Release date: August 28
Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer, Audra McDonald, Sebastian Stan and Rick Springfield
Three-time Academy Award® winner Meryl Streep goes electric and takes on a whole new gig – a hard-rocking singer/guitarist – for Oscar®-winning director Jonathan Demme and Academy Award®-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody in the uplifting comedy Ricki and the Flash. In a film loaded with music and live performance, Streep stars as Ricki, a guitar heroine who gave up everything for her dream of rock-and-roll stardom, but is now returning home to make things right with her family. Streep stars opposite her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer, who plays her fictional daughter; Rick Springfield, who takes on the role of a Flash member in love with Ricki; and Kevin Kline, who portrays Ricki’s long-suffering ex-husband.
Production
Information
Meryl
Streep takes on a whole new gig – a hard-rocking singer/guitarist – for
Oscar®-winning director Jonathan Demme and Academy Award®-winning screenwriter
Diablo Cody in Ricki and the Flash.
In an original film loaded with live musical performances, Streep stars as
Ricki Rendazzo, a guitar heroine who made a world of mistakes as she followed
her dreams of rock ‘n’ roll stardom. Returning home, Ricki gets a shot at
redemption and a chance to make things right as she faces the music with her
family. Streep stars opposite her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer; Rick
Springfield, portraying a Flash member in love with Ricki; Kevin Kline as Ricki’s
ex-husband; and Audra McDonald as Kline’s new wife.
TriStar
Pictures presents in association with LStar Capital, a Marc Platt / Badwill
Entertainment production, Ricki and the Flash.
Starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer, Audra McDonald,
Sebastian Stan, and Rick Springfield. Directed
by Jonathan Demme. Produced by Marc
Platt, Diablo Cody, Mason Novick, and Gary Goetzman. Written by Diablo Cody. Executive Producers are Ron Bozman, Adam
Siegel, Lorene Scafaria, and Ben Waisbren.
Director of Photography is Declan Quinn, ASC. Production Designer is Stuart Wurtzel. Edited by Wyatt Smith, ACE. Costume Designer is Ann Roth.
Ricki and the Flash has
been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for thematic
material, brief drug content, sexuality, and language. The film will be released in theaters
nationwide on August 7, 2015.
ABOUT THE FILM
“Everyone
has part of their past they wish they could change,” says director Jonathan
Demme, who takes the helm of the new film Ricki
and the Flash. Ricki, brought to
unforgettable life by Meryl Streep, is a guitar-shredding, hard-rocking mama,
filled with regret for the mistakes of her past, who now has a chance to make
things right. “When Ricki sees her
daughter in desperate straits,” Demme adds, “she understands that it’s a chance
for a certain kind of redemption, and she’s going to make good on all of the
bad choices she made in her past.”
“We
all have to live with our mistakes,” says Streep. “I think she wishes that her kids liked her
more, understood her – I think that is a regret – but she’s pretty clear-eyed
about it. Ricki lives in the moment –
she acts on the impulse that feels imperative to her. It’s a relief to play someone who doesn’t act
how everybody thinks she should be. She’s
saying, ‘I can’t help being the way I am.’”
“Ricki
Rendazzo is definitely a Meryl Streep we’ve never seen before,” Demme
continues. “Meryl has been taking these
incredible acting chances – bringing to life some famous figures, or the
terrifying witch in Into the Woods,
she’s doing a lot of extreme characters.
In this film, Ricki has her extremes, but Meryl plays it so
down-to-earth – an actual, authentic, singing guitar player, a real
twenty-first century woman.”
“It’s
not tied up in a bow – it feels like real people,” adds Streep. “They’re real, complicated, bumpy, messy
dilemmas. Itends up being funny, but it’s
heartbreaking, too.”
Ricki
Rendazzo was born in the mind of Diablo Cody, the Oscar® winning screenwriter
of Juno and Young Adult and the television series “The United States of Tara.”
“When
I read the script, initially, I found myself completely rooted in the
characters – especially the journey of Ricki, and her relationships with her
daughter, her ex-husband, and her new boyfriend,” says Marc Platt, a producer
of the film. “By the end of the journey,
I was very moved – I was elated. That’s
the barometer for me, to see whether I want to get involved or not – do I have
that kind of visceral reaction and response when I read a script? And I did.
It left something real in my heart upon the first read.”
Cody
says that the inspiration for such an original character actually came from
real life and very close to home. “The
character of Ricki was actually inspired by my mother-in-law, Terry, who is the
lead singer in a Jersey Shore rock band called Silk and Steel,” says Cody. “Terry is a grandmother of six, and she’s
still up there rocking out every weekend, walking on the bar, just electrifying
the audience. Rock ‘n’ roll is her life, and I think there have been people in
her life who have thought it was kind of a silly thing for a mom or grandmother
to do – and she doesn’t give a damn. I love that about her.”
With
Cody’s original screenplay in hand, producer Marc Platt was able to bring
Streep into the role. “Having known Meryl Streep for many, many
years, and knowing her love of musical performance, I instantly recognized that
this was a character that I thought Meryl would want to play,” Platt explains. “I
was over in London making Into the Woods with
Meryl and I said to her one day, ‘I have something I think is really special
and I’d like you to read it.’ Given the uncompromising truthfulness that Diablo
Cody created with Ricki, I wasn’t really surprised when Meryl came back a few
weeks later and said, ‘Remember that script you gave me? I loved it.’
The rest was very easy.”
In
the film, Ricki Rendazzo heads from her home in L.A. to be with her daughter,
Julie, at a moment of crisis. From her
rock ‘n’ roll world, Ricki heads to Indiana, to the life she left behind as
Linda Brummell, a wife and a mom of three.
Still, Cody notes, as much as Ricki wants redemption, she still wants it
on her own terms. “Ricki is Ricki,” she
says. “In the past, she was Linda
Brummell, Pete’s wife. She was a mom,
she lived in Indiana. She doesn’t want to
be that again; she’s very secure in her Ricki-ness.”
In
writing a screenplay about a character who has remade herself with an entirely
new persona, Cody is writing about a subject she knows well. “I have a very profound understanding of what
it’s like to have a persona that’s separate from your persona of origin, shall
we say,” Cody laughs. “I have these two
distinct chapters in my life – I have Brook in the Midwest and Diablo Cody in
Los Angeles, which is who I’ve been for the past eight years. Sometimes I have trouble integrating those
two identities – so I understand how Ricki feels.”
Playing
this role offered Streep the chance to be paired in scenes with her actress
daughter, Mamie Gummer (Cake, SideEffects). A mother-daughter story at its core, the
real-life frisson that results gives the film added potency. Demme insisted that the two not talk outside
of the scenes. Very close in real life,
their estrangement on film is as palpable as their resemblance. True genetics adds a rare level of reality to
the film.
“Mamie
is very dramatic and always has been, from the age of three – or maybe three
months – so we’ve been acting together for a long time,” says Streep. “I’m so in awe of her and her willingness to
go barebones at it. It’s tough to come
into our business, with a mother who’s so prominent in Hollywood, but kids have
a unique vision of their parents, which is not really to put them on a pedestal.
So, finding a way to be mad at me, manufacture rage – no problem.”
Streep
says that part of the reason for the distance between the mother and daughter
characters is because they are so alike.
“I think they’re both quick to rise to a fight,” says Streep. “They both see things as outsiders; they both
see themselves as the truth teller. The
apple doesn’t fall far. They both live
their truth, no apologies.”
Bringing
the film together is director Jonathan Demme.
