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Heath Heath Heath
MaineWriter:
from the New York Times:
July 12, 2008
Holy Cameo, Batman! It’s a Senator!
By PAM BELLUCK
The senior senator from Vermont is in a large room packed with people when an unruly citizen bursts in making loud, unreasonable demands.
Anyone can see that a gavel to order is not going to work with this joker. He’s harassing people, and he’s got a gun.
The senator steps forward. “We’re not intimidated by you thugs,” he says. The man, saying, “You remind me of my father — I hated my father,” grabs the senator’s head, and thrusts a knife to his face. The senator freezes, eyes wide.
Not your typical Capitol Hill brouhaha. No, this scene is pure Hollywood, straight out of the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight.” But that really is the senior senator from Vermont: Patrick J. Leahy — Democrat, Judiciary Committee chairman and lifelong Batman fan — has a cameo in the film and gets to be held at knifepoint by Heath Ledger’s Joker.
Bam! Kapow! Biff!
“No matter what they say, I don’t wear tights or a cape or a mask,” Mr. Leahy said in a phone interview. “Not that kind of movie. Not that kind of guy. My wife would have killed me.”
The 68-year-old six-term senator says he has been big on Batman since he was 4, when, one Sunday after Mass, his parents stopped at a little drugstore in Montpelier, Vt., his hometown, and bought him a comic book for 10 cents.
“I can vaguely picture it,” Mr. Leahy reminisced. “One of the scenes had Bruce Wayne down in the Bat Cave to work on the Batmobile.”
Batman became his favorite superhero because “he has no superpowers,” Mr. Leahy said. “He had to use his own brains and his own knowledge. He could have had an entirely different life. As a billionaire, he could have done anything.”
Mr. Leahy had a nonspeaking cameo in the 1997 film “Batman and Robin,” did a voice-over for the part of a governor in a Batman cartoon, and wrote the prefaces for a “Batman” anthology and a Batman comic book about the danger of land mines. Once he was spotted doing wheelies on his grandson’s toy Batmobile down the long marble hall outside his Senate office.
He donates all Batman earnings to the children’s wing of the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier. Mr. Leahy, who is legally blind in one eye, said that his daily trips to the library, then in a basement, made him a precocious reader as a child. On Saturday, the movie will have its premiere at the library, which will receive the proceeds from a reception and 350 tickets being sold to the screening, at $50 apiece.
The filming of Mr. Leahy’s scene in a Chicago restaurant last summer took “all night long,” he said. Mr. Ledger would “punch or throw me halfway across the room,” and Mr. Leahy was propped up by another actor “with an arm like an oak tree” who was “brandishing a gun in my face.”
It took the senator a couple dozen tries before he got his line right.
“We tried it two different ways — one was authoritative, the other one was with a lot of fear in my voice,” Mr. Leahy said. Ultimately, he was directed to act like the prosecutor he once was, with a take-charge attitude.
So how did Mr. Leahy manage to find his character’s motivation? Was he thinking of Vice President Dick Cheney, who in 2004 used profanity to curse Mr. Leahy on the Senate floor?
“No, I wasn’t visualizing Dick Cheney,” Mr. Leahy said. “They can’t use that dialogue in a PG-13 movie.”
Wham!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/12/washington/12leahy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=us&pagewanted=print
optom3:
--- Quote from: MaineWriter on July 12, 2008, 07:06:46 am ---I watched the E! show too--unusual for me since I never watch TV! As Meryl noted, they skipped all the movies between BBM and Imaginarium: no mention at all of Casanova, Candy, I'm Not There or The Dark Knight.
I don't think The Four Feathers got mentioned, either. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Overall, I felt like it had alot of young Heath, which I enjoyed. Lots of pictures and interviews I hadn't seen before. For this sort of show, it wasn't bad at all.
L
--- End quote ---
I love young Heath so it was all a real treat for me,except for the exiting builing scene,simply cannot bear that.
I also found it surprising ,in a very good way that we saw more of the BBM intimate, tender love scenes in this programme, than we did when Bravo showed the whole movie !!!! Hats off to them for showing some guts there.I did not get the feeling it was done for sensationalism either,Was sad no mention of Candy though.
Perhaps there will be a second episode ?? !!!
Mikaela:
Hey, Carolina, thanks for the great INT images! :)
I have seen the film, but I hadn't seen all of those stills, I think. I watched the film in the cinema on January 21, and my euphoria over how absolutely mesmerizing and unique I thought it was, and how fantastic I thought Heath (and Cate, and Michelle) were, turned to something entirely else the very next day - and that big-dipper kind of feeling still impacts my memory of the film.
--- Quote from: BelAir on July 12, 2008, 09:44:56 am ---"his makeup, which looked like a slapdash effort from the start, steadily deteriorates, streaking, cracking and peeling away as the film progresses; it's an outward manifestation of his psychological spiral."
I'm also curious whether you guys would count that little tidbit as a spoiler or not? (if so, I'll avoid in the future and delete that part of the post, if you'd recommend...)
--- End quote ---
Nope, personally I don't think that constitutes a spoiler! :) I think a person would have had to live as a reclusive hermit in a cave deep in the woods for the last 3/4 year or so not to be aware of the Joker's makeup and its deteriorating status throughout the film - and also that the character's psychological status is not that of a balanced and kindly Sunday School Teacher. I mean, even if one doesn't specifically seek out reviews and articles, and don't watch clips and trailers, the scariest Joker images and that laughter or its visual representations have been *everywhere* - all sort of magazine and papers have sported him over and over and again, and he's all over the net, in the unlikeliest places.
So no, personally I think something would have to be more specific, detailed and plot-revealing than that to be counted a spoiler.
Which basically is my way of saying; though I appreciate the new threads that have been set up, and I do sincerely appreciate everyone making an effort to not reveal specific spoilers and plot details, I don't think we should tie ourselves in knots over whether or not any sort of Joker reference is a spoiler. Our best efforts and common sense will be good enough! So IMO, your posting that in this thread is OK, BelAir! :)
(Though I of course defer to our lovely mods for the final say-so). :-*
Wow, interesting interview with the BAtman-crazed Senator, Leslie. Thank you for posting that!
I read the following part, and I've of course seen the clip where the Senator utters the line in question to the Joker, and I wondered: Does this then actually mean that Heath had to film that part of the scene upwards of 24 times?!? :o Amazing how they manage to do that....
--- Quote ---It took the senator a couple dozen tries before he got his line right.
--- End quote ---
MilAn:
Article about Heath's career. One thing i don't agree with is that Jake carried BBM and that people watched it because of him, i think both were great and the love story brought the audience. It was a group effort:
http://www.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/story.html?id=0ea7af0b-3c01-400d-bc51-ab1c479a4ebf&p=1
BelAir:
If anyone is keeping track or needs to know, here on the eastern seaboard I believe the next E! showing is tomorrow at 2 pm.
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