I have updated the gallery tonight with 161 HQ and MQ photos of Malin Akerman at events and candids from the past week. There is photos from the New York City premiere of “happythankyoumoreplease”, candids from March 2nd where she was out promoting the film and photos from Malin at the SiriusXM Radio studios.
GALLERY LINKS:
Malin Akerman Source > Public Appearances > From 2011 > The 26th Spirit Awards Official Presenter Gift Lounge Produced by On 3 Productions
Malin Akerman Source > Public Appearances > From 2011 > The Cinema Society & Tommy Hilfiger Host A Screening Of “happythankyoumoreplease”
Malin Akerman Source > Public Appearances > From 2011 > The Cinema Society & Tommy Hilfiger Host A Screening Of “happythankyoumoreplease” – After Party
Malin Akerman Source > Public Appearances > From 2011 > Malin Akerman visits SiriusXM Radio
Malin Akerman Source > Miscellaneous > Candids > March 02, 2011 – New York City (Fox And Friends)
Malin Akerman Source > Miscellaneous > Candids > March 02, 2011 – New York City
Malin Akerman Source > Miscellaneous > Candids > March 02, 2011 – New York City (MTV Studios)
Malin Akerman and Kate Mara play two important women in the life of Josh Radnor’s character, Sam, in the upcoming HappyThankYouMorePlease. We talked to the actresses at their recent LA press day for the film, and both admitted that it took some convincing before Josh would cast them in his directorial debut. Their persistence paid off, though — not only was the movie one of our favorites at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, but it gave both stars the chance to stretch their boundaries. Malin sports a bald cap to portray a woman with alopecia and Kate debuts a lovely singing voice in the movie, which is in limited release this week. Check out our interview with the leading ladies and find out what Josh had to say about his costars.
In the ensemble comedy happythankyoumoreplease, actress Malin Akerman plays Annie, a woman in her 20’s who has had an unhealthy pattern of dating the wrong men. Because of an auto-immune disorder called alopecia universalis, which has resulted in her being entirely hairless, Annie has an amazing spirit and has learned to face life with full force.
During the press day for the film, Malin Akerman did this exclusive interview with Collider where she talked about her connection to this character and how she misses playing her, shaving her own eyebrows for the role, and working with How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor on his directorial debut. She also talked about her role in the upcoming comedy Wanderlust, opposite Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, and her next project, Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story, which she expects to start shooting in April.
Question: How did you originally get involved with this film?
MALIN AKERMAN: I was sent the script from Josh [Radnor] and was actually offered a different role in the film. I read the script and fell in love with Annie, and then found out that Annie had already been cast. I just felt like the other role that I was offered was something that I had already done in other films, and I loved Annie way too much to be involved with a film where I’d be sitting and pining after this other role. I gracefully declined and said, “Thank you so much.”
I love the way he writes. I think he writes really, really beautiful characters. And luckily for me, the girl who was originally supposed to do Annie couldn’t do it anymore, so the role was up for grabs. So, I flew up to New York and spent four hours with Josh in his apartment and we went through the script. We went through pretty much every single scene. And then, he called me a few days later and said, “All right, you can do it. It’s yours.”
Did you do any research to understand what it’s like for someone to live with alopecia?
AKERMAN: Yeah, I did. My only experience with alopecia before this was a guy friend of mine who had a different type of alopecia, where you just lose little splotches of hair, but it grows back. And so, Josh was telling me about this friend of his who he based this character on, who has alopecia universalis, which is a small percentage of the women who get it. I went online and researched it and watched YouTube videos of girls with it.
Funnily enough, after we had shot the movie, I met quite a few women who have alopecia or who knew someone, but Josh was very informative as well. He had a lot to say about his friend, who he spends a lot of time with. He told me about who she was, character wise, and we went talked about what it would be like to grow up without hair and go through school without hair. As a woman, that’s something that we focus on a lot – long hair, short hair, hairstyles, dark hair, blonde hair, make-up and all those kinds of things. To not have that, and also be so different from everyone else, what would that be like? How would that shape you, as a character? What would that do to your personality?
That can go so many ways, but in Annie’s case, she is a master at deflecting and creating something really beautiful. She has such an amazing spirit and she just faces it front on. She just goes full force into it and says, “Yeah, I’m bald! Look at me, I’m pretty hot because of it.” I love that about her. I think she’s so awesome. But, it’s a bit of an emotional roller coaster for her.
