Coming Attractions: Summer 2005 Trailer Night

Become an instant expert on the summer’s upcoming movies by enjoying the Washington, D.C. Film Society's Coming Attractions Trailer Night covering Summer 2005 films on Tuesday, June 14 from 7:00-9:00pm at Landmark's E Street Cinema, on E Street between 10th and 11th, N.W.

Tickets are available at the door: $5.00 for Basic members of the DC Film Society (and members of Women in Film and Video); $8.00 for non-members and guests. Admission is free for DC Film Society Gold members. Admission includes FREE film giveaways and movie posters, raffled movie and theater tickets and DVDs, plus a special $5 soda/popcorn combo is available for this showing only.

The Coming Attractions Trailer Night is a twice annual event, held in November to preview upcoming winter/holiday movies, and in May/June to check out the upcoming Summer movies. This unique program allows you, the audience, to play amateur critic as attendees trade quips with co-hosts and local film critics Joe Barber and Bill Henry. Check out the flicks and see Hollywood’s big battle for your Summer dollars.

Join us on June 14 and you might see: Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine in Batman Begins; the ultimate Wedding Crashers Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn; Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, indie and foreign films Undead, Happy Endings with Lisa Kudrow, the Russian sci-fi Night Watch; War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise; Lords of Dogtown, more comic books with Fantastic Four, Bewitched, Steve Martin Clouseau-ing in The Pink Panther; The Island with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson; the animated Miyazaki Howl's Moving Castle; Herbie: Fully Loaded, Terry Gilliam's latest The Brothers Grimm and many many more.

Layer Cake: An Interview with Daniel Craig

By Michael Kyrioglou, DC Film Society Director

Michael Kyrioglou: Your character is nameless in Layer Cake, which comes from the source material for the screenplay, J.J. Connolly’s novel. Was this Connolly’s way to present an everyman character?
Daniel Craig: Well, this guy wants to be as anonymous as possible. Ordinarily in movies, the character names are repeated sort of ad nauseam. I think it sort of ties in with his attitude toward his business life, which is ‘I move in circles, I talk to people, and then I move out … that’s it’ and that’s all you know. His name is known because some of the other characters say ‘your name was mentioned,’ but you never hear it. It’s amazing you can get away with that in a movie.

MK: I actually didn’t even notice this until the end of the film when the credits rolled. I think the character’s listed as X--I thought, Mr. X … that suits his profession.
DC: Someone said recently ‘Deleted’ which I quite liked--you played ‘Deleted in that movie.’

MK: I recently saw you in The Mother. I think from all of your films, including Enduring Love, The Road to Perdition and Sylvia, there is a level of nuance and layers to your performances.There is nothing easy to these roles, they’re not straightforward by any means, but you add such depth and detail to them.
DC: Thanks very much.

MK: And in this film, there is a level of ambiguity to your character; there isn’t much background information on him. How did you approach that or what did you draw from to create a background story for you to work from to play this guy?
DC: I’d love to say I spent months researching, and, you know, went underground and worked with drug dealers and police officers to try and get information (laughs). The novel is a great book, I recommend it. It’s just a great read. And the script was in such good shape. I wanted him to have no connection except where you see him at the beginning of the movie and that your decision about him was made at the end of the movie. What was important to me is that he was as normal as he can be, because that’s a true reflection of what the crime world is all about, separate from the obvious face which we have in the movie, the guy with the gold and the guns, the typical gangster.

MK: I was sort of shocked by the end of the movie. I won’t talk about that here, but I was wondering as I watched it if there would be some sort of commentary on this world of drugs, money and crime or was it going to be just another stylish crime flick full of these charming, eloquent characters engaged in an unseemly business world.
DC: It was vital to Matthew (Vaughn, the director) and I that we do that ending. I won’t give it away, but we shot a different ending, an alternate ending, and didn’t tell the studio. And then when the studio did see the ending, they had a heart attack and actually, to their credit, went with it. It was important to me to show that complexity, because of the arbitrary nature of it, that you can’t simply walk away from these kinds of things, this world. I hope the film is sort of beyond the typical crime/caper movie, that we’re forced to think a little bit about what goes on in the movie, about the consequences of this life.

