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Emma Cochrane
Edited Empire from Issue 127 (January 2000) to Issue 161 (November 2002) |
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Enjoy The Set Visits.
"That experience was one of many that soured the experience of dealing with people I'd admired, though often it was just their 'people' who made it difficult. But nothing took away the joy of being on big movie sets. In Canada, on the night shoots of X-Men, with the temperature -20°C and everyone knackered, I didn't want to leave. It's fantastic to walk onto a proper, non-CG set and see the actors bringing ideas to life. On X-Men I was in my element, partly because I'm a comic book geek, but also because it had everything I hoped: explosions, a charming, chatty cast and Bryan Singer acting as tour guide. Hugh Jackman was emerging as a star, even from the rushes, and scenes were being re-written to make the best use of him. Although I never repeated my mistake of going to the hotel gym at 5am, only to find myself working out alongside him for half an hour. He'd been training for three months. I tried to match his work-out pace and had to go back to my room and lie on the floor.
"Being first on the set of Harry Potter was even more incredible because production designer Stuart Craig's sets are breathtaking. Once in them, they're everything the readers of the books could have imagined and more. When I went, they served lunch in the great hall on the 'gold' plates and we drank from the goblets used in the film. Hagrid's dog came and dribbled all over me, and a very young Daniel Radcliffe confessed to being an Empire fan and was very keen to stress that his favourite film was 12 Angry Men. Rupert Grint was hoping that there'd be no future kissing for his character, particularly with Emma Watson, as the idea of kissing anybody was the most repulsive thing. I hope he's come round to the idea for the final films."
Will Smith > Elizabeth Hurley
"But what people always ask is who's the best and the worst person I've interviewed. So, the best: Will Smith - smart, funny, willing to answer anything. The worst: Elizabeth Hurley - she said very little worth printing. The most surprising: Sir Ian McKellen, whose X-Men and Lord Of The Rings blog provided the best, most reliable information and showed how being a 'thesp' didn't mean you were unable to talk to those who love movies. My best party: anything hosted by Working Title, which were wall-to-wall with the hottest talent and hosted by a team who were always willing to talk about their films, the source of the best gossip and proper champions of the movies they made. My worst moment: a three-day office fight about how many stars to give Attack Of The Clones (you see, we do care about these things). I caved and regretted it."
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Colin Kennedy
Edited Empire from Issue 162 (December 2002) to Issue 209 (November 2006) |
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Beware The Vacuum.
"The vacuum is a privilege that even most film critics don't experience. You have to be some big cheese at a long-lead movie monthly to be the very first person outside of the studio to see a new movie. On your own. The vacuum is indeed an honour. It's also a scary place. Strange things happen in there.
"Many movie stars have an aura just because of who they are - Robert De Niro, Sean Connery and Mel Gibson spring to mind - but actually those people didn't strike me as particularly charismatic. In fact, they were A Little Bit Dull, Grumpy As Hell and Quite Rude What With Keeping Me Waiting For Six Hours, in that order. In my time at Empire I met the Breathtaking Sex Kitten (Elizabeth Hurley), the Insane Genius (Tim Burton), The Full-On Legend (Dennis Hopper), The Fuck-You Merchant (Oliver Stone), and the Terminally Confused (Woody Harrelson). But I only met three people with genuine charisma: Johnny Depp, Woody Allen and, of all people, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (The Abyss? Fools Of Fortune? No?).
"Before I went potholing, I thought I knew what the dark looked like. And then, helmet light switched off, you come face to face with true blackness, and you realise just how disorienting and hallucinatory it really is.
"Before I experienced the vacuum I was naturally convinced that all of my film opinions were made independently. We like to think we make our own minds up, but in fact we're being manipulated all the time, and not just by John Williams. Even if you avoid all reviews, the buzz will find a way to find you. And in the cinema itself, there are hundreds of tiny prods, from the body language of your friends to the laughter of the audience that subtly shapes your own response. I used to think I made my own mind up. Then I had to do it for the first time.
"So this is the real reason Pearl Harbor got four stars... We watched it in the vacuum. There was just me and Adam Smith in the top deck of a 1,500-seat theatre, him in one row, me in another. It was exciting just being there, and the SFX looked aces in a brand-new print. Nobody giggled because there was nobody to giggle.
"Afterwards, Adam asked me if I'd liked it and I said I thought it was fun (remember, this was the summer of Tomb Raider and The Mummy Returns, so our benchmark was low); a bit long, but the middle bit was exhilarating. A few hours later, Adam's typically erudite review turned up, which made a good case for four stars. Nobody else had seen it. Nobody. There was no advance word. No internet leaks. Nothing. It was a vacuum.
"I okayed the review. There was no time to quibble. We were going to press... Like I said, the vacuum is a scary place. Strange things happen in there."
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Mark Dinning
Edited Empire from Issue 210 (December 2006) to the present day |
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You're not going to dinner. You may get a lapdance.
"I was 24 and still, somehow, hadn't been thrown out by my parents, so I raced home to deliver the news. Dad, though, an avid Hackman fan, was concerned. "How does all this work?" he asked. "I mean, do you have any money? What if Gene wants you to take him out to dinner after your interview?" Christ, he was right. I barely had enough for ten B&H. And I suspected Gene had expensive tastes.
"The next morning Dad took me to the bank and withdrew £1,000 for my trip - even Gene couldn't be that expensive, we reasoned - before depositing me at Heathrow. I was off...
"I got eight minutes with Gene Hackman in the end, shared on a round-table with someone from El País and a journalist from Tokyo who burst into tears when he left and she still hadn't managed to ask him her question about The Birdcage. Keanu Reeves at least gave us 12 minutes, but given he spent half of that mumbling and playing with his baseball cap, it wasn't much of an improvement. The film, The Replacements, did at least have the decency to go straight to video - in your face, Hackman and Reeves! - and I had a sensational night with my £1,000 in a lapdancing bar just behind the Babe Ruth Stadium. (Hey, I was young.)"
Handle stars - and your other half - carefully.
"In the ten years since, I have learned many things about being a journalist in the movie industry. I've learned a superb story about a naked A-list actress and some scrambled eggs that our lawyers have most strenuously asked me not to repeat. I've learned that Russell Crowe will be decidedly unimpressed if, when he demands that you ask him "a smart question for once", you counter with, "Given your sterling work with Michael Mann on The Insider, not to mention your incredible dexterity as an actor, were you disappointed he didn't cast you as Muhammad Ali?"And I've learned that if you drive really fast to make an interview with Angelina Jolie and your girlfriend at the time is in the passenger seat, she will scream, "Slow down, you moron! I'm not crashing for that strumpet!" - which I still think is grossly unfair, both on Angelina and on my ability behind the wheel."
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