Oscar Winning Producer Irwin Winkler Talks "Rocky 6"
Also Joining the Lineup: Little Children Director, Todd Field
Premiere Episode Airing Sunday,
December 17 at 11 AM ET & PT/10C
NEW YORK, NY, DECEMBER 7, 2006 – Academy Award-nominated actress Kate Winslet joins hosts Peter Bart (chief gunslinger at Variety) and Peter Guber (veteran producer and chairman of Mandalay Entertainment) to muse about her latest movies, the industry and what she likes most about the Oscars in the latest installment of AMC's critically acclaimed, original series, SUNDAY MORNING SHOOTOUT. In addition to Winslet, Bart and Guber sit down with industry insider and Academy Award-winning producer, director and writer Irwin Winkler (Raging Bull, Goodfellas) to chat about the 30th anniversary of Rocky and the upcoming sixth film, Rocky Balboa; and Todd Field who directed Winslet in Little Children. The 30-minute original episode airs Sunday, December 17, 11 AM ET & PT/10 AMC.
Kate Winslet is currently starring in three of the season's hottest movies: the romantic comedy The Holiday; the hit animated feature Flushed Away; and the acclaimed drama Little Children.
Winslet had this to say about The Holiday:
"I've never played a contemporary English woman in a movie ever, ever. So it really was a challenge. I'd never been confronted with, you know, guess what you can't have a wig and you can't have a dialect. So there's nothing to hide behind. Now I just have to look good in these jeans and ballet pumps."
On the Oscars:
"It's the biggest pat on the back you can possibly get as an actor. I remember watching the Academy Awards when I was very, very young. Whoopi Goldberg was hosting. And I just thought, God, I wonder what it's really like to be in that room. And just that feeling of I've been there, experienced that. It's just wonderful, it's such a gift. The thing I don't like is that it's a very, very long ceremony and I always need to pee. And I always feel like I'm going to go at the wrong moment and I'm gonna miss somebody fabulous."
Winslet holds the distinction of being the first actress in Oscar history to have received four Academy Award nominations before the age of 30. She received nominations for Sense & Sensibility (1995), Titanic (1997), Iris (2001) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).
On career success:
"My dream, my ambition if I have one at all; I want to be like Judy Dench, Meryl Streep and Susan Sarandon. All of these beautiful, amazing women are committed to their craft, aging naturally and gracefully; and giving breathtaking performances. That's what I would hope for."
On kissing Leonardo DeCaprio:
"Because Jim Cameron wanted it to be a perfect moment–the sky to be the perfect color, the sun to do this, we kept sort of waiting. So Leo and I would prepare ourselves for this moment and it just kept not happening and not happening. And suddenly it was like okay now! We hurried up, climbed up this ladder and I turn to Leo and I just said, you had onion didn't you? You did the thing we promised we weren't gonna do. And you've done it. And he just opened his mouth and breathed! And I just thought okay, okay, let's get through this.
Joining Winslet on the show is the director of Little Children, Todd Field (In the Bedroom). Fields reveals how he really feels about movies with happy endings and engages Winslet in a rousing conversation about the pros and cons of adapting a novel into a movie and her character Sarah, in the film Little Children.
Veteran producer Irwin Winkler has produced all of the Rocky movies along with notable films such as Raging Bull, The Right Stuff, Goodfellas, and The Shipping News. His latest films Rocky Balboa and war drama, Home for the Brave are due out in December 2006.
Winkler had this to say about Rocky:
"No one wanted to make it so we never thought that there would be a sixth. When we did the original Rocky there's a scene where Sly takes Talia out for their first date at a skating rink. We couldn't afford to have extras, or pay to rent the ice skates or scrape the rink after each take. So we came up with the idea that the date takes place on Thanksgiving Eve-no one would be out. Never happen, but people would buy into it. Sly pays the janitor 20 bucks to let him skate with Talia alone and that economic factor made that scene memorable."
Now in it's sixth season, SUNDAY MORNING SHOOTOUT is a half-hour weekly talk show series on AMC hosted by entertainment industry veterans, Peter Guber and Peter Bart. Guber is the chairman of Mandalay Pictures, former CEO of Sony Pictures, the producer of dozens of Hollywood's most successful movies including Midnight Express, Batman and Rain Man. Bart is editor-in-chief of Variety, and a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. In his career as an executive at Paramount Pictures and as president of Lorimar, Bart played a major role creating classics like The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby and The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Like other Sunday morning debate shows, the sparks fly here as prominent producers, directors, writers and stars join the hosts to debate all sides of the week's biggest stories in the world of movies and entertainment. The experts provide informed and spirited perspectives on the winners and losers at the box-office, the rising and falling fortunes of the stars and studios themselves and the emerging trends that are forever reshaping the business of entertainment. SUNDAY MORNING SHOOTOUT airs weekly on Sunday mornings at 11 AM ET & PT/10C on AMC.
About AMC
AMC, a division of Rainbow Media's Entertainment Services, which also includes WE tv and IFC Companies, is a 24-hour, movie-based network, dedicated to the American movie fan. The network, which reaches over 89,000,000 homes, offers a comprehensive library of popular movies and a critically-acclaimed slate of original programming that is a diverse, movie-based mix of original series, documentaries and specials. AMC has garnered many of the industry's highest honors, including 14 Emmy awards. AMC is "TV for movie people."