MK: Sienna Miller plays the one of two female characters in the film. Was there more to that story that didn’t make the final edit? It seemed like there was more story there.
DC: Sienna is such a great screen presence that it looked like there should have been a bigger back story, but that’s all we shot. But again, it was set there as something very important to be answered later in the movie, but it was set there deliberately so that you would go “what the fuck was that about” and then it ties in.

MK: From reading the press notes, it seems like the novel this is based on is even more crammed with story and plot, even more than the film is. I liked the complexity; it keeps you on your toes. It accentuated all the layers to the story, especially since we don’t really expect him to say ‘I am leaving this life of crime’ and that’s what we’re going to see. It definitely wasn’t simple. It was a little daunting at first, but I preferred the complexity. It keeps your mind involved.
DC: You hit the nail on the head. If you had asked me that question, I wouldn’t have been able to answer that as eloquently as you just put it. I hadn’t thought about it, but that was the point. We need the audience to be thinking that there is always another side to the story, it was a deliberate ploy. And that’s J.J., the writer. It is called Layer Cake. You don’t know. You think you’re in control, but there is someone who’s trying to take you out. In the end, that’s the autobiographical thing about the book for him, I think.

MK: Yeah, things just keep getting ratcheted up. I noticed that you have a lot of theatre and TV work also. Is there anything in particular about that theatre work that guided you in your choices of material?
DC: You know what, good writing, whatever the medium I have been lucky enough to do some good theatre. I did Angels in America by Tony Kushner in London and I just did some Caryl Churchill (A Number). You cannot give good writing enough credit. So many times, movies start production and you’re shooting the film and the script is not ready. And 99% of the time, it makes for an appalling movie. I know nothing. I know how to read is all and I’m an actor.

MK: Any particular genres you’re interested in, in film or theatre?
DC: I’m not really interested in doing older plays. But I just saw Denzel Washington in Julius Caesar in New York and it was just fantastic. But I have no desire to do Shakespeare. I can’t... What’s great about live theatre is it’s a lottery every night, and that’s a wonderful thing. You shit yourself every night, so that’s a great feeling (laughs)--it’s exciting, performing and watching, as well.

MK: How was A Number received in London? I know it was just done off-Broadway and received good reviews for a short run. Caryl’s plays are always challenging and polarizing.
DC: It was received really well. Michael Gambon and I did it. It’s an hour long. Even I'd go and see it! We were offered a run on Broadway with it, but there were a number of reasons we didn’t go. They wanted to do it for 12-18 months. We’d already done it and were so happy with the way it had gone. The amount of time it takes to commit, it’s a huge chunk out of your life.

MK: The theatre company I work with here does mostly new work.
DC: New writing is just exciting. You want to go to the theatre and think ‘I have never seen anything like this before.’ And that’s rare.

MK: Do you feel like you’re so pulled into the film world now that you can’t do theatre much anymore? Or is there an interest in doing one more than the other or trying to do both? I know Joan Allen started her career at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago and I recently read in an interview that she said she now prefers to stay in the film world now and doesn’t really have much interest in doing theatre anymore.
DC: The thing is, that most of the theatre gigs… I mean, I’m not really that interested in sort of going to the West End or to Broadway because I don’t want to do a play for that length of time. Invariably, it’s just a fact of life … you do eight shows a week for twelve months. I defy anybody not to get bored. Plus the fact I would just become an alcoholic. You come out of the theatre at 10:30 or 11pm at night and well, ‘we gotta go and get a drink.’

MK: You have to just do hour long projects like A Number.
DC: I’d get to the bar earlier, that’s for sure (laughs). But I would have no interest in putting any particular work aside and saying I am just going to stay in one medium. Look, if it’s a brand new Caryl Churchill play, with Michael Gambon directed by Stephen Daldry, of course I am going to do it. They don’t come along that often, but I would definitely do it again.

MK: You had a benchmark year in 2002 with The Road to Perdition and the Lara Croft film, two high visibility projects. How did you get Perdition? Had you worked with director Sam Mendes before?
DC: He was in London doing pre-production on Perdition and saw me on television. A bit of luck. I had done Tomb Raider and obviously wasn’t that happy about it. And they optioned me for two more; thankfully they didn’t take up the option and Sam came along and gave me that.

MK: Do you see it as sort of a tipping point for your film career?
DC: I met Spielberg last year; he’s offered me a job. He works with Dreamworks and knows Perdition, so it must of all helped a bit. I think it’s an accumulation of things.

