'Rum Diary' Star Aaron Eckhart on Booze, Cigars and Johnny Depp's Entourage

Director Bruce Robinson said that if Aaron Eckhart hadn't agreed to play ambitious real-estate developer Sanderson in 'The Rum Diary,' "we'd still be casting." In the movie, lots of rum is swilled and cigars are smoked. Turns out Eckhart only indulges in one of those vices in real life: "I got addicted to cigars while making this movie," he admitted to Moviefone. Interestingly, he was one of the few who wasn't lighting up at the movie's press conference, where Johnny Depp smoked five hand-rolled cigarettes in quick succession, moderator Elvis Mitchell sucked on a huge stogie and Robinson smoked and drank a beer. By comparison, Eckhart says things were pretty tame on the Puerto Rican set. Your character has a very nice spread on the beach in this movie. We filmed it in the beach in Puerto Rico, which is great because that's where it actually takes place. Often these days, you go somewhere like Eastern Europe and that'll double for NY or Los Angeles or whatever. It's nice to go to a place because the story takes place there. Did it seem like a lot of Puerto Rico is unchanged since Hunter S. Thompson was there? You could go both ways. When you go inland, you can certainly say that. We were in San Juan. On my days off, I would drive my car and go surfing and just randomly go through towns. You wouldn't know that those places had been inhabited. On the other hand, you'd be driving along and you'd see this huge corporation and you'd be like, "What is that?" Out in the middle of nowhere, IBM has set up this huge place and it has its own runway and all the locals work at IBM. It's sort of a surprising little island because it has the American influence and it has the indigenous and they have a little war going on there between the two. And in this you play an evil developer. Yes, I'm an evil developer. [Laughs] And they're getting their own way. I think Puerto Rico's being... of course I don't know what it was like before, but you see sand and water and blue sky and they're trying to get some tourists over there. It's sort of the polar opposite of what Johnny's doing. It's like oil and water. I find it interesting that he has a problem with my corruptedness and my coercion, but he has no problem stealing my woman. [Bursts out laughing] So who's less principled? Right, it's like, 'So much for your morality!' There's a little hypocrisy there. What's it like making a movie with Johnny? I didn't know him before this. I got a call and went and met Bruce and I think that they had seen some of Sanderson in some of my other movies. So I was happy to go along and work with them. Did the set ever get as crazy as anything in the movie? No, Johnny and Bruce kept a really cool, even set. But everyone had worked for Johnny for like 10 years. He brings the same guys on, makeup, crew. Everybody was totally indebted to Johnny. They're saying things like, 'Johnny put my kids through school,' serious stuff. The first day we came on, Johnny was like, ' Hey John, how's Betty? How's the kid?' I started feeling bad about myself that I didn't know who everyone was, but then I realized that they've all done six movies or so with Johnny. Is this a goal of yours, to have your own crew now? God, I'd love to, because you have to go to sets sometimes that are in these desolate places. It would be so nice to make movies with people you know. Clint Eastwood does it, Johnny does it. It's just not feasible in this day and age unless you're number one. Did you hang out much with him? We hung out during filming. We had a lot of good laughs. I enjoy Johnny's company. No, I don't hang out too much afterward and I get the feeling that he doesn't either. It's sort of awkward when that happens. For me, I'd rather just go home and lead a normal life, because the expectations are that you're all there just for work. But I've always been a solitary kind of dude. So do you have a favorite rum drink? Well, when I drank, I would drink rum and anything you wanted to pour. I always liked ... before I said Piña Colada, but I got in trouble for that. They thought it was too fruity. They wanted me to say Cuba Libre. What's the drink with the mint? Mojito. Yeah, I've had one of those before. Those are good. You don't drink anymore? No, it's been eight or nine years. Good for you, that's great. But I did start smoking cigars during this movie. I started smoking them for this movie and I haven't stopped. I've been smoking cigars every day. Do you plan to quit? Or does it fit it any of your upcoming roles? I play Frankenstein next, so maybe Frankenstein will have a cigar through his throat [like the classic neck bolt that Karloff had], and I won't even have to inhale. That'll be hot. [Laughs.] Read our exclusive interview with Eckhart about his role in 'I, Frankenstein.' [Photo: Film District] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook RELATED

