The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Robin Wright is one of cinema’s most inspiring actresses. From the humble beginnings of Kelly Capwell Perkins on the daytime soap opera Santa Barbara, she has gone on to turn in powerhouse performances. To point out just a few of them such as Forrest Gump, The Pledge, and Unbreakable would do her a grave disservice because you haven’t named She’s So Lovely, White Oleander, Message In A Bottle or every other one of her films. She is an actress who has not shied away to from the tough, gritty and sometimes not so glamorous dramatic roles, but has embraced them.

Her newest film, The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee, is written and directed by Rebecca Miller (daughter of playwright Arthur Miller and wife to Daniel Day-Lewis) and tells the story of Pippa, a woman who married a much older man and has now settled into a retirement community with him. She begins to reflect on her life and realizes that she may be heading towards a slow nervous breakdown. From her bi-polar mother (Maria Bello) to the choices she made after she ran away from home, Pippa’s story is told with grace and sometimes humor by Ms. Wright and her fellow cast members Alan Arkin, Mike Bender, Winona Ryder, and Keanu Reeves.

In becoming “Pippa” on screen, Ms. Wright had an advantage. She says “Fortunately, I had the manuscript of the book before it was published as my bible, my guide sheet” she laughs, “My PowerPoint. What two for one! Not only did I have that wealth of information of word on paper, but I also had the source and could get her to extrapolate on things that I needed as an actress. Its one thing to be a reader of literature or reader of a story and you create your own imagination but what’s behind that imagination is the first instinct I would have. And I think we speak the same language, or… I understand hers and she understands mine.”

Understanding is a big part of this film. As Pippa examines her life, she recalls the events of that created the woman that she has become…and it all starts with family. Maria Bello gives a tremendous performance as Pippa’s mother, a pill-poppin’ unbalanced wife of a minister who swings between manic bouts of frenzied attention lavished on Pippa to times of inconsolable depression. “Suky (Pippa’s mom) was overbearing and then absent. There was nothing in the middle. And Pippa became a stagnant façade as a child”. Pippa can only last so long before she, as a teen, decides to run away to the big city where she meets the new interesting and strange people that will shape her life.

Speaking of Maria Bello, Robin and her became great friends during the shoot. “The film was shot in Danbury, Connecticut and there was very little to do between shooting. We were all set up in the same hotel on the same floor. Me, Keanu, Winona, and some of the producers. And we would have time to hang out with each other. Maria and I would hang out and I really dig her. She’s really bright. So talented, such a force.” It’s actually a quality that both actresses share. Both are known for taking on less glamorous roles in lieu of dramatically demanding ones. It is not surprising that they would eventually end up on the same project.
The film actually is littered with expert talent. From Julianne Moore, Blake Lively (who plays the teenaged Pippa) to Monica Bellucci, this film is not want of strong female actresses. Ironically, it is also the male actors who each step up to the plate to deliver home runs every time they are on screen.

Academy Award winner Alan Arkin gives a richly nuanced performance as Pippa’s publisher husband whose infidelity becomes a catalyst for change in her life. Working with Arkin was dream. “I would have conversations with him. He’s big on philosophy. I loved talking to him. Or I should say listening to him. He has such a wealth of information. He has got such a cadence to him. We would laugh our asses off. He is such an original. On the last day of shooting I had to tell him “Alan, I really fell in love with you” and he replied (in his classic dry tone) “Robin… you’ll get over it”

While more known for his action films like the Matrix and Day The Earth Stood Still, Keanu Reeves brings a subtle portrayal that many critics and fans will have to take notice of. He plays son of a neighbor who Pippa comes to confide in and eventually strikes up a romance with. “He was great. Very accessible and he played with you. You know, sometimes you get actors who don’t play with you in the scene, it is not actually cause and effect off the other person. Which is the whole point of the game… being affected by the other person and that is what alters, modifies your choice and that is the beautiful surprise in this craft that we’re in. You yearn for it. You yearn to have those moments where you think Wow, I don’t even know what just happened but that was great! or that connection was so far outside my box and it can bring the scene to a whole other level. When you have actors that are totally open and are just reacting to what’s in the air that you both have just created, there’s a safety net there. And when you have that safety net, when you have that trust… you can run the gamut. And Keanu was very much like that. He was very giving and open. I thought he was perfect for the role. He was great.”

The film is filled many of those “real” moments. Moments that could come off as cliché , but instead resonate with real experience. It’s the difference between sincerity and apathy in film making. There is a real heart behind this movie. When asked about what she hoped she conveyed through Pippa on screen Robin replied “Your true self can only hide for so long. You can’t hide from yourself. The truth reigns”
Ultimately that’s what The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is all about. That if we live our lives for other people, and not ourselves, we risk losing not only who we are but the person we have the opportunity to be. Rarely, do we have such extraordinary talent to weave the fabric of storytelling so delicately yet with such strength.