MK: It was a high point for here in the U.S. in terms of your name recognition.
DC: And thankfully it was that. Had I been sublime in Tomb Raider, I might have been hating myself now but I wasn’t that good! Sometimes things are stepping stones … you have to try everything once. And it’s nice to earn some money; it makes things a lot easier.

MK: Anything you are working on currently or upcoming? Putting aside the rumor mill (about Craig becoming the next James Bond) of course.
DC: Apparently I’m doing that. So, I wish someone would tell me, it would be quite nice (laughs).

MK: There’s actually an equal amount of yes and no rumors online.
DC: Is that right? Well, I’ve just finished a film called What Is True about Truman Capote’s experience writing In Cold Blood. It’s a fantastic script. A young actor called Toby Jones plays Truman Capote--he’s brilliant. I play Perry Smith and it’s about our relationship and how it sort of screwed up the rest of Capote’s life. It’s a happy, happy movie.

MK: Where do you feel you are now in terms of getting offers…getting to choose between scripts, not getting enough offers?
DC: I have good people around me who tend not to send me the shit (laughs). I’ll only do it if there’s a huge price tag attached to it! I think I am in a very healthy position. I have been doing this long enough to sort of be mildly cynical but also incredibly excited by the whole thing. I could have that actor’s cynicism, but it might stop tomorrow.

MK: Well, you have a good level head about it. At the moment…
DC: At the moment, yes… watch me in three more years I’ll be screaming for my motorcade or ‘I didn’t want a diet Coke!’ (laughs).

Layer Cake opened in the DC area May 29.

Local Filmmaker Nights at the Avalon

A new weekly program "Local Filmmaker/Community Night at the Avalon" begins on June 1 and continues each Wednesday. Filmmakers have the opportunity to exhibit their work in the main theater and host a Q&A session afterwards; community organizations can screen non-theatrical films as fundraising vehicles for their organization. Tickets are generally $8.50 with a starting time of 9:15pm. Note that there will be exceptions--see below; please check the website or call the theater to verify.

Full Moon Fables (Ed Sherman) kicks off the series on June 1 at 9:15pm, followed by He Can Get It (Eric Rice) on June 8. The Silent Orchestra will accompany Salome on June 15 at 8:00pm ($15). On June 22 is Pepi Singh Khara's digital feature Far From India and on June 29 is the award-winning documentary So Glad I Made It (Chris Sautter) about songwriter Roger Salloom; a Q&A session with both Roger Salloom and Chris Sautter at 8:00pm.

A Madagascar Roundtable: Q&A with Production Designer Kendall Cronkhite and Producer Mirielle Soria

By Linda L. Posell, DC Film Society Member

Until Dreamworks’ new computer-animated comedy Madagascar, my reference points were Bambi, Snow White, Gumby, Will Vinton’s Claymation masterpiece Closed Mondays, and Jim Henson. (Disclosure: I’ve never seen Shrek.) The hippo in the new film reminds me of the ballet in Fantasia. The main characters’ moves are part Gumby, part stop-action. As it turns out, these were the inspirations for the filmmakers.

Two women were in DC to promote Madagascar. That was unusual. They were Kendall Cronkhite, production designer, and Mirielle Soria, producer, both behind-the-scenes women. That was also unusual, until it occurred to me: everyone is behind the scenes in the three-dimensional computer-generated (3DCG) universe. Three hundred and fifty human beings work on the movie for four years and the 3DCG characters can’t make personal appearances!