'The Artist' Builds up Another Audience Award within the Chicago Film Festival

Peter Iovino/The Weinstein Co. Since it continues its tour of major film festivals, Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist has acquired another audience award. The 47th Chicago Worldwide Film Festival introduced Monday the black-and-white-colored, quiet movie has acquired the festival's Audience Choice Award for top Narrative Feature. STORY: 'The Artist': The Not-So-Quiet Entry The film, the Weinstein Co. releases inside the U.S. on November. 23, has furthermore acquired audiences honours within the Hamptons Worldwide Film Festival as well as the San Sebastian Worldwide Film Festival. STORY: Telluride 2011: 'The Artist,' a basic Black-and-White-colored Film, Is constantly Build Honours Momentum Another approaching TWC release, Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin's Undefeated, received everyone else Choice Award for top Documentary Feature. The doc follows a greater school football team, the Manassas Tigers, simply because they make an effort to win the initial playoff game inside their school's 110-year history. STORY: 'The Artist' Wins Audience Award at Hamptons Worldwide Film Festival An audience award for narrative film appeared to become presented to the German feature, Almanya: Thank you for going to Germany, directed by Yasemin Samdereli. The Artist

Courteney Cox, David Arquette Sell 'Skinny Girl' Comedy to ABC

Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesCourteney Cox and David Arquette Courteney Cox may be building success out in the "large body body fat goalkeeper" Pals joke. Cox and David Arquette have offered the untitled Make the most of Sheridan project, only one-camera comedy turning around a classic over-eater who transforms in to a "skinny girl" and really should navigate coping with her ex in the diner that meets people who choose to consume. Cox and Arquette are attached to executive produce the ABC Art galleries project alongside Mad Love author/co-executive producer Make the most of Sheridan. The untitled Make the most of Sheridan project marks the duo's second purchase and first to ABC this development season NBC gave an issue persistence for single-camera comedy ten years captured, with Howard Morris installed on pen the project that's loosely based on Cox and Arquette's relationship. Cox, Arquette and Morris will executive produce. The pair offer game show pilot Identity Crisis setup at CBS. ABC Cox-starrer Cougar Town is positioned to return midseason. Cox is repped by WME and Brillstein Entertainment Arquette is to apply UTA and Management 360 Sheridan reaches WME and Meridian Artists. Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com Twitter: @Snoodit Courteney Cox David Arquette TV Development

'Anonymous' actor joins 'Paradise Lost'

"Anonymous" star Mike Reid, who plays the Earl of Kent in Roland Emmerich's period pic, has became a member of the cast of Alex Proyas' large-budget adaptation of John Milton's 17th-century poem "Paradise Lost." Legendary Pictures is backing the heavenly epic, which is launched by Warner Bros. under Legendary's overall cope with the studio. Reid will have Raphael, among the lesser quartet of archangels beneath Lucifer (Bradley Cooper), Michael (Benjamin Master) and Gabriel (Casey Affleck). Ever the skeptic, he alerts Michael against having faith in that Lucifer could be redeemed. The Australian-British thesp joins a male-centered ensemble which includes Djimon Hounsou, Callan McAuliffe and Dominic Purcell, in addition to Diego Boneta and Camilla Belle, who'll play Adam and Eve. Vincent Newman is creating "Paradise Lost" via his Vincent Newman Entertainment banner together with Legendary's Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni. Reid, who's presently filming History Channel's "Hatfields & McCoys" miniseries with Kevin Costner, is better noted for playing Prince Harry in Funnel 4's 2010 telepic "The Taking of Prince Harry." He's repped by Luber Roklin Entertainment, RGM Artist Group and also the Privileges House. Contact Shaun Sneider at shaun.sneider@variety.com

Do Gotham Honours Nominations Really Impact Oscar Race? (Analysis)

