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shipperxFringe renewed! (For 13 more episodes. But, still, more than I was expecting. Yay!)
SMG is pregnant
Vampire Diaries Boss Talks Season Finale
How to Write A Classic Rom-Com
Excerpt:
"I don’t know what they make in Hollywood, but they don’t really make good romantic comedies anymore," Cusack said during a Q&A at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last week. {...}
"'When Harry Met Sally' is kind of a dark movie," Stoller said. "It's sweet and it ends beautifully and romantic, but those are two pretty messed up characters. They're pretty flawed. They do pretty nasty things to each other. It goes to a dark, pretty real place between them. That's why it's a classic. [Screenwriter] Nora Ephron does not pull her punches in that movie."
{..} "She had two things," Stoller said of his meeting with Ephron, who he calls an "idol." "One, was she splits her movies up into eight chapters. And she said, 'Don't repeat a chapter.' There's a different plot move happening in each chapter. She said, 'If a chapter is repetitive, be hard on the chapter. Make sure it's moving your story forward. Question whether it's moving the story forward.' That was one."
And the second one? "We ended up not doing this, but it forced me to think about the movie in a certain way. She said Mike Nichols told her to start the movie with a visual metaphor."
GOT's Gethin Anthony on the Rise of Renly:
Excerpt:
In the War of Five Kings, Renly Baratheon appears to be the most powerful, at least on the popular front.
On HBO's Game of Thrones (Sundays, 9/8c), Gethin Anthony plays young Renly, who's become quite the charismatic young leader in the drama's second season. "He started off as a young man at court, very much a courtier, and had to go through a huge evolution into becoming a king, and not a king with an easy route to power," Anthony tells TVGuide.com. "He's had to take on a lot of responsibility. He's had to become more politically strategic with warfare and understanding armies." {...}
Going into Sunday's new episode, "The Ghost of Harrenhal," Anthony discusses Renly's political strengths, his relationships and that infamous shaving scene from Season 1:
How would you assess Renly as a player in the game?
Gethin Anthony: The reason why I like playing him is I think he's a fantastic man who believes in Westeros being a cultured and enlightened place. His major advantage -- and why he gets on well in the world -- is that he gets on well with people. There's lots in the books [on which Game of Thrones is based] about him being able to talk to queens and serving ladies alike. He can talk to anyone in the court and anyone from the populace. He would be a very popular presidential candidate.
Unfortunately, that's not how it works in Westeros. There are other problems that he faces along the way. {...}
What are his feelings towards Stannis? Why not let him claim the Iron Throne? Why does Renly want it for himself?
Anthony: He thinks Stannis would do a bad job. He worries that Stannis' manner and way of governing is less likely to yield peaceful results. A direct quote from Stannis from the book A Clash of Kings is "Kings don't have friends. They have subjects and enemies." Having another king like that means it's going to be a long, tormenting time.{...}
Your character means a lot to the gay community. Although there were hints from George R.R. Martin's books that Renly and Loras (Finn Jones) had a relationship, it's made explicit in the series. What are your thoughts on this?
Anthony:
What's amazing about the project as a whole is that it has to create a world from scratch. Everything has to be handmade, props, everything because it's all from George's imagination, which is this bottomless well of an imagination. And
in that world, as a sort of paradigm of our own world, there are complex human relationships and complex sexual relationships as we see in most episodes. I think it was absolutely right that they would have a homosexual relationship of some kind. I think it's kind of that idea of why not? If you see the full gamut of human experience, that relationship is very much part of our human experience and it's fantastic it's being reflected on the show.
That said, it's not all bliss between Renly and Loras. As a strong knight, Loras seems a little miffed that Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) was given a place in the King's Guard. That was a new scene written specifically for the show.
Anthony: The obvious answer to that is always this: the show is not told solely from the point of view of the characters. You get to see behind the scenes, and Renly and Loras have an affectionate, loving relationship. But, like any relationship, it has obstacles and barriers to it running smoothly. I think that added scene fit in very nicely because it adds to the drama in the relationship.
Why does Renly promote Brienne to an honor post in the King's guard? How does he see her?
Anthony: I think he thinks she's a fantastic warrior. He thinks she's incredibly loyal. And why not? Of all the people in power, Renly doesn't really see labels. He sees people. Without getting too maudlin and contemporary about where he sits politically, he sees this fantastic warrior.{...}
I have to ask about Season 1's infamous shaving scene in which Loras is shaving off Renly's body hair but also convincing him to become king. It was so nervewracking to watch the shaving process! Were you nervous shooting it?
Anthony: You know what's funny about that is I have a thing about my nipples. I'm quite sensitive about them. So to have a naked blade near any sensitive part of the body is quite nervewracking! And even after I had filmed the scene, while I was watching it, I was equally nervous that something was going to go wrong.
(full article at the link)
GOT's Natalie Dormer's (Margaery) thoughts on the same subject:
Excerpt:
"I think she's empathetic and understanding. There is no malice, there is no anger toward Renly and his love for her brother," Dormer tells TVGuide. "The family bonds between the Tyrells is incredibly strong. She has a lot of love and respect for Loras, and since Loras chooses Renly to love, I think she tries to be supportive.
"The political aspect is practicality {...} to benefit all parties, to benefit their house, to benefit Renly. The Baratheons may be the future of Westeros," she continues. "I think that she genuinely sees that they can be a trinity and that they can work as three. They say that the strongest shape is a triangle, so I think she believes there is an exciting, plausible future of the three of them working together."
GOT's: Joe Dempsie on Gendry:
Excerpts:
The British actor had initially auditioned for the part of Ned Stark's illegitimate son Jon Snow (a part that eventually went to Kit Harington) and then even tried out to play one of Jon's pals at The Wall, but didn't score either role. Thrones producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were determined to work with Dempsie, however, and eventually cast him as Gendry the blacksmith's apprentice, the only one of King Robert's byblows to survive Joffrey's bastard massacre...
[Me: I wonder whether that's true. If so, it is a deviation from the books where there was at least one other one. This makes me curious what else they may do with Gendry]
Gendry has no clue why the Gold Cloaks are hunting him. But if he discoverd that he's King Robert's illegitimate son, would he even believe it?
Dempsie: I think he would certainly be surprised but he'd definitely have to believe it. He knows now that the Gold Cloaks are after him. One of the weird things about the series is that he never actually asks why that is. I don't think he would guess that he's Robert's son. He's starting to piece together that whole thing. There's a line in Episode 2 when Arya is pestering him and he says that asking him questions is bad luck. He's starting to realize that it's strange that before Ned Stark came and asked questions, Jon Arryn did also. He knows that something's up and knows that he must be a point of interest for some reason, but I don't think he's got a clue. The truth would certainly answer a lot of questions for him.
Gendry has figured out that Arya's a girl. How would you describe their relationship?
Dempsie: From what I gather in the books, there's kind of an implied potential romance there for further down the line. But the way the casting is on the show, that's not going to happen. Gendry's a champion for the underdog. He doesn't like to see people mistreated or being bullied, so he helps her when Lommy and Hot Pie try to steal her sword at the end of Season 1. I think he immediately felt protective of her. This is even before sussing out that she's a girl. Now she's shared her secret with him and he's promised to keep it safe. I don't think Gendry has ever been given that level of responsibility before or ever felt like people trusted him enough to do that. I think he looks upon her as a little sister now. That's something he's never really experienced before. The other way around, he kind of reminds Arya of her older brothers.
