Roadside AttractionsI know. This is not the Enquirer. And this is not as dirty and psychotic as it sounds. But it's a funny story and I gots to share.
So, I'm sitting at a roundtable press junket for Starting Out in the Evening. We've got five journalizers and one Mr. Frank Langella. You know him from George Clooney's HBO show Unscripted, where he played the lascivious acting coach, as well as from Dracula. Oh, and also as Daily Planet editor Perry White in Superman Returns.
Side note: Evening is a nearly perfect film, the story of an aging novelist (Langella) rediscovering his capacity for feeling. It was made for less than a million bucks, is buoyed with confident, smart camerawork and breathtaking performances by Langella, Lili Taylor and Lauren Ambrose. I will tell you more about it later. It broke my heart.
The movie is all Langella. And he walks into the press junket, and he's just as sexy and robust as you would expect. I ask him what it's like to hit a woman on camera. He leans over, takes my head, my hands, and I'm like whaaah?
And then he slaps me.
I pulled back, instincts and whatnot. It wasn't a full-on raging pound. But I felt it. And this look on his face when he grinned said, "I'll show you." They don't make 'em like Langella anymore, hell to the no.
Most memorable junket experience ever. And I'm happy I didn't ask him what it's like to play Dracula and bite someone's neck. Maybe next time. Hee-hee.