Looking For Trouble

Director Sebastian Gutierrez has a big smile on his face. He’s got to. His latest film, Women In Trouble, has gotten rave reviews at every film festival since it’s premiere at SXSW… and its not hard to see why. This perfect “date” film is the interconnecting stories of eight women having a bad in L.A. Super sexy, hilariously funny and at times jaw-dropping outrageous, this movie has something for everyone. Actresses Carla Gugino (Sin City), Marley Shelton (Grindhouse) and Sebastian himself took a few minutes to hang with Jeremy Maron of HollywoodJam (Because they are awesome!) and talked about how fun it was to make their film, future projects and getting your girlfriend to dress up like a porn star.

HJ- ( To Sebastian) Obviously this is a project of love for you. Can you talk a little bit about your decision of who to cast?
SG- Yeah, it became a matter of I found myself in a situation where I knew a lot of actresses, or had worked with a lot of actresses, who weren't really being utilized that much. I felt that, in Hollywood, it seems like not that many women can either be the good girl or the bad girl, and I thought well, it's be cool to tie the good girl and bad girl together and give the actresses something to do. So I wrote a lot of the parts with people in mind, either people that I had worked with or friends of friends. Connie, I met through Carla (Gugino). Carla and Connie did Spin City together years ago. So I've known Connie for a while and I've been a big fan and we've always wanted to find something to work on together. And then through Connie is how I met Adrianne (Palicki) because they were doing Friday Night Lights together.

HJ- (To Marley) Did you know Sebastian and Carla from before as well?

MS- Yes, I've known Sebastian for several years, and Carla as well, she's a very good friend of mine. My husband produced a movie that Sebastian directed called Judas' Kiss, and Carla stared in it. And so I met the two of them through my husband originally and Carla and I have worked together a couple of times. We were both in Sin City and we did a movie called Our Lady of Victory, that hasn't come out yet.

HJ-(to Marley) What’s your role?

MS- I play a flight attendant who is engaged to be married and decides to have one last hurrah and join the mile high club, but unfortunately it all goes array.

HJ- Yes, it goes terribly south, in a hilarious way. But it was really fun to see Josh Brolin with that accent. I just kind of assumed he was trying to pull of a Mick Jagger-esque or Keith Richards…?

MS- Keith Richards, absolutely. Yeah, I'm not sure what his inspiration was, although, I thought he did a great send-up too. It was really -- he's so amazingly talented and just pulled that out of the hat and was so gracious to lend us his time and talent for the day.

HJ- Speaking of, (To Sebastian) talk about the men in this film. You’ve got some incredible actors there as well. Simon Baker, Josh Brolin, and Joseph Gordon –Levitt who had a very small role in this film, almost a cameo, but I understand he's going to be in the next film a little bit more.

GS-Yeah, it's definitely a cameo in this movie. What happened was once we were making the first movie, all these people came out of the woodwork saying I'll come and play. And Joe's somebody that I’m a huge fan of. So I wrote his character for him that we were toying with the idea of making these sort of internet web-isodes of this character Burt Rodriguez, who's this clueless sex blogger. And we decided to shoot one and we didn't know where it was going to go. And we thought the scene turned out so well that we put it as this sort of epiloge to this movie because his character becomes the narrator of the second story. So it's a tip of the hat to introduce where the story is going to go. (note to reader, watch this movie all the way through the credits. It’s hilarious)

HJ- Well, what some people don't know is that this is actually the first in a trilogy of films and the second is Electra Luxx?.

GS-Electra Luxx, which is Carla’s character.

HJ-So are you on your way to the third film? What's going on with that?
GS-Yes, well we're just finishing post on the second one, within a matter of days. And then the third one, the scrip is ready and the plan is to shoot at some point early next year. There's so many schedules to juggle here that it really becomes a matter of when do when have about 80 percent of the people available in a 2-week period that we can actually say we're going and then figure out how to get the other people in. But the second movie, I'm really excited by. It was really important to me when we decided to turn this into a trilogy, it was less this story requires three movies and more there's some interesting characters here, I've always liked in novels, for example, you can have a side character in one book but then he turns into the protagonist in the next book. I've always wanted to be able to do that with movies. So, there were certain characters here that I thought, there are other stories we could put these characters in that don't necessarily need to be an exact tone or exact continuation of remaking the same movie three times. So the second one has touches of other things like perhaps more comedy and there's musical elements in it and it takes about half of the characters of this story into other places. And then the third one kind of blends -- the third one is a whole different thing, more of a rogue movie. So it's been really fun turning this into a trilogy and having people say well, a trilogy like Lord of the Rings? I mean why shouldn't there be a trilogy about women and their misadventures in the modern world of L.A.? So, yes, that's what's happening with those.

