Click on scans for a readable view (apologies they may not be in order).
Thank you eatsleeppharm
Showing posts with label Nicholas Hoult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicholas Hoult. Show all posts
Sunday, January 16, 2022
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Thursday, August 25, 2016
NEW ' Equals' BTS photos by photographer, Lindsey Byrnes
Click on pics for full view.
Lindsey Byrnes When Kristen Stewart asked if I wanted to come visit her in Japan, where she was working on a film, I didn’t hesitate; I grabbed my camera and went. Well, there was a little coordinating but that part is really boring.
Never did I think I’d be on the set of an actual feature film, let alone be in Japan and with one of my closest friends. But in the end of 2014, that’s exactly where I was. Specifically, I visited Tokyo, Kyoto, and Awaji Island, three of the locations where Equals, a science fiction-romantic-drama hybrid was shot.
Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart play two people living in a world where emotions are not allowed to exist. When they both become infected with a disease that gives them back their ability to feel compassion and love, the film turns into a sort of futuristic Romeo and Juliet. Hanging out behind the scenes, I got a glimpse into a whole other side of the filmmaking process: the quiet moments, the in-between thoughtfulness.
Source
Monday, August 15, 2016
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Nicholas Hoult talks about 'Equals' and Kristen w/ AZ Central
Question: What is it like for an actor to play a character without emotions?
Answer: It’s surprisingly strange, because your natural instinct is to feel something, and then to try and rein that in is a completely inhuman way of interacting. Drake’s style, the way he wanted things conveyed was very small and subtle and contained because it’s an awakening for these characters. So it’s a different challenge, but something I really enjoyed exploring with these guys.
Q: How did he work as a director?
A: He’s someone that’s so passionate and is really making movies for the right reasons. And it’s very collaborative. He creates an environment where you completely forget that you’re making a film, essentially. You capture moments that are very real and honest, and that’s all he wants. You completely lose yourself in it, and it’s rare, you know. Normally there’s a rigid format — action, cut, and you do your job between those, which is not how this worked at all.
Q: How did you prepare. Was there a lot of rehearsal?
A: This was like the least rehearsal ever. It was very much about exploring in the moment and keeping the cameras running and doing long takes and improvising. Rehearsal had a lot more to do with Drake, Kris and I getting to know each other, being comfortable with each other and trusting each other, that there was that safety blanket around us.
Q: Did you bond with Kristen Stewart over having been child actors?
A: Not really. That’s something that’s obviously part of our lives. Part of the thing that makes us similar is the fact that we’re not really in the classical world of acting and trained particularly. We’re both very curious people, and she’s incredibly smart and in touch with her emotions. So she’s inspiring to be around. She’s very passionate and cares wholeheartedly about film and telling stories, and also that moment right there. So it’s wonderful to be in scenes with her, because the smallest flick of an eye or quiver of her voice, you pick up on so little.
Q: The film was shot in Japan and Singapore. Was that an adventure?
A: We traveled all around Japan, because there was one architect (Tadao Ando) who designed all these museums and universities and offices, these immense glass and steel structures which were so clean and futurist and wonderful angles for John (Guleserian), the DP (director of photography), to light. They were part of the makeup of the movie.
One of the amazing things about making films on location is that very few people are from there. It’s an experience you’re all having together. You all stay in the same hotel and you live together, basically, for months. You get very close, and you’re having all these firsts together. It draws everyone much closer together than if you’re making a film while people are living at home and have very separate lives and worries in the real world.
Source
Friday, July 22, 2016
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Kristen, Nicholas and Drake Doremus' interview with The LA Times + NEW Portraits
Click on portraits for HQ.
For a long time, it seemed like Kristen Stewart was hiding. Under hoodies and flat-brimmed caps. From flashbulbs. Even her voice, because silence couldn’t betray her.
Back then, when she was known as the star of the “Twilight” films, the idea of living in a world without emotion might have perhaps appealed to her. That’s the premise of her new film, “Equals,” which is about a futuristic society where humans have been stripped of feelings because they cause too much physical and mental anguish.
But now, at 26, Stewart is repelled by the idea of withholding emotion. In fact, it’s something she’s often not even capable of.
“People used to think I was really expressionless,” she said. “But I’m such an oversharer. Recently, I was puking before a Chanel show in Beijing; I ate fried rice or something that was not good. And when I walked in, I just started telling everyone I didn’t feel well. It was the grossest thing, but I prefer them thinking I’m gross then wondering, ‘What’s wrong with her? She’s being weird tonight.’ ”
She’d just thrown down her backpack and slid into a booth next to Nicholas Hoult, her co-star in “Equals,” which opened nationwide on Friday. Drake Doremus, their director, sat across from them.
