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www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2011-09-06-toronto-film-festival-clooney-gosling_n.htmStars pull double duty at Toronto film fest
By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY
Updated 2h 14m ago
George Clooney is doing it. Ryan Gosling is doing it.
Seth Rogen stars with Michelle Williams in Sarah Polley's "Take This Waltz." Rogen's other film at the festival is comedy drama "50/50."
By Michael Gibson
Seth Rogen stars with Michelle Williams in Sarah Polley's "Take This Waltz." Rogen's other film at the festival is comedy drama "50/50."
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By Michael Gibson
Seth Rogen stars with Michelle Williams in Sarah Polley's "Take This Waltz." Rogen's other film at the festival is comedy drama "50/50."
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But pity Brad Pitt. He has but one lone movie to call his own.
Maybe it's the recession or a crowded marketplace this fall or just plain coincidence. But for some reason, a whole lot of actors attending the 36th Toronto International Film Festival, which starts its cinema-stuffed 11-day run on Thursday, are promoting two or more titles.
STORY: Six stars will shine extra bright in Toronto
Clooney is in full-tilt awards-season mode with the politically charged The Ides of March (opening Oct. 7), his fourth directorial effort, and the family drama The Descendants (Nov. 23), helmed by Alexander Payne (Sideways). Gosling continues his ascent into superstardom with the neo-noir thrills of Drive (Sept. 16) and as an ambitious press secretary working for Clooney's presidential hopeful in Ides.
Meanwhile, Pitt will be hitting a single with Moneyball (Sept. 23), his pet project that takes a behind-the-scenes look at the business of baseball.
At least 22 stars are juggling double, if not triple, duty as they appear in some of the festival's most-anticipated titles this year. "It definitely feels like more than usual," says festival co-director Cameron Bailey. Of course, he adds, "It certainly isn't a bad thing." Especially for the media, who can get two films covered with one interview. Swanky hotels, boutiques and eateries that cater to the Hollywood elite won't be griping if the big-spending A-listers are forced to linger in town, either.
As for the actors themselves, it sometimes helps to be seen in two widely divergent showcases at the same time. Elizabeth Olsen, 22, will likely solidify her status as a talent to watch — and perhaps nab an Oscar nomination, as some are predicting — with her disturbing Sundance hit Martha Marcy May Marlene (Oct. 2), about a traumatized runaway from a cult.
And in a change of pace, she finds herself caught between her uptight lawyer mom (Catherine Keener) who's going through a divorce and her hippie granny (Jane Fonda) in the more lighthearted Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (no release date yet).
'A good problem to have'
Olsen says that doing a two-fer "is a good problem to have," one that she previously dealt with at Sundance, where both Martha and the horror thriller Silent House premiered.
Unlike rustic Park City in Utah, Toronto is a buzzing cosmopolitan beehive of activity where screenings are attended by the public as well as press and industry types. "I'm super excited," she says about going to the festival for the first time. "Everyone loves Toronto."
Although Olsen is still learning the ropes, she has already figured out that early-morning interviews and all-night partying do not mix. "I can't go out late," she says. "I haven't tried, but it sounds like a bad idea. It is usually all business and press." Not that she minds.
"I guess I really enjoy talking about the movies. You learn a lot of new things about them that you might not have realized otherwise."
Plus, she finds it amusing to hear how many ways the inevitable question is broached: How does it feel being Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's little sister? "I am always interested in just how they ask it."
Vancouver native Seth Rogen, 29, a Toronto first-timer known for such mainstream comedies as Knocked Up and Superbad, at least has the home-field advantage going for him. Both of his films —50/50 (Sept. 30), in which he's best friend to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's cancer victim, and Take This Waltz (no date yet), in which he's a chef whose marriage to Michelle Williams is crumbling — were shot in Canada.
Plus, Toronto's own Sarah Polley is the director on Take This Waltz, her second feature after double-Oscar nominee AwayFrom Her, which premiered at the festival in 2006. "She is amazing," says Rogen about the actress turned filmmaker. "I couldn't believe she wanted me in the movie. I didn't want to ruin it — that was my goal every day on set."
Both movies allow the comic actor to add some depth to his repertoire while still being humorous. "Although they are very different movies, they both have something in common that I find very exciting," says Rogen, who is also a producer on 50/50. "They are creative endeavors that take things that are not traditionally funny at all and make them funny at no expense to the reality of the situation."
Told that his double-feature status puts him in the same club as Clooney and Gosling, as well as Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave and Carey Mulligan, Rogen lets loose with a bellowing laugh. "That is literally the only time I will ever be associated with those people. It makes me want to apologize for being lumped in the article with all of them."
Gerard Butler, the Scottish-born star of 300, has made the trek to Toronto twice before, for the 2004 romance Dear Frankie and the 2008 gangster romp RocknRolla. This year, he is a headliner in two powerhouse titles that both pack heat.
Butler, 41, takes the lead in Machine Gun Preacher (Sept. 23), directed by Marc Forster (Finding Neverland) and based on the true story of Sam Childers, an ex-con biker and former addict who finds God and heads to Sudan to rescue the country's abused child soldiers.
In Coriolanus (Dec. 2), a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedy, he is Tullus Aufidius, the military rival to the title's brilliant Roman general and reluctant politician played by Fiennes in his directing debut. It's already getting Oscar attention for Redgrave's riveting performance as Coriolanus' mother.
Keeping the films straight
After a recent string of disappointments, including 2009's Law Abiding Citizen and 2010's The Bounty Hunter, Butler is ready to get back in the game — and Toronto is a great proving ground.
"Last year, I took a couple of gambles so I could approach something interesting," he says. "Not that I had planned to do two back-to-back independent scripts. But they both excited me."
He realizes the subjects of each might be hard sells, considering their graphic re-enactments of bloodshed. "Machine Gun Preacher doesn't shy away from the horrors happening over there," he says. "You have to have some of that but not get bogged down in it."
Butler's first acting job was in a stage production of Coriolanus; he realizes it might not be the most popular of the Bard's works. But it might be the most movie-ready. "There are so many battles going on, more than any other Shakespeare play. It actually lends itself to cinema more than most of his dramas."
He might be confident about the quality of what he is representing, but he does get nervous about keeping track of which title he is chatting about. "I publicized two movies at once before. I started answering one of the woman's questions and she said, 'Wait. Which one do you mean?' Sure enough, I was talking about the wrong film."