HJ- (to Carla Gugino)- What was it like to have your boyfriend direct you to be a porn star?

CG-It's funny. I hadn't really thought about the fact that Sebastian had written me the role of a porn star when I first read the script because I was just so excited about what a complex woman she was. Funny, sexy, in moments seemingly superficial and ultimately, painfully honest... So, when we were on set for the first day of shooting and I was covered in fake eyelashes, lots of lip gloss, VERY high heels and not much else, I looked over at the monitor and thought, "Thank God Sebastian is directing this!"

HJ-To (Carla) What was the best part of filming for you?
I think what was the most fun about making this movie was getting to come to work with all of my friends whom I deeply respect as actors and people and just play. We're all so busy and love our jobs so much that to get to act together and hang out together is such a treat!

HJ-Who is this movie going to appeal to: Men or Women?

CG- This movie has a surprisingly wide audience appeal. Women of all ages will love it because it follows 10 very different multifaceted women and all the trouble that they encounter. Men really appreciate the journey it takes you on as an audience, and of course the lingerie clad ladies...But in all seriousness, it is a really funny, character driven compelling ride that keeps you genuinely engaged.


SG-This is a comedy for both men and women. I would not consider this a chick flick, it's definitely got something for everybody. Ideally, we made a date movie that the guy's not going to be unhappy that he got dragged into. And that's the response that I've gotten. The most interesting response I've gotten is from men who've said, wow, I went to see this movie because there's a lot of hot chicks in it and I found myself really caring for these characters and seeing a whole different side to them that I really appreciated and it didn't offend my intelligence and they were good looking people.

Yes they are. Women In Trouble an outrageous, genre-bending, multi-layered comedy about one day in the lives of ten seemingly disparate women -- including a porn star, a flight attendant, a psychiatrist, a masseuse, a bartender and a pair of call girls -- all with one thing in common: trouble. Carla Gugino ("Sin City") stars as Elektra Luxx, a world-famous porn star whose future is thrown for a loop with the news that she's pregnant and Adrianne Palicki ("Friday Night Lights") is Holly Rocket, a not-too-bright adult industry newcomer. Their paths intersect with, among others, a hilariously suave British Rock Star (Josh Brolin), a bright neurotic with a dark past (Connie Britton, "Friday Night Lights") and a call girl with a tricky client (Emmanuelle Chriqui, "Entourage"). The talented cast also includes Marley Shelton (“Grindhouse”), Simon Baker (“The Mentalist”), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt ('500 Days Of Summer"
Check out the website! http://www.screenmediafilms.net/wit/index.html

Just in! Electra Luxx will premiere at this year's SXSW!

GOOD DICK

Mariana Palka, an aspiring actress from Scotland, met Jason Ritter (Joan of Arcadia, W, and the Education of Charlie Banks), son of the late John Ritter, at a New York acting school eight years ago. They became fast friends and formed their own production company Morning Knight. Promoting their first film Good Dick- “a romantic comedy for the rest of us”, I got a chance to sit down and talk to Mariana and Jason about romantic comedies, Sean Connery and how a visit to a video store changed their lives.

