Cinema Experts

“The work gets more difficult as you get older. You learn more and you gather more experiences, there is deeper pain and higher highs.”
Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, California to the late film and television director, writer, and producer Bruce Paltrow and actress Blythe Danner. Raised in Santa Monica, she attended Crossroads School before moving and attending Spence School, a private girls' school in New York City. Later she briefly studied art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before discontinuing her degree and committing herself to acting. She is an "adopted daughter" of Talavera de la Reina (Spain), where she lived as an exchange student and learned Spanish.
Paltrow made her professional stage debut in 1990. Her most recent stage appearance was in Proof at London's Donmar Warehouse. Her debut film was Shout (1991). Later that year, she had a small role as the young Wendy in family friend Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991). She also appeared in Malice and Flesh and Bone.
Paltrow starred in Se7en (1995), opposite Brad Pitt, and Morgan Freeman. The film was hugely successful commercially and critically. Then in 1996 she starred in Emma, where she received strong positive critical acclaim, particularly in Europe, and Asia.
Two years later, Paltrow starred in Shakespeare in Love, an imagining of how William Shakespeare might have written Romeo and Juliet. The film received critical acclaim, earned more than $100 million in domestic box office receipts, and received numerous awards. Shakespeare in Love won the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy and Best Screenplay, as well as the Academy Award for Best Picture. Paltrow also won the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role from the Screen Actors Guild. Later that year, Paltrow won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. After her Oscar win Paltrow starred in other movie roles such as A Perfect Murder. In 2000 Paltrow starred in The Talented Mr. Ripley which earned over $80 million domestically, and received positive reviews. She then starred in Bounce with Shakespeare in Love costar Ben Affleck, which was moderately successful, both critically and commercially.
Since then, she has had a relatively low-profile, yet steady, film career with a few critically acclaimed film roles, including Proof (2005) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). Audiences got their first taste of Paltrow's singing ability with the 2000 release of Duets, in which she co-starred with singer Huey Lewis, who played her karaoke-hustling estranged father. Towards the end of the film, their characters resolve their differences and perform a cover version of Smokey Robinson's Cruisin'. The song, which surprised many of Paltrow's fans, was well-received and was eventually released as a single, getting heavy airplay from Top 40 and adult contemporary-formatted radio stations.
In an interview with The Guardian on 27 January 2006, Paltrow admitted that she divided her career into those movies she did for love and those films she did for money.
The Royal Tenenbaums, Proof, and Sylvia fell into the former category, whilst View From the Top and Shallow Hal were in the latter. In interviews for Shallow Hal, she reported did some research for the role by wearing the fat suit she used during filming, and going to a local bar to gauge the public perception of obese people. She said that people refused to make eye contact with her, and she was treated quite rudely on multiple occasions, and the experience saddened her greatly, with regards to how people treat those who are overweight.Since winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for Shakespeare in Love, Paltrow's box-office profile has declined considerably, with her most recent smash being 1999's The Talented Mr. Ripley.

“If I go back to the beginning, I could start it over again. I could go line by line; try and find a shorter way. I could try to make it... better.”
"Proof", the excellent play by David Auburn, was one of the best things in the New York stage in recent memory. Part of the attraction was the intelligent subject matter, math science, and how it connected the four characters one got to meet. The casting was an ideal one, Mary Louise Parker, Larry Briggman, Johanna Day and Ben Shenkman, playing Cahterine, Robert, Claire and Hal, respectively.
Mr. Auburn and Rebecca Miller, a movie director, herself, took the task of adapting "Proof" for the screen. The result, directed by John Madden, opens the play in cinematic terms, no small undertaking in presenting the movie to a wider audience who might not be interested in science, and much less in the advanced math that plays an important role in the proceedings.
Catherine, the 27 year old, at the center of the film, is a woman who has stayed behind to take care of her aging father, a man much esteemed in academic circles, who is suffering from, perhaps, a neurological illness that is killing him slowly. Catherine has, in a way, sacrificed her life in order to see that Robert spends his last days at home instead of at an institution.
The death of the father brings Claire home. This woman, who lives in New York, wants to get rid of everything connected with her father. She even has made plans for Catherine to move from Chicago to be near each other in New York, where things are much better. To complicate things, Harold, the nerdy math student, finds a hidden notebook that might contain a discovery that will revolutionize math. The only problem is the proof might not have been the dead man's own creation.
"Proof" works as a film because of Mr. Madden's direction. We are kept involved in what is going on because we have been won by Catherine, the wounded woman trying to live her life without having to tend to a sick man. Catherine love for math, in a way, makes her realize her place is in the same institution where her father made mathematical discoveries as she will be following his steps.
