05/03/2012

Shirley Maclaine: Downton Abbey, Hitchcock Slang and Peter Sellers' Aura

BERNIE_Courtesy_of_Millennium_Entertainment_jpg_627x325_crop_upscale_q85
And speaking of Bernie, it gave me an excuse, I mean opportunity, to talk to Shirley Maclaine, who plays a wealthy, mean-spirited widow opposite Jack Black's guileless mortician. Even better, the A.V. Club's "Random Roles" format let me quiz her on her past triumphs, including the beyond-brilliant Some Came Running, as well as her experiences with Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Frank Tashlin, Jerry Lewis. Did I ask about her role on the upcoming third season of Downton Abbey? I sure did.

May 3, 2012 8:46:02 AM | Articles, Film, Interviews, Television

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEXT POST
Bernie's Jack Black: Tenacious D., Mr. Show and His "Fumbly Bumbly" Style Lots to catch up on, so we'll make this quick. I talked to Jack Black about Bernie, the Richard Linklater movie in which he plays a soft-spoken East Texas mortician who winds up shooting an elderly widow in the back. (It's based on a true story, so shut up with the spoiler talk.) He's more subdued in person than his bigfoot persona might lead you to expect, and especially so in this case since he was jetlagged and sick, apologetically offering an elbow bump in lieu of a handshake. Even so, he was great fun to talk to, especially with...
PREVIOUS POST
Feist's "Broken-Hearted Love Songs": Turbulent, Violent and Not Suitable for Easy Listening I don't often (read, almost never) get around to posting my Inquirer concert reviews — sometimes because thanks to the paper's nightmarish website, I can't even find the damn things — but I'm pretty happy with how this account of Leslie Feist's show at the Academy of Music turned out. For me, at least, the show was a revelation, a dramatic and at times emotionally violent performance that sent me back to Feist's albums, wondering, "How did I miss that?" In all honesty, I still thought of her principally as the woman behind the ubiquitous, Muppet-friendly "1234," pointedly absent from...

Sam Adams

Sam Adams is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Onion A.V. Club, and a Contributing Editor at Philadelphia City Paper, where he edited the film section from 1999-2007. His writing has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, the Boston Globe, the Hollywood Reporter and Film Comment. He is a member of the National Society of Film Critics, and his essays on Two Lane Blacktop and Greendale appear in the NSFC anthology The B List. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and daughter.

Search

Become a Fan

My Other Accounts

Recent Comments