From barbershop quartets to Bond, we had a lot of fun talking to people about all manner of subjects in the service of film this year. So we decided to round up our favourite bits so you can enjoy them once again…
One hotel room, a movie star - sometimes two - and your humble correspondents armed with a list of weird and, just occasionally, wonderful questions. These are the raw materials that go to make the entity that's known best as 'The Video Interview'. The terminology is bland but the reality is far from it, as this lot revealed...
The Expendables 3 – Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham
Best bit: Can The Stath name all the characters?
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Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes - Gary Oldman and Keri Russell
Best bit: On appearing in Monkey Planet with Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill.
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Noah - Russell Crowe
Best bit: Maximus takes the IMDebunker. Are you not entertained?
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson
Best bit: The duo attempts to name Cap’s barbershop quartet.
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Muppets Most Wanted – Constantine
Best bit: Ricky Gervais’s DVD demand.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Will Arnett
Best bit: Advice on doing the Batman voice.
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Exodus: Gods And Kings – Christian Bale
Best bit: Bale on Dougal, Florence, Ermintrude and co…
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Best bit: The universe does not explode.
Best bit: George Clooney tells us what we can now legally do.
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It’s not all podcasts and videos, you know. Sometimes we like to sit our subjects down and grill them for a lengthy print interview. And we got a few revealing answers this year…
Mr. Turner- Mike Leigh
Best bit: Explaining what his James Bond film might look like. “I have said before that I think it would be great to make a James Bond film which is all about Bond going to see his mother in the suburbs.”
Paddington – Paul King
Best bit: Talking up the “storm in a teacup” that was the ratings controversy. “The only real sexual content is Hugh Bonneville in a dress, which I can see might be disturbing.”
Pride – Matthew Warchus and Stephen Beresford
Best bit: Enlightening American actor Ben Schnetzer in the ways of Norn Iron:
“We sent him for a drink with eight Northern Irish actors and it took him an hour and he said ‘Okay, I get it’. It’s the way they talk to each other. Everyone’s calling everyone else a cunt and fucking this and fucking that.”
The Babadook – Jennifer Kent
Best bit: Keeping things practical. “I was inspired by [Georges] Méliès, the grandfather of special effects. I wanted it to feel like the world of a pop-up book. The book is the way that this energy enters the house, and it grows from that, so I was very clear from the get-go that I wanted to do stop-motion for any effects of the Babadook, or I wanted to do it in camera at the very least – and we did! We stuck to that.”
Obvious Child – Jenny Slate and Gillian Robespierre
Best bit: On how farts can save the world. “I think farts are universally funny. I think that’s what’s going to bring peace to the Middle East.”
How To Train Your Dragon 2 – Jay Baruchel
Best bit: On the sequel going further. “When he first starting telling me about How To Train Your Dragon 2, it was clear that – and being a filmmaker myself I knew this already, and I need to put this in quotations – the sequel would be ‘the darkest’ one of the series. And when I say ‘the darkest’, there are no decapitations, or necrophilia, there’s nothing fucking awful. No-one’s mouths are being sewn to strangers’ anuses.”
X-Men: Days Of Future Past– Evan Peters
Best bit: Whether everyone from Kick-Ass will end up playing Quicksilver: “Yeah, Nic Cage is going to play him as well.”
Calvary - *John Michael McDonagh *
Best bit: Memories of meeting M. Emmet Walsh. “He said, ‘Oh, I just met your wife; you have very good taste’, and I said, ‘Oh, thank you’, and he goes, ‘I wish I could say the same for her.’”
Lucy – *Luc Besson *
Best bit: Dismissing Internet rumours. “I’m a little fed up, especially with the internet now, that people can say anything and afterwards they want you to comment. ‘Fuck you!’, that’s my answer. There’s no control of anything and afterwards you’re obliged to comment and it pisses me off.”
The Podcast hit 100 episodes this year – we can hardly believe it ourselves, especially as it doesn’t look a day over 72. Once again we brought in some of the best people to talk about their films, and then asked them very silly questions on a range of topics. You can check out our podcast photo gallery here and be sure to subscribe to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page or this handy RSS feed.
Best bit: Bonneville’s place in the Bond universe.
Best bit: Santa Claws.
Best bit: Insults! And howling.
Best bit: Having a chicken called Sean Connery. Do you see?
Best bit: How pec-popping can be harmful to shirts.
Best bit: Why he won’t be in The Expendables.
Best bit: Quoting his own films in real life.
Best bit: Barry ‘the Datchworth Destroyer’ Norman vs. Bobby ‘Raging Bull’ De Niro
Best bit: Sam Neill naming a pig after her.
Best bit: Cube talks xXx.
Best bit: Oldman reminiscing about sharing “a bottle of pop” with David Bowie.
Sometimes we like to dive deep and talk about movies in outlandish detail. Ever aware of spoilers, we reserve plot-heavy discussions for these special podcasts, where we dragoon in the people who made the movie to talk about it. The usual caution: listen to them only if you’ve watched the relevant films (or in the case of Sherlock etc., TV shows)…
Best bit: Messing with fans.
Best bit: How the Community cameos came to be.
Best bit: Gareth Edwards shares his favourite Easter eggs.
Best bit: Undoing X-Men: The Last Stand.
Best bit: Matt Reeves on directing with pneumonia.
Best bit: Hiding the final credits sting.
Best bit: David Fincher on meeting Tyler Perry.
Best bit: Brain-twisting physics questions.
Best bit: The story behind Katniss’s cat in the bag.
There are some films, and genres, that deserve a little extra treatment, so here is our round-up of the themed interviews we did this year, including taking the Empire Podcast to Scotland…
](http://www.empireonline.com/westwing/westwing?auto=format&w=1440&q=80)
Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing turned hit 15 this year. To mark the occasion in style, Empire reassembled the entire cast for its huge oral history of the definitive political drama.
As the Podcast turned 100, we took it to the Edinburgh International Film Festival to talk to icons, actors and more.
](http://www.empireonline.com/interviews/interview.asp?IID=1962&auto=format&w=1440&q=80)
We talked to the cast behind some of horror’s most terrifying creations, including Doug Jones (Pale Man) and Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger).
We reunited the cast and creators responsible for the little beasts in a big celebration of the Joe Dante comedy-horror’s 30th anniversary.
](http://www.empireonline.com/features/futureoffilm/futureoffilm?auto=format&w=1440&q=80)
One month, 20 features, an array of film industry bigwigs and one ginormous crystal ball added up to a must-read look at the future of the medium we all love so much.