HJ: What is your movie about?
M: Well Good Dick I think is about two people who fall in love with each other and end up having this original courtship that is fun and funny and enlightening and at the end of the day ends up being very sweet for both of them. And I think he changes her life in a really radical way that’s worth seeing the movie for.
JR: The thing I love about the way Mariana put that all together is that you know it’s not all tied up in a little bow and they don’t walk off into the sunset together and you as an audience member think well “I pretty much know what their relationship will be like for the next 30 years”. But at least she’s showing up and they’re going to try. And it’s hopeful in a realistic way as opposed to hokey sort of Hollywood ending. No “running to the airport” or anything like that.
M: Yeah. No running to the airport. But it’s definitely a feel good movie.
HJ: Now, Mariana, you wrote, directed, star and produce in this film. What do you consider yourself? Did you start out thinking that “I want to produce, I want to direct”? M: The order was I started off as an actress and I was doing a lot of theater and I was really excited to work on other people’s projects. I had never written anything before or directed anything before Good Dick. So the order was that I wrote Good Dick. And then I decided to direct it as well as be in it. And then producing it came as a bi-product of doing an independent film; it just made sense to produce it. So Jason and I, we have a production company together, so we produced it through that production company along with another one called Present Pictures. And we had a lot of fun. And now that I’ve had so much success with the film and the film has just enabled so many people to work even more in their given fields. The editor and composer and all the other actors have been given employment just on their performances or what they did on Good Dick.
HJ: What was your decision process for setting Good Dick in a video store?
M: I originally thought of the idea for the film in that actual video store in Los Angeles. So, I was renting a video in there and I thought, “someone should shoot a movie in here.” So that’s where the original idea came from. And then I thought I want to really make something that’s funny and fresh and refreshing and saying something about romance that is fun and so that’s where I came up with the idea. So the video store, the world of the video store just seemed so fun to explore. And it really was, genuinely, you know, such a cool place to shoot in. The people who own it are so great. And it’s funny now because you can kind of do a Good Dick tour if you go in there because you can see that it’s basically our set.
HJ: Jason. You’ve been acting since you were like one year old, right?
JR: pretty young, yeah.
HJ: Theater, TV, film. Right now, what do you like? What do you like doing?
JR: Boy, I think that my favorite thing has been independent film. I mean it seems to me that that is where the stories are and that is where the brave story telling is.
HJ: And a long with that, the diversity of roles that you’ve taken recently have been, everything from Education of Charlie Banks where you have a very tough role, to movies like The Deal where you’re sort of the soft-hearted optimist in that movie. And then you have this movie where you’re, well, strange, but there is a sweetness to the role. What have you liked doing lately?
JR: Well, that, I mean those are the things – with Good Dick and the Education of Charlie Banks, they’re full characters. And with the Education of Charlie Banks, and I’m not trying to take anything away from anyone, but I would imagine that a bigger studio, if there’s more money involved I think there probably would be too many people worried about and actor like me taking on that role. They probably would have like to have gotten someone who was a little more bankable.
HJ: Mariana, can you talk a little bit about the impetus for writing the film.
M: I came back from an audition and I just was feeling very much like the stuff that I was auditioning for in LA wasn’t as artistic as the plays I had been doing in New York. So I wasn’t as artisticly fulfilled and I couldn’t really blame myself for that. So I was looking around at what the options were and I just started to write. I just literally started to write. And so I just I don’t write and outline or anything when I write, I just write the whole thing out. And go over it meticulously and over it and over it and over it again. So I found that to be the best, most organic way for me to do it because an outline just drives me nuts. And so I really was inspired to write something that was about real people and about real characters who really find one another, and really truly change each other. And really have an amazing time, I mean I really wanted to write something that would inspire people and would have people feel like anything was possible, you know, and I think that the film has got such a positive message. I’m so proud of that. I’m proud of the fact that I made something that’s positive. Because honestly I don’t think I could write something that doesn’t have a catharsis. You know like a positive ending or positive message. Because you have to work on something for so long; I’d been working on Good Dick, I started writing it in 2005, so I’ve been working on it for a few years now and it’s had so much success and it’s been really amazing and I think if the message was anything but really positive it would be kind of hard to get out of bed in the morning and talk about it, you know?
HJ: Based on the response that you’ve had from Sundance and everywhere else, why do you think it’s going to do well – why should video stores bring it in?
M: Well I think that it has an element of what I think Clerks had, which is, or an independent movie like Clerks. It’s about a bunch of guys in a video store hanging out and this girl comes in and they kind of dig her and that’s where the movie begins. So I think that it’s really – it’s going to be fun for the people who work in the video stores to have our title because they work in a video store and it’s about them. And I think that the reason why people might want to rent or the reason why people will be drawn to it is because of all the attention the film has received for being so kind of refreshing in terms of the romance and the ways in which it’s fun. I think that there isn’t really another relationship out there like this one in a film in modern time right now. It’s really and interesting period of time to be able to show something that’s so romantic to people.
JR: …and I think it’s a positive film, but in the reality of the world that we all live in. you know it’s not sort of in a kind of fantasy world where everyone looks a certain way and it’s realistic. And I think that that forces it to be more inclusive of people watching the movie. Instead of saying, “well you know that person in that movie, I’m not even that person on my best day.” They can watch this movie and say “whew. Well I’m glad I’m not like that even on my worst day.” Or, “wow, some days I am like that.” And really feel like, I don’t know, I think there’s something about the film that’s a universal thing that I’ve found in almost any relationship – romantic or even friendships sometimes –there’s always this push and pull and there’s something satisfying about seeing it slightly exaggerated to this point in this movie where you can kind of laugh at the characters and also kind of be aware that you’re not always so far around the corner from it.
HJ: Marianna, how cool was it to receive an award from Sean Connery for Best New Director the Edinburgh Film Festival?
M: That was the bee’s knees! It was really cool. It was like receiving and award from the king of Scotland. Because if you’re going to have a king of Scotland, I mean, it would be Sean Connery. It was really an amazing honor, you know. It’s up there with one of the best moments.


Good Dick is a truly original love story. When Anna (Palka) slinks into an independent video store, she catches the eye of one of the clerks. He takes it upon himself to break down her emotional barriers and launches on a quest to make her fall in love with him. Starring Jason Ritter and Mariana Palka (who also wrote, directed and produced), Good Dick was an official Sundance nominee for the Grand Jury Prize and Winner of New Director Award at the Ediburgh Film Festival.