Curio: Keaton and Moore's Vintage Features
Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at 9:30AM Alexa here with some pre-Oscar nostalgia. As many of you know, I have quite the magazine stash in my basement: stacks of old issues that allow me to trace my various pop culture obsessions through the years. In 1989, 16-year-old me was crushing hard on Michael Keaton and was very excited about his upcoming turn as Batman. And then, in 2002, I was excitedly anticipating the adaptation of one of my favorite books, The Shipping News, starring Julianne Moore. Hence these issues of Rolling Stone and Movieline were found in the piles.
I thought a little interview nostalgia was in order for these two arguable (yes, Redmayne) Best Actor and Best Actress frontrunners. After the jump, some excerpts...
Moore in Movieline, Feb/Mar 2002*
*virtually no mention of The Shipping News in the interview, ha...
On having an affair with her soon-to-be husband on the set of The Myth of Fingerprints:
It was awful. Especially because it was his first movie. I wasn't seeing anybody at the time, it was all very casual, but I called Ellen Barkin, who's a great friend of mine, and told her what I was feeling. She said, "You're sleeping with him, aren't you?" I said, " I am not!" She said, "Well, you better not, because you're going to ruin his movie." I refused to acknowledge that, but I felt terribly guilty.
On Boogie Nights:
It was my first Oscar nomination, and people noticed me in a different kind of way. I also feel that way about The End of the Affair because it was a love story-heartbreaking and poetic. But once again, my career has been such a series of small steps...[Amber] wasn't connected through her body to her voice. She doesn't know how to get across any kind of sense of rhythm. You can watch some porn films and see wonderful actors, especially in the 70s. But we chose to do someone terrible. So there's a moment where I push myself away from the chair, while saying a line, and I throw myself off balance. That's someone who is trying to be naturalistic, who doesn't know how to put a gesture in there without stopping. They have no sense of language. You have to do it just right, because you don't want to be making fun of anybody. It only took a couple of takes.
Keaton in Rolling Stone, June 29th, 1989
On his recurring nightmare after taking Batman:
This is what will happen. I'm gonna do four or five of these movies, and it's gonna become my career. I'll have to keep expanding the bat suit, because I get fatter every year. I'll be bankrupt. I'll have a couple of lawsuits going. I'll be out opening shopping malls, going from appearance to appearance in a cheesy van. I'll kind of turn into the King, into this bloated Elvis, smoking and drinking a lot. I'll invent a little metal attachment, like a stool, where the kids can sit, because my back can't take their weight. I can hear myself already - 'Just climb right up there , li'l pardner. Is that yer mom over there? Heh-heh-heh. Go tell her ol' Batman would like to have a drink with her a little but later...'
On why he did it:
When Tim first came to me with the script, I read it out of politeness...all the while, I'm thinking there's no way I'd do this. It just wasn't me. My name doesn't spring to my mind when somebody says, 'Batman'. But I read it and thought, "This guy's fascinating!" I saw him as essentially depressed. I told that to Tim, thinking he wouldn't agree, but he said, 'That's exactly what I see.' The choice was to play Batman honestly. So I started thinking, 'What kind of person would wear these clothes?' The answer seemed pretty disturbing. This is a guy in pain.
Reader Comments (14)
Nat: That interview excerpt is exactly why, even though I view Birdman as a better movie than the movies that contain four of my Lead Actor nominees, I can't really view Keaton as a nominee. A bit too nakedly easy for him.
These articles just don't happen anymore -- so honest, so in-depth.
I love JMoore talking about Boogie Nights. I always wondered how she found that character because it felt so real and so wrong at the same time. Brilliant work.
I absolutely love the idea of Julianne Moore discussing her flings with Ellen Barkin.
Bia-you're right. The internet and TMZ, EW, etc. has changed the need for all that good, longform stuff. Although, some magazines like Interview, Empire, and even More (for older actresses) will provide good reading material like these excellent interviews.