Did you shave your eyebrows and your hair at all?
AKERMAN: I did. I actually suggested to Josh that we shave off my eyebrows because I didn’t want it to be distracting in the scene. We didn’t have a big budget, so there was no way we could do it in post and erase the eyebrows. I said, “Let’s just shave them off,” so we did. We shaved off the eyebrows and did the bald cap for the days that we saw her bald, but most of the time, we just wrapped my head up in these scarves and beautiful head wraps.
What was it like the first time you saw yourself like that?
AKERMAN: It was really cool to see myself. It’s a great beauty tip, if you ever want to look five years younger, to shave off your eyebrows. It’s amazing what it does. It really shaves off the years. My husband kept looking at me and going, “Wow, baby, you look like an angel.” There’s something really innocent and beautiful about her, in such a different way than Hollywood glam. It’s an inner beauty that outshines everything. You don’t have to get through the layers of make-up, hair and clothes. She wears her personality. It’s just out there, for grabs. The first thing you meet is her personality. It was really cool. I miss her a lot.
How was Josh Radnor, as a first-time director? Did he seem to take to it very easily?
AKERMAN: Yes. He is a brilliant director. I think we’re going to see a lot coming from that man. I think he’s brilliant. It was weird, at first, because you could be in a scene talking to him or doing the scene and you wouldn’t know when he would shift from actor to director. We’d be in a scene and he’d be acting with me and then, all of a sudden, he’d go, “Okay, keep going, but this time just do it a little bit like this.” It was a little shift to get used to having a director/actor that you’re acting with, but all in all, him being an actor is a big advantage because he understands the process and that everyone is different, and he learned to work with everyone in whatever way that they needed. He’s a very good director.
I have just updated the photo gallery with 3 photos of Malin Akerman at the Primary Wave’s 5 Year Anniversary And Pre-GRAMMY Party With Brand Synergy Group that was held last night. I also added 1 HQ production still from the movie “HappyThankYouMorePlease”.
GALLERY LINKS:
Malin Akerman Source > Public Appearances > From 2011 > Primary Wave’s 5 Year Anniversary And Pre-GRAMMY Party With Brand Synergy Group
Malin Akerman Source > Movie Productions > 2010 – HappyThankYouMorePlease > Production Stills
There is now a trailer for “Happythankyoumoreplease” released – you can watch it below! The movie will be released in theaters on February 18th.
Six New Yorkers juggle love, friendship, and the keenly challenging specter of adulthood. Sam Wexler is a struggling writer who’s having a particularly bad day. When a young boy gets separated from his family on the subway, Sam makes the questionable decision to bring the child back to his apartment and thus begins a rewarding, yet complicated, friendship. Sam’s life revolves around his friends-Annie, whose self-image keeps her from commitment; Charlie and Mary Catherine, a couple whose possible move to Los Angeles tests their relationship; and Mississippi, a cabaret singer who catches Sam’s eye.
Cut to last weekend, when Twelve–which, in their defense, is laughably bad– opened to a brutal $477 per-theater average and savage reviews. A few days later the company received a cease and desist letter after announcing their plans for an animated Terminator film. Now the bad news keeps coming for Hannover House– Deadline reports that happythankyoumoreplease has severed ties with the distributor, and is negotiating a deal with Anchor Bay Films with an eye toward a theatrical release.
Not to pile on to Hannover in their time of trouble, but the happythankyoumoreplease people are totally justified. There hasn’t been the slightest bit of publicity for the film since Sundance, and given how many of the other festival hits have done well this summer– from the comedic Cyrus to the bleak Winter’s Bone– it would have made perfect sense to have happythankyoumoreplease out in theaters by now. It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch, and sometimes feels more like a sitcom than an actual movie, but it’s an obvious crowd pleaser that could easily make the distributor some cash with some decent marketing. In addition to Radnor it stars Malin Akerman, Kate Mara and Zoe Kazan, all of them up-and-comers who could presumably bring in audiences.
Anchor Bay doesn’t have a particularly stellar track record for bringing films into theaters– their latest releases Solitary Man and City Island had unremarkable theatrical runs– but presumably they’ll at least plan to put the film out there. Hopefully Hannover can take advantage of the moment to regroup a bit and figure out where to go from here– and know better than to ever again tangle with a Joel Schumacher indie. That was a mistake they should have seen coming.
From Cinema Blend
I have added photos of Malin from three more events at the Maui Film Festival!
