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Six Degrees Between Meryl Streep and Abraham Lincoln

Roger Friedman
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Actually, there are fewer than three degrees between Meryl Streep and Abraham Lincoln.

Streep’s son-in-law to be, Benjamin Walker, signing on to play “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” The Broadway star of “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” is engaged to marry Streep’s daughter, Mamie Gummer. Gummer is currently in the cast of ABC’s “Off the Map,” which shoots on the “Lost” set in Hawaii.

Walker and I ran into each other on  Golden Globe night. At the time, he’d tested for the part of Abe Lincoln, who ages from 20 to 55. He asked me to keep it quiet — which I did– lest he jinx getting the role. It was an 8 month process.

It didn’t seem like much of a stretch for him to play the 16th president of the United States. Walker had just spent two years off and on Broadway playing crazy Indian killer prez Andrew Jackson. He is a versatile actor who will now emerge quite quickly as a star of his generation.

You may recall that I’d reported exclusively last year that Walker was all set for “X Men: First Class.”  He dropped out when he decided to take “Andrew Jackson” to Broadway. It worked out well: now he stars in his own movie and isn’t part of an ensemble. Good choice. Walker first met with the producers of “Vampire” when they’d seen his “X Men” test and thought he was a star. “Vampire” starts shooting in March.

By the way, at the Critics Choice Awards, Steven Spielberg got quite a laugh about “Vampire Hunter.” He’s making the real “Lincoln,” starring Daniel Day Lewis. But he wished this production well. “It sounds like great fun,” he said.

Is Ricky Gervais Coming to “The Office” For Real? Exclusive Flashback

Roger Friedman
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2

Ricky Gervais visited “The Office” last night. On Golden Globe night, you may recall, he told me: “Watch the show on January 27th. It will give you a good idea who’s going to run The Office next.” Uh huh. It does seem from the clip (below) and Ricky’s comments, that Gervais’s original character, David Brent, may be replacing Michael Scott (Steve Carell) at Dunder Mifflin. It would be a coup for NBC and for everyone. The British “Office” only had a short run. And it does seem that Carell is leaving the American show four weeks before the end of the season–not in sweeps but in April–to give the show a cushion between stars. Who else would run the paper company? None of the existing characters, not Kathy Bates (who has her own show), not Harvey Keitel (rumored but just a rumor). Gervais told me he thought Will Arnett was the perfect choice, but he has a show on Fox. Is it Ricky? Barring complications from the ridiculous Golden Globes show (he was great), I’d say so.

Ricky: “Where are you working?”

Michael: “Dunder Mifflin”

Ricky: “Any jobs?”

Michael: “Not right now?”

http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/ep-714-michaels-new-friend/1277371

Charlie Sheen Has Never Had an Intervention, “Has No Close Pals”

Roger Friedman
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Charlie Sheen–now in the hospital after being rushed there with severe abdominal pain–is in a sad spot. Yes, he’s famous for partying with hookers and strippers and living it up. He’s been in rehab  several times and certainly is a drug addict. But a source close to Sheen tells me, surprisingly, that even with all that rehab Sheen has never had an intervention.

“I don’t know who his friends are,” says my observer. “He doesn’t seem to have any. An intervention can’t be your accountant and lawyer. It has to be with meaningful people in your life. I’m not sure who that would be.”

Good question. Sheen seems to have no wing men. Leo has Kevin. Ben and Matt used to have each other. Warren had Jack. But where’s the good buddy in this story?

What a strange, sad story. Sheen’s parents, actor Martin Sheen and his wife Janet, are two of the nicest people you could hope to meet. Emilio Estevez, Charlie’s brother, again, is charming, polite and talented. It’s a little weird that Martin Sheen, a political activist and a take charge guy, has never organized a family intervention. But you never know what goes on inside a family. Think of “Ordinary People.” No one can be judged, but still…

So far today, Sheen hasn’t gone in for any kind of surgery. Reports are that he partied hard last night, and an ambulance was called to his home in Los Angeles at dawn. He remains in the emergency room. TMZ, if you believe them, says he had a “briefcase full of cocaine” delivered to the house.