"Night time in Paris" Today, the IFP introduced the nominees for that 21st annual Gotham Independent Film Honours. It might be nice basically could let you know to see into the truth that:our editor recommendsGotham Award Noms Visit 'The Descendants' and 'Martha Marcy May Marlene' The Descendants and Martha Marcy May Marlene, two Fox Searchlight films, brought the area with three nominations each Beginners, The Descendants, Meek's Cutoff, Take Shelter, and also the Tree of Existence were nominated for top feature Gotham, but 50/50, Drive, Jane Eyre, Constantly, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Night time in Paris, Pariah, Rampart, and We have to Discuss Kevin weren't The Descendants has adopted within the actions from the Hurt Locker (2008) and Winter's Bone (2009) -- two films that continued gain best picture, best director, best lead performance, and finest script Oscar nods -- by nabbing Gotham nods for the best feature, best ensemble, and finest breakthrough actor (Locker and Bone won the very first two) and Felicity Johnson (Constantly), Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene), or Shailene Woodley (The Descendants), the greatest-profile nominees for the best breakthrough actor, will likely win that category and go onto recieve an Oscar jerk, in line with the proven fact that five its last seven those who win accomplished it: Catalina Sandino Moreno for Maria Filled with Sophistication (2004), Can Be for Junebug (2005), Rinko Kikuchi for Babel (2006), Ellen Page for Juno (2007), and Melissa Leo for Frozen River (2008) STORY: Gotham Award Noms Visit 'The Descendants' and 'Martha Marcy May Marlene' But the truth is which i cannot, because: Gotham nominations and wins are actually an expression of simply the tastes from the five-person "committees" which are "composed of film experts, festival developers yet others in a roundabout way involved in the development and distribution of films" who're randomly selected and designated towards the various groups through the IFP The nomination criteria for the best feature, which is designed to celebrate indie films, is really vague -- to become qualified a movie should be American, possess a distributor, and also have occurred "by having an economy of means" -- that nominees have incorporated from Ballast (2008), a micro-budget film having a no-title distributor, to In to the Wild (2007), a $15 million Vital film, towards the Departed, a $90 million Warner Siblings film. The nomination criteria for the best breakthrough actor is every bit suspect. For instance, in 2008, The Customer and also the Wrestler were nominated for the best feature, and Melissa Leo was nominated for the best breakthrough actor, but Richard Jenkins (The Customer) and Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) -- two veterans who, like Leo, experienced career discoveries that year -- weren't also listed one of the breakthrough actor nominees. (Area of the problem is the fact that there's no cohesion between your choices in groups, since differing people pick the nominees and those who win for all of them.) The those who win of best breakthrough actor have sometimes been place-on, when it comes to predicting discoveries... but within the last 2 yrs continues to be not that, in line with the choice of Catalina Saavedra for that Maid over Jeremy Renner for that Hurt Locker (last year) and Ronald Bronstein for Dad Longlegs over Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone (this year). Saavedra and Bronstein might have given worthy performances, however their "discoveries" weren't then but still are not apparent to anybody however the committee that chose them. STORY: Gary Oldman, Charlize Theron and David Cronenberg to become Feted in the Gotham Honours When I go over this season's listing of Gotham nominees, it's as hard as always to know the way the best feature category could include films with budgets varying from basically $two million (Meek's Cutoff) completely up to and including not-very-indie $32 million (The Tree of Existence), and perhaps even greater (since nobody at Fox Searchlight will disclose your budget from the Descendants). And, because the Tree of Existence was qualified for the best feature with this $32 million budget, the other are only able to conclude that Night time in Paris -- that is broadly thought to become a more powerful best picture Oscar contender than the films nominated for Gotham Honours this season -- seemed to be qualified using its $$ 30 million budget, which the different nomination committees simply considered it not worthy of recognition in a category. That strikes me as bizarre. Also completely ignore: 50/50, Albert Nobbs, Another Happy Day, Drive, Jane Eyre, Melancholia, My Week with Marilyn, Rampart, The Way In Which, We have to Discuss Kevin, and also the Whistleblower. Still, despite their inexplicable eccentricities, the Gothams can -- and frequently do -- serve an essential purpose by calling focus on some films that may not otherwise receive it -- sometimes within the aforementioned groups, and try to within the category known as "best film not playing in a theater in your area.Inch Of the years nominees, it had been particularly refreshing to best breakthrough director nominations presented upon Vera Farmiga (the Oscar-nominated actress who made her directorial debut this season using the effective drama Greater Ground) and Dee Rees (who switched Pariah, a semi-autobiographical drama that they authored while interning on movie sets, right into a hit Sundance short after which right into a hit Sundance feature). Gotham Honours Academy awards The Descendants

