#Aubrey plaza dialogue lesson

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press/Gallery: How Elizabeth Olsen Brought Marvel From Mainstream to Prestige

“The thing I love about being an actor is to fully work with someone and try so hard to be at every level with them, chasing whatever it is you need or want from them.”

  GALLERY LINKS

Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 008 Magazine Scans > 2021 > Backstage (August 19)

Backstage: Elizabeth Olsen grins widely over video chat when recalling many such moments on set with her co-stars. Yet, she can’t bring herself to divorce such a lofty vision of film acting from the technical multitasking it requires. The camera sees all.

“But then you move your hair, and you’re in your brain, like: OK, remember that! Because I don’t want to edit myself out of a shot. I know some actors are like, ‘Continuity, shmontinuity!’ But the good thing about continuity is, if you remember it, you’re actually providing yourself with more options for the edit.”

That need to balance being both inside the scene and outside of it, fully living it and yet constantly visualizing it on a screen, feels particularly apt in light of Olsen’s most recent project, “WandaVision.”

The mysteries at the heart of the show grow with every episode, each fast-forwarding to a different decade: Could this 1950s, black-and-white, “filmed in front of a studio audience” newlyweds bit be a grief-stricken dream? Might this ’70s spoof be a powerful spell gone awry? Could this meta take on mockumentary comedies be proof that the multiverse is finally coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

The series’ structure, which branches out to include government agents intent on finding out why Westview has seemingly disappeared, calls for the entire cast to play with a mix of genres, balancing a shape-shifting tone that culminates in an epic, MCU-style conclusion. What’s key—and why the show struck a chord with audiences during its nine-episode run—is the miniseries’ commitment to grounding its initial kooky setups and its later special effects-driven spectacle in heartbreaking emotional truths. It’s no small feat, though it’s one that can often be taken for granted.

“I was thinking how hard it would have been to have shot the first ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ” Olsen muses. “Like, you’re putting all these actors [into the frame] later and at all these different levels. All the eyelines are completely unnatural. And yet the performances are fantastic! And technically, they are so hard. People forget sometimes that these things are really technically hard to shoot. And if you are moved by their performance, that took a lot of multitasking.”

As someone who has learned plenty about harnesses, wirework, fight choreography, and green screens (she’s starred in four Marvel movies, including the box office megahit “Avengers: Endgame,” after all), Olsen knows how hard it can be to wrap one’s brain around the work needed to pull off those big, splashy scenes.

“​​If you think about it, it’s, like, the biggest stakes in the entire world—every time. And that feels silly to act over and over again, especially when people are in silly costumes and the love of your life is purple and sparkly, and every time you kiss them, you have to worry about getting it on your hands. Those things are ridiculous. You feel ridiculous. So there is a part of your brain that has to shovel that away and just look into someone’s eyeballs—and sometimes, they don’t even have eyeballs!”

The ability to spend so much time with Wanda, albeit in the guise of sitcom parodies, was a welcome opportunity for Olsen. Not only did it allow the actor to really wrestle with the traumatic backstory that has long defined the character in the MCU, but having the chance to calibrate a performance that functions on so many different levels was a thrilling challenge.

“It was such an amazing work experience,” she says. “Kathryn [Hahn] uses the word ‘profound’—which is so sweet, because it is Marvel, and people, you know, don’t think of those experiences as profound when they watch them. But it really was such a special crew that [director] Matt Shakman and [creator] Jac Schaeffer created. It was a really healthy working environment.”

Related‘WandaVision’ Star Kathryn Hahn’s Secret to Building a Scene-Stealing Performance ‘WandaVision’ Star Kathryn Hahn’s Secret to Building a Scene-Stealing Performance Considering that the miniseries spans several sitcom iterations, various layers of televisual reality, and a number of character reveals that needed to feel truthful and impactful in equal measure, Shakman’s decision to work closely with his actors ahead of shooting was key.

“We truly had a gorgeous amount of time together before we started filming,” Olsen remembers. “Our goal was—which is controversial in TV land—that if you wanted to change [anything], like dialogue in a scene, you had to give those notes a week before we even got there. Because sometimes you get to set, and someone had a brilliant idea while they were sleeping, and you’re like, ‘We don’t have an hour to talk about this. We have seven pages to shoot.’ And so, we were all on the same page with one another, knowing what we were shooting ahead of time.