Question: So, the logical question arises: What are the differences when you work on an animated feature as opposed to live action?
Cronkhite: In animation, everything is created from nothing. You build the car, the surfacing of the tires, the hubcaps, and windows. I don’t know if it’s easier but you have more creative control over designing it because you are designing every detail. It’s a more labor-intensive process but there is much more freedom to create in the style you want.
Sonia: Animation is more collaborative. I compare it to a marathon, not a sprint. In live-action, we work on a script through many drafts with a small group of people: a writer, sometimes a director, and a studio executive. When the powers-that-be greenlight it, you don’t change it very much after that. In animation, we have a script, which the powers-that-be read and approve. Then we bring in the troops--the story artists who take words on the page and draw them out as a comic book, which we scan and put in our editorial system. We bring in our designer to make a world and characters. I compare our process to workshopping a play: we get to look at our movie over and over on a monitor. It develops with rewrites. We are always building, always adding. The first year-and-a-half, we’re finding the look and the story; the next year-and-a-half is production. We do a lot in pencil and paper before we actually animate.
Cronkhite: We originally wanted to make a cartoon based on the 2D cartoons of Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Hanna Barbera that we loved as kids and put it into this new 3DCG world. It really suited the comedic style of the story. Before we designed anything, we knew we wanted ‘squash and stretch’* in our characters, that they not be anatomically correct, to use sharp angles and straights against curves. We were thinking when designing Alex the lion, if you don’t design an anatomically correct character, no one will expect him to move like a real lion. Shrek has a skeleton, a muscle system, he moves very naturally, but we didn’t want that. So, we created a character that can really be stretched and squashed to create a really zippy, snappy style of animation. It feels okay because of the design. His arm is a rectangle, with corners on it like Gumby, so you don’t expect it to move in a real anatomical way. It allows more freedom of animation, which is what makes this film visually different than anything we’ve done before.

Question: What is the biggest challenge when creating animated films?
Sonia: The biggest challenge in tv or features is getting a good story with characters that people can connect with. It is being true to the story so people want to see it. You do what you do wherever you go. The same skills are involved no matter which medium you work in. Until the characters are designed, built and surfaced, we’re not really sure what it will feel like. It is a creative risk you need to take. What’s so exciting about this medium right now is that it’s the beginning. There’s so much to discover.

Question: What is the public fascination with animated films?
Cronkhite: We make these movies for ourselves, in the sense that we’re hired for our tastes. We grew up with cartoons. Films we’re making are targeted to a broad audience, dealing with universal themes, celebrating the triumph of the human spirit.
Sonia: Now films are sophisticated. Years ago, animated movies were made for younger audience. Now they also appeal to adults who bring the kids to the theaters. Animation is no longer considered kiddie fare. When Disney started making animated movies again in the 80s, it broadened the audience. Then there was Roger Rabbit and the computer animation films that followed, such as Toy Story, Polar Express, etc. The Japanese still make great 2D films (anime).
Cronkhite: We tried to make sure story worked for everybody. There are moments in the film that only the adults might get, references to a pivotal scene in movies like American Beauty and Saturday Night Fever. In Madagascar, steaks fall from the sky when Alex longs for his zoo delicacies while on the island; when the animals escape from the zoo, there’s a shot of animal feet on pavement with the soundtrack of Travolta’s famous walk scene. It’s all there to service the story. Kids and adults get it on different levels.

Think of the main characters as a geometry lesson with famous voices: Alex the Lion/Ben Stiller is an inverted triangle, Marty the Zebra/Chris Rock is a cylinder, Melman the Giraffe/David Schwimmer is a stick and Gloria the Hippo/Jada Pinkett Smith is a circle. They were designed to fit together like a puzzle. The legions of small fluffy brown big-eyed lemurs (found only on the island of Madagascar), on the other hand, were an animator’s nightmare, according to Cronkhite. Pay special attention to head lemur, King Julien. As voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen aka Ali G, he steals the show and delivers the best lines. Cool penguins notwithstanding.

Question: Which comes first, the characters or the voice choices?
Cronkhite: We designed characters first. We wanted an ensemble of four characters who were comedic. A circle, an inverted triangle, a stick and a cylinder are funny together. The proportions are extreme which adds to comic factor. We concentrated on comic believability of characters. We videotaped the actors doing their line readings. The animators are inspired by how the actors are moving and their facial expressions. Ben Stiller uses his hands a lot when he talks, so Alex uses his hands. We don’t animate until all the lines are recorded. The animators are like our actors.
Sonia: It is a new experience for actors. It’s a leap of faith. There’s not much for them to see in the script; there are some drawings. We basically say to the actors “trust us” and they get very involved in the development. Over the course of four years, they come in every three or four months, based on their schedule and availability. It was hard for Ben who said he likes to have something to work off of. But now that it’s done, the actors are very enthusiastic about it. It is a different way of acting. The actors never see each other. When they see the film, they have a reaction similar to Ben’s. The actor said, “those characters aren’t us. That’s Alex the Lion, not Ben Stiller.”

The first third of the film takes place in the Central Park Zoo, steeped in mid-20th century nostalgia and claustrophobia. The filmmakers learned about Madagascar from books, videos and the Internet. What they didn’t know, they made up with nods to Henri Rousseau. None of the people who made the film had visited Madagascar. Dreamworks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg went to Madagascar after the movie was finished.

