Five years after her breakout role on Lisa Kudrow’s HBO series “The Comeback,” Toronto-raised actress Malin Akerman still marvels over the big names she gets to work with in Hollywood.

“Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn are two people that I grew up watching, so to have worked with them now, I still need to pinch myself,” Akerman, 31, said in a recent interview to promote the DVD release of “Couples Retreat,” co-starring her and Vaughn.

Josh Duhamel, Anna Paquin, Elijah Wood, Katherine Heigl and Sandra Bullock are but a few other A-listers she’s shared the screen with in recent years.

And then there was that encounter she had with Tom Cruise on the set of “The Romantics,” which co-stars Akerman and Katie Holmes (who is married to Cruise) and recently debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.

“He’s amazing. I mean, wow, that was pretty surreal,” said the tall, leggy blond, decked out in a zebra-print dress.

“I think I blushed from my toes up to my head. I was really nervous meeting him, and then after a few minutes we started chatting. He’s so nice, so personable and really is larger than life. It’s Tom Cruise, you know!”

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Akerman moved to Toronto with her family at age two and started modelling three years later. At 17 she won the Ford Supermodel of Canada search, then studied psychology at York University.

Soon after, Akerman moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and got her first big break in 2005, playing a model/actress on “The Comeback,” about a washed-up sitcom star (Kudrow).

Her resume has ballooned since then, with turns in such comedies as “The Heartbreak Kid” with Stiller, in “27 Dresses” with Heigl, and in “The Proposal” with Bullock and fellow Canuck Ryan Reynolds. She was also in the 2009 superhero flick “Watchmen.”

In “Couples Retreat,” also released last year, Akerman and Vaughn play spouses worn down by their kids and home renovations.

When their pals, played by Kristen Bell and Jason Bateman, propose a getaway with them and several other couples as a means of reconnecting, they can’t refuse.

Vaughn co-wrote the film with Jon Favreau, who is also in the movie playing the husband of Kristin Davis’s character. Peter Billingsley (Ralphie of “A Christmas Story”) directs. The DVD and Blu-ray HD releases include a never-before-seen alternative ending.

Akerman said they shot in Bora Bora for nearly a month and got to sleep in bamboo huts, sip their morning coffee by the water and take a dip before the shooting day began.

“It was like filming in paradise,” gushed Akerman, who speaks fluent Swedish and is learning Italian from her husband, drummer Roberto Zincone. “I don’t know if you could call it work. You didn’t have to twist my arm to get me there.”

From Times & Transcript

Five years after her breakout role on Lisa Kudrow’s HBO series “The Comeback,” Toronto-raised actress Malin Akerman still marvels over the big names she gets to work with in Hollywood.

“Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn are two people that I grew up watching, so to have worked with them now, I still need to pinch myself,” Akerman, 31, said in a recent interview to promote Friday’s DVD release of “Couples Retreat,” co-starring her and Vaughn.

Josh Duhamel, Anna Paquin, Elijah Wood, Katherine Heigl and Sandra Bullock are but a few other A-listers she’s shared the screen with in recent years.

And then there was that encounter she had with Tom Cruise on the set of “The Romantics,” which co-stars Akerman and Katie Holmes (who is married to Cruise) and recently debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.

“He’s amazing. I mean, wow, that was pretty surreal,” said the tall, leggy blond, decked out in a zebra-print dress.

“I think I blushed from my toes up to my head. I was really nervous meeting him, and then after a few minutes we started chatting. He’s so nice, so personable and really is larger than life. It’s Tom Cruise, you know!”

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Akerman moved to Toronto with her family at age two and started modelling three years later. At 17 she won the Ford Supermodel of Canada search, then studied psychology at York University.

Soon after, Akerman moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and got her first big break in 2005, playing a model/actress on “The Comeback,” about a washed-up sitcom star (Kudrow).

Her resume has ballooned since then, with turns in such comedies as “The Heartbreak Kid” with Stiller, in “27 Dresses” with Heigl, and in “The Proposal” with Bullock and fellow Canuck Ryan Reynolds. She was also in the 2009 superhero flick “Watchmen.”

In “Couples Retreat,” also released last year, Akerman and Vaughn play spouses worn down by their kids and home renovations.

When their pals, played by Kristen Bell and Jason Bateman, propose a getaway with them and several other couples as a means of reconnecting, they can’t refuse.