“If there was ever a script for Jonathan Demme to direct, it’s Ricki and the Flash,” says Platt. “Think of Jonathan’s work – he’s brilliant
with female actresses and roles. He’s
made some of the great films with music groups – he lived in the world of
rock. The texture of his films is all
about diversity and tolerance and different people from different walks of life
finding a life together. He was the
inevitable choice. So when he called me
and said, ‘I have to direct this movie,’ it was music to my ears, but not a
surprise.”
ABOUT THE BAND…
“I found out early on that
Jonathan wanted to do all of the music live, which shocked me,” says Cody. “Any time I’ve worked on a movie where there
was music, it was phoney-baloney Hollywood – playback, lip syncing, fake guitar
playing. They do that because it’s way
easier to do it that way. But that is
not the Jonathan Demme way. The Flash
became a real band. Everything you see
and hear is the real deal. Meryl is
singing and playing guitar. They’re a band.
Without question, it’s the coolest aspect of this movie.”
So, though Streep was the first,
best, and only choice to play the role, she would have to learn to play guitar
to bring Ricki to life. Demme’s
vision for the film, from the very beginning, was to make the band real. “With this kind of character-driven film, we
have to make people feel like it’s real,” he says. “It never occurred to me to do anything other
than make the band real. The customary
thing is that the band pretends to play, and you overlay a previously-recorded,
perfect track, but I didn’t want to do that – I wanted this great band, with
Meryl at the center, to really get out there and play.
Streep, already a talented
singer, trained for months to play the guitar.
“To begin with, I started learning on an acoustic guitar with a
teacher in New York and then moved to the electric guitar about a month later,”
Streep explains. “Then I worked pretty much every day with Neil Citron, who is
this genius guitar teacher. He put the Telecaster in my hands and taught me a lot
of little tricks that rock ‘n’rollers use, bar chords, quick changes and stuff
like that.”
She says that she found the
electric guitar easier to play, “but your mistakes are much louder. With an
acoustic, you get away with it. With an electric, you have to be really
committed to that bad note because it’s ringing through the hall! It was such a
lot of fun.”
“I
never doubted for a second that Meryl wouldn’t become an excellent rhythm
guitar player, because I know she’s a research beast,” says Demme. “She works
as hard in the months leading up to a movie as she does when she’s shooting it.”
At Ricki’s side, on lead guitar,
Demme cast rock legend Rick Springfield.
Best known for his 80s-era hits, Springfield’s career has taken on new
dimensions with multifaceted and complex acting roles.
“The part of Greg is definitely
dual-purpose,”says Demme. “We needed a
terrific actor capable of going toe-to-toe with Meryl Streep, but also an
authentic shredder. I was worried about
finding a great Greg. The assignment to
our great casting directors, Bernard Telsey and Tiffany Little Canfield, was to
find any actor who can play guitar and might have the capacity to step up. Find anyone in that age range – I’ll see
anybody. And then Rick Springfield came
in, we meet him, he’s very nice – and then he plugs in and he’s amazing.”
Later, Springfield had a second
meeting with Streep – a meeting to ensure that the two actors would have
chemistry together. “All of this
authentic warmth comes out of him – he got Meryl to open up to stuff that she
hadn’t known was there yet. He came in
knowing that he would be fantastic in this part – it was an exciting
opportunity to play opposite Meryl Streep, to be a band member but also play a
very complicated character beyond that,” says Demme.“When he left, we thought, ‘Oh
my God, we have just found the greatest Greg of all.’”
“Rick is very alive and in the
moment, as a person, a performer and an actor,” says Streep. “That’s a beautiful quality and a necessary
one for Greg, because he’s a tender character.
He’s the lead guitar in The Flash, but he also aspires to be the man in
Ricki’s life. Greg just wants her to
jump in with both feet, but Ricki has a lot of problems committing, and she’s
really not sure she can make it not be a lie.”
“Greg is a good guitar player who
never really made it,” says Springfield.
“He had a brush with success that never went anywhere. But he loves to play and has been in love with
Ricki for quite a while. He’s frustrated
by her noncommittal, casual attitude to their relationship, but he loves
playing music with her – that’s where they unite. They share that passion for music.”
Springfield’s greatest challenge
in playing the role? “Not constantly going,
‘Oh, my God, it’s Meryl Streep!’” he jokes.
Kidding aside, Springfield is used to owning the stage as a rock
performer, but the part of Greg required him to defer to Ricki – the leader of
The Flash. “I’m a bit of a show-boater,”
he admits, “so to play the support role, I modelled it off a friend of mine,
who actually has that relationship with his wife on stage. It was very fortuitous that I saw them – I
kind of modelled it on that relationship.
It’s an emotional thing that you hook into like you do with any acting
role – you hook into that person through whatever process, and that guides a
lot of how you react and how you work.”
Interestingly enough, Springfield
and his character share a love for a very specific instrument. “In the script, Greg had a ‘68 SG. I actually have a ‘69 SG – I bought it new in
1970 and it’s been with me ever since.
It was my main guitar on my first albums, and I played it and wrote a
lot of my early songs on it, including ‘Jessie’s Girl.’ So it’s a very important guitar to me. I mentioned that to Jonathan, and he said, ‘Oh,
we’ve got to use it.’ It was an instant
connection for me to that guitar.”
Joining Springfield to portray
The Flash are three legendary sidemen:
·
Bernie
Worrell, a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic, who also worked with
Talking Heads and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, plays
keyboards;
·
Rick
Rosas – a/k/a “Rick the Bass Player” – who played with Neil Young, Joe Walsh, Crosby, Stills, Nash
& Young, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Rivers, Ron Wood, and Etta James, who died
late last year shortly after completing filming; and
·
Joe
Vitale, a longtime collaborator of Joe Walsh and the original touring drummer
for Crosby, Stills & Nash, on drums
In the weeks before shooting,
Ricki and the Flash, now a band, went into an intense rehearsal period. Springfield says that the period was as much
about gelling as a band as it was rehearsing the songs. “They’re all great musicians. As far as getting the songs to sound good and
together was, it was starting to happen the first day. Every one of the players really knew what
they were doing. And it was exciting to
see how much, how dedicated Meryl was – it’s really difficult to play an instrument
you’ve never played before and singing – it’s really hard. She was amazing – incredibly dedicated. We got together and rehearsed for two weeks,
and hung out at lunch, and started the process of asking,‘What would it be like
if we really were a band? Let’s jam six
years into two weeks and see if we can make it fly.’”
“Learning guitar was fun, but it
was a private enterprise and then all of a sudden Jonathan said, ‘We’re going
to get two weeks and the band’s going to get together.’ I thought, two weeks?! Two weeks to
become a band?” Streep recalls. “It didn’t seem like enough time, but those
guys were so great. They were very
gentle with me and forgiving in the very beginning, because I really couldn’t
keep up with them. Then, around the sixth
day, we hit a groove and then we couldn’t stop playing. We played and played and played and I really get why Ricki wanted never to
give that up, because it’s soooooo
much fun.”
The
rehearsals were so intense that the band barred all outsiders – even Demme
himself – from the sessions. “That was
fair,”Demme laughs. “When I finally
showed up, three weeks in, and I entered the little room where they were
playing, they were up on the bandstand and there was Meryl Streep, right in the
middle of it, looking like she’d been doing it all her life. It was thrilling – the only thing more
thrilling was when we started shooting and really seeing them play in front of
a live audience.”
For
Demme, that was a critical moment, and not necessarily one he had been
expecting. “What I didn’t realize is
that, when we played in front of the audience, there would be a bonus energy
from our dancers in the film – nothing beats dancing to live music. I was thrilled to see people up on their feet
rocking out to what Ricki and the Flash were laying down.”