Randi Zuckerberg to talk at UbiQ

PARIS -- Randi Zuckerberg, former Facebook marketing maven, Doug Scott, prexy of Ogilvy Entertainment, and Marco Ferrari, Boss of Zodiak Active, are probably the industryites who'll take part in the very first edition of UbiQ, a 2-day worldwide digital showcase which will occur June 18-19 in Paris. UbiQ's agenda will feature showcases, training courses and speed conferences. The conference will address all types of digital entertainment, and check out how you can engage, monetize and measure roi. The Business to business event will occur in the Palais Brongniart, the first kind stock exchange in Paris, and can draw nearly 2,000 professionals all areas -- TV, Internet, mobile and games, stated Boss of UbiQ Occasions, Gwenael Flatres, who formerly handled digital business growth and development of MipTV and Mipcom. "Keynote showcases will offer you the problem training courses goes into more depth and, finally, through a number of pre-organized industry focused speed conferences, participants may have the chance to satisfy potential key partners," stated Gavin McGarry, NewYork-based UbiQ conference consultant and Boss of Jumpwire. Partners of UbiQ include Futur en Seine, a festival about digital media and creativeness, and video entertainment site Dailymotion. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com

ITV nabs UEFA Europa League

LONDON -- Free-to-air web ITV will be charge U.K. broadcaster of UEFA Europa League soccer games inside a three-year deal which honours some privileges to ESPN for that tournament.The offer is really a blow to Funnel 5, the incumbent privileges holder for that contest.ITV will air third and fourth-pick Europa League games for that 2012/13 to 2014/15 seasons, using the Disney-possessed sports internet acquiring privileges towards the relaxation from the matches.ITV will air the soccer matches on its digital web ITV4 and ITV.com.But when British teams progress towards the quarter finals and beyond some matches is going to be proven on flagship web ITV1.Funnel 5's relationship using the Europa League dates back to 2008 and soccer has demonstrated popular for that broadcaster.ITV already holds privileges to Champion's League soccer, also run by UEFA, until 2015.ESPN, which supplies U.K. auds with a few coverage of live Premier League matches, can have a minumum of one live Europa League match every week along with a highlights package. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com

Comedy Central Greenlights Review Pilot Starring Andrew Daly

Comedy Central has given an airplane pilot order to examine with Forrest MacNeil, one half-hour comedy written and executive created by Charlie Siskel (Tosh 2.) and Andrew Daly and starring Daly because the title character. In line with the Australian series Review with Myles Barlow produced by and starring Phil Lloyd, the project is really a send-from traditional review shows but rather than films, food or art, Forrest MacNeil looks at the difficult existence experiencesby living them. He reviews whatever his TV audience throws at him: the adrenaline hurry of stealing, the drama of divorce, the results of murder, the question of anonymous sex. And that he rates every adventure on the scale of zero to 5 stars. Forrests unwavering resolve for his work frequently comes at the fee for his wife, his children, his affable neighbor Gary and the co-employees. Daly, repped by CAA and Principato-Youthful, lately wrapped the approaching season of Cinemax’s Eastbound & Lower. He'll next be observed in the feature Everyone Loves Whales.

TNT cancels 'Memphis Beat'

'Memphis Beat'TNT isn't any more walking the "Memphis Beat," getting rid of the Jason Lee starrer after two seasons. Your final decision doesn't leave professional producers Joshua Harto and Liz Garcia unemployed: The pair now offered an hourlong drama, sixties Vegas-set "The Meadows," to NBC via Stuber Pictures and Universal TV."Beat" finished its second 10-episode season in August. It came 4 million audiences due to its finale, its finest total since its series premiere in June 2010, but that wasn't enough to be able to save the series, which came 3 million due to its season-two premiere this summer season and continued to be around that number a lot of the its run. Contact Jon Weisman at jon.weisman@variety.com