Vaughn co-wrote the film with Jon Favreau, who is also in the movie playing the husband of Kristin Davis’s character. Peter Billingsley (Ralphie of “A Christmas Story”) directs. The DVD and Blu-ray HD releases include a never-before-seen alternative ending.

Akerman said they shot in Bora Bora for nearly a month and got to sleep in bamboo huts, sip their morning coffee by the water and take a dip before the shooting day began.

“It was like filming in paradise,” gushed Akerman, who speaks fluent Swedish and is learning Italian from her husband, drummer Roberto Zincone.

“I don’t know if you could call it work. You didn’t have to twist my arm to get me there.”

Vaughn was dating Canadian real estate agent Kyla Weber during filming (the two have since married) and Akerman’s national pride came out.

“She was on set and I was so excited when I met her that she was a Canadian,” said Akerman.

“I was like, ‘Yes! Go Vince! Good job!’ ”

From the Canadian Press

Toronto-native Malin Akerman has really come into her own in Hollywood in recent years.

The young actress starred alongside Ben Stiller in The Heartbreak Kid, played a flawed superhero in Watchmen, and most recently shared the screen with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau in Couples Retreat (arriving on DVD Friday). For Akerman, the experience has been well beyond anything she ever expected.

“It’s been a pretty strange experience,” Akerman told Metro. “I’ve worked with phenomenal comedians who I’ve idolized for my entire life. To all of a sudden see my face on the same poster as Vince Vaughn was pretty surreal.”

Couples Retreat offered Akerman a rare opportunity to be involved with a movie throughout the creative process. With Vaughn and Favreau also working as screenwriters, the entire cast was encouraged to expand their roles.

“It was nice because they were in the middle of cleaning up the script and rewriting certain things when I came on board,” revealed Akerman. “So before we even started shooting, Vince and I had a good five hours when we went through all the scenes and improvised. Sometimes when you’re working with people who have written the material they can be really keen on their words, but this was a huge collaborative effort.”

Though known primarily as a comic actress, Akerman now wants to expand her career with dramatic roles.

“Often when you’re cast in a certain genre people only see you in that light, which in my case is comedy,” said Akerman.

“So, I’ve tried to veer away from that recently. This year I worked on three different independent films that are not comedies, just to show what I can do in the hopes of opening up other doors.”

In the coming months, audiences will be treated to a more serious side of the actress in the ensemble dramas HappyThankYouMorePlease and The Romantics (both of which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival) as well as the Canadian-funded apartheid feature The Bang Bang Club.

Through these projects, Akerman found that she thrived in the fast paced world of independent filmmaking.

“I loved it. The turn around is faster and you become very close to everyone you work with.

“There’s a nice feeling on the set that you’re all in it for the right reasons and really want to be there,” says the actress.

However, Akerman admits that she has no desire to ditch Hollywood entirely any time soon.

At the moment, she’s happy to try it all.

From Metro News

As if actors didn’t have enough to worry about — hitting their marks, appearing intimate with a co-star in front of a crew, getting older, dredging up memories of a dead pet to get themselves to cry — now they face the prospect of being replaced by computer programs.

That’s the talk when actors see the stratospheric box-office numbers for James Cameron’s “Avatar,” in which flesh-and-blood actors performed in motion-capture suits to add authentic movements to their computer-generated characters. (There’s even a long-shot campaign to get a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Zoe Saldana, who played Neytiri, one of the tall blue Na’vi.)

But in the offbeat and unique films of the independent world, like those playing at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, actors have found a safe haven. They tear into meaty roles, showing facets of their talents that aren’t seen — or sought after — in mainstream movies.

This year, more so than in past Sundance festivals, the acting has been top-notch — sometimes in spite of the writing and the directing. Here are a few of the performances from Sundance 2010 that raised the bar:

Malin Akerman, “happythankyoumoreplease” — While writer-director-star Josh Radnor is getting the applause for this interlocking set of romantic scenarios, it’s Akerman who steals the show. Akerman — who is usually relegated to pretty supporting roles (“Couples Retreat,” “Watchmen”) — is the movie’s heart, as the sunny best friend who has lost her hair to alopecia. She even shaved her eyebrows for the part.

From the California Chronicle

amNewYork caught up with Malin Akerman and Kate Mara, two of the stars of the ensemble cast of “happythankyoumoreplease.”

