Tag: John Travolta

2018 Cannes Film Festival: John Travolta, Gary Oldman, Christopher Nolan, Ryan Coogler added to lineup of speakers

May 2, 2018

The following is a press release from the Cannes Film Festival:

During the Festival de Cannes 2018, four meetings with artists will take place Buñuel Theatre replacing the Leçon de cinéma. Four masterclasses with directors and actors invited to share their work and passion about cinema during Rendez-vous for the festival goers.

Our program this year will be a focus on English and American cinema.

Thursday, May 10, 4:00PM

RYAN COOGLER
AMERICAN DIRECTOR & WRITER

Ryan Coogler was born in Oakland (California). He comes back to the Festival de Cannes and will not be the same director since he presented his first feature film, Fruitvale Station (2013), five years ago. Fruitvale Station tells the story of the last 24 hours of the life of Oscar Grant, who was shot to death by a police officer at Oakland’s Fruitvale BART station. Developed and produced by Forest Whitaker, the film won the top audience and several awards among them grand jury awards in the U.S. dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival and Prix de l’Avenir Un Certain Regard at the Festival de Cannes handed out by Thomas Vinterberg, then President of the Jury. Coogler has since co-written and directed the seventh film in the Rocky series, Creed (2015), and the internationally acclaimed Black Panther (2018) making him the youngest Marvel Studios filmmaker. Black Panther was revolutionary in many regards. Upon release, the film was an overwhelming success, grossing the fifth largest opening US weekend box-office results of all time.

Michael B. Jordan starring in all the films directed by Ryan Coogler will be at Cannes with Fahrenheit 451 directed by Ramin Bahrani.

The Rendez-vous with Ryan Coogler will take place on Thursday, May 10th, at 4.00PM, Buñuel Theatre. It will be conducted by American critic and journalist Elvis Mitchell.  

Saturday, May 12, at 4.00PM

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN
BRITISH DIRECTOR, WRITER & PRODUCER

Christopher Nolan is a multi-award-winning director, writer and producer whose varied filmography includes some of the most innovative and successful motion pictures of the early 21st century. Beginning with his breakout feature Memento, which earned Nolan an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, his films have captivated critics and audiences alike. Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014) and the Dark Knight Trilogy (whose central film, The Dark Knight, received eight Oscar nominations) have all left their mark on contemporary cinema. Last year, Christopher Nolan made headlines again with Dunkirk, which was also nominated for several Oscars. Nolan is a great cinephile and a loving connoisseur of Stanley Kubrick and 2001: A Space Odyssey, the 50th anniversary of whose release he will be celebrating the following day (May, 13). He also defends and carries on the tradition of film, of “celluloid” and projections on a large screen, so Dunkirk had the biggest release on 70mm of the past 25 years.

The Rendez-vous with Christopher Nolan will take place on Saturday, May 12th, at 4.00PM, Buñuel Theatre. It will be conducted by French critic and historian Philippe Rouyer and translated by Massoumeh Lahidji.

Wednesday, May 16, 4:45PM

JOHN TRAVOLTA
AMERICAN ACTOR & PRODUCER

John Travolta’s breakout performance in the blockbuster Saturday Night Fever (1977) brought such emotion, surprise and pleasure as strong as his role in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction awarded Palme d’or in 1994 at the Festival de Cannes. Two-time Academy award nominee John Travolta has starred in a number of monumental films. His credits include a vast filmography, the long-running musical Grease, the Brian de Palma thrillers Carrie and Blow Out, Get Shorty by Barry Sonnenfeld, The Look Who’s Talking trilogy,Broken Arrow and Face/Off by John Woo, The Thin Red Line by Terrence Malick, The Taking of Pelham 123 by Tony Scott. In 1998 he opened the Festival de Cannes with Primary Colors by Mike Nichols with Emma Thompson. John Travolta also played and produced the limited series American Crime Story: The People V. O.J. Simpson. He recently completed filming on Moose, and will next be seen in the crime drama Gotti by Kevin Connolly that will have its World Premiere as a Special Gala Screening in the Palais des Festivals at Cannes.

On Wednesday, May 16th at 9:30 PM John Travolta will also introduce on the Cinéma de la Plage (Movies on the Beach) the restored print of the musical Grease by Randal Kleiser to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the film.

The Rendez-vous with John Travolta will take place on Wednesday, May 16th, at 4:45PM, Buñuel Theatre. It will be conducted by French critic and journalist Didier Allouch.