Ricki and the Flash is a cover
band, so Demme and his collaborators chose a number of well-known songs that
served two purposes: not only did they have to be songs that a cover band would
be likely to play, but also songs that thematically fit the story. “Everybody collaborated on a list of their
favorite songs,” says Platt. “It’s the
music you’d hear from a classic rock cover band, or at a family celebration. We culled these lists of songs and went
through them – some that are familiar and have stood the test of time, and
other more recent songs, of the moment, that the people want to hear, whether
the band is into it or not.”
“Originally, Jonathan said, ‘Three
songs, it’s going to be easy, you’re going to have two weeks of rehearsal and
three songs, tops!’” says Streep. “Well,
there are ten songs in the movie – ten!
– and that’s hard.”
Ricki and the Flash performed all
of their songs live during photography, and Demme says they brought new life to
the tunes. For example, Demme says, “‘Keep
Playin’ That Rock N Roll’ is a song that was appropriate for them to have in
their repertoire – I never cared much for it, but when they do it, it sneaks up
on me. The life that Meryl breathes into
that song is just beyond belief, and it becomes one of my favorite songs.”
Of course, Streep not only
learned to play the guitar, but became a full-fledged rock ‘n’ roll performer,
too. “Like all of Meryl’s moves, every
moment is something that comes out of her,” Demme says. “On one song, ‘Let’s Work Together,’ she
leaves the bandstand, plays her way through the crowd, goes up to the bar, has
a drink – all on her own. I’m like, ‘Where
did you get those moves?’ and she said, ‘That’s just what I felt like doing at
the time.’”
But perhaps the most meaningful
on-stage moments are between Ricki and Greg.
“Ricki sings ‘Drift Away’ to Greg, and Greg, because it’s a very guitar
riff-driven song, is responding,”Demme says.
“It fills you up so much – it’s tremendously moving. It’s a beautiful moment for rock ‘n’ roll –
Meryl and Rick, making this music, but also this tremendously dramatic acting
experience, making it so real and pulling it all together.”
Demme
himself chose “Wooly Bully” for the band, while Cody had written P!nk’s “Get the
Party Started” and Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” into her screenplay. But it was Streep who chose one of the film’s
major set pieces, Bruce Springsteen’s “My Love Will Not Let You Down.”“Meryl
was coming out of her driveway to come to work one day and that song came on
the radio,” Demme relates. “She called
me up and said, ‘My God, I found the song.’ It just works so good.”
Perhaps
the most meaningful song that Ricki performs is an original – “Cold One,”
credited to Ricki in the film, but actually written by Jenny Lewis and Johnathan
Rice. “I was a fan before we started
working together,” says Demme. “We had
to have an original song and Diablo hadn’t written one, so I went to Jenny and
Johnny and said, ‘Imagine a song that this character might have written 15
years ago.’ They sent me a demo for ‘Cold
One,’ and it was lightning in a bottle.
It was just so easy.”
Streep
recalls hearing Springfield play the song as she prepared to do the same. “I heard Rick playing ‘Cold One’ – we were in
a dollar store and he was in back, in one of the dressing rooms, playing
around, and it was just so beautiful.
But I was going to have to
play it acoustically in the movie!” she says.
Though
Streep admits that she isn’t quite at Springfield’s level with the guitar, she
found a performance that fit the character and the moment. “I found a way of playing it that was like
booming the guitar – you play the chords and pound the strings and it’s
rhythmic, you hear the chord changes. It
works for the scene, because she’s playing in an intimate scene for her family,
but she’s not committing to playing it.
This is a song that was supposed to be her breakthrough into rock ‘n’
roll stardom, but nobody picked up on it.
She’s playing it, and not playing it – she’s uncertain about her work.”
The
song is actually heard four times in the film.
The first comes during a tender scene in Indianapolis, Ricki plays a
gentle, acoustic version for Pete and Julie, and the last is in the climactic
wedding scene, when Ricki and the Flash blow it out. In between, it is heard twice in
instrumental: once, on the guitar of Rick Springfield, as Ricki returns from
Indiana to Los Angeles with her tail between her legs, and again, in
Indianapolis, as she faces her fear of attending the wedding, on the moody
keyboards of Bernie Worrell.
…AND ABOUT THE FAMILY
When
Ricki is called back to Indiana, she makes the most of her chance to make
things right with her family.
Leading
the way as Ricki’s ex-husband is Kevin Kline, Streep’s longtime friend and
collaborator, having previously acted opposite Streep in Sophie’s Choice and A Prairie Home Companion, as well as a
number of stage plays, including a 2012 performance of the famous balcony scene
from “Romeo & Juliet” at New York’s Shakespeare in the Park. “Kevin is a brilliant actor – I’ve been a fan
of his since Sophie’s Choice and the
Pirate King in ‘Pirates of Penzance’ on Broadway,” says Platt. “Kevin is really funny, but he also carries
drama at the same time. The character he’s
portraying is really complicated; his relationship with Ricki is very
complicated. On that level alone, I
thought he’d be a great actor for that role.
But also, given that he and Meryl have a history between them on screen
and they’re friends off-screen, I thought it would serve the storytelling very
well. There’s so much unsaid between
Ricki and Pete. So, he was the first
person I suggested to Meryl when I first gave her the script.”
“Kevin
is a very talented musician himself,” Streep notes. “He came up to me on the first day that we were
playing in the club, and he said, ‘You don’t sound bad.’” I thought, ‘That was
the highest compliment.’”
“Kevin
was very daring and courageous in the way he brought Pete to life,” says Demme. “There’s authentic warmth and real depth
there, but there’s also a guy who doesn’t want to rock the boat, because he’s
very happy in his current life. He makes
cold decisions so as not to rock the boat.
With Kevin in that part, I love Pete, but Ricki deserves better – and
later, she gets it.”
Ricki and the Flashalso
unites Meryl Streep on screen with her real-life daughter, Mamie Gummer. “Having known Meryl for years, I’ve also
known Mamie personally, but also as an actress,” says Platt. “I’ve always felt that she’s a terrific
actress and there’s that role out there
for Mamie that would make her a star.
When I read the script and was thinking of Meryl in the role of Ricki,
the thought came into my head that this would be a perfect role for Mamie. That would be true whether or not Meryl was
playing Ricki, but when you add in the fact that it’s a mother-daughter story
and Meryl would be playing the mother, I thought, this is that role.”
“She
owns the role of Julie,” says Platt. “She’s
made Julie even more interesting and complex and moving, and her relationship
with her mom is fraught with complexity and love and anger and a whole mix of
emotions.”
“Julie
and Ricki are completely different, but as it turns out, they have incredible
similarities,” says Demme. “The way they
become close is really terrific. It was
a lot of fun working with Mamie. Part of
my job was to try to put a wedge between her and her mother – ‘That’s not your
mom. That’s not Meryl Streep. This is a
whole other mother we’re dealing with, and let’s team up and really give her a
very tough ride, because she deserves it.’”
As
one might expect, acting against one of cinema’s most renowned actresses, who
also happens to be her mother, was an inspiring, but demanding, experience for
Gummer. “It was more challenging than I
anticipated, but also very rewarding and a rich experience,”she says. “It was tricky and fun and enlightening and
empowering – every human emotion came into play. She’s the person who I’m intrinsically
connected to, so to examine that bond and take it apart and put it back
together every day was intense.”