Is this your first time at Sundance? How does it feel?
MA: I’ve been dying to come to Sundance since I started acting in LA. I’ve heard so much about it. It feels a little more relaxed. You can’t show up to the red carpet in a nice gown. I mean, it’s snowing outside.

KM: It’s not my first trip. I was here two years ago with a film I did called “Transsiberian.” All I ever do when I’m not working is see movies. I’m the biggest movie nerd.

What else do you like to do when you’re not working?
KM: I also love to shop, and I love to watch football (Kate’s grandfather was Giants founder Timothy Mara).

MA: I don’t do sports. I’m a foodie. That’s what I do. My husband is Italian, so that’s a big hobby of mine … cooking and finding new restaurants. I used to draw a lot. I do a lot of sketches of people, which I have to get back into.

Do you watch any Food Network shows?
MA: No, I really don’t. My husband has taught me a lot. He’s a fantastic cook. He’s Italian and a drummer, so there’s also a lot of music in our life. And that’s probably a big hobby, too. We go and see a lot of independent bands in LA.

Back to the film. Malin, you play Annie, who has alopecia. What did it feel like to be shown on camera without hair?
MA: Shaving off the eyebrows and wearing a bald cap was kind of freeing. It was the first time I looked in the mirror and saw somebody else. I felt like Annie became more of an interesting person because of her alopecia. It was more about finding that character than even the lack of hair.

Kate, you blew us away with your singing voice in the movie. Are you a trained singer? KM: When I was 9, I decided I wanted to be in musicals. My mom loves old films and musicals like “Oklahoma!” and every Judy Garland film you could watch, so that’s what I grew up watching. That was my dream. And, eventually, when I started doing films, there was never really an opportunity for me to sing. So I haven’t sung in such a long time that it felt like I was 14 again. It’s such a different thing to sing in a film than it is to act. For me, I had to be much more vulnerable.

From am New York

Skiers have a term for the luxuriously smooth, dry snow that was falling on Park City, Utah, all weekend: “Champagne powder.” But the real fizzy swirl right now is the 26th annual Sundance Film Festival. Celebrating independent filmmaking is the festival’s raison d’être, so naturally there’s a ton of star-packed parties to slalom through.

The one Diesel and Absolut sponsored for James Franco and his film Howl got things going Thursday night, but corks (or, just as often, beer caps) didn’t really start to pop until Friday. That was when Philippe Chow whipped up a post-premiere dinner at the Bing Supper Club for actor/director Josh Radnor and the cast of his endearing ensemble dramedy HappyThankYouMorePlease. “I love it already, from day one,” gushed Malin Akerman. It was the Swedish-born Canadian actress’ first Sundance, and Park City reminded her of the ski hamlets she romped around in as a kid. “Everyone kind of lets their guard down because it’s cold and you’re all bundled up and cozy.” Nor does the talent necessarily waste precious time showering, she added. “Who cares? You can’t smell anything!”

Later that night, Akerman presented a “Fresh Faces” award to cast mate Zoe Kazan at a Gen Art party honoring a cadre of promising young actors. Kate Mara (who lights up HappyThankYouMorePlease as a Southern-born cabaret singer in New York) insisted that in the two years since she’d been named one, her face hadn’t changed. “I like to think it’s still fresh!”

From Style.com

When actress Malin Akerman headed to Sundance Thursday to promote three films at the festival: Happythankyoumoreplease, Bang Bang Club, and The Romantics, she hung around the airport in Los Angeles looking like just another passenger awaiting her plane. But when she landed in Salt Lake City, it was an entirely different situation. Watchmen fans surrounded their Silk Spectre with freshly printed glossy photos, searching for a signature. The attention seemed a bit out of place, and rather extreme, for this airport that is usually filled with ski buffs ready to attack Utah’s snowy peaks. But one week out of the year, Utah becomes a star-studded locale, and the fans are ready. “I always wonder how they know where I am,” says Akerman. “There must be some insider at the airport who calls all the Watchmen fans, because they are always the ones that show up.” And how does Akerman handle the adoration? “You’ve got to give them a ‘one more and I’ll see you at the festival.’ But they can be pretty adamant. One of these days I’m going to have to interview them to figure out how they find me.”

Akerman’s first film Happythankyoumoreplease debuted to a standing ovation. The directorial debut from How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor has received some solid reviews and is likely to sell by the end of the festival.

From Entertainment Weekly