Stewart removed her ball cap and ruffled her hair, which was platinum blond with purposefully dark, exposed roots. Her outfit was a mix of grungy hi-and-low: mesh socks with sneakers, a Chanel watch, tons of smudged black eyeliner. Hoult, meanwhile, had flown in the night before from England and looked sleepy, like he’d thrown on whatever happened to be packed at the top of his suitcase.
In “Equals,” the two play lovers. Though their characters are supposed to be unfeeling, each is afflicted with S.O.S. -- Switched-On Syndrome -- which means they’re fully emotional beings often crippled by sexual desire, fear and sadness. When they start to fall for each other, they must keep their relationship a secret or risk being treated for S.O.S. and being stripped of emotions again.
The movie is something of a departure for Doremus, an indie naturalist who tends toward messy relationship dramas. Though “Equals” again finds him working with two young actors -- his most successful film, 2011’s “Like Crazy,” provided a launching pad for Felicity Jones and the late Anton Yelchin -- it also marks the first time he’s explored the world of science fiction. The film was shot in Japan and Singapore and has a colorless, sterile aesthetic. And Doremus stuck loosely to a screenplay (written by Nathan Parker), even though in the past he’s typically used only a scrappy outline.
Despite the changes, Doremus retained his familiar rehearsal process, asking Hoult and Stewart to spend a week doing exercises together before filming began. Some of the drills were trippy: In one, the actors had to stare at one another for an hour, saying nothing but “hello” back-and-forth. The goal, the filmmaker said, was to get the actors to think about what it would be like to be blank slates.
“It was all about stripping things down, which is sort of the opposite of how you normally approach movies -- trying to add layers and complexity,” said Doremus. “There’s no backstory here, so essentially, we just had to rebirth and start over.”
“This was the first time a director has turned around and been like, ‘Do nothing. Do less,’ ” said Hoult, who starred in “About a Boy” when he was 12 and has since appeared in the “X-Men” films and “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
“The hard part was finding how base of a place we were supposed to be starting from,” Stewart chimed in. “I was so close to that, especially then, that I was like, ‘It's just going to hurt so badly to do this movie if we do it right.’ I was terrified. How could we possibly look at things with baby eyes?”
It was a hypothetical the trio explored at length during the rehearsal period in Japan. The premise led to discussions about online dating (is it causing us to separate from one another?) and the over-prescription of drugs (are we all too numb?).
“I was on Ritalin and Dexedrine as a kid, and I’m still mad at my mom about it,” recalled Doremus.
“Have you taken Adderall as an adult?” Stewart asked. Doremus shook his head no.
“I’m sorry,” Stewart continued, “but I took an Adderall once and I was like, ‘Children take this?’ It’s speedy, to be honest with you. I was on a road trip and I was just lockjawed.”
Hoult, seemingly surprised by her admission, mimicked picking up the tape recorder on the table and tossing it across the room.
“No, that’s OK,” Stewart said. “People can know that. I’ve done -- well, never mind.”
Hoult, who is also 26, is far quieter and more careful with his words than Stewart. The two have both been in high-profile relationships -- Hoult with Jennifer Lawrence, Stewart with Robert Pattinson -- but the actor is more guarded about his off-screen life.
“I feel protective of anything personal,” he said.
“I wouldn’t talk about who I [have sex with] and how I [have sex with them] unless I was friends with you. That’s weird,” agreed Stewart, who also stars in Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society” this summer. “But then, at the same time, I’ve discovered a way to live my life and not feel like I’m hiding at all. And I think that’s pretty apparent for anyone who cares -- not that everyone does. But I think that if you had been tracking it in any way, it’s more apparent that I’m more relaxed than I used to be.”
She seemed to be referring to paparazzi photos of her holding hands and kissing women like French musician Soko over the last year. For someone who used to guard her private life so fiercely, it’s been a marked shift in attitude.
“Somehow, as I got older, I reoriented my mind,” Stewart said, “I’ve gotten better at assessing people’s motivations. It’s not something I have to overtly think about -- what I share and what I don’t share. It’s a natural thing. Whereas, when I was younger, I was like, ‘You’re gonna screw me over.’ Now I’m like, ‘Whatever. You can’t.’ ”
Though Hoult may not be as willing to share his feelings with the public, he does enjoy having a rich emotional life. Like Stewart, he said he finds the idea of living in an “Equals”-esque society terrifying.
“I quite like feeling [crappy] sometimes and then putting on a record and wallowing in self-pity for the day,” he said. “Because you’ve got to have the lows to have the highs, haven’t you really?”
“Did you just say ‘Haven’t you really’?” Stewart asked. “You just sounded really English. Have you been home for a while?”
“Yeah,” he replied with a laugh.