Friday, May 18, 4:00PM

GARY OLDMAN
BRITISH ACTOR & DIRECTOR

Gary Oldman was born in London, he is one of the most celebrated actors of his generation on both stage and screen. He gained his first starring film role in Meantime(1983). In the 1990s his credits include JFK (1991), Dracula (1992), True Romance (1993), Léon (1994), The Fifth Element (1997) and Air Force One (1997) playing the villain. Being an author himself, Oldman wrote and directed Nil by Mouth produced by Luc Besson, presented in competition at Cannes (1997), and won Kathy Burke a Best Actress prize. Oldman is also known for his roles as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series, as James Gordon in The Dark Knight Trilogy, as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) by Thomas Alfredson. A year ago, his phenomenon performance of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour brought him international acclaim and recognition, and he was awarded the Best Actor Academy Award in March 2018.

The Rendez-vous with Gary Oldman will take place Wednesday, May 18th, at 4:00PM, Buñuel Theatre. It will be conducted by Douglas Urbanski, American producer and artistic partner for thirty years.

John Travolta, Sarah Paulson and ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story’ team backstage at the 2017 Golden Globe Awards

January 9, 2017

by Carla Hay

The 74th annual Golden Globe Awards took place on January 8, 2017, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California.

“THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY”

Golden Globe wins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdMlE3bm4yE

Here is what these Golden Globe winners said backstage in the Golden Globe Awards press room.

"The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story" team at the 2017 Golden Globe Awards
“The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” team at the 74th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on January 8, 2017. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW

What was the most gratifying part of working on this project?

Nina Jacobson (executive producer): The collaboration amongst these actors was a remarkable gift. These are all actors who under any conditions would be first on a call sheet. They all have enormous star power and yet they all work together to support each other in a way that it was immensely demanding. They all just gave so much to each other, and that was very gratifying.

What was your initial reaction when you heard of the nomination?

Jacobson: We were thrilled and excited pretty excited.

John Travolta (co-star/producer): Well, it’s the icing on the cake. You guys are amazing. You are opinion leaders, so you’re approving of our series. If you hadn’t given us all these wonderful nominations and acknowledged to this depth it would have been a disappointing year. And we’ve been very lucky this year, but you made the year, so thank you.

Now that you’ve had almost a year since “The People v. O.J. Simpson” premiered, did it surprise you the depth of the chord that this struck about contributing to the conversation about race in America? And what would you say has surprised you about the resonance of this project?

Sterling K. Brown (co-star): Unfortunately, it’s not that surprising because the show is more relevant than what it should be. You would think in 20 years time in this country that things would have progressed to such a place where you look back and be like, “Oh, how interesting that was back then.” But back then is what’s happening right now and so the fact that a primarily African-American jury in Los Angeles could find fault with the police department is not that surprising. We’ve got a lot of ocular proof over the past two years of police misconduct—an institution that supposed to protect and serve—and a lot of people don’t always feel protected or served.

And so, I think it’s because of all of the things that we’ve been able to see that there’s a level of understanding that people may not have had 20 years ago when that jury made the decision that they did to acquit. I think what’s really beautiful about what our writers and producers created was that the conversation existed in such a way that people who were appalled with that decision now understood the other side and people who actually celebrated that decision got a chance to see the amount of evidence that the prosecution had and can actually say like, “Well, maybe that wasn’t exact the right approach either.” So hopefully, both sides started to understand each other and instead of just being in fights all the time.

What do you think O.J. Simpson would think about this TV series? And do you care?

Ryan Murphy (executive producer): I don’t think we care.

Jacobson: We have never met him.

Brad Simpson (executive producer): I think that when we were developing the show, the thing that we wanted is everybody to have insight to what these main characters went through, especially the prosecution and the defense to see the other side. That was the main concern.

We made something that had a lot of complexity; that was the objective of the show. We didn’t really think about O.J. Simpson, what he would think. It was mainly about the legal teams that we wanted to present. That was the objective.

Many people on the legal team are saying that they were little upset they weren’t interviewed by the actors. Can you talk about that?

Sarah Paulson (co-star): I can’t speak to that. I didn’t speak to Marcia [Clark] until I think we had completed Episode 7. We were not trying to tell the story from any of their particular points of view, in terms of their personal stakes in it. This was this was something that we were trying to shed light on that may not have always completely lined up with their opinion about what it was that happened. I don’t really know how to answer that exactly.

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