“I
think Ricki has always loved Julie, but has been so paralyzed by guilt over
what she’s done, she’s been afraid to reach out,” Gummer explains. “In this story, she finally has an
opportunity – suddenly Ricki is not the troubled person in the family. She can come in and say, from experience,
that it gets better and it’ll be okay.”
“Julie
was so committed to not being her mother,” says Gummer. “She was planning to be a stay-at-home
mom. She was going to devote her life to
her family and be the kind of mother that Ricki never was to her. So when it all blows up, she doesn’t know who
she is or what her purpose is.”
“Diablo
Cody created an amazing character, and Mamie brings her to life – she’s
shocking and hilarious and heartbreaking and unpredictable,” says Demme. “She just slays it beyond belief.”
The
six-time Tony Award-winning singer and actress Audra McDonald joins the cast as
Maureen Brummell, Pete’s second wife. “Maureen
is the exact opposite of Ricki,” she explains.
“She’s the perfect stepmom, the perfect wife, the perfect daughter – she’s
just rushed off to her father’s side as he’s dealing with a really bad
illness. She’s incredibly protective –
in her view, she has put the Brummell family back together, after Ricki left
Pete, and helped raise these children.
She’s very protective of that world, and doesn’t want it disturbed in
any way.”
“Diablo
gets you to not like Maureen before she shows up,” says Demme. “You hear things about her – the irritating
homilies she has placed around the kitchen; how she wanted the cantilevered
windows in their McMansion – and then Audra McDonald shows up. Suddenly there’s all that warmth, vivacity,
beauty and depth – and it’s like, whoa!
Audra is such a superb actor, and she brings the courage to be a loving
person, but also a badass when she has to be.
There’s a scene when Audra and Meryl go toe-to-toe and it’s like The Gunfight at the OK Corral.”
McDonald
says there’s nothing quite like verbally dueling with Meryl Streep in a
scene. “It’s like being shot by Cupid’s
arrow,” she says. “She makes you feel
like you’re an amazing actress because you’re standing next to her. You feel like you’ve been blessed by the
gods.”
Rounding
out the cast as Josh Brummell, one of Ricki and Pete’s three children, is
rising star Sebastian Stan. On the eve
of his wedding, Stan’s character isn’t quite sure how he feels about his mother
attending.“I think he feels that it’s the right thing to do,” he says. “He’s getting married, his mom should be
there. But I think he also feels like he
wishes he felt more for his mom – to him, she feels more like a family friend
than a mother. But I think there’s also part of him that respects that Ricki
decided to follow her dreams and remain who she is. There is distance between him and Ricki –
there are issues that are still buried deep down, and I don’t know if he’s
completely dealt with all of it.”
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Ricki and the Flash
takes place in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles and in
Indiana. However, the film was largely
shot in New York (with a few exteriors in L.A.). It fell to production designer Stuart Wurtzel
to create locations that would serve both settings.
Ricki’s
home-away-from-home is the Salt Well, the dive bar where Ricki and the Flash
are the house band. To create the space,
Wurtzel, at Demme’s direction, first looked to reality. “The Rodeo Bar on the East Side had just
closed down, and it had been a model in my head for what our movie bar might be
like,” says Demme. “It had probably been
a country-and-western bar at one point, but by the end, it was whatever was
going on. So, we raced in, right as they
were closing, and said, ‘Can we have this place for six weeks?’ And the band moved into the empty bar, and
that became their rehearsal space for six weeks.”
While
the band practiced in the former Rodeo, Wurtzel created The Salt Well on a
soundstage, using the Rodeo as his inspiration.
“Stuart created an amazing rock ‘n’ roll bar – it’s a bar that’s seen
better days, but it’s very rich in atmosphere,” says Demme. “I wish I could have had a beer there.”
“The
idea was to create a kind of club that might once have been quite popular, but
time had passed it by,” says Wurtzel. “It had a different life earlier in its
existence and is now past its glory – in the same way that Ricki’s career is
not exactly at the apex of what she had envisioned for herself.”
But
Wurtzel would also have to create a second world for Ricki, to contrast against
the Salt Well. “There’s the world that
shows her in her element, performing – but there’s another world that shows
where she came from, and how her life might have been had she stayed. Those, along with other elements – the
loneliness of her life offstage, the romance that builds with Greg – are all
aspects of Ricki.”
In
that way, Wurtzel created the world of Indianapolis. “We open the movie with seven minutes of
hardcore rock ‘n’ roll, and then spend the next hour getting her out of town
and stripping away that identity, so that by the end of the next hour, you’ve
forgotten who Ricki Rendazzo really is,” Demme notes. “We wanted to make that part of the movie as
green as possible, to contrast with the lurid rock ‘n’ roll look of Ricki’s
life in L.A.”
Pete
Brummell’s Indiana home was found in Rye, New York – “It’s very upscale,
suburban, it’s got a swimming pool, it’s grand.
It has a large entry area, probably done by a decorator,” Wurtzel
notes. Not only does the location itself
contrast with everything Ricki doesn’t have – she lives in a small, one-bedroom
Valley apartment – but so does the decoration.
“There are lots of family pictures,” Wurtzel continues. “Where they’ve traveled, raising the
children. They’ve had a quite happy
life. Maureen is wonderful, fulfilling
and very warm. And Ricki is not a part
of that – not because she didn’t want it, it just didn’t happen.”
To
create Ricki’s rocker look, Demme turned to costume designer Ann Roth, costumer
Nina Johnston, Makeup Department Head Patricia Regan, Makeup Artist Bernadette
Mazur, and Hair Department Head Alan DAngerio.
“I love to let the actors lead the charge, to team up with the costumers
and the makeup and hair people – I need to keep my distance at the beginning,”
says Demme. “Later, I’ll see it, and I’ll
probably fall in love with it, or, if I have concerns, I’ll express myself and
at that point, some collaboration starts.
But the look of Ricki arrived fairly fully born. I was really thrilled by who Meryl showed up
as on the day of the screen tests. There
was tweaking here and there, but Ricki looks like Meryl’s conception in
collaboration with Ann Roth and Alan DAngerio and others that were trusted in
her circle.”
ABOUT THE CAST
For almost 40 years, Meryl Streep (Ricki) has portrayed an astonishing array of characters in a
career that has cut its own unique path from the theater through film and
television.
Ms. Streep was educated in the New Jersey
public school system through high school, graduated cum laude from Vassar
College, and received her MFA with honors from Yale University in 1975. She
began her professional life on the New York stage, where she quickly
established her signature versatility and verve as an actor. Within three years
of graduation, she made her Broadway debut, won an Emmy (for “Holocaust”) and
received her first Oscar® nomination (for The
Deer Hunter). She has won three Academy Awards® and in 2015, in a record
that is unsurpassed, she earned a 19th Academy Award® nomination for her role
as The Witch in Into the Woods. Her
performance also earned her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award
nominations. Ms. Streep is currently in production on Stephen Frears’Florence Foster Jenkins.
Ms. Streep has pursued her interest in the
environment through her work with Mothers and Others, a consumer advocacy group
that she co-founded in 1989. M&O worked for ten years to promote sustainable
agriculture, establish new pesticide regulations, and ensure the availability
of organic and sustainably grown local foods.
Ms. Streep also lends her efforts to Women
for Women International, Equality Now, Women in the World Foundation, and Partners
in Health.
She is a member of the American Academy of
Arts and Letters, and has been accorded a Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres by the French Government and an honorary César. She received the
Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, a 2008 honor from
the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the 2010 National Medal of Arts from
President Obama. In 2011, Ms. Streep received a Kennedy Center Honor, and in
2014 the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She holds honorary doctorates from
Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth Indiana Universities, the University Of New
Hampshire, Lafayette, Middlebury, and Barnard Colleges.