“I agree with Nick, though,” she said, finishing the thought. “I can’t lie and say that in darker moments I haven’t been like, ‘No! I don’t want to feel this!’ But I know that’s not really true. I feel really blessed to put a lot of stock in what I feel, and it’s led me to really good places. Like he said, you can’t have the highs without the lows.”
Monday, July 18, 2016
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Kristen and Nicholas Hoult's interview with Moviefone for 'Equals'
There's just so much content on television these days. And most actors see that as a very good thing -- but occasionally some, like Kristen Stewart, offer a dissenting opinion.
Take her new film, "Equals," for example. Directed by rising auteur Drake Doremus ("Like Crazy") from his own original story, it's the kind of measured, insightful, quirky film the major studios aren't taking many chances on these days: a thought-provoking science-fiction film that relies on a different style of effects rather than eye-popping, digitally-created spectacle. Human emotion is the star, as delivered by Stewart and her co-star Nicholas Hoult, who, coincidentally, both have experience with blockbuster fare like the "Twilight" and "X-Men" films.
"Equals" debuts in theaters in limited release on July 15th, but it's been available to view on home screens via DirecTV Cinema since May 26th. And, as Hoult points out, any chance to tell a slightly different story in a slightly narrowed scale to an audience of any size, via subscription services or otherwise, is a bonus. "With everyone kind of wanting to get so much content, it's exciting, because there's a lot more out there, and a lot more opportunities to tell the smaller stories. But there's also a flood of stuff."
But Stewart, who says she's still surprised at how rapidly the movie market has and continues to shift, admits that the content flood Hoult references concerns her, especially when she's working on a film with the kind of quality she feels "Equals" -- the story of a futuristic, post-catastrophic society essentially purged of emotion -- delivers.
"You get inundated with material -- it's just sort of like, over-stimulus doesn't equal valuable material," she says of the significantly deep libraries of content now available at all times. "I'm actually torn on that, because I'm very old school, and selfish: ideally this movie should be seen in a theater. I hate that people have seen this f*cking movie on DirecTV before, do you know what I mean?"
"If you cared enough -- because there are fanbases for movies, for certain people, for filmmakers, for genres -- anyone who is into Drake or Nick or me or this genre probably watched this movie on DirecTV when it came out," she says. "But those people would have gone to buy a ticket in a theater -- f*ck the payback. I'm truly not even talking about that. But just those guys who actually care, they saw it on DirecTV, they probably won't make it to the theater. To me, that's a little sad because the work, the f*cking photography, is so beautiful. It should be looked at! It pisses me off."
And, in fact, along with being a poignant and emotionally moving sci-fi film, with a romantically spun "Twilight Zone" kind of feel, "Equals" is a thing of beauty to look at, delivering a convincing and fully realized environment without requiring legions of digital artists at ILM or Weta. And because they do indeed want the film to find an audience, whatever screen it plays on, Stewart and Hoult sat down with Moviefone to reflect on their experience making the movie.
Moviefone: We've got a great science fiction story, yet the special effects are your emotions. What did it mean to you to be able to tell a story in this kind of context, but not be relying on visual effects -- just telling it through yourselves?
Kristen Stewart: I think, with any good science fiction movie, all of the elements of fantasy function as relevant metaphor. They all are there to service what it feels like in the center of it. So it never feels like you're doing something not real, even though it's not the world we're used to. It's still a world that's whole enough to get used to. Drake's really good at that. He creates an environment that's so whole.
Movies that allow emotion to highlight CGI, they just fall flat and look fake and are blockbusters that don't interest me. But the ones that balance that right; I love big, sort of epic, suspended-reality movies.
Nicholas Hoult: The nice thing about this is everything you were interacting with was actually there in the room. It's more about the emotion with the people as opposed to a lot of time doing those types of films, when you end up looking at tennis balls around the studio and someone on a microphone telling you when to look and what's happening. Then you have no idea. You have a concept of it, and an imagination running wild with it, but also until you see the film, oh, that's what was going to be there.
That could be, at times, a little bit frustrating because there's nothing physical there that you can feel. You're not receiving anything back. A big part of this is not actually about what you were doing or thinking about what you were acting, it was about observing another person and picking up on what they were doing and then reading them, which is kind of the most important thing because that's what you're doing when you're living.
I was reading about the very focused-on-each-other acting exercises that you did to prepare for this, which were sort of unconventional but ultimately really effective in connecting the two of you. What was that like, to get that sort of emotional honesty with each other in preparation for playing roles in a world where they essentially are each other's only connection?
Stewart: If you imagine the time that Nia and Silas spend around each other without knowing anything about each other, the groundwork before they've even asked their first question is a spiritual thing. They have said "hello" to each other 365 times, but they haven't delved any deeper. Yet, there's a commonality. You can see into someone if they let you in, and that doesn't mean that you need to know anything about them.
