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.