Question: How did you create the place for the film?
Cronkhite: The island of Madagascar is foreign and exotic, so we created our own books of foliage and animals. The lemurs and fossas, the beach and jungle are based on real places in Madagascar. The island also has miles and miles of limestone pinnacle mazes, called the Tsingy. We thought this is a perfect place for Alex to go to self-imposed prison. It looks like a post-apocalyptic New York. And it works as the one crossover between the zoo and the wild.

Two weeks before the movie opens, in the brave new world of 3DCG there is still much to be done: Kronkhite is working on the DVD; games are in production, Cheerios boxes contain 3D cardboard cut-outs of the Madagascar animals. Soria jokes about a new word that the filmmakers coined to describe the capacity to go from the screen to a vendor near you: toyetic! The two behind-the-scenes women were eager for audience reaction but not feeling stressed-out.

Sonia: We hope people like it. The success of Shrek and Shark Tale helps, rather than hurts, us. There is actually less pressure. We hope movie is a success but, if not, we’ve always got Shrek!

*A hallmark of classic cartoons, squash and stretch is the process an animator uses to deform an object and then snap it back into shape to convey motion or impact (from the Madagascar press kit).

My Summer of Love: Audience Q&A With Emily Blunt

By John Suozzo, DC Film Society Member

After a preview screening of My Summer of Love held at Landmark's E Street Cinema on May 26, DC Film Society members talked with actress Emily Blunt. Michael Kyrioglou, DC Film Society Director, moderated.

Michael Kyrioglou: I hadHeavenly Creatures in my head as I was watching it.
Emily Blunt: Everyone says that.

Michael Kyrioglou: I read that the movie is partially based on a book.
Emily Blunt: Yes. Pawel Pawlikowski, the director, read the book by Helen Cross and extracted the tale of the two main characters into a screenplay. He completely fell in love with Mona’s character. I think he loved her passion and the fact that she wanted more out of life. He introduced the character of the brother, who is not in the book. The book had lots of other characters: a murderer, a great aunt, a grandmother among many others. The movie is a stripped down version of the book. He wanted characters that were completely layered that you could fall in love with. I think he thought the other characters were quite contrived.

Michael Kyrioglou: Were there some places in the film that you improvised?
Emily Blunt: There wasn’t a set script but it wasn’t exactly improvisation either. It was structured and we knew exactly what was needed for each scene. It was nice that we could try new things as we established a natural rhythm among the cast. Everyone knew where the juiciest scenes were and we knew where we had to be for those.

Michael Kyrioglou: Did you find that exciting, intimidating, or both?
Emily Blunt: I was frightened because I had worked mostly TV and some theater--and TV especially is so tightly regimented. You’re given a script and the producers are pointing at their watches and you’re given two takes if you’re lucky. We felt there was a lot required from us to be creative, to be brave.

Michael Kyrioglou: So the making of the movie was fairly collaborative?
Emily Blunt: Very. But I think that we worked in such a way that we were able to lose ourselves in these people. We were given so much time to really find things. I had never worked that way before. I got a lot more from Pawel than I realized.

Question: At the end, when Mona says Tamsin has turned into a crazy bitch, doesn’t she see the irony in that?
Emily Blunt: Tamsin is trying to fool herself. Deep down, I think Tamsin is lost and fragile. Her seduction of Mona is a teenaged girl’s game. She has a very cavalier attitude about it but a lot of teenagers do. She’s also lacking in compassion. Yeah, she’s a crazy bitch. (Laughter).
Michael Kyrioglou: But it doesn’t come across as cold, as it did in The Dreamers.
Emily Blunt: I think Mona and Tamsin find in the other person what is lacking in themselves. Tamsin needs Mona as much as Mona needs Tamsin. Mona is gritty and tough and has had a tragic life--the sort of life Tamsin craves but hasn’t had.

Question: In the movie there is a scene of Tamsin’s family at the dinner table and she looks sad. Is she thinking of her father’s affair, her absentee mother or did she realize the family was dysfunctional? What was happening in that scene?
Emily Blunt: Probably all of those things. I don’t think you’re supposed to really know. You’re just supposed to see Tamsin looking miserable and in need of escape. Take from it what you will. She’s living in an aloof household where people just take for themselves and no one seems to be communicating. That’s the reason she lives within her imagination so much--a very frightening place to be.