“Matt just treated us like a troupe of actors who were about to do some regional theater shit,” she adds with a smile.

That spirit of camaraderie was, not coincidentally, at the heart of Olsen’s breakout project, Sean Durkin’s 2011 indie sensation “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” As an introduction to the process of filmmaking to a young stage-trained actor, Durkin’s quietly devastating drama was a dream—and an invaluable learning opportunity.

“It was truly just a bunch of people who loved the script, who just were doing the work. I didn’t understand lenses, so I just did the same thing all the time. I never knew if the camera would be on me or not. There was just so much purity in that experience, and you only have that once.”

The film announced Olsen as a talent to watch: a keen-eyed performer capable of deploying a stilted physicality and clipped delivery, which she used to conjure up a wounded girl learning how to shake off her time spent in a cult in upstate New York. But Olsen admits that it took her a while to figure out how to navigate her career choices afterward. In the years following “Martha,” she felt compelled to try on everything: a horror flick here, a high-profile remake there, a period piece here, an action movie there. It wasn’t until she starred in neo-Western thriller “Wind River” (alongside fellow Marvel regular Jeremy Renner) and the dark comedy “Ingrid Goes West” (opposite a deliciously deranged Aubrey Plaza) that Olsen found her groove.

“It was at that point, when I was five years into working, where I was like, Ah, I know how I want it. I know what I need from these people—from who’s involved, from producers, from directors, from the character, from the script—in order to trust that it’s going to be a fruitful experience.”

As Olsen looks back on her first decade as a working actor, she points out how far removed she is from that young girl who broke out in “Martha Marcy May Marlene.”

“I feel like a totally different person. I don’t know if everyone who’s in their early 30s feels like their early 20s self is a totally different human. But when I think about that version of myself, it feels like a long time ago; there’s a lot learned in a decade.”

Those early years were marked by a self-effacing humility that often led Olsen to defer to others when it came to key decisions about the characters she was playing. But she now feels emboldened to not only stand up for herself and her choices but for others on her sets as well.

“[Facebook Watch series] ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ I got to produce, and I really found my voice in a collaborative leadership way. And with ‘WandaVision,’ Paul [Bettany] and I really took on that feeling, as well—especially since we were introducing new characters to Marvel and wanted [those actors] to feel protected and helped,” she says. “They could ask questions and make sure they felt like they had all the things they needed because sometimes you don’t even know what you need to ask.”

It’s a lesson she learned working with filmmaker Marc Abraham on the Hank Williams biopic “I Saw the Light,” and she’s carried it with her ever since. “I really want it to feel like we’re all in this together, as a team,” Olsen says. “That was part of ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ and it was part of ‘WandaVision,’ and I hope to continue that kind of energy because those have been some of the healthiest work experiences I’ve had.”

If Olsen sounds particularly zealous about the importance of a comfortable, working set, it is because she’s well aware that therein lies an integral part of the work and the process. As an actor, she wants to feel protected and nurtured by those around her, whether she’s reacting to a telling, quiet line of dialogue about grief or donning her iconic Scarlet Witch outfit during a magic-filled mid-air action sequence.

“Sometimes you’re going to be foolish, you know? And [you need to] feel brave to be foolish. Sometimes people feel embarrassed on set and snap. But if you’re in a place where people feel like they’re allowed to be an idiot,” she says, “you’re going to feel better about being an idiot.”

This story originally appeared in the Aug. 19 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.

Press/Gallery: How Elizabeth Olsen Brought Marvel From Mainstream to Prestige was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

[class-wom]

Yet a more thorough description of the footage shown at WonderCon 2019 in this article.  Whoa!!!  (In case you’d rather not be spoiled, I took the liberty of bolding and italicizing it so that you can skip through it if necessary.  I will say, however, that the audiobook-part cracks me up -- LOL!)

FX's Legion panel at WonderCon 2019 kicked off with an exclusive look at the upcoming Season 3, which the network has stated will be the show's final season. The clip was from the new season's opening episode.