Sheen, 45, has a grown, married daughter who’s 26 years old. He has two kids with Denise Richards, and two more with Brooke Mueller. He’s been married three times. He once dated Kelly Preston, and accidentally shot her — with a gun– in the arm. The wound required stitches only, thank goodness.

Katie Holmes Non “Bomb” Sundance Flick Nears Deal

Roger Friedman
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The movie that The Hollywood Reporter inaccurately described as a “bomb”– Dito Montiel‘s “The Son of No One”–is nearing a deal at Sundance.

I’ve heard that the Channing Tatum-Al Pacino-Katie Holmes police thriller should be sold, with announcement coming shortly.

Meantime, the Reporter’s Jay Fernandez–who wrote the story in THR–sent me an email today saying that no “smear” was involved and that THR’s Daniel Miller was in the screening room with me, Daily Mail journalist Baz Bamigboye, Harvey Weinstein, and about four dozen other buyers and journalists. Unattended? I don’t think so. I had to sit way in the back area of the press screening room because there were few seats available when I arrived.

But what Fernandez doesn’t get is that he wasn’t there, and we were. There was no “exodus” for the doors, no groans other noises indicating Holmes’s performance was no good, and that the room was full. In the email, he tells me, “The SONO screening didn’t go well.” Really? It went fine as far as we could tell.

But this is what’s happened to reporting in the age of the internet. And what Fernandez has done is turn Miller’s gossip into fact, and that nugget has spread like wildfire. That’s how a smear campaign begins.

Plus, Fernandez’s story also wrapped this item in with “The Kennedys” mini-series being dropped by the History Channel. This is to suggest that Holmes wrote and produced “The Kennedys,” and that her performance as Jackie Kennedy somehow killed the deal. How utterly ridiculous. Holmes is a minor player in the mini-series. She had nothing to do with its production. Like plenty of actresses before her, she simply played Jackie.

So that’s a smear, too.

“The Kennedys,” which few have seen, is poorly timed. This is the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy administration. This simply wasn’t the moment for a Kitty Kelly type treatment of the sex life of John Kennedy. To blame Katie Holmes for that is insane.

PS I’m adding this UPDATE: Pathetic Jay Fernandez of the Hollywood Reporter again is in error. I was not “let go” by the Hollywood Reporter. I had a contract with Nielsen Digital Media that ended on March 31, 2010. When the contract ended, I took this column and left THR. Get it straight, Jack.

Supremes Star Mary Wilson Narrowly Missed Russian Airport Bombing

Roger Friedman
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Mary Wilson, legendary star of the Supremes, narrowly missed the Russian airport bombing on Monday.

Mary and her group were arriving in Russia on Monday just as Domodedovo Airport was bombed by terrorists. Thirty five people were killed.

“We were shaking in our boots,” Mary told me over the phone today from Krasnodar, near the Black Sea. She’s on tour for the US Embassy in Moscow via the Humpty Dumpty Institute, playing sold out shows and lecturing on the intersection of Morown and the US Civil Right Movement to sold out crowds. The boots she’s shaking in are pretty warm, too, considering it’s well below zero.

“Our plane landed at a different airport,” Mary told me, “and we had to take the train into Moscow. It was then that we heard about the bombing. We’re so upset for the families.”

Wilson frequently tours the world for the UN as an ambassador. She also tours a collection of her gowns from the Motown era; the exhibition is following her around Russia, heading to the Ukraine next. It would be a perfect installation at the Metropolitan Museum of New York’s Costume Institute.

Next Mary and her band head to Moscow for a series of dates.

James Cromwell May Take It With Him to Broadway

Roger Friedman
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Happy Birthday, Oscar nominee James Cromwell–beloved star of “Babe.” He turns 71 today and celebrates with a big, big year: he’s directing his first film and he’s heading to Broadway.

I ran into the very tall Cromwell and his even taller son at a Sundance premiere last week. He told me that he’s just signed to star in the revival of the great Moss Hart-George S. Kaufman play, “You Can’t Take it With You.” The play starts an out of town run this summer and comes, hopefully, to Broadway in the fall.

