Mr Bloom may have been absent, but there were screams a-plenty for stars Susan Sarandon and Kirsten Dunst at tonight's **Elizabethtown **screening, with two Orly supporters from the fansite ka-Bloom switching their loyalties to director Cameron Crowe for the evening.
Sarandon, accompanied by her daughter, was full of praise for her director. “He’s a really interesting combination of being playful but very uncompromising in what he wants,” said the star, who plays Hollie Baylor, aka Orlando's mum. "He knows exactly what he wants and he goes until he gets it! He’s collaborative but then sometimes if you want to change a word or do something different, he’ll just say ‘no’.” While happy to be at the festival, it seems that sadly she'll be sticking to the States for shooting: “I would love to work in London, but I have a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old and I’m too greedy to give up being with them. My daughter’s here with me tonight and she’s 20, so she’s out of the nest already!”
Further down the carpet, when not describing what he’d get Tom Cruise for a wedding present (“Music – he trusts my taste”), Cameron Crowe waxed lyrical about his two leading actors. “They’re amazing because they’re very gifted,” he said. “Orlando is an artist, poetic and a little dreamy. Kirsten, in life, is a little more ‘Ok, here’s how you get there, let me draw you a map, are you listening to me, hey! Look over here!’ And those two characteristics together make for a really great couple who are a little like they are in life two.”
Kirsten Dunst meanwhile was a true star, walking around the freezing evening signing autographs and talking to fans (we saw her goosebumps, trust us - it was cold). Read our interview with her in Red Carpet Q+A and check out what she thinks about playing a relief worker in Iraq in Movie News. An Elizabethtown picture gallery of the evening will be up later (which also means we can have a picture of Kirsten in her nice white dress).