Feature: HollywoodChicago.com’s 15 Best Interviews of 2012

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StarJonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

Directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton on the set of Ruby Sparks.
Directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton on the set of Ruby Sparks.
Photo credit: Merrick Morton

Interviewer: Matt Fagerholm

Background and Behind-the-Scenes: One of the year’s most criminally overlooked films was “Ruby Sparks,” the beguiling second feature effort from the directing duo (and real-life couple) Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. Their 2006 ensemble comedy, “Little Miss Sunshine,” provided me with one of the greatest moviegoing experiences of my life. The film’s unforgettable climactic set-piece received a standing ovation and inspired a few audience members to start dancing in the aisles. Though “Sparks” is more bittersweet than rousing, it is an even more provocative exploration of mankind’s pursuit for perfection and its inherent fallacy. Like “Sunshine,” “Sparks” was a debut script (brilliantly written by actress Zoe Kazan) that is worthy of an Oscar nomination.

Memorable Quote: [Dayton:] “In a first script, writers are bringing a lot of their lives to the table. There’s more time for the ideas to gestate. Once a writer becomes successful, it’s like the first album of a band. You have your whole life to write your first album, and for the second album…” [Faris:] “You have three months. I also think there’s an authenticity to it. Nobody told them to [write] it, nobody asked them to do it. It came from something very intuitive and deep. All that they bring to it feels very authentic, and their voice comes through in a way that makes us respond to it. Both scripts are very funny and also have the potential to be emotionally stirring.

StarRian Johnson

Looper
Looper
Photo credit: Sony Pictures

Interviewer: Brian Tallerico

Background and Behind-the-Scenes: I love coming back to people that I spoke to years ago and seeing how work, experience, and life has changed them and I remembered fondly speaking to Rian Johnson about “The Brothers Bloom.” I ran into him in the lobby of the Peninsula as mine was the first interview post-lunch and we started talking before the scheduled time. It created such an easy-going dynamic that it made the conversation so comfortable and fun. Johnson’s “Looper” is the kind of film that is easy to talk about and one that will almost certainly grow in esteem as the years go by. Speaking to its incredibly ambitious and risk-taking writer/director about the chances he took, the way he works with his stars, and what inspires him was my interview highlight of 2012.

Memorable Quote:I got no expectations. You have no control over that aspect of it. At the end of the day, it’s important for a lot of people and a lot of reasons but you can’t let it be important as a filmmaker. I’m also just an optimist in that neither “Brick” and “Bloom” made any noise in theaters but found their audience after the fact. The opening weekend and all that jazz doesn’t really matter for what I care about, which is the right audience and people who love the movie finding it. On a long enough time scale, that will happen. And that’s all you can care about.

StarKen Burns

Ken Burns Represents ‘The Central Park Five’
Ken Burns Represents ‘The Central Park Five’
Photo credit: Sundance Selects

Interviewer: Patrick McDonald

Background and Behind-the-Scenes: One of the most influential filmmakers in the last 25 years, Ken Burns continues to be a provocateur with his latest documentary, “The Central Park Five.” Examining a case of railroaded justice in late 1980s New York City, again he points out that the more things change, the more they remain the same. The opportunity to talk with Burns – via phone – was a career highlight for me, and his gracious, intellectual approach to his observations made the interview resonate with me for weeks. Ken Burns is truly a national treasure.

Memorable Quote:When you see that tangible, non-sanitized evidence of our nation’s complicated past – you really don’t diminish what Abraham Lincoln called, ‘the last, best hope of earth’ – you just wish that the idea of American Exceptionalism wouldn’t always be shouted out by people who are unwilling to tolerate those complexities. I believe we’re an exceptional country, I believe what Lincoln said, but that also requires me to be that much more critical of my country. Not just love it or leave it or accept everything that it does. Lincoln was saying if we are this bright beacon, this so-called shining city on a hill, that we should start acting like one.

Click on the name of the interviewee in the headline to read each of the full interviews.

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2013 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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