Stellan
Skarsgård
Dragon tale
Movie
Midnight in Paris An Eiffel of Woody at work
DVD
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEF T: ILLUS TRATION B Y TIM BOWER; HUBER T BOESL/CORBIS; CHAD BATKA/ THE NE W YORK TIMES/REDUX
When Woody Allen’s reps asked Kurt
Fuller to costar in his delightful movie
Midnight in Paris—now available on DVD—
Fuller had an understandable response: “I
said, ‘Does he mean another Kurt Fuller?’ ”
Fuller, 58, a veteran of some 150 movies
and TV shows, describes himself as “That
Guy”—a character actor you’ve seen but
don’t know. “And being that guy, I’ve
worked with a lot of directors. Woody is
76, and he directs a movie a year. A man of
36 couldn’t do that! It’s grueling.”
Allen once told the cast—including Kathy
Bates, Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams,
and Mimi Kennedy—to stop reciting the
lines he wrote and instead say whatever
they wanted. “I said, ‘But you’re Woody
Allen!’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ In
the end we still said his lines, but having
that freedom made it work.” —Bill Newcott
Swedish
star Stellan
“I guess I have both sides
in me,” says Skarsgård, 60.
“If I do a bad guy, I try to
make him either totally
pathological or human,
by trying to find a reason
for his actions.” Heroes, he
adds, need a darker side,
so they’re not “some Doris
Day character.” —B.N.
FOR GROWNUPS
Carole King
Holidays bring a tapestry of tunes
Music
The ornament doesn’t fall far from the Christmas tree, or
Chanukah bush, on Carole King’s first seasonal album.
A Holiday Carole was produced by daughter Louise Goffin, who
also cowrote three songs and joins in on “Chanukah Prayer.”
With her casual voice and solid piano playing, King, 69, ties a
ribbon around everything, from her lively romp through
William Bell’s 1967 R&B hit “Every Day Will Be Like a Holiday”
to evergreens like “Do You Hear What I Hear?” —Richard Gehr