In the meantime, Cromwell is directing his first feature. It will shoot this spring. For Cronwell–who also had memorable turns on “Six Feet Under” and in dozens of other TV shows and movies including “The Queen” and “Secretariat,” he never stops trying new things. His Broadway turn will be his third, technically. He was there twice with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Meantime–I asked James why he was written out of “All in the Family.” Back in the 70s, he caught on quickly as Archie Bunker’s best friend, Stretch Cunningham. But suddenly, just when Stretch could have turned into a supporting player, he was written out. The episode featuring his funeral–when Archie discovers that Stretch was Jewish–is classic TV. Cromwell isn’t even in the show, but he’s the star of it.

“Carroll O’Connor just didn’t want me on the show,” Cromwell conceded. Maybe he was getting too popular. “I was on set, and I told Sally Struthers I’d like to do more. She said, Carroll, we should get him to stay. He wouldn’t have it.”

Oh well: Cromwell’s been nominated for an Oscar, an Emmy, and four SAG Awards since then. His father, by the way, was the famed director John Cromwell (“Of Human Bondage”).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOMYVqnPKlo

“Up in the Air” Star Vera Farmiga Has Directing Triumph at Sundance

Roger Friedman
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1

The very talented actress Vera Farmiga, nominated for an Oscar for “Up in the Air,” is waiting right now to see who will buy her first directed feature at Sundance.

“Higher Ground,” which premiered over the weekend, is an exceptionally lovely piece of work. It’s not a film I thought I wanted to see, and almost left in the first few minutes. It’s an adaptation of the 2002 memoir of a college professor– Carolyn Briggs-– who grew up in a small, rural Christian sect. (I think in the movie the location has been transposed from possibly Iowa to upstate New York.) Not only does Farmiga direct the film, she also stars as Corinne aka Carolyn, a woman who questions her faith as an adult. The memoir, still in print, is called “This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Lost and Found.”

The reason I stayed in my seat: Farmiga never loses control of the film. She creates this community and makes it a full, rich, completely engrossing experience. She’s also populated it with an extraordinary cast: John Hawkes, Norbert Leo Butz, Donna Murphy, Joshua Leonard, Dagmara Dominczyk, Bill Irwin, and the director’s sister, Taissa Farmiga.

Taissa Farmiga is Vera’s sister, younger by 21 years–same parents. She plays the young Corinne memorably for the first quarter of the film. Most people think she’s Vera’s daughter in real life, but she isn’t. If she wants an acting career, she’ll have one.

If you remember Robert Benton‘s wonderful film, “Places in the Heart,” and Robert Duvall‘s “The Apostle,” then you’ll know what territory we’re in. Farmiga and her screenwriters Briggs and Tim Metcalfe–have recreated this insular world that Farmiga said at the Q&A following the first screening could have been about any religion–these people could just as well have been Quakers, Amish, or Hasidic. The movie is bigger than that, and you see it as it progresses–it’s about faith in the larger sense, and what Corinne is looking for when a crisis comes.  It’s about restoring and maintaining belief, not rejecting it.

Anyway, whichever company buys “Higher Ground” gets a formidable film with an Oscar winning performance by Farmiga and a new, wonderful director in her, too.

PS You can read more about the author at www.carolynsbriggs.com

Katie Holmes Gets Smeared by US, Hollywood Reporter

Roger Friedman
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It must be a funny alignment of the stars if I have to come to the defense of Katie Holmes. But she and the film she’s in here at Sundance–“Son of No One”–have been smeared and maligned by the Hollywood Reporter and US Weekly. The result is dozens of automated pickups by blogs, causing a search nightmare based on total falsehoods. I was at the press screening of Dito Montiel’s “Son of No One” on Monday. No one chuckled or snorted when Katie was on screen. No one walked out of the film. There was no exodus, no running for the doors. No “collective groan.” The Hollywood Reporter–now a tabloid effort–reported this even though the writer of the piece was not present. Then US Weekly regurgitated the material from THR. The THR editor, Lindsay Powers, came from tabloid US,manufacturer of celebrity fictions. So you can’t believe a word of any of it.

“Son of No One” is Dito Montiel’s follow up to his very good “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.” Like “Saints,” this film stars Channing Tatum. He gives a powerful performance as a crooked cop. Katie plays his wife. Montiel in a sense has made his “Prince of the City,” very much influenced by the legendary Sidney Lumet. This is Katie trying to break her image of a goody two shoes. She is perfectly fine. Her character curses several times in the first fifteen minutes. No one laughs. Her delivery is impeccable.

