Thursday Evening: We’re going to see the midnight opening of New Moon. The theater is already half full at 10 pm. Lots of teenagers, lots of females. High school-ers are snapping pictures of each other. The girls sitting in front of us are watching the first Twilight on an iPhone. Across the aisle, a teenage blonde girl in sneakers reaches into her purse and starts counting prescription pill bottles: “One. Two. Three. Four. Controlled. Controlled.” The girl behind her (a brunette in boots) opens her own purse. “I have five,” she says. Teenagers are weird.
The theater is selling T-shirts by the snack stand: Team Edward (Rob Pattinson wearing his constipated James Dean frown) and Team Jacob (Taylor Lautner modeling his cocky roid-rage sneer.) Me: “I’m from Entertainment Weekly. Which shirt is selling more?” Theater employee: “We’re actually not allowed to talk to anybody from the media.” You and everyone who works on Avatar, dude! READ FULL STORY »
With star Robert Downey Jr. in fighting form and enjoying an easy rapport with his costar, Jude Law, the filming of Sherlock Holmes in London last year was trouble-free. The only drama seemed to take place off the set, where the film’s director, Guy Ritchie (Snatch, RocknRolla), and his then-wife Madonna filed for divorce. The couple had been married since 2000, and the announcement made global headlines. But according to Holmes star Robert Downey Jr., the cast saw no evidence of strain on Ritchie, and the divorce had no impact on the production. “Guy is a country gentleman,” Downey says. “He doesn’t want to occupy his mind with things that may be unpleasant or may get him riled up. He was just doing what he would have been doing regardless of the situation.” When asked how he coped with all that tabloid noise, not to mention private emotion, while shooting a major studio film, Ritchie answers with just four simple words: “Head down, arms swinging.”