The lengthy footage starred a new addition to the cast in Season 3, Lauren Tsai, who plays a character named Switch. The clip didn't have a lot of dialogue or many clear connections to the story as we know it, although we can infer some things. We essentially followed a day in Switch's life: She eats breakfast with her father via teleconference on the screen of a 1960s style TV (the show remains era agnostic, as always), she goes to school, she listens all day to an audiobook called "Lessons In Time Travel."

In the footage, we only got one glimpse of her using that power--as she encounters increasingly strange coincidences throughout her day, including mysterious fliers posted around the city, she eventually tunes a radio to a specific station to catch a secret message. Having missed it by seconds, she draws a line in the air, and the scene apparently rewinds a few seconds to her plucking the radio from a closet again. A voice tells her without ambiguity: "Follow the yellow bus." And the voice sending the message? It sounded a whole lot like Dan Stevens' protagonist-ish hero-turned-villain, David Haller.

The bus leads her to a back alley door into a bright white room filled with racks of clothing, shifting desks, and singing hippies. After a funky musical number, the desks all shift together to form a tunnel. As Switch crawls on her hands and knees, she passes through skyscrapers, office buildings, a forest, a ship, the bottom of the ocean, and more, the scene shifting around her in a kaleidoscope of weirdness. Finally, on the other end, she's greeted by an unfamiliar woman, and the scene ends.

Tsai shared during the panel afterward that this is her first work in scripted entertainment. "It's crazy for me to watch it now," she said. "I'm really excited for you all to see and get to know Switch. It's going to be a very interesting season, and it's been a crazy time of learning for me."

The panel included Tsai and Stevens, as well as Amber Midthunder (Kerry), Jeremie Harris (Ptonomy), Navid Negahban (Amahl Farouk), Aubrey Plaza (Lenny), Rachel Keller (Syd Barrett), Marvel Television's Jeph Loeb, executive producer Lauren Schuler Donner, and creator Noah Hawley. They spent the first part of the panel reminiscing about how they started on the show, and various moments from the previous two seasons.

For example, Plaza said she wasn't initially interested in the role of Lenny, a character who was originally written as a man. That was until Hawley told her that her character would eventually be killed, and her body taken over by a psychic mutant.

The panel did tease a few extremely tantalizing details, though: Legion Season 3 may be the show's last, but it might not be the final collaboration between Hawley (also known for FX's Fargo) and Marvel. Loeb himself raised the prospect of Hawley working on another Marvel show, or even something else within the Legion/X-Men universe--eliciting cheers from the crowd.

"[Legion Season 3] is the end of this particular story," Loeb teased. There's a lot to potentially read from that statement, including the real possibility that Legion will somehow continue after the end of Season 3. Unfortunately, that was the extent of the tease.

Hawley also spoke at length about ending the story of Legion--or at least this chapter of it. "In looking at a story about a character who is mentally ill, there was a sense of kind of the path of the illness and recovery that [David] goes on," he said. "I feel like where we left him at the end of the second season, again at his lowest point, there's only two ways that he can go--he can either get back to a healthy place, or he can go off the bottom of the map. And once we decided which one of those he's gonna do, it felt like the end of the story, because otherwise you start the loop all over again. But it's not an easy decision to end a story."

"Obviously it's bittersweet, but a story has no meaning without its ending," he continued. "And the old paradigm of television was, major corporations don't usually do a mic drop after a success--you have to keep going, and there's something about being allowed to tell a story, where the length of the show is dictated by the length of the story, that makes television better."

Besides being Legion's alleged final season, Season 3 will also introduce a beloved X-men character: Professor Charles Xavier, who's being played by Game of Thrones' Harry Lloyd. When an audience member asked what other Marvel characters they'd like to fold into Legion's world, Stevens issued his own tease: "You might be pleasantly surprised by Season 3."

Lastly, a question for Aubrey Plaza at the end stole the show, as far as any Parks and Recreation fans in the audience were concerned: How would her character April Ludgate react to being possessed by Legion bad guy Amahl Farouk? "I think she'd like it," Plaza said. "I don't think she'd be very different. And she'd probably be better at her job. And she'd probably kill Jerry once and for all."

