YoutubeJust how down and dirty did Reese Witherspoon get for Mud? Why did Benedict Cumberbatch wig out on the set of his latest flick? And what's the latest on Ellen Page's real-life drama?
Read on for our latest installment of Big-Screen Spoilers…
Reese Witherspoon Grabs a Smoke
We're happy to report that Reese Witherspoon has no problem getting down and dirty for a movie role.
In the new indie drama Mud, Matthew McConaughey plays a fugitive who enlists two young boys in to help him look for his ex-girlfriend (Witherspoon). "At the end of our first meeting for coffee, I gave Reese a reality check," Mud director Jeff Nichols told me at the Sundance Film Festival during the Grey Goose dinner for the movie. "I said, 'Just so you know, we are going to Arkansas. You are going to be smoking and I want you to not look very good.' And she was like, 'Of course.' That was her attitude through the whole thing.'
Not long before shooting began, Nichols had a brief scare that Witherspoon was going to drop out of the project after she was hit by a car while jogging.
Ironically, Nichols thought her bruises were right for her character. "I was sitting there thinking, how do you break up that thing that she is, which is beautiful and amazing and Legally Blonde," Nichols remembered. "I was like, do we need to put a tattoo on her neck or something? But then I said, would you be willing to have a black eye, because that's exactly what we needed. She was totally game."
Benedict Cumberbatch Gets Freaky
Just yesterday, we showed you the first photo of Benedict Cumberbatch as the very blonde WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in director Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate.
So what does the villian of the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness think about the look? "It was really spooky," Cumberbatch recently told us of seeing himself in character for the first time. "I closed my eyes as the wig was going on…When I opened them, I looked in the mirror and it was quite freaky. To be honest, there are huge differences between us as there are between Margaret Thatcher and Meryl Streep but it's hard to see yourself, which is really exciting."
Ellen Page's Gay "Dream"
It's been almost three years since Ellen Page announced she was going to play a lesbian in Freeheld, the real-life story of a New Jersey detective, Laurel Hester, who is battling cancer and fighting to secure her pension benefits for her girlfriend, Stacie Andree.
And Page is determined to get cameras rolling.
"Ron Nyswaner has written an absolutely beautiful script, so we're hoping to make it soon," she said at the Sundance premiere of her new eco-terrorism thriller, East. "It's my dream."
Page was tight-lipped on a possible costars. "It's not all cast," she said. "That's sort of the thing we're trying to put together now."
It's Hebrew Hammer Time
Talk about a mitzvah. Jonathan Kessleman, writer and director of the cult movie Hebrew Hammer, just announced that he's raised almost $50,000 to make a sequel, Hammer vs. Hitler, through crowdfunding site, Jewcer.com.
Original stars Judy Greer and Adam Goldberg will return for part two, which has an estimated budget of about $2 million. If all goes well, Kesselman plans to begin shooting in May.