember. I started drinking young. I think that’s a Southern thing. So by the time I was 13 — actually like 6th grade, like 12 or 13 — we used to steal my buddy’s grandpa’s Old Milwaukee on like a Tuesday, hide it in the woods next to my house and then drink it on like Friday. So it was like four-day-old, warm Old Milwaukee. So we used to drink that, then bike on over to this girl’s house and just hangout.
What was the off-screen dynamic like between you and the rest of the cast? Was it easy to bond with Skylar [Astin], Justin [Chon] and Sarah [Wright]?
Yeah. Sarah’s awesome. It’s hard to come into that situation, I think, as the only girl and hang out with a bunch of guys, especially where we’re doing this raunchier, college humor. But Sarah’s a champ. And then Justin, I still kick it with him out in California. He’s a bit of a boozer. He takes me out to K-Town, Korea Town, and we party over there. And Skylar’s a cool dude, he does his thing. But yeah, when we were filming we had a great time.
What was your favorite scene to shoot in the movie?
The scene where I’m paddling the girls and watchin’ them make out. Jon and Scott said — and I have sisters and stuff — you want to make it comfortable especially because you’re working with other actors, you don’t want to just be a jackass. You don’t want to be too jokey, but at the same time you don’t want to be too serious. I just remember at one point I was like, “Hey, while they’re making out, can I be like eating chips?” So I was just sitting there eating snacks while these two pretty girls are making out. It was one of the most relaxing days on set I’ve ever had. Afterwards I felt like I had gotten a massage. It was just so nice, man.
And then my least favorite was when I had to kiss Skylar. [laughs]
Yeah. Speaking of that scene, you guys were butt naked, surrounded by a ton of girls. How did you get comfortable in your own skin doing something like that?
You work out before the movie starts and you hope that you’re in good enough shape to where you mind looking at yourself ass naked on screen, pretty much. That scene where we’re chained up and all these girls are surrounding us, because we’re shackled up, at one point the shackle broke, so the only way to fix it was to bend down and fix. And I turned around to the girls behind me, I said, “I’m so sorry for what’s about to happen,” and basically had to bend over in front of them and fix this thing.
How did you and Skylar get comfortable doing a scene like that?
You don’t, man. You just tell the camera guys, make sure you’re in focus, let’s just do one take and let’s go.
A lot of the types of jokes in this seem similar to ‘Project X’ and ‘The Hangover.’ Do you think this kind of humor goes too far at any point?
Well, I would respectfully disagree with the comparison to ‘Project X.’ In ‘Project X’ there’s really not a strong narrative and it’s shot very much in the vain of a music video with all the handhelds, and this and that. That’s really not style-ly comparable. I wouldn’t call ‘Project X’ a comedy. I really thought it was like this phantasmagoria, like overload of the senses, very much like a music video. So I can’t really comment on that.
I thought that really for a rated R it was pretty soft. There’s not a whole lot of stuff in there that I think is overly edgier or pushing the boundaries.
You finished wrapping up ‘The Spectacular Now’ a while ago, and I haven’t seen it, but a couple of my colleagues have and they were very impressed with your performance. So congratulations on that.
Thank you.
Yeah, I think it’s playing March 11 at SXSW.
What’s the current plan to bring this film to the masses more?
Yeah, it was picked up by A24. A24 is a distribution company, they’re doing ‘Bling Ring,’ Sofia Coppola’s movie. They’re also doing ‘Spring Breakers.’ I think the goal for this is August 2 it’ll start out in select cities and then platform.
I think ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower,’ and the fact that movie did so well and really found a big audience, I think that kind of opened the door probably a little bit for this.
How did that part come about for you?
I just finished ‘Footloose’ and I auditioned for it for, there was a different guy for it, this guy name Lee Toland Krieger – he did ‘Celeste and Jesse Forever’ and some other stuff. First of all, that script ['Spectacular Now'] is so good, man, so good. And I read that. I did an audition for him, it wasn’t that good, they said it’s not going to go further. I said, well let me do it again, let me get a little more time. I did it again, and the second time they said, well it’s better but you’re still not what we’re looking for. So I said, okay, disappointed.
And then Lee fell out, and then like a year and a half later it came back, and Nicholas Hoult was attached to it and then he fell out because he had to do some movie. And I met with James Ponsoldt, the director, and we just met at a bar and just legitimately had drinks, some food, and talked for two or three hours. Afterwards he said he had to talk to some producers but he really wanted to do the movie with me. That’s pretty much how it happened. I never had to audition for James, he just trusted me.
What about your future plans? What do you have coming up?
’21 and Over’ is one of five films, literally, that I have coming out. ‘The Spectacular Now’ just did Sundance. That’ll come out August 2. I did a film called ‘Get a Job’ last year with Anna Kendrick and Bryan Cranston. That’ll come out… I’m not sure. I’m doing some voice over stuff and we’re messing with that. And then I did a film called ‘Two Night Stand,’ which I shot last fall, and then I think the goal for that is Toronto [Film Festival], but we’ll see. And then ‘Are We Officially Dating?’ with Zac [Efron] and Michael B. [Jordan] and Imogen Poots, Mackenzie Davis is in that. I literally just finished that two or three weeks ago. I think they want that to go to Toronto too.
So a bunch of stuff coming out, and I’m just gonna hold off on filming for a little bit until there’s something that is literally like, I have, have to do this. You gotta be careful when you have a lot of stuff coming out.
A lot of actors are branching off into production and directing work. Is that something you’d like to do?
Yeah, absolutely. The next project that I work on… I kinda have some downtime, and producing is absolutely something that I plan on getting into. At this point I know a decent amount of writers and would love to sit down with them. And I am going to sit down and and just try and craft something. And directing, for sure. The one thing about directing is that it’s so fricken time consuming… So it’s a lot of stuff, but I love actors, and I think that I’ve always had a good idea of how to give them a nice environment to work out of.
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Octavia Spencer Undergoes Breast Lift
21 February 2013
Actress Octavia Spencer has undergone a breast lift to give her a more youthful appearance.
She told Parade magazine, "I am going to get my boobs lifted. That's going to be my first gift. I'm going to do that. I figured going into my 40s I want my boobs where they were when I was 17."
And now Spencer has revealed she secretly went under the knife to revitalise her look.
Showing off a busty and perky appearance on U.S. chat show The View on Thursday (21Feb13), she said, "I got them a little bit smaller, and a little lift. You probably can't tell too much."
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