Rachael Harris To Guest-Star on Fox's New Girl

Rachael Harris Who's that girl? It's Rachael! Rachael Harris will guest-star on an upcoming episode of New Girl, TVGuide.com has confirmed. The consummate comedian - whose credits include The Hangover, Friends, Notes from the Underbelly and much, much more - will play Tanya, the vice principal at the school where Jess (Zooey Deschanel) is a teacher. As first reported by Entertainment Weekly, she'll help Jess out by loaning the gang a bus for Schmidt's birthday on the condition that she can hang out with them. Fox pulls New Girl until November Harris, who was slated for a multi-episode arc on NBC's ill-fated Free Agents, will first appear later this season and may recur. As previously announced, Fox won't air the next two episodes of the sitcom so that The X Factor can expand from 90 minutes to a full two hours. That means we won't see a new episode of New Girl until Tuesday, Nov. 1.

'Beyond Thrilled': My Week With Marilyn Director Simon Curtis On His Auspicious NYFF Debut

The world premiere of your first feature film — in the hypercritical climes of the NY Film Festival, no less — would be nerve-wracking for any director. But Simon Curtis isn’t any director. He’s a BAFTA- and Emmy-nominated television and stage veteran who’s worked with a who’s who of British acting royalty, a noteworthy group of whom appear in Curtis’s feature debut My Week With Marilyn. Of course, Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi (along with younger stars Eddie Redmayne and Dominic Cooper) all orbit the staggering lead performance of Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe during the troubled making of The Prince and the Showgirl. Movieline caught up with Curtis today to take the temperature of both his My Week With Marilyn experience and his NYFF afterglow. How are you feeling now having your big, buzzy, NY Film Festival world premiere out of the way? I was beyond thrilled with the response in the room — all three screenings yesterday. We’ll see how we get on. But I’m very proud of the film; it feels like a crowd-pleaser. That’s my dream. It’s full of very complicated, sort of upsetting things, but it’s very, very funny, too. Or I always thought so, and it seems the audience did, too. So I was thrilled to hear that big NY audience — that big cinema — laughing. I was really surprised to hear you say yesterday that this was your first film. I know some of your background — the stage and TV, of course, but I would have sworn you’d made a feature previously. Yeah. But there’s “TV,” and there’s TV, and I’ve been very lucky. Some of those BBC things… I don’t know if you saw Cranford, for example. In terms of the cast, I don’t know where the difference is. Frankly, there’s more TV than good films at the moment. [Laughs] But anyway. Yeah, this is my first film. Why did you want to do this as your big-screen debut? I fell in love with the material. I feel in love with the two diaries. Along the way, as we’ve been developing this, I’ve spoken to people about other movies, and they nearly happened and all that. But I decided to hold on for the film that I truly believed in — the film that I cherished. I’ve only thought about this in recent conversations, but it has so many of the themes in this film that are the themes I live my life by. I’m married to an American actress [Elizabeth McGovern] who’s come to live in England. Americans can be Anglophiles; I don’t know what the word is for an English person who loves America, but I’ve always loved America. The idea of celebrity when it starts to go away, as expressed by Olivier and Vivian [Leigh] in this film. These are the themes I obsess over that happen to be in this film. I didn’t choose it for that reason, but in retrospect, that’s why I was drawn to it, perhaps. And also, as a young man wanting to get into the profession, I identify very much with Colin’s voyage into the film. Considering that there were two books, and considering the richness of the material and the characterizations, did it ever occur to you to maybe adapt this as a miniseries or longer movie for TV? No. I always wanted to make this as a film. One of the things that makes this film work is a bona fide movie star playing Marilyn. Michelle is a genius, I think, but not only is she a genius, she’s at the exact right moment of her life to play Marilyn, age 30, in 1956. It’s what I dreamt of: the right person to do it, you know? Well, yes, and I’d agree that Michelle is something of a genius. But do you really think she’s a “bona fide movie star”? Wouldn’t that work against playing another, actual bona fide movie star? You know more about that than me, but for me, she is. Basically, instead of saying “bona fide movie star,” we can just say she is absolutely the right person to play this character now. She’s the right age; there’s so much excitement and interest in her. Also, she’s a director’s dream. She’s such a hard worker, and she sets such high standards for herself. But she also, fantastically for this very complicated character — let alone the risk of playing someone so famous — she works equally hard on the internal character as she does on the external. And of course part of the film is the culture clash between the external, Olivier style of acting, and the internal, Method style. But Michelle does both. Working her way toward the start of the shoot, she was working equally on the body language. That dance that Marilyn does in The Prince and the Showgirl was a way into learning how Marilyn moved — not just in that dance, but in life