interview

Before landing the coveted role as Dani Ramos in Terminator: Dark Fate, actress Natalia Reyes had received acclaim for her brilliant turn in Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego’s Birds of Passage. Columbian born Reyes is perhaps more widely known for her role on the television series, Lady, la...

John Ashton, veteran actor of the stage and screen, is perhaps best known around the world for his portrayal of Sgt. John Taggart of the Beverly Hills police department in the 1984 runaway box office smash, Beverly Hills Cop, and its 1987 sequel, Beverly Hills Cop II. The films cemented Eddie...

Ben Gervais, the man who helped director Ang Lee realize his high frame rate vision for 2016’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, was called up by the Academy Award winning director to help him once again make strides in a new technology. As Technical Supervisor, Gervais boarded Gemini Man to help...

I had the pleasure of speaking with Jo McLaren, Veteran stunt performer and coordinator, back in 2018 following her work on director Alex Garland’s cerebral psychological science-fiction drama, Annihilation, and she continues to be a sought after by some of the biggest names in the industry...

Warwick Davis is a man of a thousand faces. A gifted actor who has brought to life many, many characters from a galaxy far away to the hidden world of magic, from the corners of the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy and the depths of Irish folklore. He’s at home in fields of horror and fantasy...

Tim Janis, successful and prolific composer and recording artist, has worked with legends of the recording industry, including Paul McCartney and Billy Joel. In 2018 he embarked on his first directorial feature, a sweet holiday story following the fates of two orphan girls. Featuring a strong...

Writer/Director Gavin Hood has explored filmmaking on a smaller scale in films like his Academy Award-wining Tsotsi and Rendition to the large spectacle of visual effects feasts like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Ender’s Game. For his latest film, Official Secrets, Hood returns to the smaller...

Alexandre Aja is a French director who hit the international stage with the well-received horror-thriller Haute Tension (High Tension) in 2003, and he’s been exploring various forms of dark stories and horror ideas since. With the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, the Kiefer Sutherland-led Mirrors...

Author, screenwriter and producer W. Bruce Cameron is a charming man and the most successful author of books about dogs with 15 bestsellers translated into more than 50 languages around the globe. He began his career writing a family newspaper humor column, eventually becoming an internationally...

James Lopez serves as President of Will Packer Productions, the highly successful production company that has enjoyed a string of hits-and nine consecutive number one openings at the box-office-in the past few years. They’ve produced the Kevin Hart smash hits Ride Along, Ride Along 2, Think Like...

Mary Walsh has a fascinating and important role in managing and protecting the millions of pieces of Disney’s history under her care. As Managing Director, Animation Research Library at Walt Disney Animation Studios, a role she’s held since 2014, Mary is in charge of the repository containing...

John Herzfeld, actor, writer, producer and Emmy award-winning Director (Don King: Only in America), has a long career in Hollywood. He’s also been a good and close friend to one of the most legendary action heroes in all of cinema, Sylvester Stallone (Sly). When he was approached to tackle the...

Richard Stammers, Visual Effects Supervisor with the Moving Picture Company (MPC), is a veteran in the world of VFX. With more than 20 years’ experience bringing the magical, the terrifying, and the fantastic to life in films like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Prometheus, and X-Men: Days...

Based on the bestselling novel The Women in Black by Madeleine St John, Ladies in Black has been called a “love letter to Sydney (Australia).” Set in the summer of 1959, at a time when immigration from European countries was rising, along with female empowerment and women’s liberation, young...

Peel, directed and produced by Rafael Monserrate, is a delightful surprise of a film. An offbeat coming of age tale told with an insightful eye and a collection of terrific performances. Emile Hirsch plays the title character, a young man exposed to a larger world when his mother passes away...

In Bumblebee, the first spin-off Transformers film centered around the lovable VW Bug-based Bumblebee character, Jason Drucker stars as the younger brother to Hailee Steinfeld’s Charlie, the young girl who befriends the yellow Autobot. Drucker and Steinfeld share a familiar sibling relationship...

Julie Hagerty has made a splash wherever she shared her talents – on stage, the small screen, or the big screen. A comedic legend born the moment she appeared as Elaine Dickinson the 1980 instant classic, Airplane!, Hagerty has enjoyed a varied career between film and television. She has...

Glasgow, Scotland born actor, Iain De Caestecker is a man of many charms. Humble, funny, and a very talented actor, De Caestecker has assembled an impressive resume of appearances in just a few short years, with turns in a range television series and films, from the long-running British soap...

Courtney Henggeler is a rising star. Following a growing list of notable appearances in shows such as House, Mom, Bones, and as Sheldon Cooper’s twin sister on The Big Bang Theory, Henggeler was cast as Amanda LaRusso, wife to Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), in YouTube Premium’s popular and...

John Singleton’s first directorial and screenwriting feature, Boyz N the Hood, a tale of violence, hope and despair in South Central, Los Angeles, was an astonishing debut garnering him an historic Academy Award nomination for Best Director and another for Best Screenwriter (screenplay written...

Academy Award winning Costume Designer Jenny Beavan abounds with creative talent. The London native was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 20 for her dedicated services to drama production, and her vibrant filmography is testament to that dedicated and craft. Having...

Peppermint has all the familiar ingredients of a potent revenge drama. A violent tragedy, a survivor in emotional chaos before choosing to avenge the death of their innocent loved ones. What helps set Peppermint apart is the all-in performance by Jennifer Garner as the aggrieved who, when failed...

As I noted in my review of Scrooged, the film remains a delightfully manic and funny holiday treat – a take on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that updates and twists it just enough to be fresh without a hollow facsimile of the originating tale. The brilliant production design and playful makeup and...

In 1991, Steven Spielberg’s Hook made its debut. The film, which had a notoriously rough shoot, was met with mixed critical reactions, though the film was eventually quite profitable. The film starred Robin Williams as a grown-up Peter Pan with no memory of Neverland, and Dustin Hoffman as the...

When Book Club debuted at the Box Office in May 2018, its opening weekend surprised everyone, coming in ahead of projections. Landing in the busy ‘summer’ season, when cinemas are filled to the brim with expensive summer blockbusters, the warm comedy proved to be clever counterprogramming...

Great character actors are the ones who create so many memorable, recognizable characters on film, television and stage, that you may not always know the name of the person bringing them to life. Leon Russom is one of those great character actors. Having appeared in stage, film and television...

The late comedy legend Jerry Lewis was the ruler of the box office. He rose to the top of the box office as part of the beloved duo with crooner Dean Martin, a partnership that lasted 10 years and numerous films and other appearances, Lewis would eventually go solo and enjoy continued and...

Walt Disney (through RKO Radio Pictures) finally brought J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan to audiences in 1953, the 14th animated feature film from the studio. The story of the boy who never grew up, and the adventure of Wendy and brothers on their trip to Neverland, was received warmly by critics and...

Veteran stunt performer and coordinator Jo McLaren has made her mark on projects big and small. Everything from British television drama (Grantchester, The Tunnel), to the globe-hopping stunt spectaculars on Fast & Furious 6, World War Z, Gravity, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and more, she has made...

Native Chicagoan, Michael Gross, is a prolific stage, television and film actor, and is perhaps most known for two very different roles. Many audiences know and admire him for his work as the ex-Hippy Steven Keaton, father to Michael J. Fox’s Alex, and Justine Bateman’s Mallory, on the award...