The Most Interesting People in Movies

<p>Academy Awards</p><p>• In 2008 Charlize Theron 32 years old and an Oscar-winner as Best Actress in the movie Monster and AnnaSophia Robb 14 years old and the lead actress in the kids' movie Because of Winn-Dixie starred together in the movie Sleepwalking. Normally actors will study each other's work before acting together; however Ms. Robb had seen very few movies starring Ms. Theron. Why? She explains My parents won't let me see them especially Monster. In Monster Ms. Theron played a street prostitute and murderer Of course winning an Oscar for Monster was very satisfying for Ms. Theron especially because it was so hard to get the movie made and to find distribution for it. Ms. Theron says There wasn't one person in this industry who wanted that film made. We had our financiers calling us at 3 a.m. and asking us what the h*ll we were doing. They didn't like the way I looked [the beautiful Ms. Theron put on weight for the movie and looked ugly] and they wondered who would want to see this movie. When we finished we couldn't pay a distributor to take it. We were hours away from signing a straight-to-video deal with Blockbuster when we found a distributor. For that reason alone the Oscar was especially sweet.</p><p>• At one time film producer Harvey Weinstein tried to convince Barbra Streisand to star in the movie version of Chicago which was to be directed by Anthony Minghella who had just directed The English Patient. Always a straight talker Ms. Streisand told Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Minghella over dinner that The English Patient was overlong and overpraised. Later of course The English Patient was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won nine including Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. At the Academy Awards Ms. Streisand was seated directly behind Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Minghella. As The English Patient won Oscar after Oscar Ms. Streisand was a good sport patting Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Minghella on the back and laughing at her critical appraisal of The English Patient. Mr. Minghella even told Mr. Weinstein about Ms. Streisand She ended up being our good luck charm.</p><p>• A famous scene in the movie Jerry Maguire starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. occurs when Mr. Gooding's character a football player makes Mr. Cruise's title character a sports agent named Jerry Maguire jump through a few hoops before he allows Mr. Maguire to continue to represent him. One hoop is to shout Show me the money! like he meant it. Jerry does that and he gets to continue to represent Mr. Gooding's character. Mr. Cruise was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor and Mr. Gooding was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. After learning about the nominations they got together on the telephone and shouted. Mr. Gooding says We screamed at each other for ten minutes. It was nothing intelligent just 'Arrrggghhh! Ahhh! Yeaaahhh!' I yelled. He yelled. Then he went hoarse.</p><p> </p>