Posts Tagged ‘Movies’
With “The Hunger Games” in the rear-view mirror, the ensemble comedy “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” just ahead and a 14-month-old at home, Elizabeth Banks is tired.
“I’ve signed on to being exhausted for the next 25 years,” the 38-year-old actress says, kicking off her studded stilettos and settling into a sofa at the Four Seasons Hotel.
That’s the price of being a working mom with a successful career that includes starring in three films this year, a recurring role on “30 Rock,” a burgeoning production company and various other projects in different stages of development and production.
“I do like to work,” she said. “I’m very much a sleep-when-you’re-dead person.”
Banks has a very personal connection to “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” She read the pregnancy manual while preparing to start her own family and said it kept her sane during the scary transition into first-time parenthood.
She and her husband, producer Max Handelman, welcomed son Felix last year, opting to use a gestational surrogate after facing infertility. Banks connected to the film adaptation of “What to Expect” because it’s less about pregnancy and more about parenting.
“When I was going through my battle with infertility, I got wonderful advice, which was: Why are you so worried about the pregnancy? Just get the baby whatever way you can get your baby,” she said. “Pregnant women would say, ‘Yeah, pregnancy is really great and lovely, but then you go to the hospital and they give you your baby and you have to mother it.’ That’s the part that’s important, mothering the baby, and at the end of the day, that’s what this movie is about.”
Banks plays Wendy Cooper, a perky lactation expert and pregnancy authority whose own expectant experience isn’t the glowy, blissful one she’d hoped for.
“All the not-so-wonderful things about pregnancy that are possible — like flatulence, acne, constipation, swollen ankles, fatigue and anxiety — happen to Wendy,” said director Kirk Jones. “Elizabeth Banks is just a genius comedian and she played everything so beautifully.”
Though Banks wore a fake tummy in the film, “a prosthetic belly is not the same as being pregnant.”
“It’s an approximation of the physicality you have as a pregnant person,” she said. “It makes you walk differently and sit differently, eat differently, and it provides a wonderful shelf for your coffee mug. And it’s heavy, so your back aches, so it’s a wonderful approximation.”
Though the part didn’t really make her feel pregnant, Banks admits she was “definitely moved at the end (of the film) when they all got a baby.”
The actress will be back on screen next month in “People Like Us,” which she describes as “a beautiful, wonderful story about people who find family.” Next up is “Pitch Perfect,” which she produced with her husband: A comedy set in the competitive world of collegiate acapella. Banks said it’s the hardest she has ever worked.
“It’s like birthing a baby almost!” she said. “Until it’s out to the world, there’s no end to worrying about it.”
The film is due in the fall, right when she returns to the world of “The Hunger Games” to film its second installment, “Catching Fire.”
Her turn as the super-coiffed Effie Trinket has won Banks younger fans and reinvigorated her passion for acting.
“I just love Effie so much,” the actress said. “She’s a really amazing character, a complicated, interesting, wild character to play — the type of character that when you’re a young actor you dream of getting to play, and I get to do it now.”
Even if it is all a little exhausting.
Elizabeth Banks has been cast in the title role of writer-producer Alan Ball’s new dark comedy What’s The Matter With Margie? Myriad Pictures announced today. Banks plays a downtrodden office worker who after years of abuse finally snaps and resorts to murdering her tormenters.
Daniel Minahan (True Blood, Series 7: The Contenders) will direct from Ball’s original screenplay, and Anthony Bregman (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Savages) and Ball will produce.
Myriad has acquired all rights outside the U.S. and Canada and is pre-selling in Cannes. The film is scheduled to start shooting in early 2013 in Los Angeles. UTA Independent Film Group packaged the film and is arranging financing. SVP Business Affairs David Ducar negotiated for Myriad. UTA IFG repped the filmmaker and producers and will sell U.S. and Canadian rights.
“People Like Us” is set to have its world premiere at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival as a part of its “Summer Showcase” series!
Dreamworks Pictures’ People Like Us will have its World Premiere amongst the Summer Showcase screenings. The film is directed by Alex Kurtzman, written by Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and Jody Lambert, and stars Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde, Michael Hall D’Addario, Philip Baker Hall, Mark Duplass and Michelle Pfeiffer. In a story inspired by true events, Sam (Pine), a twenty-something, fast-talking salesman, is tasked with fulfilling his estranged father’s last wishes – delivering an inheritance to a sister he never knew he had. Dreamworks Pictures will release the film on June 29, 2012.