Her husband, sculptor Don Gummer, and she are
the parents of a son and three daughters.
KEVIN
KLINE (Pete)has seamlessly
transitioned between the worlds of theatre and film and has earned equal
distinction in both. Kline is the recipient of numerous awards, including an
Academy Award® and two Tony Awards.
Kline
will next be seen in several eagerly anticipated upcoming films, including
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon with an all-star
cast including Emma Watson, Ian McKellen, Luke Evans, Emma Thompson, Dan
Stevens, and Josh Gad, and comedian Demetri Martin’s debut as a writer and director,
Dean, opposite Martin, Mary Steenburgen, and Gillian Jacobs.
In
addition to his 1988 Academy Award® for his role in the comedy A Fish Called
Wanda and a 2008 Screen Actors Guild Award for HBO’s As You Like It,
Kline isa five-time Golden Globe nominee for his roles in Sophie’s Choice,
Dave, In & Out, Soapdish and De-Lovely; and he
earned a Screen Actors Guild nominationfor his performance in Life As A
House. He was also the recipient of a CareerTribute at the 1997 Gotham
Independent Film Awards.
His
additional film credits include The Big Chill, Silverado, I
Love You To Death, Grand Canyon, French Kiss, Cry Freedom,
The Ice Storm, A Midsummer Night’sDream, The Anniversary Party,
Fierce Creatures, Wild Wild West, The Emperor’sClub, A
Prairie Home Companion, The Extra Man, Trade (for which he won the
CineMerit Award at the Munich Film Festival), Queen to Play, The
Conspirator,Darling Companion (his sixth collaboration with director
Lawrence Kasdan), TheLast of Robin Hood, Last Vegas, and My Old Lady.
A
Juilliard graduate, Kline made his Broadway debut playing Vershinin in Anton
Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters”for
John Houseman’s The Acting Company, of which he is a founding member. For Hal
Prince’s “On the Twentieth Century,”he
won both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award, and for “The Pirates of Penzance,” which had a successful run at The
Public Theater before transferring to Broadway, he again won both a Tony and a
Drama Desk Award, as well as the Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement by an
actor.
More
recently, Kline was seen on Broadway in the critically acclaimed “Cyrano de Bergerac,” for which he
received an Outer Critics Circle Award. Additionally, thisis Kline’s second
staged production to air on PBS’“Great
Performances”series. The production earned him Emmy and SAG Award
nominations.Kline won rave reviews for his Broadway performance in Shaw’s “Arms and the Man”directed by
John Malkovich as well as Michael Weller’s “Loose Ends,”directed by Alan Schneider, and starred in Gerry
Gutierrez’s production ofChekhov’s “Ivanov”at
Lincoln Center. He won a Drama Desk award for hisperformance as Falstaff in
Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s“Henry IV.” At The Public’s Shakespeare in the Park, Kline has
also appearedopposite Meryl Streep in “The
Seagull”and in “Mother Courage
and Her Children.”
Kline has
a three-decades long history with The Public Theater, during which he has
played numerous Shakespearean characters, including the title roles in “KingLear,”“Richard III”and “Henry
V.” Additional credits include Duke Vincentio in “Measure for Measure,” Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing”and the title
role in two productions of “Hamlet.”
For the first production of “Hamlet,”he
won the Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in Theatre and for the second,
which he also directed, he received five Drama Desk nominations, including best
director and actor nominations. Later, he co-directed a televised version of
the production for the PBS “Great
Performances”series.
Kline has
received the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre by the Shakespeare
Theatre Company, which recognizes an artist who has made a significant
contribution to classical theatre in America, and was the first American actor
to receive the Sir John Gielgud Golden Quill Award. In 2007, he was honored
with the Lucille Lortel Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2004, Kline was
inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.
Film, television and
stage actress Mamie Gummer (Julie) made her off-Broadway debut in 2005
with the premiere of “Mr. Marmalade,” in which she won a Theatre World Award.
In 2007, Gummer received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for her performance
in “The Water’s Edge.” She also received
high critical praise for her Broadway debut in the Tony Award-nominated revival
of “Les liaisons dangereuses” in 2008.
In 2006, Gummer made
her first film appearance in Lasse Hallström’s The Hoax with Richard Gere and Hope Davis. In 2007, she appeared in
Evening with an all-star ensemble
including Claire Danes, Patrick Wilson and Vanessa Redgrave. Other film credits
include: Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock,
Kimberly Peirce’s Stop Loss, Jodie
Markell’s TheLoss of a Teardrop Diamond,
Daniel Adams’The Lightkeepers, John
Carpenter’s The Ward, Jeff Lipsky’s Twelve Thirty, Liz W. Garcia’s The Lifeguard, Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects and Daniel Barnz’s Cake.
Gummer will next be
seen in James Ponsoldt’s End of the Tour.
In television, Gummer
has received positive buzz on her guest starring role on the Emmy nominated
series “The Good Wife.” In 2008, she was seen in the Emmy and Golden Globe
winning HBO miniseries “John Adams” with Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. Other
television credits include “Off the Map,”“The Big C,” and “Emily Owens M.D.”
She also recently shot the pilot “The Money” for HBO.
Gummer is a graduate
of Northwestern University and additionally studied theater at the British
Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Audra McDonald(Maureen)
is unparalleled in the breadth and versatility of her artistry as both a singer
and an actress. A record-breaking six-time Tony Award-winner (“Carousel,”“Master Class,”“Ragtime,”“A Raisin in the Sun,”The Gershwins’“Porgy and Bess,”“Lady Day at
Emerson’s Bar & Grill”) and one of Time magazine’s 100 most
influential people of 2015, she has also appeared on Broadway in “The Secret Garden,”“Marie Christine” (Tony nomination), “Henry IV,” and “110 in the Shade” (Tony nomination). She returns to the stage in the 2015-16
season as Lottie Gee in “Shuffle Along, or, The Making of the Musical Sensation
of 1921 and All That Followed.”The
Juilliard-trained soprano’s opera credits include “La voix humaine” and“Send”at
Houston Grand Opera, and “Rise and
Fall of the City of Mahagonny”at Los Angeles Opera. On television, she
was seen by millions as the Mother Abbess in NBC’s “The Sound of Music Live!”
and played Dr. Naomi Bennett on ABC’s “Private Practice.” She has received Emmy
nominations for “Wit,”“A Raisin in the Sun,” and her role as official host of
PBS’s “Live From Lincoln Center.” Other TV credits include “The Good Wife,”“Homicide:
Life on the Street,”“Law & Order: SVU,”“Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’
First 100 Years,”“The Bedford Diaries,”“Kidnapped,” and the 1999 remake of “Annie.”
On film, she has appeared in Seven Servants, The
Object of My Affection, Cradle Will
Rock, It Runs in the Family, The Best Thief in the World, She Got Problems, and Rampart; upcoming,
she can be seen in Disney’s live-action Beauty
and the Beast. A two-time Grammy Award-winner and exclusive recording artist for
Nonesuch Records, shereleased her fifth solo album for the label, “Go Back Home,” in 2013. McDonald also
maintains a major career as a concert artist, regularly appearing on the great stages of the world and
with leading international orchestras. An ardent proponent of marriage equality
and an advocate for at-risk and underprivileged youth, she sits on the boards
of Broadway Impact and Covenant House. Of her many roles, her favorites are the
ones performed offstage: wife to her husband, actor Will Swenson, and mother to
her daughter, Zoe Madeline.