Legion Season 3 premieres on FX this June.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

[flickdirect]

When one thinks of iconic actor Robert De Niro one instantly thinks of a dramatic leading man in films like Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. One doesn't immediately gravitate towards raunchy comedies in the vain of Neighbors or Animal House. However, that is exactly what we get when this versatile actor shows us another side of himself as Dick Kelly in the Lionsgate comedy Dirty Grandpa. Coming to 4K, Blu-ray, and Digital this month, this is De Niro as we have never seen him before!

Preppy boy Jason Kelly (Zac Efron; Baywatch) is about to get married to an uptight and controlling witch named Meredith (Julianne Hough; Footloose) that his grandfather, Dick, doesn't like. When Jason's grandmother passes away, he agrees to drive his grandfather to Florida just like Dick used to do every year. Dick convinces Jason that it is what "his grandmother would have wanted". However, Dick actually has a different idea in mind. Since he is single for the first time in fifty plus years Dick, an Army Veteran plans to party it up.

On the way down to Florida, they meet Shadia (Zoey Deutch; Why Him?), Lenore (Aubrey Plaza; Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates) and Bradley (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman; The Break Up Artist) who invite them to Daytona Beach. Dick convinces Jason to meet them and that is where Jason's adventure begins. Jason gets drunk, smokes crack cocaine, ends up naked except for a hornet fanny pack (showing off Efron's chiseled physique) and ends up getting arrested. During all this Jason falls for Shadia who finds out he is engaged. Meanwhile, Dick reveals to Jason the real reason he tricked him into going on this trip was to try and convince Jason not to marry Meredith but Jason gets angry and leaves his grandfather in Florida to drive home in time for his wedding. Of course, all's well that ends well when Jason and Meredith break off the engagement and Jason goes searching for Shadia. And of course in true Robert DeNiro fashion, Dick and Lenore have sex and end up with a baby.

Efron is fine in this role as the straight guy. His "spicier" moments in the film are funny but still come off as if he is the butt of the joke. Plaza goes toe to toe with the legendary DeNiro and holds her own beautifully. The rest of the supporting cast is fine with special mention of Jason Mantzoukas (The Dictator) as the Floridian drug deal "Tan Pam". Of course the best, rightfully so is De Niro. As mentioned previously he is known for dramatic roles so seeing him as a foul-mouthed, partying, wildman is quite a change. It's weird and a breath of fresh air all at the same time. He is the consummate actor and even in this unconventional (for him) role he shines.

The 2160p high definition video is excellent and showcases the few Floridian looking backdrops we see. The picture quality is clean with very little noise or artifacting. The Dolby Atmos Audio is very apparent in the party scenes where the beats are pulsing. The mix is good in these cases and the dialogue doesn't get lost under the soundtrack. The combo pack comes with the 4K Blu-ray, regular Blu-ray and the digital code and there are a few extras that equal about 25 minutes, besides the audio commentary). These include a Gag Reel, The Filthy Truth: The Making of Dirty Grandpa, Lessons in Seduction, Daytona Heat, and I Got Nothin' To Hide: A Look at Daytona's Most Vibrant Drug Dealer. The extras really don't add much to the package and half the time the other actors and crew are simply on film gushing about De Niro.

As Raunchy comedies go, Dirty Grandpa isn't the best out there but it also isn't the worst. To be honest I think some of what makes this film so great is seeing De Niro in a role we would never have imagined him in. The movie has some funny moments and takes a twist on the traditional "road trip" film so it has that going for it but let's face it – De Niro…enough said.

Grade: B-

About Allison Hazlett-Rose Allison Hazlett-Rose has always had a passion for the arts and uses her organization skills to help keep FlickDirect prosperous. Mrs. Hazlett-Rose oversees and supervises the correspondents and critics that are part of the FlickDirect team. Mrs. Hazlett-Rose attended Hofstra University where she earned her bachelors degree in communications and is a member of the Florida Film Critics Circle.

Read more reviews and content by Allison Hazlett-Rose.

via FlickDirect Entertainment News, Exlclusive Interviews, and Film Reviews