as well. But then she’d be working on all the internal stuff. And it’s a very particular moment in Marilyn’s life. We always said it wasn’t a biopic; it was a moment in time. And at this time, when she arrives in England, she is now married to the great intellectual who she thought would rescue her from her life and give her intellectual and artistic credibility. She was coming to work with the great Olivier — who, again, she thought would give her credibility. And also, she was way ahead of her time with Milton Greene in setting up Marilyn Monroe Productions to produce her own movies. When she arrived in England, it was like this phenomenal moment that could all have gone a different way. And in some ways, the story of our film — the making of The Prince and the Showgirl — is how all those dreams collapsed. When you have such concrete primary sources as the diaries and The Prince and the Showgirl — and you clearly want to treat each with a certain verisimilitude — how did you go about making sure that My Week With Marilyn is its own thing? Is it just naturally so? Winding back, I was very keen to recreate The Prince and the Showgirl as accurately as possible. But Michelle and I talked about it a lot — about how there’s The Prince and the Showgirl, and there’s also the press conferences and little snippets of Marilyn, but there’s no footage, obviously, of her in private. So that was a world we could make our own. You know what I mean? The casting in any film makes a difference, but in this in particular, there’s something about Branagh’s Olivier that is unique to our film. Whereas another Olivier would have been a different kettle of fish. Another Colin Clark would have been a different thing. Eddie has a particular flavor, doesn’t he? Several attributes — he the authentic old Etonian playing an old Etonian. It’s that sort of thing. You’re also directing Branagh directing his own character and Marilyn on a film set within your set. How do you keep control as these layers compound? It’s very complicated, some of those scenes. I found it very hard working out where Marilyn would do five or even six takes of a line. But the thing about directing is that it’s this bizarre mixture of control and lack of control, and I’m a great believer in the idea that if you cast the right people, they’ll bring something special. In totally different ways, Michelle and Ken brought so much into the room. They’re both such formidable intellects; they know what they know. I know some directors would be quite challenged by that, but I was just very grateful. To say nothing of the supporting cast — Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi… I’ve always believed in being ambitious with casting, because actors can only say no. Never be afraid of asking. A lot of those parts are actually quite short commitments, so we sort of got lucky in a way. Judi had met Sybil Thorndike, and obviously it intrigued her — the notion of playing Sybil. I’d also worked with Judi in two previous years, so that helped, too. The allure of working with Michelle helped a lot, and liking the script helped. Being in London — local — helped. All these things contribute. Julia Ormond surprised me here, too — just totally heartbreaking. Like a lot of actresses her age, she understands Vivian’s heartbreak about having been the most beautiful woman in the world and now, at only 43, being made to feel like she’s passed it. I think modern actresses completely get that. I was wincing. Yeah! Absolutely. But it was very important to keep that in, because had Marilyn lived, maybe at 43, she’d have felt the same. Even when you’re the most beautiful woman of your generation, it can go. Do you think we can even have mythologies worthy of these kinds of interpretations and dramatizations in the future? I mean, there’s Twitter, Facebook, blogs, the rest of the Internet. Is that, too, a time that’s passed? Well, I do think the film is a love letter to a lost time. And I also think that Marilyn was a sort of prototype celebrity in a way — that frenzy around her, that interest in here. I read a biography written shortly after [The Prince and the Showgirl] — while she was still alive — that there was a sort of People magazine-y type of thing. So obviously that was going on. It just wasn’t in everybody’s face all the time. I love your having invoked Lost in Translation as something of an inspiration for this. What’s behind that influence? It wasn’t an influence, but I was thinking, “Can this story work?” And watching one of my favorite film, Lost in Translation, made me think, “Yes, it can.” They’re these two different people who come into contact with each other randomly for this short, intense time, have this impact on each other, and then go their separate ways. That’s in the structure of this film. What’s next for you? I’m not sure. I’d love to do a contemporary American story — without iconic characters. [Laughs] But I don’t know. I was talking to Sam Shepard last week about his collaborations with European filmmakers, and their historical interest in American mythology, landscape and psyche. Do you relate to that? That’s interesting. Yes, I think I do. I mean, for a Brit, I’m very knowledgeable about America and, again, whatever the equivalent of an American Anglophile is for America. I’m married to an American. I spend a lot of time here; my children are American citizens. It’s very precious to me, my relationship with America. You can think also of Sam Mendes, American Beauty, that sort of thing. But I do recognize that, and it has a great appeal to me.