Actor SEBASTIAN STAN’s(Josh)
talent
and versatility have made him noticeable amongst a strong peer group in
Hollywood.
Stan reprised his
role as Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier in Marvel’s smash hit Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the
sequel to the 2011 film Captain America:
The First Avenger. He recently
completed filming Melissa Rauch’s The
Bronze, which will be released in July.
Stan was seen
opposite Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. Other film credits
include Rachel Getting Married with
Anne Hathaway; Spread with Ashton
Kutcher; The Apparition, from Warner
Bros. and producer Joel Silver; Gone
with Amanda Seyfried; Hot Tub Time
Machine with John Cusack and Chevy Chase; Fred Durst’s The Education of Charlie Banks; The
Architect with Anthony LaPaglia, Isabella Rossellini and Hayden Panettiere;
and Screen Gems’The Covenant.
In television,
Stan is well-known for his recurring role as Carter Baizen on the hit
television series “Gossip Girl.” He also starred as TJ Hammond opposite Sigourney
Weaver in USA Network’s “Political Animals” and Prince Jack Benjamin in the NBC
drama “Kings,” alongside Ian McShane. Stan appeared in season 1 of ABC’s
hit series “Once Upon a Time” as the fan favorite, The Mad Hatter.
In 2007, Stan made
his Broadway debut opposite Liev Schreiber in Eric Bogosian’s “Talk Radio.”
During the Roundabout Theater Company’s 2013 season, Stan returned to Broadway
stage in “Picnic,” directed by Sam Gold.
Stan currently
resides in New York.
RICK
SPRINGFIELD (Greg) is an accomplished actor, musician,
composer and best-selling author.
With
25 million records sold, 17 top-40 hits, including “Don’t Talk to Strangers,”“An
Affair of the Heart,”“I’ve Done Everything for You,”“Love Somebody” and “Human
Touch,” as well as a 1981 Grammy® for Best Male Rock Vocal for his No. 1 hit
single “Jessie’s Girl,” Springfield’s music career continues to be his main
focus. He has toured for over 30 years and recently began a series of solo
concerts that have garnered critical praise as well as new fans. His most
recent tour, Stripped Down, traversed the United States. Later this year,
he will release his 18th studio album, the country/rock-flavored “Mayhem.”
In
2014, Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone imprint published Springfield’s debut
novel, Magnificent Vibration, which entered the The New York Times
best-seller list. In 2010, his memoir Late, Late at Night entered
The New York Times best-seller list at No. 13 and hit the Los Angeles
Times and Publishers Weekly lists as well. Rolling Stone
named it one of the top-25 rock autobiographies of all time.
In
2013 Springfield teamed up with Dave Grohl on Grohl’s multi-faceted passion
project, Sound City, which encompassed a documentary (Sound City),
an album (“Sound City: Real to Reel”), and the Sound City Players tour, a
string of critically acclaimed shows with fellow musicians, including Stevie
Nicks, Trent Reznor, John Fogerty, and Lee Ving among others. Springfield and
Grohl co-wrote “The Man That Never Was,” which was inspired by a true story
from World War II.
In
2012 came the documentary, An Affair of the Heart, which captured the
close ties between Springfield and his fans.
In
the early 1970s, Springfield already had a handful of hit records in Australia
when he emigrated to the United States. Settling in Los Angeles, he began an
acting career, eventually landing the role of Dr. Noah Drake on the daytime
drama “General Hospital.” Music remained his passion and his
professional life changed direction with the 1981 success of his album “Working
Class Dog,” followed by “Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet,”“Living in Oz,” the “Hard
to Hold” soundtrack and “Tao.”
In
addition to “General Hospital” his other notable TV roles include a 4-episode
arc on “Californication” and a guest-starring role on this year’s “True
Detective.”
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
Jonathan
Demme (Director) started as a writer and
producer with Roger Corman in 1971, and has directed and produced more than 40
movies since. His films as director/producer, which have been nominated for 20
Academy Awards®, include Beloved, Melvin
and Howard,Philadelphia, Kurt
Vonnegut Jr’s “Who Am I this Time?”, Rachel
Getting Married, The Manchurian
Candidate, and The Silence of the
Lambs, for which he won the Oscar® for Best Director in 1991. Fear of Falling, directed by Demme and
based on Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn’s adaptation of “The Master Builder,”
the play by Henrik Ibsen, will be released in 2014. In television, he has
directed episodes of “Columbo,”“Enlightened,”“The Killing,” and the pilots for “A
Gifted Man” and “Line of Sight.”
Demme has also produced Spike Jonze’s Adaptation, Tom Hanks’That
Thing You Do and Carl Franklin’s Devil
in a Blue Dress.
Documentaries and performance films directed by Demme include Cousin Bobby,The Agronomist, Haiti Dreams of Democracy, Stop Making Sense, Swimming to Cambodia, Neil
Young Heart of Gold, Neil Young Trunk Show, Neil Young Journeys and Jimmy
Carter: Man from Plains,I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good the Mad and the Beautiful, New Home Movies from the Lower 9th Ward,
Tavis Smiley’s Been In the Storm Too Long and most recently Enzo Avitabile Music Life, released in
2013.
Demme was producer of 1994 Oscar® nominee Mandela Son of Africa (directed by Jo Menell and Angus Gibson) and Peabody Award-winning Beah: a Black Woman Speaks (directed by
LisaGay Hamilton).
In addition, Demme has executive produced, produced and or
presented Kate Barker-Froyland’s Song One,
Adam Leon’s Gimme the Loot, Nancy
Savoca’s Household Saints, Victor
Nunez’Ulee’s Gold, Gillo Pontecorvo’s
The Wide Blue Road, Peter Omrod’s Eat the Peach, Susanna Styron’s Shadrack, and recently, Lindsay Jaeger’s
Everett Ruess: Wilderness Song.
In 2014, Demme will be presenting two feature films – Nabil
Ayouch’s Horses of God and Charlie
Griak’s The Center – plus a new
documentary, Sean Gallagher’s Brothers of
the Black List.
Jonathan Demme serves on the Board of Directors of the Jacob
Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York.
Diablo
Cody
(Writer/Producer) is the Academy Award®-winning screenwriter of Juno, Jennifer’s Body, and Young
Adult. She also created the Golden Globe and Emmy-winning series “United
States of Tara” alongside Steven Spielberg.
MARC
PLATT (Producer) stands among the few producers who have
successfully bridged the worlds of theatre, film and television. His projects have garnered a combined 8
Oscar® nominations, 16 Tony nominations, 13 Golden Globe nominations, and 19
Emmy nominations.
Among Platt’s films are Into The Woods starring
Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp, directed by Rob Marshall;Song One starring Anne Hathaway; Ryan Gosling’s writing/directing
debut, Lost River, starring Christina
Hendricks; Drive, starring Ryan
Gosling, which was awarded the Best Director prize at the 2011 Cannes
International Film Festival;2
Guns starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg; the smash hits Legally
Blonde and its sequel, starring Reese Witherspoon; Scott Pilgrimvs. The World, directed by Edgar Wright; the
critically acclaimed Rachel Getting
Married, helmed by Oscar®-winning director Jonathan Demme and starring Anne
Hathaway; the 2008 summer hit Wanted starring
Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, and Morgan Freeman;the musical Nine directed by Rob Marshall, starring Daniel
Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz,
Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson and Fergie; Cop
Out starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan; Winter’s Tale starring Colin Farrell and Russell Crowe; Charlie St. Cloud starring Zac Efron; The Other Woman starring Natalie
Portman; Honey; Josie and the Pussycats; and The Perfect Man.