So, in sitting in front of each other -- and just for an hour just staring and looking -- and then trying to transmit something and trying to receive it, and then projecting and wondering what this little flick of an eye meant. By the end of that hour, you kind of know the person. So he was just trying to emulate what Nia and Silas start out with when they actually begin interacting with each other.
Did that make it almost, in a weird way, harder to play those emotionally stunted scenes by being so close? Or did it inform that in a way?
Hoult: We were lucky where we kind of, as much as possible, shot it in sequence. So the first time when you see us in the bathroom untouched for the first time, that was in order. Up to that point, we hadn't done anything previous to that in the story. So those sorts of things, that really helped when you're making anything, as much as you can do that, because then everything you've done so far informs that.
Stewart: Because you don't have to play any guessing game. "That is what it is, I did that, then I did this, then I did this..." You don't have to wonder what it's going to be like in order to play something after it.
Hoult: Yeah, and there's a build to that moment as well. So then there's a release and it all kind of feels more natural as opposed to trying to imagine what's happened up until that point, and then pretend what would be happening.
Like all great science fiction, there's tremendous allegory in the story. What resonated for you guys?
Hoult: It's always that question, for me: the feelings of whether you want to feel everything, the bad and the good, and what that means. Also, whether if you take away the bad, if that destroys the good as well, and you can't then feel those things.
Stewart: I love the idea that you have a group of people that are seemingly obsessed with taking care of one another, but if they don't have emotions to feel for one another, why would they care? It's just a generalized desire to progress a society, like some egotistical, narcissistic sort of continuation of our race. I don't think that that's what drives people to do anything.
This hypothetical is suspended in a bullsh*t reality, and I think that what the movie says is that, the only reason we do good or bad is for each other. We're connected. There's no reason to do anything if we're completely alone. There are tests. You isolate animals, they just stop living. This is true. So I think the first few awakenings that you have in life, and then those first few falls hit me so hard. You think that they're not going to keep doing that, but they do.
So I think this is examining the ebb and flow of feeling for someone, and sustaining that and the rewards you get from that, and whether or not it's worth it. Should we just isolate ourselves and not try? Or should we have faith that a feeling that once affected us so positively that doesn't anymore might come back? Everything that goes into why we want to try for each other, to put ourselves out or be uncomfortable or be scared. It's all for each other. It's not totally selfish.
As actors, do you feel uniquely attuned to your emotions, in contrast to people going about their everyday lives? Do you feel like you put more thought and exercise more control over it? Or do you feel that the emotions run even stronger over you?
Stewart: Not because we're actors, but I think some people do feel more than others.
Hoult: Yeah, and there's occasionally a time when, sometimes, hopefully, it makes you more observant to other people's emotions or reactions and things, where you watch something and you go, that's interesting, and try and figure that out. And then, sometimes, if you're in a really weird mood, then you can turn that upon yourself, but that then becomes very strange, because then you're feeling it but then trying to analyze it...
Stewart: And then trying to analyze it!
Hoult: ... and think about it, and then you sit there and you think about it, and then you're like, "Oh boy ..."
Stewart: "Oh, I'm such a freak. Why am I thinking about this? I'm trying to just be a real human being."
Hoult: [Shouts] "I've got to be free! I've got to be me!" [Laughs]
Stewart: There are times when I'm freaking out about something! Like, so emotional! And then I'm like, "Wow. If I were playing this, I would never play this this hard." You know what I mean? I'm always like, "No. It would be smaller. That couldn't possibly be real. Then I have moments in life where I'm doing something so much. And I'm like, "No, see, you actually do do this." Life is not so subtle all the time. Subtlety rings true in film, but subtlety is not how life like actually is.
Did you have a certain kind of separation anxiety once the movie was over because you had gotten so directly connected?
Hoult: I have separation anxiety at the end of every job. More so on this for sure. Yeah, it's always a thing at the end where you kind of, for months you've had every moment of your day planned out. What you're going to eat, when you're going to eat, and what you're going to wear.
Stewart: It's so regimented.
Hoult: Like, your whole life...
Stewart: And you're just, like, dropped.
Hoult: And then suddenly you come out the other end of a job and they're like, "Okay, see you later." And you sit at home and you're like...
Stewart: "I can just do whatever I want now?"
Hoult: And I spend, like, two days all by myself sitting on the sofa. Then you slowly get a routine and habits back and all that sort of stuff. But first it's the strangest thing. I remember being very sad.
Stewart: It's almost like going through a breakup.
Hoult: Like, at the Singapore airport on my way back from this, I remember sitting there and everyone had left and I was leaving, and I was sitting there and I was like, "Wow. This is horrible."
Stewart: Empty. Yeah.
Hoult: It's weird. Lots of people have it in their jobs, in terms of, like, military people or whoever it might be, and they come out the other end of it and they've experienced such highs, or adrenaline rushes and everything. Then you're kind of left with this empty feeling and being like, "Wow." But then you get a nice reunion on the press tour.
