My Perfect Trio at the "Bachelorette" Premiere

[Editor's note: Please welcome our special guest star writer/director Leslye Headland, exclusive from her press tour for Bachelorette! -Nathaniel]

Hello blogosphere!

I've been in Los Angeles the past few days for press and the premiere of my film, Bachelorette. However, I have to say the highlight of this week is a guest spot on The Film Experience. I used to be an assistant and every day I would read this blog. And every day it would make me feel like life was worth living and that film was the primary reason to keep going. So thank you to Nathaniel for asking me to contribute but ultimately thank you for running this site and bringing joy to little cinephiles everywhere.

Me kissing Rebel's ring. As I should.

In the comments, someone asked if the three leading actresses in my film Bachelorette (Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan, and Isla Fisher) were my first choice for those roles.

I don't write with specific actors in mind. I also LOATHE auditions. Whether it be for a play or a film, a lead role or a small one-line character. I just don't like them. When I work with my theater company in Los Angeles, I usually just meet with someone whose work I love, who I think might work in the role, then we have dinner or coffee and discuss the character and the script. Then I usually go back and tailor the roles for their specific strengths and incorporate any changes that came out of our discussions.  

I cast the film the same way. All three of them contacted me either because they saw the play or because they'd read the script. We talked. We fell in love. We moved forward. All three of those girls are actresses I admire. Women I've watched from afar (as a rabid fan) over the last ten years. So yes. They were my first and only choices because I was lucky enough to get in a room with them and talk them into doing it. 

Lizzy, Kirsten and Isla at the LA premiere

All three of them contacted me either because they saw the play or because they'd read the script. We talked. We fell in love. We moved forward.

I can't imagine a more perfect trio. They are not only hard workers and hysterically funny but they are also, in my humble opinion, three of the most brilliant (and occasionally grossly underrated) actresses of our generation. I am eternally grateful to have met and worked with them.

-Leslye Headland

More from Leslye
Formative Movies from Childhood On...   
Working with Lizzy and Adam on a Pivotal Scene 

And "Guest Starring"...

I'm heading to the airport tomorrow for some much needed time with my mom, but don't fret. In fact, you may have quite an adventure coming up this next week at The Film Experience. The usual members of Team Experience that you know and love like Beau and Jose will be around and we'll also welcome Matt Zurcher of The Family Berzurcher to the blog. Like the rest of us he lives and breathes movies but he's also a musician and plays several instruments so that's, like, going above and beyond.

Plus two very special guests stars direct from the silver screen...

Writer/Director Leslye Headland. Actress Melanie Lynskey.

Leslye Headland the writer/director of Bachelorette (currently on iTunes and opening in theaters on September 7th) and the lovely actress Melanie Lynskey star of Hello, I Must Be Going (also opening Sept 7th) and a frequent face in movies you know and love like Heavenly Creatures, The Informant, Away We Go and Win Win will be here. They will each be taking over the blog for one day !!!

update: Lesley's posts & Melanie's posts

So give these ladies your full attention and pour yourself into the comments once they arrive. It's like we've gone full Mia in The Purple Rose of Cairo and the movies are walking right off the screen and into this blog. Hell, ask them some questions right now in the comments and maybe you'll inspire a sentence or three in their posts.

I'll see you in the comments and I'll be back midweek to snatch back the reigns from these movie muses.

Link Me Like You Mean It

Scanners Alien (1979) in just one frame. On Ridley Scott's compositional skill.
Fug Girls well played, Elizabeth Banks 
My New Plaid Pants Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter in 150 words or less 
The Wrap Metropolis is the world's most valuable film poster. How much will it fetch at auction?
Indie Wire a ten wide Emmy nomination wishlist from Kathryn Hahn in Parks and Recreation (great choice) to Laura Dern in Enlightened "the most burrowing television performance since Tony Soprano" 

Guardian smart piece, neither fully pro nor con on Brave and the evolution of the action princess...

the studio whose most iconic heroes include a toy cowboy, a rat, a fish, a boy scout, and a lonely trash compactor (all male-identified, of course), couldn't figure out how to tell a story about a human girl without making her a princess. That's the problem in a nutshell: if the sparkling minds at Pixar can't imagine their way out of the princess paradigm, how can we expect girls to?

