Feature: HollywoodChicago.com 10 Best Interviews of 2013

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Halle Berry & Morris Chestnut

Halle Berry Promoting ‘The Call’
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

Interviewer: Patrick McDonald

Background and Behind-the-Scenes: It is exciting, and a real perk, to get the opportunity to sit down with a recent Oscar winner and a prominent film star. Halle Berry was in a provocative and underrated 2013 film entitled “The Call,” and swung through Chicago to promote it with her co-star Morris Chestnut. Ms. Berry is understandably wary of interviews, given her journey, but her co-conspirator Chestnut was goading her and me as the questions unfolded. When Ms. Berry was stuck on a final question (not indicated in the published interview), Chestnut laughed and said to me, “you were doing just fine and now you blew it!” Ms. Berry answered the question exquisitely.

Memorable Quote [Berry]: “I started off just trying to use all that I have. My body is the instrument for work, I try to use it in all capacities. Sometimes when the role requires walking out of the sea in a bikini in a Bond movie, if I can do it, I will use that part of it. If I want to be in ‘Jungle Fever,’ I can also mess up my hair, not shower for two days and be a crackhead. I’m okay looking like that on screen as well. I’ve always tried to use everything I have, because that’s all I have. I don’t want to limit myself or be ashamed of what I have to offer. I know who I really am, and that’s what I use to play different characters and do my job. I’ve gotten more versatility out of that, and got to do different things.”

Director Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels for ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

Interviewer: Patrick McDonald

Background and Behind-the-Scenes: It’s not often that I get to talk to a name-above-the-title person, but in the odd case of the 2013 film, ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler,’ director Daniels found his name in that title because of a legal issue. Regardless, it was the second time I was honored to talk to the electric Mr. D., and he didn’t disappoint, despite having spent the week pulling all-nighters to finish editing touches to his film. He began the interview understandably lethargic, and perked up throughout the questioning as his passion for the project outweighed his physical needs. This was the second time I had interviewed Mr. Daniels (the first in association with ‘Precious’), and he is one of my favorite people to sit down and understand.

Memorable Quote: “My neighbor was a butler. I called him Uncle Monroe, who lived two houses down from me when I was a kid, and was the butler for the owner of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team. I thought of him a lot when I shot the film. But I did the film ultimately because I needed to understand why it was, and why it has been all my life, that when I walk into stores I am followed and that I’m profiled. It slowly chips away at the spirit of a person, it really makes us feel – in a very subliminal way - inferior. It’s subliminal, powerful, insidious, and it can define your character.” 

Joshua Oppenheimer of ‘The Act of Killing’

Joshua Oppenheimer’s ‘The Act of Killing’
Photo credit: Drafthouse Films

Interviewer: Brian Tallerico

Background and Behind-the-Scenes: Few films have the devastating power of “The Act of Killing,” the CFCA winner for Best Foreign Film and Best Documentary. I don’t do a lot of phoner interviews because not only are they often not practical for someone who works from home with three kids but I don’t find them as engaging as I do in-person affairs. And yet I jumped at the chance to speak to the man who made the film that Werner Herzog considers one of the best of all time. And Mr. Oppenheimer did not disappoint. He’s a man who has clearly considered his themes deeply, down to the point of dissection of the art and purpose of documentary filmmaking at its core. He’s a fascinating gentleman and I’m sure I’ll end up speaking to him again.

Memorable Quote: “I’m OK with audiences feeling conflicted but empathy is not a zero sum game. Empathizing with Anwar does not make us any less empathic for the survivors. I don’t think there is ANYONE that’s not deserving of our empathy. I think that empathy is the beginning of love and we simply cannot have too much of it. I think the real reason that the more people empathize with Anwar the better is because the moment that you empathize with Anwar, you recognize that you’re much closer to a perpetrator than you like to think and you open yourself up to the true meaning of the film, which is an exploration of how we do this to each other and the consequences for our common humanity.”

Mariel Hemingway

Mariel Hemingway of ‘Running from Crazy’
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

Interviewer: Patrick McDonald

Background and Behind-the-Scenes: What seemed like an innocuous movie star interview with Mariel Hemingway, representing the activist film “Unacceptable Levels,” led to another film that made a huge impact on me, both in the review of Running from Crazy and in my Top Ten of 2013. Hemingway’s courage in that film, in facing the demons of her almost cursed last name, is unforgettable. I hadn’t seen the film before I sat down with her, because if I had the whole interview would have been about that legacy. She cared enough about herself to run towards the tragedy of the Hemingways, and tell the truth. I saw her at the recent Golden Globes, among the group of women who had been in a Woody Allen film, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how strong she is.

Memorable Quote: “‘Running from Crazy’ was not only a journey of self discovery but it’s about understanding why my family is creative, crazy and troubled at the same time. It was really a journey of making sense of the choices I’ve made in my life. The title is appropriate because I felt I was running from that crazy my entire life…What is wonderful for me now it that I no longer feel I’m running from crazy, based on the choices that I’ve made. What is in your control, can make a difference in your mental well being. That freed me from the feeling that I could go crazy.”

Bruce Dern

Bruce Dern for ‘Nebraska’
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

Interviewer: Patrick McDonald

Background and Behind-the-Scenes: By far, the most unusual and memorable interview I’VE EVER DONE. Bruce Dern has been in show business for over 50 years, and he was relishing taking on the lead role of Woody in director Alexander Payne’s new film, “Nebraska.” I sat at a table with him in a duel interview with another Chicago film critic, and we asked exactly two questions in 25 minutes. The rest was all pure Dern, in a rambling and virtual monologue. The veteran actor jumped from subject to subject, in whatever came to mind for a career that included work with Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Nicholson, Michael Ritchie, Hal Ashby, Francis Ford Coppola and John Frankenheimer, among others. It was incredible to witness, even more incredible to transcript, as the other critic and I split the duty, taking on 12-and-a-half minutes apiece. I then parsed the “answers” by making up the questions. Why mess with the great Bruce Dern?

Memorable Quote: “[The character of] Woody has one principle, if there is anything left. If Woody were Wrigley Field, all the lights in right field are out, so he has to play with right-center, center, left and still get the game in. He misses stuff – but I don’t know if that is dementia, because I am not there, and don’t know if it is Alzheimer’s, because I am not there. I think that he is a fair man and he believes in fairness. Therefore, he believes what people say to him and doesn’t understand why people wouldn’t tell the truth to him…The exciting thing was that Alexander Payne chose me. I’ve been cast well in movies and I can’t complain, and I made some bucks, but I have never had what I would call an at-bat role. This part is the biggest ‘at-bat’ of my career, and there are two out. And if I don’t get on base, everything is over.” 

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