Stewart: You have to reacquaint yourself with actual life, because our lives and our work, they meld so much, yet at the same time, once a movie's over, it's over. So it's affected you and you can take some of that and bring it into your life, and you can take your life and bring it into your work. But once the job's over, you're like, "Oh God. I have to contend with my current reality."
Source
Kristen and Nicholas Hoult talk to Vulture about 'Equals' and more
In the new Drake Doremus-directed film Equals, Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult play deeply repressed characters living a futuristic society where all emotions are verboten — a problem, since the two of them have begun to fall for one another and must keep their burgeoning love secret. Their casting carries with it a kick, since these are two actors who have no trouble expressing themselves offscreen: Stewart, in particular, is so candid and likely to wear her emotions on her sleeve that the very act of placing her in such a shut-down onscreen society contains inherent suspense. Not long ago, Vulture met up with the two of them for a free-wheeling chat about the movie and their very particular approaches to acting and fame.
Nic, I’ve heard that when you saw Equals for the first time, you felt like a voyeur while watching yourself fall in love with Kristen. Was Drake able to coax you into things you weren’t aware you were doing?
Hoult: At the time, I probably realized I was doing it. But it’s not in the script, it’s not something you planned on doing, it’s just something that was very…
Stewart: Fleeting.
Hoult: And then you don’t think about it, you don’t dwell on it. It’s not until a year later when you’re in the ADR booth and you watch yourself doing something that you go, “Wow, that feels like my real life onscreen. And I shouldn’t be watching that.”
Does that feel like a victory, when you can surprise yourself like that?
Stewart: It’s weird, because since we play people who are very simplified and stripped down, we are very much ourselves in this movie. Without any social development or idiosyncrasies, the most boiled-down version of being alive is what we’re trying to do — and so, in watching it, I don’t feel like I’m watching someone else. The reason it’s surprising is that the little bits of cream that rose to the top were things that just passed us by in a moment. Usually we can take credit for it, but in this case, we go, “Whoa, Drake, thank you for putting us on that path.”
Are you good at watching your own performance in films?
Hoult: I’m not particularly a fan.
Stewart: Yeah, he doesn’t like it.
Hoult: I always think I could have done it better or different. Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?
You’re better at it, Kristen?
Stewart: Technically, I’m better at it because I do it more. Because it completes a process for me. I’ve been wanting to make movies forever and I want to direct and write and keep acting forever, so it makes me better to watch the performance. It’s enlightening, and not in a technical way — it’s not like I go, “Ooh, I saw my face do this and now I know how to cry onscreen.” It’s more like, if you can correlate the experience of making the movie to the final product, it affects how you carry on from that point. I want to lose myself in a role, I want to completely be drawn to things for natural reasons and not consider an audience, but at the same time, I really care that the movie is good. I like the process of making a movie so much that to not finish it wouldn’t make sense.
So to what extent did you feel complicit in the finishing of Equals? Did Drake let you in on the post-production process?
Stewart: Not at all. [Laughs.] I know he has an editor that he loves, but he’s really hands on and he kind of edits by himself in his house in Los Feliz. The whole time, I was like, “He’s just a few blocks away from me right now,” but I didn’t speak to him for a couple months after we did this movie. There will be times when I’m calling up directors and I’m like, “Hey, what’s up? Can I come see stuff? Can you just tell me what you’re excited about, and what worked and what didn’t, and anything you learned based off those three fucking months we spent together? What’s the deal?” But I never called Drake once. I was just expended after we shot it, and it wasn’t something I was trying to control. But watching it, I see that it took every single person — me, Drake, John the D.P., Nic — to make it. It’s a soup. The movie is a fucking bowl of soup. Drake doesn’t control everything, but he instills his vibe into it in such a natural way, which I’m such a fan of. So I wouldn’t want to affect that. I wouldn’t want to call and say, “Hey, don’t forget this, in case you didn’t see it!”
Have you done that with other directors?
Stewart: Yeah, with people who I feel like didn’t see me. But I felt so visible around Drake and Nic. I was never like, “Do you know what I mean?” Yeah, of course they do. It was fucking done. Unspoken.
How much of Equals was improvised in the moment?
Hoult: You’d have a script, but then Drake would be like, ‘Nah, don’t say that.’ I realized that I’m very used to knowing lines and turning off a bit.
Stewart: I never know my fuckin’ lines. Even on Woody Allen movies, I don’t know my lines.
Hoult: Really?
Stewart: Mm hmm.
Hoult: How does that work? What happens?