In addition to Ricki and the Flash, Platt’s upcoming films include Bridge of Spies, directed by Steven
Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks, and Billy
Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, directed by Oscar®-winner Ang Lee.
Marc Platt is the producer of Broadway’s
blockbuster “Wicked,” which The New York Times recently called “the
defining musical of the decade.”“Wicked,” which just celebrated its eleventh anniversary
on Broadway, continues to break box office records for the Gershwin
Theatre. Platt created the show with
composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz and book writer Winnie Holzman based on the
novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire.
The “Wicked” original cast recording CD broke the debut sales records
for all Broadway shows since “Rent” and has been certified double-platinum.
Seven companies are now playing worldwide including Broadway, London, a
UK tour, Mexico City, Australia and two North American tours. In recent years, “Wicked” has also had
productions in Korea, Japan, Germany and Holland.
Platt is also producing the new Broadway
musical “If/Then” starring Idina Menzel.
In addition, he produced the
Broadway debut of “Three Days of Rain,” starring Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd and
Bradley Cooper; Matthew Bourne’s ballet “Edward Scissorhands,” for which he won
his second Drama Desk Award; and the recent revival of “Pal Joey” starring
Stockard Channing.
In
television, Platt won the Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries for “Empire
Falls” (HBO) starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ed Harris, Helen Hunt and
Philip Seymour Hoffman. Platt also
executive produced “Once Upon A Mattress” starring Carol Burnett and Tracey
Ullman (ABC); the Emmy Award winning miniseries “The Path To 9/11” (ABC); and
the MTV hit series “Taking The Stage.”
Prior to establishing his production
company, Marc Platt served as president of production for three movie studios
(Orion, TriStar and Universal). Platt is
a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Academy of
Television Arts & Sciences, and The Broadway League.
GARY
GOETZMAN’s (Producer) producing credits include Where The Wild
Things Are, Mamma Mia!, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Polar Express, Larry
Crowne, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, That Thing You Do!, The Silence
of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Devil in a Blue Dress, Beloved,
Miami Blues, The Great Buck Howard, Starter for 10, the
Talking Heads’ concert film Stop Making Sense, the 3D IMAX film Magnificent
Desolation, the criticallyacclaimed HBO miniseries “Olive Kitteridge,” the Emmy winning
miniseries “John Adams,”“Band of
Brothers,” and “The Pacific,”the
Emmy Award-winning HBO events “The
25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of FameConcert,” and “Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2012 Induction
Ceremony,”the Emmy and Golden Globe nominated HBO series “Big Love,” and the Emmy and the
Golden Globe winning HBO film “Game
Change.”
Currently, Goetzman is producing the feature
film A Hologram for the King, from Dave Eggers’ novel, directed by Tom
Tykwer. He is alsoproducing the Justin Timberlake concert film 20/20
Experience, directed byJonathan Demme, the HBO miniseries “Lewis and Clark,” the sequel My
Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, and “The
Seventies,” the follow up to the Emmy nominated CNN documentary series, “The Sixties.”
MASON
NOVICK (Producer) began his career as a talent manager before
serving as executive producer on the Wes Craven’s thriller Red Eye.
In 2007, Novick produced Juno from a script by Diablo Cody. It grossed over $200 million
worldwide and is the second-highest-grossing platform release of all time. The
film was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for BestPicture and won an
Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature. That sameyear, Novick was nominated
for the Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award inTheatrical Motion
Pictures by the Producers Guild of America. Juno
was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy and
Best Picture at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards in addition to being selected as one
of AFI Top Ten outstanding feature films of 2007.
(500)
Days of Summer was nominated for Best Motion Picture
(Musical or Comedy) at the 2010 Golden Globes. It was also nominated for three
Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Feature, and won for Best Screenplay.
The film was also chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top ten
films of 2009.
Novick was also a producer on Young Adult, starring Charlize Theron
and directed by Jason Reitman. The film earned Theron a Golden Globe nomination
for Best Actress in a Comedy.
Most recently, Novick executive produced Men, Women, and Children, directed by
Jason Reitman. The film stars Adam Sandler and Jennifer Garner. It premiered at
the Toronto Film Festival, and was released by Paramount.
Novick is currently working on several
independent and studio features, including Sweet
Valley High adapted by Diablo Cody for Universal and an adaptation of
Richard Aleas’ Hard Case Crime novel Little
Girl Lost with Jonathan Levine directing. He is also producing The Sweet Spot for Warner Bros. with
John Hamburg writing and directing, and Dan
Mintner: Badass For Hire, starring Dwayne Johnson, for New Line.
Novick graduated from the University of
Arizona in 1997 and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film
industry. Starting out as an assistant at ICM, he was eventually promoted to an
agent in the motion picture literary department. As an agent, some of the films
Novick helped put together include, Snakes
on a Plane and the Underworld
franchise. Novick currently manages several writers including Oscar®-winner
Diablo Cody, screenwriter and author Chad Kultgen, and Josh Heald.
RON
BOZMAN (Executive Producer) won an Academy Award® for producing
Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs.
He has been an invaluable part of Demme’s team since serving as first assistant
director on Something Wild and making
the jump to associate producer on Married
to the Mob. His other producer credits with Demme are Philadelphia, Beloved, Jimmy Carter Man from Plains and most
recently The Master Builder, Wallace
Shawn’s adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play.
Among his other
producing credits are The Ref, For Love
of the Game, Autumn in New York, Changing Lanes, The Human Stain, The Stepford
Wives, Failure to Launch and The
Tempest.
ADAM
SIEGEL (Executive Producer) is President of Marc Platt
Productions. He joined the company in 2000, after graduating from Wesleyan
University.
Siegel most recently produced Ryan Gosling’s
directorial debut Lost River, which
premiered in competition at the 2014 Cannes International Film Festival as an
Un Certain Regard selection. The film stars Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan,
Ben Mendelsohn, Iain Decaesester, Matt Smith, and Eva Mendes.
He has also produced Drive, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling,
Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, and Christina Hendricks. The
film earned the Best Director prize at the 2011 Cannes International Film
Festival, as well as BAFTA and Independent Spirit Award nominations for Best
Picture.
Siegel previously
produced 2 Guns directed by Baltasar
Kormakur, starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. He was executive
producer on Timur Bekmambetov¹s Wanted,
based on the popular comic book series, that starred Angelina Jolie, James
McAvoy & Morgan freeman. He also served as executive producer on Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World directed by
Edgar Wright.
BEN
WAISBREN (Executive Producer) is Chairman and President of LSC
Film Corporation, which co-finances major motion pictures with Sony Pictures
Entertainment Inc. He is also an attorney with the international law firm
of Winston & Strawn, where he advises clients in the U.S. and Europe in the
media & entertainment and finance sectors. His clients include
independent production and distribution companies, private equity firms, hedge
funds, investment banks and commercial banks.
Earlier in his career, Waisbren was a managing
director and head of investment banking restructuring at Salomon Brothers in
New York, following a legal career at a large Chicago law firm, Lord, Bissell
& Brook, where he led a national bankruptcy litigation practice.
Prior to joining Winston & Strawn in
early 2013, Mr. Waisbren was the President of Continental Entertainment Capital
LP, a direct subsidiary of Citigroup, with operations in New York, Los Angeles
and Paris. Before that, he was a managing director of a global hedge fund
company, Stark Investments, where he was a co-portfolio manager in the fixed
income and private equity areas, and responsible for investments in the feature
film industry, and the formation of the firm’s structured finance fund and a
related, branded middle market leveraged lender, Freeport Financial.