Kanye Visits Occupy Wall Street Protests

Kanye turned up within the NY Occupy Wall Street protests on Monday mid-day showing his support for the demonstrators.our editor recommendsBrian Williams Talks Politics, Occupy Wall Street on 'Late Show' (Video)Occupy Wall Street: Ben and Jerry's Releases Statement of Support Russell Simmons, who's a vocal supporter of Occupy Wall Street, introduced West, who transported a flannel shirt together with a gold grill, to Zucotti Park. They continued to be just for a small amount of time, and West did not make any public speeches. "I merely walked @kanyewest with the #occupywallstreet. I like how sweet and tolerant he wound up being to everybody else,Inch Simmons written on his Twitter. STORY: Hollywood Chefs Join Occupy Wall Street Protests Kanye may be most likely the favourite faces to go to the protests, which have been occurring since September 17 in NY. Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore have formerly proven up within the demos, and every one of them had encouraging words for your protestors. Actor Mark Ruffalo also attended the protests on Saturday, March. 1, when hundreds of protesters were billed with impeding part of the Brooklyn Bridge. STORY: Occupy Wall Street: Protesters Create Print Publication Ben and Jerry's Frozen Goodies increased being one of the primary companies to produce a statement of support formerly Monday. The protests is to oppose corporate avarice also to bring target the inappropriate behavior of Wall Street. Because the protests are actually situated in NY, they're beginning to spread along with other urban centers including La, Albuquerque and Chicago. Related Subjects Kanye Russell Simmons

Yahoo Withdraws Hulu Bid (Report)

NY - Yahoo, which made a preliminary approach that began a sales process for online partnership Hulu, has withdrawn in the putting in a bid process, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.our editor recommends'Arrested Development' Putting in a bid War Breaks Out Between Hulu, Netflix (Report)'Daily Show,' 'Colbert' Go back to Hulu The auction continues with satellite television firm Dish Network, Google and Amazon . com.com still involved carrying out a latest putting in a bid deadline a week ago, it stated. Meanwhile, Hulu proprietors News Corp., Wally Disney Co., Comcast/NBCUniversal and equity firm Providence Equity Partners continue to be weighing whether or not to sell or otherwise, based on the Journal. When they plan to market, Hulu's board could come to a decision within the coming days, it added. Dish, and it is chairman Charlie Ergen, continue to be considered probably the most determined buyer for Hulu, the Journal stated, stating people acquainted with the problem. The organization's recent initial bid was worth about $1.9 billion before the organization stated it might rework the sale, based on the Journal. Bing is prepared to pay a lot more than the $1.5 billion-$2 billion selection of rival bids, however it wants the organization to accept undisclosed specific conditions, the paper stated. Yahoo withdrew its offer among its very own proper review, the Journal stated. A speaker for Hulu rejected to comment, the paper stated. Reps for Dish and Amazon . com.com didn't return demands for comment, along with a Google speaker stated the web giant doesn't "discuss rumor or speculation." Related Subjects Hulu

The new sony Pictures Sets John Calley Memorial

The new sony Pictures has organized a memorial for former studio mind John Calley, who died recently. Listed here are the specifics: Buddies, family and co-workers who labored with and loved John Calley will celebrate his remarkable existence and career on Wednesday, October 19th at 4:00 pm at The new sony Pictures Galleries. RSVP’s are needed by Friday, October 14th to (310) 244-4142. Parking is going to be covered within the Overland Parking structure. All visitors should enter with the Overland gate for directions towards the celebration.