Alexa-Big fan of your Curios feature. Even though it gets less comments than some others, you find really interesting items and provide lots of great narrative. I used to be a collector of classic movie stuff, in my teens, especially old lobby cards, Look and Life magazines, but it makes me feel really OLD when I see a People magazine with Courtney Cox on the cover in a "vintage" store.
P.S. I loved The Shipping News book; really hated the movie (prob. because of Spacey), although looking back at it now, Cate Blanchett was pretty good as Petal, as was Moore as Wavey.
Thanks Pam! I know, people selling "vintage 90s" anything always makes me feel old. Like the Janeane Garofalo joke, "there are actually people who were born in the 90s!" And I found The Shipping News film a disappointment, too, primarily due to Spacey, especially since Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett and Julianne Moore were all so spot-on.
Alexa, thank you for this. As a kid, I was addicted to Rolling Stone. I couldn't wait to get the next issue in the mail. The cover photos are iconic. I remember this one, and Keaton looks so mysterious yet accessible on the cover.
Michael Keaton's NSFC win for Best Actor of 1988 (Beetlejuice) is one of my all-time favorites and directly preceded this interview. I'm so glad Warner Bros. and the producers took a gamble and allowed him to play Batman. Fingers crossed he pulls it off this year and nabs that Oscar.
Julianne Moore was straight-up genius in Boogie Nights, but the less said about the Shipping News the better. (I still can't get the revolting, close-up image of Cate Blanchett's feeding Kevin Spacey Twinkies out of my head. Blech!)
Alexa & Pam -- huh. I thought basically everyone was terrible in The Shipping News (with the exception of Dench but her role was super stock/easy)
Mareko -- i miss those days when critics awards really went out on limbs and made interesting statements. Nowadays a Keaton or a Steve Martin for All of Me would never win.
Those *were* the days...
Nat & Mareko: Why the heck WASN'T Keaton nominated in Supporting Actor for that work? 1988 Supporting Actor looks like an exceptionally weak category to modern eyes. 1. Category fraud taking the prize. Would category fraud even be done if Lead Actor were 10 wide or would the performances currently pushed fraudulently at least push for Lead visibility, especially the ones that know they aren't winning anyway? 2. Alec Guiness in a forgettable six hour movie. Pick it up, guys. 3. Martin Landau in Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Who cares? 4. River Phoenix in Running On Empty. Okay, that's a halfway interesting if standard for them choice even if that movie isn't ranked among Lumet's best these days. 5. Dean Stockwell in Married to the Mob. I admire that being the one that wound up on the ballot instead of a second citation for Tucker: A Man and His Dream, but it will still likely feel weak next to Keaton's Betelgeuse and Rickman's Hans Gruber.
My ballot:
Michael Keaton, Beetlejuice
Christopher Lloyd, Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Ricardo Montalban, The Naked Gun
Michael Palin, A Fish Called Wanda
Alan Rickman, Die Hard
I realize Keaton's screen time is limited in Beetlejuice but, like Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (stay with me now), looms so large -- he *is* the titular character after all -- that I don't even perceive him as "supporting." I would've nominated him for an Oscar for Best Actor, no question, just as the NSFC placed him. But I can understand the case being made for supporting.
Beetlejuice is a leading role. Despite not having significant screen time. The only reason to position him in supporting for award season is due to genre bias. Comedic performance in an off-color horror movie in the 80's---never!
1988 is a surprisingly rich year for movies. In a decade denied its due purely because it took on a more mainstream form at the studio level. So what? It was great. And nothing like it exist now.
3rtful: Really? There are unarguable lead roles, sure, (there is NO QUESTION that Alec Baldwin in that same movie is leading), but Keaton in Beetlejuice is not one of them. To bring in an Academy Award nominated drama for a second, that's like saying Rosemarie DeWitt's Rachel is unarguably leading in Rachel Getting Married.