MTV’s Josh Horowitz has risked life, limb and even his dignity for the sake of our envelope-pushing “After Hours” video series — he’s let Steve Carell sit on his lap for an interview (um, awkward), engaged in knife-play with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, and even gotten trapped on an escalator with M. Night Shyamalan and Penthouse Pet Ryan Keely (the horror!).
For his latest foray into “After Hours” journalism, Josh spent an afternoon being chauffeured around Central Park in a pedicab with “Watchmen” beauty Malin Akerman, presumably to discuss her new film “The Romantics” (in theaters now). Sounds pleasant enough, but turns out things can head south pretty quickly when foul body odor, inappropriate talk of nudity, a hulking WWE wrestler and a sprinting Hobbit are involved.
In an interview for The Romantics Katie Holmes discusses her own marriage to Tom Cruise, Malin Akerman shares her story, and Rebecca Lawrence talks about her ideal, and they all discuss the appeal of swimming in cold water.
After roles in Couples Retreat, The Proposal and 27 Dresses, Malin Akerman knows the safe career move would be to stick to the rom-coms.
“I’m a little more at home in comedy,” a red carpet-ready Akerman told QMI Agency in a Toronto hotel room Wednesday. “But that’s not the biggest challenge.”
It is this thinking that made her lunge at the chance to play photo editor Robin Comley in director Steven Silver’s apartheid drama, The Bang Bang Club.
Based on the true story of four fearless photographers who set out to capture the final bloody days of apartheid in South Africa, Akerman morphs seamlessly into a character doing everything she can to publish the horrific pictures and bring attention to a civil war that nearly tore a nation apart.
Led by Greg Marinovich (played in the film by Ryan Phillippe), the photographers earned the moniker ‘bang bang club’ because they preferred to shoot photos of the violence up close. But a seeming indifference to the politics behind the war shrouded their work in controversy.
“They took these pictures to make sure the rest of the world saw them,” says Akerman, defending the photojournalists. “It is controversial. People are going to say, ‘They’re a–holes; they didn’t help people out.’ But instead of helping one person, they helped thousands by taking these pictures so that the rest of the world could see and get involved.
“In my eyes, they’re heroes.”
The Bang Bang Club shows a different side of Akerman and seems out of step with the big studio pictures she has aligned herself with over the past few years. And while she loves making mainstream blockbusters, the 32-year-old beauty has specifically sought out independent films in the past 12 months to test her artistic boundaries.
In addition to The Bang Bang Club, she has a low-budget comedy, Happythankyoumoreplease, due out next year.
“Finding really challenging characters is a lot easier when you do independent films because they are so much more diverse,” she says.
“In the instance of Bang Bang Club, to be able to portray real people and meet them and go to South Africa and the places where everything happened was incredible. It was an extremely emotional journey and a lot of pressure. But to me, it was such a huge opportunity to be part of this film.”
It never crossed her mind that her glamorous image might be incongruous with the gutsy, no-nonsense editor she had to play.
“I feel like I’m still testing myself when I do things that are outside of the comedy realm. I convince directors that I can play a role and when I get home I’m like, ‘What did I just do?’ But I want to. I want to challenge myself and see how far I can go.
“That’s why I’m doing films like The Bang Bang Club. I don’t know if I can do it, but if I can convince the director and get in there and try it, I can at least see what happens.”
Katie Holmes knows a thing or two about weddings that cause drama. Her 2006 star-studded wedding to Tom Cruise attracted an avalanche of media attention. In her movie “The Romantics,” a wedding steeped in drama is the central occasion for a group of friends and lovers who got to know each other about 10 years ago in college, and have now reunited for the wedding. Holmes plays Laura Rosen, the maid of honor and former roommate of Lila Hayes (played by Anna Paquin), who comes from a privileged family. Lila is getting married to Tom (played by Josh Duhamel), who has had an on-again, off-again love affair with Laura.