Stewart: I learn them quickly if it’s necessary, but typically, I just think it’s better if I find it or say something slightly different. If you’ve put in the groundwork properly, it works, and it’s easier if you’re playing somebody close to you. On the Woody Allen movie, it was more difficult because I’m playing this girl who’s just the opposite of me, the most buoyant, lovely little person, but once I found her, we could totally improvise within the rhetoric of his movies, which is crazy because he’s so particular. All I’m saying is, learning lines gets in my way, but conversely, if you don’t know them, you flounder. It’s a balance. To be honest, sometimes I fuck myself over. I’m like, “Oh shit, I don’t know my lines!” [Laughs.]
Hoult: Have you been on a movie where the writer or director said, “No, say it word for word?”
Stewart: One time. With Kelly Reichardt.
For your movie Certain Women?
Stewart: Yeah.
Hoult: Was it like with Aaron Sorkin, where you have to say everything exactly, even the punctuation marks?
Stewart: She never said that initially, so I wasn’t prepared for that when I got to set. I would literally say “the” instead of “is,” just the slightest alteration to make it more like how I would say something, and she would be like, “Oh, um, that was great, but actually, the words are like this.” “Oh, okay. Fuck. I didn’t realize. Good to know.” She likes the words. She wrote them a certain way, and she likes them. I don’t think she even realizes she liked the words so much. If I told her she said that, she would be like, “No, I didn’t!” But she did.
Hoult: Did you find that restrictive?
Stewart. Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, I feel like it took me away from “Kristen,” and that was nice. She didn’t hire me for that. Sometimes I’m hired for that, and it’s genuinely what serves the part the best, to be totally in it and natural. But that girl [in Certain Women] was different. I have this slight accent in it …
Hoult: And rhythms of speech can change everything.
Stewart: Exactly. It’s the rhythm, yeah.
The world of Equals, where you’re expected to stifle yourself and “pass” within society, could be a metaphor for so many things. What was your take on it?
Stewart: Whether you’re hiding something integral to yourself or something smaller, like a mood that you think is unacceptable, it’s a terrible feeling to not be seen. It’s the worst, actually. To think how awful it is when you’re trying to show yourself to somebody and they don’t see it? That sucks, but what’s worse is not even trying to be seen, not even giving anyone the opportunity to know you. It’s just the most isolating feeling, and obviously, there are degrees of that in all our lives, but yeah, there’s really nothing worse than having to cover the most important, essential parts of yourself. It means you’re denying what it is to be you, and it’s the worst feeling, trust me. I’ve done it a lot. I have a job that doesn’t allow for moods — not in the acting part, but during the promotion part.
Because if you’re not happy and upbeat all the time, your mood will be so endlessly parsed and dissected?
Stewart: Yeah.
Hoult: Or misconstrued.
After living in the public eye for so long, do you have to make a concerted effort to remain present and real in interviews, instead of just putting on your armor?
Stewart: Yeah, it’s weird. It’s not a concerted effort, and I don’t have much regard for how it’s going to filter out into the world because of how little control I have over stuff like that. Every conversation I have is a completely personal conversation, and if a question is asked by someone who cares, I will fucking go there with you, do you know what I mean? But if I have someone sitting in front of me who’s prodding into details that will make their websites really popular that night, I just don’t engage. And then they’ll criticize that and be like, “Oh, you’re so guarded. That must be sad, to live like that.” And I’m like, “No, it’s just with you, actually. I have really good conversations with your coworkers. You’re bad at your job.”
How do you feel when a movie wraps? You’re asked to have these very intense emotional experiences with people who, suddenly, you don’t see again.
Hoult: I’ve got better at it. I remember when I was a kid, I did a job and my mum said for two days afterwards, I went upstairs and cried.
Stewart: You were despondent!
Hoult: For two days! I was just crying. It’s a horrible feeling at the end of a job. Well, it depends on the job. On some jobs, it’s a bit of a relief when it’s done, but on a job like this, you’re not ready for it to end. These things only happen once. The older I get, the more sentimental I get about it. When I was a kid, I was very emotional, and then I went through a phase where I was quite coldhearted about it and thought, “It’s a job, we go through it, blah blah,” but gradually as I get a bit older I look back at the job and go, “Wow, that’s it. That will never happen again. Damn.”
Do you ever feel typecast?
Hoult: I want to do different things. I don’t ever want someone to say, “Oh, he only does those films.” I think I’m fortunate that I’ve so far managed to steer clear of that.
I would hope that after your gonzo performance in Max Mad: Fury Road, you’ve exploded the notion that you could be typecast.
Hoult: That’s kind of the aim. And to do very different things with good people and learn. You always get better the older you get at acting, anyway. It’s one of those jobs that the more you grow as a person, the more interesting the characters get as well.
Stewart: Or not.
Some actors start shutting down later into their career. You can feel it.
Stewart: Yeah.
Hoult: That’s true, actually.
