Derek Cianfrance doesn’t need to hear Mo’Nique announce the Oscar nominations on January 25. He knew his lead actors, 30-year-old Ontarian Ryan Gosling and 30-year-old Michelle Williams, were giving Oscar-worthy performances from their first day on the set of the romantic drama Blue Valentine. For the 36-year-old, relaxed in a snap-button plaid shirt and scuffed-up white leather dress shoes at Toronto’s InterContinental hotel, the awards buzz began “the first time that Ryan and Michelle were together [on-set].”
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Q&A with Derek Cianfrance: Blue Valentine director says Williams and Gosling’s Oscar potential was clear from the get-go
After The After Show: we catch up with Jessi and Dan
Jessi and Dan filming the After Show finale (Image: John Shearer/Getty Images)
When The Hills wrapped in July, the on-air finale proved less dramatic than the fairy-tale ending for MTV’s After Show co-host Jessi Cruickshank. Just like Lauren Conrad in the reality soap’s first episode, Cruickshank has packed her heels up and headed to L.A. to work on what she jokingly calls her “mystery job.”
She was back in Toronto last week; we spotted her at a VIP room table at the Guvernment with her former partner in Heidi Montag analysis, Dan Levy. They were reunited to host RBC’s modestly named Night of Your Life TIFF party for the second year.
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Looking back at TIFF 2010: Nick Di Donato on how to throw a film festival party
Rick Campanelli hangs out at ET Canada's parking garage party
Nick Di Donato, president and CEO of Liberty Entertainment Group, is sitting in his newest Yorkville restaurant, Ciao, where just days ago Bill Gates broke bread with John Legend. Four storeys above is the parking lot that was transformed for four days into Entertainment Tonight Canada’s Festival Central, where a fab four-party weekend took place, all under Di Donato’s direction. The man behind the Rosewater Supper Club, Tattoo Rock Parlour, Spice Route and C Lounge—just to scratch the surface of his empire—and veteran of 15 TIFFs reflects on film festival parties past and present.
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Looking back at TIFF 2010: actor Emily Hampshire on how the festival has gone for her
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With TIFF wrapping up, Good Neighbours actress Emily Hampshire is ready to let her hair down. When we talked with her on Thursday, she still hasn’t washed her loosely bundled brunette hair since her film premiered on Tuesday. “You can tell, right?” she laughs over coffee at the Bloor Street Diner. “That is clearly hair that has been done and been slept in.” It’s a testament to Hampshire’s whirlwind week that she’s still pulling bobby pins out of her hair Thursday morning. With a candour and bubbly it-girl energy reminiscent of Sienna Miller, the 29-year-old actress reflects on a week in which she finally felt like a movie star.
Looking back at TIFF 2010: an Alliance Films VP gives her run down of this year’s fest
Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech
On Friday morning, Carrie Wolfe, the vice president of publicity and promotion for Alliance Films, was packing up her headquarters at the Intercontinental in Yorkville. After 11 years of building buzz for Oscar noms like Frieda, The Young Victoria and Eastern Promises out of the Bloor Street hotel, Alliance is moving its TIFF office down to King Street for 2011 to be closer to the Bell Lightbox. Though the 13-year film fest veteran was running on her final fumes of adrenaline, she offered to take a minute and share with us the people, performances and publicity coups that made her year at TIFF.
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Indies thriving in Canada says Daydream Nation director
Michael Goldbach, Kat Dennings and Josh Lucas (Image: Jeff Vespa/WireImage/Getty Images)
Whoever says high school is the best time of your life obviously never went to high school in Arva. The small town—population 1,000—outside of London, Ontario, inspired first-time director Michael Goldbach to write the drama Daydream Nation. “I think that it was the craziest time of my life,” the 33-year-old says today of growing up there. “I just really feel lucky that I lived through high school. I just thought it was a very bizarre place. I don’t look back on it with any kind of nostalgia. But high school was so insane that it offers great material.”
