Sundance Film Festival Report: Paul Giamatti, Thor's Chris Hemsworth, and SWAG
Posted 01.24.11 by reelz
Hollywood Dailies' Steve Patterson is in Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival. Patterson caught up with Paul Giamatti, who just won a Golden Globe for his performance in Barney's Version and is winning praise for his role in Win Win, which is playing at the festival. Patterson also saw Thor's Chris Hemsworth hanging out in Park City. Patterson also got a taste of the swag at the festival.
Hello again from Park City, Utah! The weekend has been tons of fun, so let me catch you up! Saturday started off with a great movie called Win Win. Paul Giamatti leads a very funny cast in a heartwarming story. The best part was....I knew very little going in. Truthfully, that's one of the great things about Sundance. You get to see movies before getting inundated with trailers and promotion for it.
The following morning I got to chat with Giamatti and the rest of the cast. Everyone seemed legitimately excited to talk about this movie. Here's my blog confession: When interviewing actors, I'm always hoping for the interview to end on a fun note. Sometimes, it's easier than others and that was certainly the case yesterday. The good folks who make Boomphones (really cool headphones) asked if I'd present Giamatti with a pair of them as a gift. I mean come on! It doesn't get any easier than that. Ending an interview with pretty slick gift made my job easy. Bobby Cannavale, who co-stars with Giamatti and is hilarious in Win Win, was sitting beside Giamatti as I interviewed them both at the same time but I only had been given one pair of headphones! Bobby made a funny scene about being left out, so the quick solution came into view. Grab him another pair that was sitting in a corner in the room. Mission accomplished. Celebs left happy. By the end of it, little old me even got a pair. The Boomphones were clearly in a giving mood (yes, I've tried them, and yes they do in fact boom!)
That became the first of many gifting lounges that we got to check out. And let me be clear, gifting lounges is far from a common experience for me. So yeah, it's of one of those "are they really gonna let me take this stuff" kind of moments but after I made it out of the first door, I soon realized I would not be tackled by security and they were in fact gifts. How cool! Wait a minute...do I have to get them a gift in return? Let's table that for the time being.
One of the other standout moments of the weekend was chatting with Chris Hemsworth, star of the upcoming movie Thor. With so many small, indie movies being showcased here, it was sort of funny bumping into the star of a big-budget and likely big box office flick. But don't worry, he wasn't there to try to overshadow the smaller ones. In fact, from what I gathered, he was there to snowboard more than anything else. Both he and his brother Liam Hemsworth seemed more than happy to spend most of their time on the slopes but did assure me that they were planning on catching some movies while up here. It was their first time, and they certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves.
A relaxing night tonight (including watching my Pittsburgh Steelers advance to the Super Bowl!!!....pardon my sidebar) was needed as we've got a busy day ahead today. More from Sundance to come!
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