Spent about three hours today listening to some top-flight directors like Martin Scorsese, Bill Condon and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu talking about their craft...
...You know, just another day at the office...
Ha! It was a very special day at the office where I spent the morning at the Directors Guild of America theater in West Hollywood for the 16th annual symposium of the nominees for the DGA Awards which take place tonight. Thought I'd write a little bit about it for you all before I get into my tux and head on over to Century City for the gala event. My friend James is here from out of town and rented a red convertible something so at least we'll get there in style.
I wanted to share a little bit of what Bill Condon said about the casting process for "Dreamgirls": "Effie is 90 percent of casting that movie. On-stage it had a legendary performance from Jennifer Holiday and, of course, she still thinks she should be in the movie. But, it's 25 years later. I went to New York and auditioned [Jennifer Hudson] and you are working with someone who hasn't acted before. It was a real old-fashionjed Hollywood screen test."
Condon said he "felt a real spark and I felt excited by her" but that didn't come through in the test so he kept on looking at the 12 other girls who screen tested. But, he eventually went back to Hudson and the rest is Hollywood history. She has gone on to deliver one of the most stunning movie debuts since Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl" and Bette Midler in "The Rose." Hudson is the front-runner for the best supporting actress Oscar and has already won the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards aming a slew of other honors.
"If you didn't have an Effie to anchor this," said the openly-gay Condon, "then you'd be dead in the water."
"Getting Beyonce to play Deena was a surprise because we thought all those girls would be unknown.
So we are in the elevator on our way into the theater and bumped into Fred Savage! You may know him as Kevin from "wonder Years" but he is now in his early 30s and a respected television director. He is nominated for a DGA award tonight in the children's programming category. I've interviewed him three different times for three different publications when he was playing a gay man on the sadly short-lived - but wonderful - ABC comedy "Crumbs."
"It never really got a chance to catch on," he told me this morning.
Then less than a minute later, I bump into Paris Barclay, the respected television director ("CSI," "Dirt") who is receiving an honorary DGA award tonight. Parclay, who is openly gay, was the highest-ranking Hollywood type to call Isaiah Washington out on his use of the homophobic slurs refering to T.R. Knight. Barclay said Washington should be fired and he stands by the opinion. Maybe he'll have more to say about it tonight.
Stay tuned!