Gwyneth Paltrow makes an excellent Catherine, a role she had played on the London stage. Paltrow is a welcome presence in the movie because of the intelligence she projects when working with a good director like John Madden. Hope Davis, another excellent actress, plays Claire, the materialistic sister who has arrived and who wants to transform the frumpy Catherine and mold her to her own taste.
Davis has accustomed us to expect a valuable contribution to any film in which she plays. As Claire, she clearly understand who this character she is portraying really is.
Anthony Hopkins has only a few good moments on the screen. But it's Jake Gyllenhaal who deserves special compliment for taking on a role with nothing to hang on to, not even a stereotype, and turning it into a real person with passion, warmth and weakness. Finally, the script is just great as the characters talk just the way people talk, rather than deliver smart-Alex punchlines every five minutes. Maybe for some movies, that's alright. But "Proof" demands and deserves a lot more… 9/10

“I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.”
Hopkins was born in Margam, Port Talbot in Wales to Muriel Anne and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His schooldays were unproductive. A loner with dyslexia, he found that he would rather immerse himself in art, such as painting and drawing or playing the piano, than attend to his studies. In 1949, to instill some discipline, his parents insisted he attend Jones' West Monmouth Boys' School in Pontypool. He remained there for five terms, of which Hopkins does not have fond memories. He was then educated at Cowbridge Grammar School.
Hopkins was influenced and encouraged to become an actor by compatriot Richard Burton, whom he met briefly at the age of 15. To that end, he enrolled at the College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, from which he graduated in 1957. After a two-year spell in the Army, he moved to London where he trained at RADA, at the suggestion of Roy Marsden.
In 1965, after several years in repertory, he was spotted by Sir Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre. Hopkins became Olivier's understudy, and filled in when Olivier was struck with appendicitis during a production of August Strindberg's The Dance of Death. Olivier later noted in his memoir, Confessions of an Actor, that, "A new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and walked away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse between its teeth".
Despite his success at the National, Hopkins tired of repeating the same roles nightly and yearned to be in movies. In 1968, he got his break in The Lion in Winter playing Richard I, along with future James Bond star Timothy Dalton, who played Philip II of France.
Although Hopkins continued in theatre (most notably in the Broadway production of Peter Shaffer's Equus, directed by John Dexter) he gradually moved away from it to become more established as a television and film actor. He made his small-screen debut in a 1967 BBC broadcast of A Flea in Her Ear. He has since gone on to enjoy a long career, winning many plaudits and awards for his performances. Hopkins was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987, and a Knight Bachelor in 1993. In 1996, Hopkins was awarded an honorary fellowship from the University of Wales, Lampeter.
Hopkins has stated that his role as Burt Munro, whom he portrayed in his 2005 film The World's Fastest Indian, was his favourite. He also asserted that Munro was the easiest role that he had ever played because both men have a similar outlook on life.
In 2006, Hopkins was the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement.
Hopkins is renowned for his firm preparation for roles. He has confessed in interviews that once he has committed to a project, he will go over his lines as many times as is needed (sometimes upwards of 200) until the lines sound natural to him, so that he can "do it without thinking". This leads to an almost casual style of delivery that belies the amount of groundwork done beforehand. While it can allow for some careful improvisation, it has also brought him into conflict with the occasional director who departs from the script, or demands what the actor views as an excessive number of takes. Hopkins has also stated that after he's finished with a scene, he simply discards the lines, not remembering them later on. This is unlike other actors that usually remember their lines from a film even years later.
Richard Attenborough, who has directed Hopkins on five occasions, found himself going to great lengths during the filming of Shadowlands (1993) to accommodate the differing approaches of his two stars (Hopkins and Debra Winger), who shared many scenes. Whereas Hopkins liked to keep rehearsals to a minimum, preferring the spontaneity of a fresh take, Winger rehearsed continuously. To allow for this, Attenborough stood in for Hopkins during Winger's rehearsals, only bringing him in for the last one before a take. The director praised Hopkins for "this extraordinary ability to make you believe when you hear him that it is the very first time he has ever said that line. It's an incredible gift."
In addition, Hopkins is a gifted mimic, adept at turning his native Welsh accent into whatever is required by a character. He duplicated the voice of his late mentor, Laurence Olivier, for additional scenes in Spartacus in its 1991 restoration. His interview on the 1998 relaunch edition of the British TV chat show Parkinson featured an entertaining impersonation of comedian Tommy Cooper.
Hopkins' most famous role is the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1992) opposite Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling. It is the shortest lead performance to win an Oscar, with Hopkins onscreen only about 17 minutes total. Hopkins went on to reprise his role as Lecter twice (Hannibal in 2001 and Red Dragon in 2002). His original portrayal of the character in The Silence of the Lambs has been labelled by the American Film Institute as the number-one film villain. Director Jonathan Demme offered Hopkins the role of Lecter in 1989 after it had been turned down by Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman, and John Lithgow. At the time, the actor was making a return to the London stage, performing in M. Butterfly. He had come back to Britain after living for a number of years in Hollywood, having all but given up on a career there, saying, "Well that part of my life's over; it's a chapter closed. I suppose I'll just have to settle for being a respectable actor poncing around the West End and doing respectable BBC work for the rest of my life."