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Q&A with Blue Valentine director: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams’ latest “like a documentary of two people falling in love”
From left to right: producer Alex Orlovsky, producer Lynette Howell, actor Faith Wladyka, actor Ryan Gosling, director Derek Cianfrance, and producer Jamie Patricof attend the Blue Valentine premiere at Ryerson Theatre on September 15, 2010 (Image: Jeff Vespa/WireImage)
Did you know Ryan Gosling had a brother? Neither did he. But the producers of Half-Nelson were on to something when they insisted Gosling meet “his brother,” Derek Cianfrance—the man who would eventually become the director of Gosling’s new flick Blue Valentine. Derek not only shares a passing physical resemblance to the Cornwall, Ontario, superstar (blue eyes, sandy hair), but they’re also the kind of guys who can spend nine-hour dinners talking about love. The film screened on Wednesday as part of TIFF, and we got to sit down with the director for a one-on-one.
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Bang Bang on the Bridle Path: inside the after party with Ryan Phillippe and Malin Akerman
Toronto's own Malin Akerman arrives at a private residence on the Bridle Path last night for the Bang Bang Club after party (Image: Sonia Recchia/Getty Images )
Toronto’s rich and not-so-famous mingled through the house that hair built Wednesday night at the after party for Ryan Phillippe’s South African photojournalist drama The Bang Bang Club. Ray Civello, owner of the Civello salons and the man behind many of Aveda’s Canadian institutions, threw the soirée at his Bridle Path residence. A dashingly suited-up Phillippe sank into the white leather sofas of the VIP quarters, overlooking the home’s wide-open courtyard, joined by his Canadian co-star Malin Akerman. One guest remembered when the 32-year-old actress was slinging drinks back at Bar 606. “I remember when she used to clean the bathrooms,” she says. “She was King Street before it was King Street.”
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Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris and Lisa Simpson—er, Yeardley Smith—at the Swarovski Virginia Pre-Party
Yeardley Smith earlier in the night at the What's Wrong With Virginia premiere (Image: Karon Liu)
Jennifer Connelly sweeps by, beautiful in a black blazer, her black hair tied tightly behind her head. Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Milk who’s here celebrating What’s Wrong With Virginia, his first major project as a director, charms an Entertainment Tonight Canada producer by remembering him from an earlier interview. But for TV diehards, it’s Lisa Simpson herself, Yeardley Smith, who outshone the crystals at Wednesday’s Virginia pre-party at Swarovski’s Bloor Street flagship store.
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The charmingly self-conscious Andrew Garfield is upgrading his Spider-Man pyjamas
Look out! Here comes the Spider-Man (Image: csztova)
Andrew Garfield is poking away at a bowl of bananas in a suite at the Four Seasons. The skinny 27-year-old, wearing a Fred Perry zip-up and a Back to the Future watch gifted by his girlfriend, looks more like 17 as he talks about his role as a boy bred for sinister purposes opposite Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan in the film Never Let Me Go. “I think Kazuo [Ishiguro, who wrote the novel] wanted to tell a story not about people escaping a bad situation, but how they accept a bad situation,” he tells the writers who’ve joined him for breakfast. “How we put up with a giant tiger in the room and kind of ignore it and go on eating our bananas. Which is what we all do in our own lives.”
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Q&A with Xavier Dolan: “My film is not homework that a critic should correct”
Xavier Dolan arrives at the gala premiere of Heartbeats at the Varsity Cinemas (Image: Jag Gundu/Getty Images)
Xavier Dolan doesn’t want to lie, but he also doesn’t want to tell the truth. The 21-year-old director with the Eraserhead hair—a breakout talent at TIFF last year with his French-language debut I Killed My Mother (J’ai tué ma mère)—bristles when asked how he knows real-life friends Niels Schneider and Monia Chokri. The Québécois actors form the other two points of a love triangle, alongside Dolan, in his swooning sophomore film Heartbeats (Les amours imaginaires). “Can we just…no?” he asks. “Can I say no?”