Other people in the circle of friends include married couple Pete (played by Jeremy Strong) and C-list actress Tripler (played by Malin Akerman); engaged couple Jake (played by Adam Brody) and Weesie (played by Rebecca Lawrence); and Lila’s hard-drinking brother, Chip Hayes (played by Elijah Wood), who has an unrequited crush on Laura. The group of friends has the nickname the Romantics because most of them have coupled off with each other at one point or another, yet they are currently struggling with various issues in their love lives.
As the wedding approaches, it becomes clear that Laura and Tom still have unresolved feelings for each other. The big questions loom: Will Tom go through with the wedding to Lila? Will Laura do something to disrupt the wedding? Will any of these people find true happiness? The ensemble cast of “The Romantics” also includes Candice Bergen as Augusta Hayes (the controlling mother of Chip and Lila) and Dianna Agron as Minnow Hayes, Lila’s sometimes-envious younger sister. “The Romantics” was written and directed by Galt Niederhoffer, who adapted the screenplay from her novel “The Romantics.” At the New York City press conference for “The Romantics,” Niederhoffer (also one of the film’s producers) gathered with Holmes (one of the film’s executive producers), Duhamel, Akerman, Strong and Lawrence and Brody to talk about love, friendship and marriage.
Malin Akerman attended three events at the Toronto International Film Festival recently and I have just added 200+ photos of her at these events!
If it wasn’t going to be nerve-wracking enough for Malin Akerman to watch her performance in “The Bang Bang Club” during the premiere at TIFF tonight, she also has to worry about what her friends and family are going to think.
“I haven’t seen the film so it’s one of those, I hope I don’t have to walk the walk of shame on the way out,” admits the actress during a round table interview Wednesday afternoon.
“I have some of my closest girlfriends from high school who are coming, my brother, my mother, my step dad, it’s just going to be great to see everyone. It’s really special you know.
“The Bang Bang Club, ” which also stars Ryan Phillippe and Taylor Kitsch, chronicles the true story of four young photographers in South Africa who risked their lives to document the final bloody days of apartheid. Akerman plays a photo editor at the local paper who pushes to get their photos published, despite pressure from the government to censor them.
Born in Sweden, Akerman was raised in Niagara on the Lake and attended high school in St. Catherine’s, Ont., and Toronto. She also studied psychology at York University.
“I lived here for 22 years and always watched the Toronto film fest from the outside and I always wanted to be a part of it and now I finally get to go.”
Now living in L.A., Akerman says she never attended TIFF while she lived in Toronto because she was always busy with school and the film industry wasn’t on her radar. That all changed when she started doing some commercials and landed some guest roles on TV shows .
“I did that here for about a year to two years before I ended up going to L.A. and that’s when I decided, ‘Oh this is fun. It’s kind of like psychology but more selfish. I’ll give it a shot and then go help others later,’” she recounts with a laugh.
“Watchmen” star Malin Akerman and Lauren Ambrose (HBO’s “Six Feet Under”) have been cast alongside Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux in the Universal comedy “Wanderlust,” reports Variety.
David Wain (“Role Models”) directs from a script he co-wrote with Ken Marino, a fellow veteran of MTV’s “The State.” The duo also will produce with Rudd and Judd Apatow, while Dick Vane will exec produce.
Rudd and Aniston star as a married couple who try to escape modern society by leaving their cushy lives in New York.
While it’s unclear what role Akerman will inhabit, the underappreciated Ambrose will play a member of the freewheeling commune that the two stars come into contact with en route to Atlanta.
Ambrose, Rudd and Marino previously starred together in Katherine Dieckmann’s little-seen indie “Diggers.”
Erik Baiers will oversee “Wanderlust” for the studio.
Akerman recently attached herself to the CIA thriller “The Numbers Station,” which star Ethan Hawke is producing, and she’s also set to star opposite Bruce Willis in the thriller “Catch 44.” The actress currently has “The Romantics” in theaters and “The Bang Bang Club” at Toronto.
Ambrose recently voiced a character in “Where the Wild Things Are,” and she also co-starred with Paul Giamatti in the sci-fi indie “Cold Souls.”
Akerman is represented by WME and Sanders Armstrong Caserta Management, while Ambrose is repped by UTA and Kipperman Management.