Hopkins soon learned, however, that Demme had thought of him for The Silence of the Lambs after remembering his performance as Dr Frederick Treves in The Elephant Man (1980). The character first appeared in the film Manhunter, which was loosely based on Red Dragon. Lecter (spelled "Lektor" in the film) was played by British actor Brian Cox. Since Red Dragon was considered a remake of Manhunter, it allowed Hopkins to play the iconic villain in adaptations of all three of the best-selling Lecter novels by Thomas Harris. The author was reportedly very pleased with Hopkins' portrayal of his antagonist. However, Hopkins stated that Red Dragon would feature his last performance as the character, and that he would not reprise even a narrative role in the latest addition to the series, Hannibal Rising.

"If you grow up in the suburbs of anywhere, a dream like this seems kind of vaguely ludicrous and completely unattainable. But this moment is directly connected to those imaginings. And for anybody who's on the downside of advantage, and relying purely on courage, it's possible."
When Crowe was four years old, his family moved to Australia, where his parents pursued a career in filmset catering. The producer of the Australian TV series Spyforce was his mother's godfather, and Crowe at age five or six was hired for a line of dialogue in one episode, opposite series star Jack Thompson, who years later played Crowe's father in The Sum of Us and who coincidentally had been educated at the same school which Crowe was to attend for two years: Sydney Boys High School.
When he was 14, however, Crowe's family moved back to New Zealand, where he attended Auckland Grammar School with his cousins Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe. He did not complete secondary school, leaving early to help his family financially. In the mid-1980s Russell, under guidance from his good friend Tom Sharplin, performed as a rock 'n' roll revivalist, under the stage name Russ Le Roq, and had a New Zealand single with "I Wanna Be Marlon Brando."
Crowe returned to Australia at age 21, intending to apply to the National Institute of Dramatic Art. "I was working in a theater show, and talked to a guy who was then the head of technical support at NIDA," Crowe recalled. "I asked him what he thought about me spending three years at NIDA. He told me it'd be a waste of time. He said, 'You already do the things you go there to learn, and you've been doing it for most of your life, so there's nothing to teach you but bad habits.'" In 1987 Crowe spent a six-month stint as a busker when he couldn't find other work.
After appearing in the TV series Neighbours and Living with the Law, Crowe was cast in his first film, The Crossing (1990), a small-town love triangle directed by George Ogilvie. Before production started, a film-student protege of Ogilvie's, Steve Wallace, hired Crowe for the film Blood Oath (1990) (a.k.a. Prisoners of the Sun) which was released a month earlier, although actually filmed later.
In 1992, Crowe starred in the first episode of the second series of Police Rescue. Also in 1992 Crowe starred in Romper Stomper, an Australian film which follows the exploits and downfall of a racist skinhead group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne, directed by Geoffrey Wright.
After initial success in Australia, Crowe began acting in American films. He went on to become a three-time Oscar nominee, winning the Academy Award as Best Actor in 2001 for Gladiator. Crowe wore his grandfather Stan Wemyss's Member of the Order of the British Empire medal to the ceremony.
Crowe received three consecutive best actor Oscar nominations for The Insider, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind. All three films were also nominated for best picture, and both Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind won the award. Within the six year stretch from 1997-2003, he also starred in two other best picture nominees, L.A. Confidential and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, though he was nominated for neither. In 2005 he re-teamed with A Beautiful Mind director Ron Howard for Cinderella Man. In 2006 he re-teamed with Gladiator director Ridley Scott for A Good Year, the first of two consecutive collaborations (the second being American Gangster, due for release in late 2007). While the light romantic comedy of A Good Year was not greatly received, Crowe seemed pleased with the film, telling STV in an interview that he thought it would be enjoyed by fans of his other films.
On March 9, 2005, Crowe revealed to GQ magazine that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had approached him prior to the 73rd Academy Awards on March 25, 2001 and told him that the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda wanted to kidnap him. Crowe told the magazine that it was the first time he had ever heard of al-Qaeda (the September 11 attacks took place later that year) Crowe recalled that "it was something to do with some recording picked up by a French policewoman, I think, in either Libya or Algiers...it was about taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural-destabilization plan".
Crowe was guarded by Secret Service agents for the next few months, both while shooting films and at award ceremonies (Scotland Yard also guarded Crowe while he was promoting Proof of Life in London in February 2001).
In August 2007 it was announced that Crowe may be approached by the producers of the new Star Trek film due for release in 2008, for the role of the villain.