Question: Up until she tried to seduced Mona’s brother, she did seem to be living in a fantasy world. But it seemed like such a deliberate act to make a mockery of his born-again status. Was the scene planned to show how calculating Tamsin is?
Emily Blunt: For me, that scene was the climax for Tamsin’s character. I know Pawel was interested in seeing her in that new light. The seduction of Phil is her biggest victory. I don’t think she planned it--I think she was genuinely quite attracted to him. She wanted someone who was stepping away from the ordinary and was different from her. She wanted a personal victory. It was a cruel thing to do. It was not sinister, really; she’s just selfish and spoiled. That act was definitely the turning point for her.

Michael Kyrioglou: I liked the fact that not everyone was desperate. Everyone wanted to get away from the place but it had a relaxed feel to it. I thought of Danny Boyle’s Millions, which also showed England in a sunny, summer way.
Emily Blunt: The weather’s never like that! We were filming in Lancashire, the wettest part of England. We were very lucky. It was so hot! The day we filmed the scene setting up the cross was the hottest day ever recorded in England. We had a great DP, Rysard Lenczewski, who created a world that was dreamlike--it had the timeless look of another place. The relationships and what goes on between these characters was much more self-contained and free from outside influences.

Michael Kyrioglou: The choking scene--was it difficult to film? How long did it take to shoot?
Emily Blunt: Yeah, the water went straight up my nose! It took a couple of takes so the final version was stitched together from several different takes. While at school I could swim more than a length [underwater] so I can hold my breath a bit. We had “safe signs” to tell each other to let go. It was so cold in that stream--I never quite felt cold like that before where you’re beyond shivering and there’s just that dull ache. My stunt person was mad at me for doing the whole scene myself. I think she did the rehearsal but she was sick the day we shot it and couldn’t go in the water--some stuntwoman!

Question: You say Tamsin wasn’t desperate, but she seemed desperate to me--she created a dead sister.
Emily Blunt: She is desperate--I think that’s why I empathize with her. I see her as being the more fragile of the two. I wouldn’t want to be in her head. I think she lacks more than most people can imagine. She has money and all that but doesn’t have the things that really matter. She’s bitter and envious towards her sister. She has been living her fantasy for so long it has become her reality. That’s why she can really grieve in that scene with Mona because she really believes that death has happened.

Michael Kyrioglou: What do you think her character studied at school--she’s playing cello and spouting philosophy?
Emily Blunt: I don’t think it was philosophy. She probably just memorized 10 facts about Nietzsche. That’s probably all that she’s done. She’ll probably go on to be a media-type person.

Question: How important is it to the actors to know which events in the film are real and which are not?
Emily Blunt: Very important--so much of Tamsin is a con that I needed to find the warmth within her.
Michael Kyrioglou: You need to know it but not show it.
Emily Blunt: It was a very fine line to find. That was the challenge in playing somebody that pretentious but somebody that you could like, too. You can see why Mona is drawn to her. I knew people like those girls growing up. I was a geek who would have wanted to be her friend.

Question: What were your character’s true feelings towards Mona?
Emily Blunt: I think at first she was very taken with Mona and has a huge fondness for her. The director, Pawel Pawlikowski, said Mona is a little like your pet dog. You really love it and shower it with affection but then you walk out the door and go to work and forget about it. For Tamsin, the whole affair was like a summer experiment. I think that she starts to get quite frightened by the relationship. I think that’s why she pulls out and calls it quits.

Question: What other movies have you done?
Emily Blunt: I’ve done some period jobs and some TV jobs like Henry VIII and Boudica. In Death on the Nile I played a role in a blond wig that was so bad it looked like a helmet. I’ve played a lot of bitches actually. (Laughter). Since this movie, I made a new series called Empire that will be on ABC this year. You’ll see me as a vestal virgin in a flowing white gown--a little unusual. I just finished a film called Irresistible in Australia with Susan Sarandon.
Michael Kyrioglou: Are these recent parts due to tonight’s film?
Emily Blunt: Some of them were and some of them weren’t. Irresistible definitely was. The director had seen this movie and asked me if I’d like to do something with Susan Sarandon. “Susan Sarandon? Of course I will!”

My Summer of Love is scheduled to be in theaters June 17.

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