In the film, a sexually ambiguous himbo (Schneider) drives a wedge between Dolan’s jaded gay guy Francis and Chokri’s poised Marie. Dolan wrote the script with the actors in mind; however, they’re not joining him in Toronto for the screening. The only explanation for their absence: “They weren’t invited.”
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Spotted! Uma Thurman orders off-menu Mexican at private Brassaii dinner with Jason Reitman
Actor Uma Thurman attends the Ceremony after party at Brassaii (Image: George Pimentel)
Brassaii chef Bruce Woods served up honey-mustard-glazed salmon, goat cheese–stuffed chicken and champagne risotto for the cast of Ceremony Monday night. However, the guest of honour, one Uma Thurman, opted for something a little more caliente. Apparently, the Tarantino muse eats only Mexican. Of course, the kitchen was only too happy to comply for the 40-year-old, who looked comfortably cool in a grey sweater, black vest and men’s suit pants.
Uma came to Brassaii to dine with Ceremony executive producer Jason Reitman; actor Lee Pace; the film’s director, Max Winkler; and his dad, Henry Winkler (better known as The Fonz).
As they dined behind a white curtain, the restaurant was still buzzing about Hangover star Zach Galifianakis’s visit on Saturday night. Arriving with a bevy of bearded companions, he cemented his rep as the anti–movie star by blowing off an umbrella carrier despite pouring rain, then tipping—yes, tipping!—his server, a refreshing and rare move from the superstar crowd.
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- Director Max Winkler attends the Ceremony after party at Brassaii (Image: George Pimentel)
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- Actor Henry Winkler—a.k.a. the Fonz—arrives at Brassaii for the after party celebrating Ceremony, which was directed by his son (Image: George Pimentel)
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- Executive producer Ivan Reitman attends the Ceremony after party at Brassaii (Image: George Pimentel)
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- Actor Lee Pace attends the Ceremony after party at Brassaii (Image: George Pimentel)
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- Actor Uma Thurman attends the Ceremony after party at Brassaii (Image: George Pimentel)
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- Actor Uma Thurman signs an autograph before the Ceremony after party at Brassaii (Image: George Pimentel)
Abigail Breslin, 14, performs at the Horseshoe
Breslin onstage at the Horseshoe (Image: Jason Merritt/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images)
It was Little Miss Sunshine: After Dark on Tuesday as 14-year-old Abigail Breslin gave a surprise performance at Queen Street rock bar the Horseshoe Tavern. The Oscar nominee, accompanied on acoustic guitar by Irish singer-actor Gemma Hayes, sang a lovelorn ballad at the after party for her film Janie Jones. Visibly nervous at first, Breslin grinned from ear to ear when she finished as the crowd went wild. Your move, Dakota.
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Peaches Geldof loves expensive video games, cheap booze
Peaches Geldof with Jade Raymond of Ubisoft Toronto (Image: Jess Baumung/Ubisoft)
As the daughter of Bob Geldof, British socialite Peaches Geldof is basically high society by birth. Her taste in cocktails? Maybe not so distinguished. She requested a bottle of two-star resort staple Havana Club while deejaying the launch of Ubisoft’s new Toronto studio at Lansdowne and Wallace on Sunday night.
In rant at the Four Seasons, Peter Fonda proves that he’s mad as hell about something
Peter Fonda poses with a fan at the Four Seasons (Image: Ryan Porter)
Hollywood is fraught with uncertainty, but one thing we can all count on is that somewhere in Tinseltown, a Fonda has an opinion on politics. On Sunday, Peter Fonda, the 70-year-old star of Easy Rider, showed he’s still as passionate about protecting the world’s oceans as he was in his radical Greenpeace days. The actor was on hand at the Four Seasons to accept the Legacy Leadership Award from charity group Best Buddies. When we asked what moment stands out from his work with charities, this was his response:
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