The 2012 MTV Movie Awards Nominations have been announced and “The Hunger Games” and its cast are up for eight awards! Fans can begin voting online Tuesday May 1 at 8am EST, until the awards show airs on June 3 on MTV!
Voting takes place at http://www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/2012/
MOVIE OF THE YEAR
Bridesmaids
The Hunger Games
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Help
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE
Emma Stone – Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Emma Watson – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games
Kristen Wiig – Bridesmaids
Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon TattooBEST MALE PERFORMANCE
Channing Tatum – The Vow
Daniel Radcliffe – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Joseph Gordon-Levitt – 50/50
Josh Hutcherson – The Hunger Games
Ryan Gosling – DriveBREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Elle Fanning – Super 8
Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids
Liam Hemsworth – The Hunger Games
Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Shailene Woodley – The DescendantsBEST CAST
21 Jump Street (Sony Pictures) – Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Dave Franco, Ellie Kemper, Brie Larson
Bridesmaids (Universal Pictures) – Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Warner Bros. Pictures) – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton
The Help (DreamWorks) – Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain
The Hunger Games (Lionsgate) – Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Lenny KravitzBEST ON-SCREEN TRANSFORMATION
Colin Farrell – Horrible Bosses
Elizabeth Banks – The Hunger Games
Johnny Depp – 21 Jump Street
Michelle Williams – My Week with Marilyn
Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon TattooBEST FIGHT
Channing Tatum & Jonah Hill vs. Kid Gang – 21 Jump Street
Daniel Radcliffe vs. Ralph Fiennes – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Jennifer Lawrence & Josh Hutcherson vs. Alexander Ludwig – The Hunger Games
Tom Cruise vs. Michael Nyqvist – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Tom Hardy vs. Joel Edgerton – WarriorBEST KISS
Channing Tatum & Rachel McAdams – The Vow
Jennifer Lawrence & Josh Hutcherson – The Hunger Games
Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn
Rupert Grint & Emma Watson – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone – Crazy, Stupid, Love.
The Hunger Games personality Elizabeth Banks stars alongside a comic ensemble that includes Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez and Brooklyn Decker in What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and we have an exclusive look at the fun movie!
“[My character's] entire background makes her a baby expert and she has every expectation that [her] pregnancy will be wonderful — and is sort of taken aback when everything goes as wrong as they could,” says Elizabeth. “The irony of her life is that she gets the pregnancy from hell.”
Inspired by the well-known New York Times bestselling pregnancy manual, What to Expect When You’re Expecting chronicles the hilarious and heartwarming stories of five couples who face the many challenges adjusting to pregnancy and parenthood.
“I think that this is a very fun and entertaining film that has wonderful actors playing really well-developed, fun characters,” says Cameron. “But it is really truthful to the experience of starting a family.”
Chace Crawford, Anna Kendrick, Matthew Morrison, Dennis Quaid, Rodrigo Santoro, Ben Falcone and Joe Manganiello round out the cast. What to Expect When You’re Expecting opens in theaters everywhere on May 18, 2012 — just in time for Mother’s Day.
Lionsgate Home Entertainment will distribute Summit Entertainment’s Man on a Ledge to Blu-ray
Man on a Ledge comes to DVD
Collider is reporting that the Peter Farrelly/Charles Wessler comedy anthology film (sometimes known as “Movie 43″) has been pushed back in release until January 25, 2013.
Finally, Peter Farrelly and Charles Wessler’s comedy anthology will continue to sit on the shelf, which is a little odd since the movie’s got famous faces to spare. Here’s the cast:
Johnny Knoxville, Gerard Butler, Anna Faris, Seann William Scott, Hugh Jackman, Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, Halle Berry, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Kate Bosworth, Kate Winslet, Terrence Howard, Liev Schreiber, Elizabeth Banks, Justin Long, Kristen Bell, Patrick Warburton, Josh Duhamel, Jason Sudeikis, Chloe Grace Moretz, Stephen Merchant, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jack McBrayer, Kieran Culkin, and Chris Pratt.
All of the actors star in a series of interconnected stories. For whatever reason, Relativity doesn’t believe there’s a date left in 2012 that’s right for the movie. On January 25, 2013 it will face the action thriller Parker starring Jason Statham, and the break-dancing drama Battle of the Year: The Dream Team (formerly titled Planet B-Boy).