Waisbren served as a member of the Board
of Directors of France’s Wild Bunch, S.A., a pan-European motion picture
production, distribution and sales company, from 2005 until 2009, in connection
with private equity investments that he managed.
He was Executive Producer of Warner
Bros. Pictures’300; Blood Diamond; V for Vendetta; Nancy Drew;
The Good German; Poseidon; and The
Assassination of Jesse James by the CowardRobert Ford. In addition, he was
Executive Producer of the following independent studio releases: Cassandra’s Dream; First Born; Next; Bangkok Dangerous; and Gardener of Eden. For Sony
Pictures Entertainment, he served as an executive producer of Columbia Pictures’22 JumpStreet, SexTape, The Equalizer, Fury, Chappie, Paul Blart: Mall Cop
2, Aloha, and Pixels, and Screen Gems’The Wedding Ringer.
DECLAN
QUINN, ASC (Cinematographer) has won three Independent Spirit
Awards, for his work on In America
(2002), Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
and Leaving Las Vegas (1995).
Quinn began his
career as a cinematographer on concert films for U2: Outside It’s America and Unforgettable
Fire. He has continued to work on music documentaries, including three Neil
Young concerts for director Jonathan Demme: Heart
of Gold, Neil Young Trunk Show
and Neil Young Journeys. He has also
worked with Demme on the documentaries Jimmy
Carter Man From Plains and I’m
Carolyn Parker, as well as the features Rachel
Getting Married and The Master
Builder.
Among Quinn’s other
feature film credits are five with director Mira Nair, Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair,
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, The Reluctant
Fundamentalist and her segment of New
York, I Love You. He has also worked multiple times with directors Mike
Figgis, Jim Sheridan and Paul Weitz.
Quinn’s other feature
film credits include, Admission, The
Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Breakfast on Pluto, Cold Creek Manor, 28 Days
and Vanya on 42nd Street.
STUART
WURTZEL (Production Designer)received an Academy Award®
nomination for his work on Woody Allen’s Hannah
and Her Sisters. He also designed
Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo, as well
as three films by Peter Yates: Suspect,
The House on Carroll Street and An Innocent Man.
He has designed
several projects for HBO, the first being Mike Nichols’ production of “Wit,”
starring Emma Thompson. He continued the
Nichols/HBO collaboration with “Angels in America,” for which he won both an
Emmy Award and an Art Directors’ Guild award in 2004. His most recent HBO venture was “Empire
Falls,” directed by Fred Schepisi and starring Paul Newman and Ed Harris. He was nominated for an Emmy Award and won an
Art Director’s Guild award for that project.
Wurtzel’s numerous
other feature credits include: Hope
Springs, Enchanted, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Charlotte’s Web, Marley and Me, What
Happens in Vegas, Before and After, Stepmom,
Hair, Used People, Mermaids, Romeo Is
Bleeding, Three Men and a Little Lady, Old Gringo, Brighton Beach Memoirs, The
Mambo Kings, When a Man Loves a Woman, I.Q., Murder by Numbers, The Ghost and
the Darkness and Little Manhattan.
Wurtzel’s first
feature film design credit was Joan Micklin Silver’s Hester Street, on which he collaborated with his wife, Patrizia von
Brandenstein. His association with
Silver continued with “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” for the American Short Stories
series on PBS and the feature Between the
Lines.
Raised in Hillside,
New Jersey, Wurtzel studied scenic design at Carnegie Mellon University,
earning an MFA degree. He began working
as a theatrical stage designer, with four seasons as resident designer at the
American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and three seasons at Cincinnati’s
Playhouse in the Park.
After moving to New
York, Wurtzel designed numerous Broadway productions, including “Summer Brave,”“Unexpected
Guests,”“Tiny Alice,”“A Flea in Her Ear,”“Sizwe Banze Is Dead,”“The Island,”
and “Wally’s Café.” Off-Broadway credits
include “Trumpets and Drums” and “Rosmersholm” at the Roundabout Theatre, “Gimme
Shelter” at BAM, “Sorrows of Stephen” (for which he won the Joseph Maharam
Award for Stage Design) and “Henry IV, Part I” for the New York Shakespeare
Festival.
On television,
Wurtzel’s design for “Little Gloria...Happy At Last,” earned him an Emmy Award
nomination for Art Direction.
WYATT
SMITH (Editor) has worked as a director and editor in the
film, television and music industries.
The son of a roadie, Smith worked his first
job as a production assistant for a Carly Simon HBO special at the age of 12.
Throughout his teenage years, he worked on projects for a variety of artists
including Mariah Carey and Paul Simon.
In the early 1990’s, Smith developed an
interest in editing while working at Sony Music Studios in New York City. He
soon began cutting the critically acclaimed music series “Sessions at West
54th,” and went on to edit documentaries for Black Sabbath, Brian Wilson and
A&E “Biography,” music videos for Pearl Jam, John Mayer and Keith Urban,
and television specials including CBS’s “Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary
Celebration” and “Elvis By The Presleys.”
Expanding beyond music, Smith edited the
comedy series “Chappelle’s Show.” In 2002, at the request of record producer
Phil Ramone, he began directing multicamera shows including the “Songwriters
Hall of Fame” (Bravo), VH1’s “The World Series of Pop Culture” and performance
specials for Grammy Award winners John Legend and Evanescence. In 2006, Wyatt
edited the multi-Emmy Award winning NBC special “Tony Bennett: An American
Classic” directed by Rob Marshall, for which Smith received an Emmy nomination
for Outstanding Picture Editing for a Special.
\
Marshall brought him on to co-edit the
Weinstein Company’s feature film musical Nine,
starring Daniel Day-Lewis, for which Smith earned a Broadcast Film Critics
Choice nomination for Best Editing. Continuing his work with Marshall, Wyatt
edited the 3D Disney adventure epic Pirates
of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
Smith subsequently edited the documentary The Zen of Bennett and provided
additional editing for The Weinstein Company’s My Week With Marilyn as well as Bachelorette
starring Kirsten Dunst. After editing the concert segments for Sony Pictures’
3D documentary One Direction: This Is Us,
Wyatt returned to the action adventure genre with 300: Rise of an Empire, then Thor:
The Dark World. Smith recently completed his third feature with Rob
Marshall, Into the Woods. He was nominated for an Eddie Award for Best
Edited Feature Film – Comedy or Musical for his work.
Academy Award® winner ANN ROTH (Costume Designer) designs for
both theatre and motion pictures.
In addition to numerous productions on
Broadway, Roth’s designs have appeared at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, San
Francisco Opera, American Conservatory Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club and
Circle in the Square, among others. She
has received three Drama Desk nominations and four Tony nominations for “The Royal Family” (1976), “The Crucifer of Blood”(1979), “The House of Blue Leaves”(1986), and “The Book of Mormon” (2011).
In five decades as a costume designer
for films, her credits include The World
of Henry Orient, Midnight Cowboy, Klute, Day of the Locust, Goodbye Girl, Hair,
Places in the Heart, Sweet Dreams, Working Girl, The Birdcage, Unbearable
Lightness of Being, Primary Colors, The English Patient, The Hours, Cold
Mountain, The Village, Closer, The Good Shepherd, Mamma Mia!, The Reader, Julie
& Julia and Extremely Loud &
Incredibly Close. On television, Roth designed costumes for the
Emmy-winning mini-series “Angels in America” and “Mildred Pierce.”
She has received four Oscar® nominations
with a win for her work on The English
Patient and three BAFTA nominations with a win for The Day of the Locust.
