Los Angeles – This coming Jan. 10, five talented actors will be vying for the Best Performance by an Actor-Drama award during the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton – Eddie Redmayne for “The Danish Girl,” Bryan Cranston for “Trumbo,” Michael Fassbender for “Steve Jobs,” Will Smith for “Concussion” and Leonardo DiCaprio for “The Revenant.”
Here are some of our favorite quotes from the talented men when we interviewed them recently.
Credits: Janet Nepales, Manila Bulletin
(Photos by Ruben V. Nepales)
WILL SMITH (PLAYED DR. BENNETT OMALU, THE FIRST PERSON TO DISCOVER CHRONIC TRAUMATIC ENCEPHALOPATHY IN A FOOTBALL PLAYER’S BRAIN, IN ‘CONCUSSION’)
I want to know your opinion on these two thoughts: 1) “Ignorance is bliss.” and 2) “Knowledge is power.”
Well, ignorance is bliss, right up until you get to some stuff that you need to know. I don’t subscribe to ignorance as bliss. I believe that knowledge is absolutely power. But there’s…you have to know, you don’t know, so you are actually reaching for some more to harness the power. God, I wish I could remember who said this quote but it was something like, it’s not the things that we don’t know that are our problems, it’s the things that we think we know that are wrong. And that is excruciating, when you think you know something and you are moving out on false knowledge. It’s the ultimate lack of power.
EDDIE REDMAYNE (PORTRAYED TRANSGENDER PIONEER LILI ELBE IN ‘THE DANISH GIRL’)
Talk about the relationship between Gerda and Lili because it is so unique that she still loves him even after his transformation. Because in the present day, Kaitlin Jenner was rejected by his former wife. So do you think that kind of relationship can be found these days?
I absolutely do and I feel like I have witnessed it. Some of the women and men that I met are still with their partners before they transitioned. One friend said this, as you are transitioning, because it is about yourself and having to uncover your true authentic self, there is a certain amount of internal work that you have to do with yourself. That, of course, can come with a cost to your partner and the people around you. This friend described how she said of her partner, her constant fear was how deep her partner’s pool of empathy was? I think that word empathy is really important. And that as Gerda is in some ways the lead in this film, it’s her story as much as it’s Lili’s story, many of the couples that I met of which one member was Trans, described it. It was a very, very passionate relationship. It is love that is not identified by gender or even necessarily sexuality. Even those two things are distinct and it’s about the soul.
BRYAN CRANSTON (PORTRAYED SCREENWRITER DALTON TRUMBO IN THE BIOPIC ‘TRUMBO’)
Do you think that acceptance of different things like liberties and rights become like a trend in Hollywood?
I understand. No, I don’t think it’s a trend. I think Hollywood just like any other entity is maturing in their sensibilities. Hopefully we’re becoming more accepting. We certainly are when you see the LGBT community. We’re opening our arms more and if anyone does it first it’s usually the people in entertainment, the artists of the world that helpfully lead the way to that.
Quite frankly, we don’t want the thought policed. That’s what was happening then. We have our own system of blacklisting now. Fortunately, I don’t think it could happen again the way it did with Trumbo but we’re seeing it here. So I think if enough people raise their hand and say this kind of fascist activity sound very similar, we need to protect those civil liberties. But I think Hollywood does open itself and does embrace differences and differences of opinion. Art form in itself is subjective so to have an art form collapse and say, now we think this is this and this is that, is counter intuitive to art to begin with. It’s so subjective. It should remain that way.
MICHAEL FASSBENDER (PLAYED THE LATE APPLE FOUNDER AND CEO STEVE JOBS IN’STEVE JOBS’)
Steve Jobs was quite complicated and a unique man. He also had a very healthy ego and he did not like the word ‘No,’ especially when related to him as an artist or someone in the creative field. What is your own relationship to ego and somebody telling you ‘No’?
I definitely think I have an ego and it’s something that I try to keep in check. When it works well, it’s there to protect one and I think it’s good for that. So I definitely have it but I am aware of that and I like to keep it in control. In terms of the work, I like it to be about the work, and really concentrate on that. If it strays away from the work and becomes something more ego based, and then I sort of have a conversation with myself. When people say no to me, sometimes it’s fun. It depends really. I try to keep a positive approach to myself. So I will try and say yes as opposed to no. But as a friend of mine said pretty recently, it’s important to say yes when you mean yes and it’s important to say no when you mean no.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO (PORTRAYED HUGH GLASS, AN 1820S FRONTIERSMAN, IN ‘THE REVENANT’)
In which way would you say you are lucky in your life and not as the movie star Leonardo DiCaprio but as a human being?
My dad has an old saying and it’s basically this, no matter what you do, you have to do two things: 1) Try to lead an interesting life, and no matter what you do professionally and no matter what your life is like (and); 2) Try to find a way to wake up every morning and just be happy that you can put your pants on.
I can’t say that I am 100 percent there but those are my ambitions and if there is anything that I am very proud of, I know this looks like this has been a grand illusion but at the end of the day, I have a lot of great people around me. I feel very fortunate for everything and not just my career but everything.