Flavorwire "actors with the worst onscreen love lives" - a fun (?) rundown of heartbreak for Michelle Williams, Leo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Ryan Gosling and more
Huffington Post Mike Ryan took a male stripper to Magic Mike and wrote about their "date". I had this idea too and even lined up TWO of them, former Chippendale's guys that a girlfriend of mine once worked with. But then they both cancelled on account of  'conflicted feelings'. Argh. From conflicted feelings are beautiful movie conversations born.
Coming Soon Angelina Jolie on the very green screen set of Maleficent 
Cinema Blend Viggo Mortensen may smuggle vampires in intriguiging sounding The Last Voyage of the Demeter 

Let's end with two random nifty visuals. THE FIRST ONE IS UNFORTUNATELY A HOAX.

1. It's supposedly a Back to the Future screenshot but I started hearing it was a hoax and I looked it up on The Movie Timeline and it is. The future they were going to was... NOT today :(  I apologize for tweeting and sharing.

2. The second was a birthday gif a reader "Mark the First" made me. xoxoxo Mark.

Isn't it cute?! It totally made my week. At the risk of sounding hopelessly narcissistic ["What else is new?" - all of Nathaniel's friends] I accept birthday gifts all June long  be they handmade and heartfelt blogging fuel like so, generously monetary (see sidebar -- it's only 10¢ a day to make my life way easier) or bartery for those of you with special skill sets in Manhattan; as always I need a photographer, stylist, publicist, massage therapist, yogi, etcetera... I know that you can't always get what you want ♪ but I'm a firm believer that you should try to get it anyway.

The Subscription Rush

This post was prompted by two readers who $ubscribed this week through no prompting of my own at all! Much love. Mwah. If you, like those readers, love the blog and want to help it get even more fab, won't you consider a cheap donation? There's a sidebar to your right and you can choose different options... (the cheapest being $2.50 a month). Tomorrow it's my birthday. BUT, UH, NO PRESSURE.

So here's a challenge if you're resisting: Visit the blog once a day this month (that's easy! And free) and each day decide if it's worth one dime and if so write YES on your calendar of choice. I'll just be standing by with my beggar's cup. There are 26 days left in the month of June. If by June's end you think it was most definitely worth a dime on 25 of those days, sign up. If 300 more of you subscribe I can pay my rent with just the proceeds from the blog. Paying rent is fun. Wheeee. If 2,500 of you subscribe I'll quit my consulting job and make the Film Experience my full time job again (it was when I was unemployed but I couldn't continue on that Depression Era road). If 100,000 of you subscribe I'll fly you all in for a massive party and we'll ride unicorns and bathe in the fountain of youth and I'll bake a cake full of rainbows and smi-- ... what? I'm a dreamer! Don't crush my dreams.

Top Ten Wish List?

We're hoping to reboot all the major TFE series when Labor Day rolls around and the fall season begins. On that note, what kind of lists would you like to see pop up as future Tuesday Top Tens? Y'all kill me when you don't speak up -- there I was dying to know how you'd answer the "tea with famous ladies" and "The Hours for men" questions and you're all speechless?! And with such juicy fellow-reader-provided questions? Anyway here's a quickie list.

Nathaniel's Top 10 Wish List for the Fall

1. A least 6* movies worth debating, loving, building blog shrines to. 
2. Steady stream of blogging inspiration (our job) and increased reader participation (your job)
3. For precursor voting bodies and critics to have their own unique spin on "best" this year, rather than joining Oscar bandwagons.
4. Actress Mania to spread like wildfire starting here and in a new series we're working on.
5. Release of Film Bitch Awards book, debut of video series and best film festival coverage yet.
6. An actual budget to achieve such things. See right hand sidebar if you'd like to become a patron saint of TFE's universe for the low low price of one cup of coffee a month.
7. Michael Fassbender.
8. World Peace. (It's impolite not to ask for it when you're granted wishes)
9. To be hired as a consultant for AMPAS. Good lord but they need the help sometimes. We'll start with their issues with Honorary Oscars and then we'll tackle the other problem areas.
10. Three more wishes **. (It's not cheating unless the genie tells you you can't do that.)

* I didn't want to be greedy
** Oops.