Inside “Son of No One” lurks an outsized fun performance by Al Pacino. The THR report –then copied into US–suggests that Al is working with a “wink” to the audience. Hardly. He is chewing scenery and having a ball, but he’s dead serious about his work. The rest of the cast is also quite good, from Juliette Binoche and Ray Liotta to two kids: Jake Cherry and Brian Gilbert.

The end of “Son of No One” may have caused a problem on Monday. There are three or four fade ins and outs mixed with type. You’re not sure the movie is over. Then there’s a “surprise” ending that explains the movie’s central mystery. Everyone remained seated until the end, however.

It does seem to me that Katie Holmes was attacked by THR and then US Weekly. Do they hate her because she’s married to Tom Cruise. We can’t really pile on Katie for her personal choices masked as movie criticism. We may not agree with her personal life, but that’s another area completely.

And to see how it works–a lie, a misreported story, then exponentially grows through the internet and cannot be reversed–is very distressing. It’s the reason why the web is just full of sludge, unmonitored and unchecked. THR should apologize, and US Weekly–which had no reporter there–should retract their story. I just don’t understand the upside of trying to kill an independent feature, shown once to a small audience. It’s a pathetic misuse of the press.

Tobey Maguire, ex-Spider Man, Grows Up in “The Details”

Roger Friedman
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0

If you think about it, Tobey Maguire spent the 90s as a wide eyed naif in movies like “The Cider House Rules” and “Wonder Boys.” For most of the 2000s, he was Spider Man in three blockbusters. At 35, even though he’s an adult, married, with kids, Maguire is kind of an enigma.

Not any more. With “The Details,” written and directed by Jacob Aaron Estes, Maguire grows up. As Dr Jeff Lang, an ob-gyn, Maguire nails “The Details”–which premiered on Monday night here at Sundance–and gives the performance of his life.

This black comedy is really a tour de force, as Jeff manages to turn a simple suburban house-extension project into a nightmare that mushrooms into infidelities, murder, and calamaties almost too hard to explain to his wife, played by Elizabeth Banks as a beautiful comic straight woman.

Maguire and Banks are not alone: Laura Linney is hysterical as a very eccentric neighbor who figures large in their lives. There are also great supporting turns by Dennis Haysbert, Ray Liotta and Kerry Washington (whose character disappears — I hope there’s a resolution on the cutting room floor).

Estes– who directed “Mean Creek” a few years ago–never lets go of the reigns of “The Details.” Maybe this film is the “Little Miss Sunshine” of this festival. He manages to keep the humor high and the pathos just where it belongs,landing “The Details” like a plane in a suburban backyard filled literally with ripped up sof and cute but dangerous raccoons.

Maguire is the real focus here. Not only does he give up Spider Man, he also makes a little “Mary Jane” joke just to signal this is a new chapter in his career. This one should last a long time.

Oscar Snubs: Wahlberg, Affleck, Nolan, Gosling, “Superman”

Roger Friedman
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It’s a great morning for most of Hollywood.

But for some who did excellent work, Champagne may be replaced by Xanax.

Snubbed in the Best Directors category: Ben Affleck for “The Town” and Christopher Nolan for “Inception.” At least the latter film got a Best Picture nod and the former a Supporting Actor nod for Jeremy Renner.

Ryan Gosling — who’s been nominated everywhere else–was knocked out of Best Actor by Javier Bardem. They are each terrific actors. It’s a heartbreaking miss for Gosling since Bardem has an Oscar. Gosling will be back again.

Also, Mark Wahlberg, who really made “The Fighter” come together and come alive–his performance is what holds that movie together. Wahlberg has also turned out to be one of Hollywood’s most interesting players as a producer and an actor. He’ll be thanked a lot on Oscar night.

Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting for Superman” missed out entirely. It’s also won a lot of awards. It’s also the best marketed doc in years, maybe ever. What a shame. The state of the public school system needs the attention.

And Julianne Moore — her work in “The Kids Are All Right” is four star. She’s one of our best actresses. But this year was unusually crowded in Best Actress, and Annette Bening has been waiting even longer for her statue. Julianne will be back, also. Her Oscar is right around the corner.

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