Uma Thurman Talks Stanley Kubrick’s Wartime Lies, Role of Her Career
When I think of actresses lucky enough to have a perfect part, one tailored and empowered with the entire spectrum of human emotion and not simply the giddy sex appeal that plagues Hollywood films, I think of Uma Thurman and Beatrix Kiddo/The Bride in Kill Bill. She should have received an Oscar nom for either volume, and won. While the following quote is in no way a slight at Tarantino, it was surprising to hear her say the following to MTV in regards to a role in Stanley Kubrick’s Wartime Lies, neither of which happened, obviously…
“It was devastating because it was an incredible part,” she confessed. “It would have been the part of my career, the best part I ever had been offered or had written for me, or anything.”
In no way am I comparing Tarantino to Kubrick right now, but it seriously caught me off guard, especially the “writing” part. Kubrick’s Wartime Lies, based on Louis Begley’s acclaimed novel, would have had Thurman play a Jewish woman who cares for her orphaned nephew as they face Nazi atrocities in Poland during the Holocaust and resort to taking the disguise of Catholics. More Uma…
“I was going to make a film with him — for a long time I was scheduled to make a film with him,” she said of “Wartime Lies,” a movie she was signed on to make with Kubrick in the early 90s. “I was contracted to do it and things happened and he shelved the film. He never made the film.”
An adaptation is currently being worked on by The Departed’s ever-busy William Monahan, but Thurman didn’t discuss whether she’s still being sought for the part. Let’s hope, because she belongs in higher-brow fare than My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
Wolverine: Gavin Hood Explains His Interest and Possible Sequel; New Screenwriter Hired
20th Century Fox and Hugh Jackman have brought Swordfish and Hitman screenwriter Skip Woods to revise (”more than a polish”) David Benioff’s draft for the upcoming X-Men spin-off prequel, Wolverine. Director Gavid Wood, whose film Tsotsi won the Academy Award in 2006 for Best Foreign Language Film, has been out promoting his new film Rendition, where online journalists have been pestering him for new information about the upcoming comic book adaptation. Hood told SuperHero Hype why he is interested in making Wolverine:
“What appeals to me about the Wolverine character of all the other characters is that my feeling that he’s the one that suffers from the most existential angst. Since I’m a guy who loves emotional complexity, it seemed to me that… when I was first approached to do it, my first thought was, ‘What? Me? Do this? What is that? I don’t know enough about comic book characters.’ And of course, I then did some further research and I realized that the character of Wolverine, I think his great appeal lies in the fact that he’s someone who in some ways, is filled with a great deal of self-loathing by his own nature and he’s constantly at war with his own nature. It seemed to me that really what it is, is that it’s a little like great Greek mythology, which is something I’ve always been in love with where the Greek Gods threw thunderbolts and Poseidon conjured up storms, but those mythological stories were designed to examine emotional truths. It seems to me that the character of Wolverine epitomizes in a modern context, a kind of great mythical tradition of using larger-than-life characters in order to play with and examine human emotion at a sort of operatic level.”
But the most interesting development came when Hood was asked if they were planning to shoot in Japan (which is part of the early years of Wolverine’s comic book origins). Hood responded:
“No, sadly no. We’re not going to Japan. “I think that will be in ‘Wolverine 2’ but I won’t say any more than that.”
Did you read that? Wolverine 2!? Looks like Fox is planning for a Wolverine franchise (possible trilogy). Filming on Wolverine begins this November in Australia for a 2008 release.
Contributing Sources: IGN, SuperHeroHype
Jennifer Lopez and Victoria Beckham’s Insecurities
Jennifer Lopez and Victoria Beckham’s Insecurities
Busy performing concerts around the world - most recently in Lisbon - Jennifer Lopez took time out to talk about a few personal matters with Glamour magazine. The Hold You Down singer, who’s typically beaming with confidence, said that she’s really insecure about herself sometimes. And she’s not the only one.
Jennifer spoke of a conversation she’d had with Posh Spice: “I was just talking about this with Victoria Beckham. Victoria said: ‘People would never guess you’re insecure. Are you? Because I know I am’. It was like she had to hear it from me. And I said: ‘Yeah, of course I am’.”
J Lo continued, “She said: ‘But you seem so confident’ and I said: ‘Because I am confident. It doesn’t mean I don’t have my moments. But you have to remember the value of your individuality - that you have something special and different to offer that nobody else can’. Victoria said: ‘Oh. I love hearing this. What you’re saying is so great!’.”
Rather than trying to hide her true human emotion, Jennifer thought it to be important that all of her fans - and Victoria’s - see that big stars have their issues, too.
“It was really sweet. That’s why I wanted to put it out there: Here you have a beautiful, successful woman who does her own imaging and branding and has a great family and kids - yet, at times, she feels very insecure about herself. We all do.”