Stewart: What you just said is kind of, uh, wrong. [Both laugh.]
Hoult: I think the pitfall people fall into is they then believe they’re a great actor because they get told it so much.
Stewart: And then they stop acting.
Hoult: And you can see it.
Stewart: “That person is obsessed with themselves.”
Hoult: That’s what you don’t want. Every job should be a challenge. And then you show up and do your best, I guess.
Source
Friday, July 15, 2016
Kristen, Nicholas Hoult and Drake Doremus' interview with Yahoo Movies for 'Equals'
You only have to glance at recent headlines to see that emotions are running high in America right now. That makes the sci-fi drama Equals a particularly timely futuristic parable. Set in a society where human emotions have been forcibly eliminated from our genetic makeup, the movie follows two citizens of this gleaming dystopia — Silas (Nicholas Hoult) and Nia (Kristen Stewart) — who succumb to that debilitating disease known as “falling in love.” It’s a star-crossed romance in the tradition of Romeo & Juliet and Like Crazy, the 2011 film from Equals director Drake Doremus.
That Sundance-winning feature starred the late Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones as a couple who cling to a summer romance much longer than is healthy for either of them. Similarly, Silas and Nia just don’t know how to quit each other, even though their feelings make them outcasts in their society.
“That’s what interests me,” Doremus tells Yahoo Movies. “The idea that you only know that somebody is your soulmate when you can’t get rid of them, even when you try.” In separate conversations, we spoke with Doremus and Equals stars Stewart and Hoult about the experience of creating a future ruled by logic, rather than emotions.
On the pros and cons of living in a world without emotions
Drake Doremus: I’m such an emotional person that I can’t imagine being in this world. But I think it’s fascinating to remove the thing that makes us the most human, which is the capacity to love. And then it’s really fascinating to think, Should we find a way back to that? Is it more productive for a society to focus on exploration and curiosity, without the things that hold us back? And the answer is no, not really. Life is messy, and relationships are messy. It’s not perfect, and accepting that is really important.
Kristen Stewart: It’s a hypothetical question that’s good for conversation’s sake and good for this movie, but I genuinely don’t think you could have this kind of world. We would just be fleshy masses of uncaring people that never got out of bed; we would have no human response to anything. There would be no intellectual curiosity or desire for progression at all. I wouldn’t even know how to be alive without that.
Nicholas Hoult: It would be an easier society to live in, and there would be a lot more peace without the terrible things that make people feel so deeply. But you can’t have the good without the bad.
The specific sci-fi influences on the film
Doremus: Full disclosure: I’ve never seen THX-1138, and I’ve never read 1984. But I have seen and loved Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451. That movie was made in the ’60s, but it feels like it could have been made today, because there’s nothing that ties it to that era. Blade Runner is also an influence from the standpoint of its ethereal music and visuals. It’s kind of a tone poem. With Equals, I always tell audiences before the film to turn your brains off and your hearts on. It’s not a thinking film, it’s a feeling film.
On shooting the film’s intimate scenes, including a steamy encounter in a bathroom stall.
Hoult: Drake gives you a space and an environment where you feel secure to explore and do your thing. But within that, he’s very encouraging and cares so much. It was strange to go from zero to 100 in a sense, jumping between scenes where you can’t feel anything and scenes where you’re experiencing things for the first time.
Stewart: These people know how to walk and talk, and they have jobs. So they’re not infants. Yet they are emotionally and sexually [stunted]. If you just put two people who were born as adults in front of each other, what would they do — especially if they were attracted to each other? They wouldn’t know how to kiss or classically procreate, but they’re still humans. It’s a weird hypothetical, but I can imagine it.
Doremus: Kristen and Nic threw themselves so fully into the film. It was amazing being around that energy. They’re so different; Nic is kind of shy, and Kristen is very passionate and intense. They brought out things in each other that I don’t think other people would have had. You don’t want to direct them too much. On set, I wasn’t saying much, to be honest. I just tried to let the camera roll and let them explore the dynamic that exists and get out of the way more than anything.
On shooting on location in Asia
Doremus: We shot all over Japan, in Tokyo, Kobe, and Osaka, as well as Singapore — all of these amazingly beautiful places. Most of the locations were museums or collages or institutes. I wanted everything to be practical; I didn’t want a green-screen movie. It needed to feel like a tangible version of 10 years from now. 2016 in Los Angeles and 2016 in Japan are so different; when I was there, it was like, “I don’t even know what century I’m in!” It’s such a different world and better world in some senses.
Hoult: The architecture and the look of [those locations’] is very much a part of this world. You notice how lean and precise they were but also how void of any human touch or personality.
Source
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Kristen and Nicholas Hoult's interview with THR for 'Equals'
"You feel like you’re being ripped in half and it hurts in the best way," says Stewart, who stars opposite Hoult in Drake Doremus' sci-fi romance, of falling in love.
Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult sweep into the room at the London Hotel, both proclaiming "It's really dark in here!" at almost the exact same time. They rush over to different switches in an attempt to bring in some light to the swanky London Hotel room on the July 8 afternoon.
Unfortunately, they can't figure it out. The room, while nice, isn't like the setting of their latest film, Drake Doremus' Equals, set in a futuristic society where emotions don't exist but technology has made life very minimalist and streamlined (the film was shot primarily in Japan and Singapore).
Still, even in the dark hotel room where the interview takes place, it's clear that the duo, who play two young people who find themselves with a "disease" that allows them to regain their emotions and fall in love, have developed a strong friendship, easily laughing at each other and referencing inside jokes from set. It makes sense that they've grown so close. Doremus put them both through a rehearsal bonding process that involved exercises like staring at each other and just saying hello over and over, and looking into each other's eyes for a long time while only being allowed to tell the truth or a lie. They also spent time sharing their thoughts with each other an a variety of subjects like love and relationships.
Plus, as Stewart and Hoult tell THR, they went skateboarding at 4 a.m., late-night drinking in a bar and go-kart racing on their days off. Ahead of the release of Equals on July 15 via A24, the stars spoke to THR about their adventures, shooting in Asia and what it feels like to fall in love.
Tell me about the very first time you met.
Hoult: It was here in LA. It was Kristen’s birthday. I just went along with a friend and I bought a her a shot of tequila to say "Happy Birthday." This was years before we were put in this movie. She doesn’t remember it.
Stewart: [Laughs.] I don't remember this at all.
So did you remember this when you re-met for the film?
Stewart: No, I just found out today actually when we were doing interviews [Laughs.]
So when did you meet for the first time for the movie?
Hoult: It was at Drake’s house. We all just sat and talked about the script. That was the first time I was like, "Damn, this girl’s so clever. She’s got great ideas." But I was also very hungry because I hadn’t eaten. There's was this cheese board, and I ate all the cheese.
Stewart: It was subtle taking him the cheese too. It was like when a nice lull would happen, which was rare, he’d take a piece. [Laughs.] Drake kind of developed this [project] with Nick in mind. And I was cast more traditionally. So, I came in so ready to prove that I should have the job.
Hoult: But I don’t think either of us would have done it without the other because Drake needed people that matched and worked.
Other than the exercises Drake had you do, was zip-lining and go-kart racing also part of the bonding experience.
Hoult: Oh no, that was just for fun.
Stewart: It was all-inclusive, though. It was really like all-encompassing, the experience. Every one‑too‑many drinks we had it was like we were better the next day because of that. Drake was so encouraging of anything that was even kind of scary. He likes to pretend that he was scared that we were skateboarding, but he loves the fact that we would go off at 4 a.m. and barrel down a hill rather than go to bed or learn our lines. Just to know that because we had fun the night before that the work would be better the day after is such a cool way of working.
Is there anything from the cultures in Singapore or Japan you wish was over here?
Hoult: There’s much more respect in Japan in terms of...
Stewart: --for each other.
Hoult: For each other and the elders particularly as well. It’s a very different system.
Stewart: Anciently speaking, they are obsessed with balance. You can feel that. Literally, in the food it’s so balanced. There’s a harmony that I don’t feel so palpably in other places. Because we're in this weird position of being known publicly, people reveal the worst and best sides of themselves fast than us, so being there was like lovely because everyone was quite lovely. There's a social dynamic over there that's nicer because it's balanced.
How do you describe falling in love for the first time?
Stewart: The first noticeable thing to me is how physical it is. But I’ve had it a couple times, so it’s not just the first time, which is actually encouraging. We were trying to describe this feeling in rehearsal. It’s just you feel like you’re being ripped in half and it hurts in the best way. And it’s like this dropping pole that also floats and it burns and it’s cold. It’s like just all every contradictory feeling at once imploding. You know what I mean?
Hoult: I agree, but I also I think before that I sense like a stillness. It’s not the moment of clarity, but, you know, it's like a ...pause.
Stewart: Really? I’m the other way around. I feel like that might be a guy thing.
Do you think about what happens to your characters after a movie ends?
Stewart: It kind of dependent on the project, but in this case for sure. The movie is not just about falling in love for the first time and coming into your own as an emotional being because people always have that in different stages of their lives. It’s like some people are in tune with themselves at five and some people don’t wakeup till they’re like f---ing 50. It's that within a relationship that starts off really hot and strong and real and visceral. That love exists for a reason. And to be aware that it’s going sort of drop sometimes and that there’s a reason that it exists in the first place. And you can actually take part in sustaining it.The ebb and flow of sustaining love and whether or not it exists forever.
Source
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)