What you’re about to read is a conversation between two exhausted human beings, both of whom have participated in one too many interviews during the Toronto International Film Festival. One of those human beings was Chris Evans, known to fans of “Marvel’s The Avengers” as Captain America. Evans was in Toronto promoting “The Iceman,” a pitch-black biopic of Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), a New Jersey hitman famous for his stone-faced approach to dispatching victims. Evans plays Mr. Freeze, a rival hitman who drives an ice cream truck stocked with cyanide.
When most people think of a film festival in a foreign city, they probably picture leisurely days spent watching great films, having brainy conversations and rubbing shoulders with glamorous stars. And that’s how it is for some people, I imagine. But film festivals have become something of an endurance test for the actors, filmmakers, publicists and journalists whose job is to spread the word about movies that no one outside of a five-mile radius has seen.
The actors have it worst. They rarely get to see any films. They rarely get to leave their hotels. And they have to find ways of being “interesting” without saying anything they’ll regret. As I was waiting for Evans, he was involved in some type of photo shoot across the room, which, from a very tired observer’s standpoint, looked like a miserable experience. Which may help explain why he was drinking from a bottle of Stella Artois when we met. And why he flipped me off.
I interviewed you for “Puncture” once. You were nice.
Oh, good. Well, I became a dick, so get ready. Read full article.
