Ben Affleck has had the most famously rollercoaster career of any Hollywood A-lister of this era. He’s been equally known for successes like Good Will

"Like a Boston Phoenix..."

Ben Affleck has had the most famously rollercoaster career of any Hollywood A-lister of this era. He’s been equally known for successes like Good Will Hunting (which he also co-wrote, garnering him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar), Armageddon, The Sum Of All Fears, Hollywoodland, Smokin’ Aces, and He’s Just Not That Into You as well as some notorious stinkers like Pearl Harbor, Daredevil, Gigli and Surving Christmas.

However, one of Affleck’s biggest success was not a film he acted, but directed with the critically-acclaimed Gone Baby Gone. Now the 38 year-old hopes to succeed both as an actor and director with his sophomore directorial project The Town and he believes the transition to both actor and director was a creative necessity and acting and directing this film suits this need on both ends.

“It’s really just a function of wanting to take a step toward directing, a step toward doing more unusual stuff, Hollywoodland, and then Gone Baby Gone, and then after that, State Of Play, and movies like that,” Ben believes, “And this movie, which I was kind of interested in on creative merits and I felt ready to try being an actor and a director, so it really wasn’t any meta-planning stuff. It was just creative instincts.”

Ben reveals how he was given authority over first pick during casting, starting with Chris Cooper, who plays the father of his character Doug MacRay, the leader of a bank robbing team.

“I was fortunate in that I was able to get all the first choices that I have for this movie,” Affleck reveals, “I knew I wanted Chris Cooper back when I was doing Company Men right before this.”

“I was buttering Chris up, like, ‘Can I get you a cup of coffee, Chris? A Danish, Chris? Tire flat, Chris? Be right back!’” he adds, “Just endlessly trying to be just sycophancy as a way of getting him in. And ultimately, we shot near his house and sort of just twisted his arm.”

Next was Jeremy Renner, who plays fellow team member Jem Coughlin.

“And I got Jeremy as my first choice,” he says, “I knew him from [The Assassination Of] Jesse James and just said, this guy is a genius, a genius actor, and won’t give you a fals... Read the complete interview here Celebrity Interviews

Blake Lively Interview for The Town - Celebrity Interviews

"The Town's 'Girl'"

The transition from TV star to film star is often tricky for a lot of actors, but Blake Lively proves to be handling the transition almost seamlessly. A closer look would reveal that this can be mainly because of her strong beginnings in film in movies like The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants films and Accepted.

Lively is still best known for her role as conflicted rich girl Serena van der Woodsen on the hit CW drama Gossip Girl, though her film career continues to flourish because of her critically acclaimed roles in indie films like Elvis And Annabelle and The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee. Now the 27 year-old actress hopes to heighten her profile as a film actress with a role as Krista Coughlin, the sister of a bank robber, in The Town.

The film is Ben Affleck’s sophomore film as director and as Blake can attest to, being directed by an actor, much less a major one in Hollywood, was no walk in the park.

“Well, for me, I got to experience Ben more as a director in the pre-production before we started shooting because he did so much work in finding all these wonderful resources for us,” Lively recalls, “From the women that we got to spend time with to the places that these people go around, just references, magazine clippings. He had this well of knowledge for us to tap into, if we wanted, at all of these resources.”

“He was so hardworking beforehand and really militant about getting the character down and the accent down, really understanding the people, the roots, where they come from,” she adds, “And also just their attitude was just such an important thing, how a detective would respond versus one of their friends. And then, when we were on set, it was just such a comfortable that was there that we were just able to step into and lose ourselves and that was more when I got to experience Ben as an actor and I never felt like he was there directing me or judging me, but rather we were just creating this together.”

Lively also adds that her being the star of one of the biggest TV dramas with the 18 to 30 year-old crowd did no... read the complete interview here Celebrity Interviews

Jon Hamm Interview for The Town - Celebrity Interviews

While Jon Hamm started out with a film background in movies like Kissing Jessica Stein and We Were Soldiers, it was television that gave him his big break, first on the Lifetime series The Division and then more prominently, on the AMC drama Mad Men as Don Draper.

The role has garnered Hamm three Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe Award win for Best TV Drama Actor. After success in the hit remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still and a memorable, Emmy-nominated guest stint on the NBC comedy 30 Rock as Liz Lemon’s neighbor and love interest Drew Baird, the 39 year-old actor hopes to parlay his TV acclaim firmly into film with a role as Adam Frawley, an FBI agent pursuing a group of bank robbers, in the crime thriller The Town.

He talks about how he chooses his film roles, now that he’s established himself as a TV star.

“I don’t have any sort of calculus to choosing film roles,” Hamm believes, “I just responded to the story of this and really wanted to play the character. I read a very, very, very early version of this script when another director and another package was attached to it and didn’t necessarily respond to the story then.”

“Once Ben signed on, then I became much more interested as a fan of his first film and a massive fan of this one,” he adds, “No, I just try to pick parts that somehow inspire me creatively and I want to work with people whose work I respect and admire and in both of those cases, both of those boxes were checked for this project.”

Hamm succinctly described for us the experience of working with second-time director and co-star Ben Affleck

“I mostly take notes with whatever Ben says,” Jon states.

Jon also commented on a question posed to fellow TV-based co-star Blake Lively, who is best known for playing Serena van der Woodsen on the hit CW TV drama Gossip Girl about whether she was betting with show co-star Penn Badgeley. This being that Badgeley also has a film role in The Town’s competing film coming out, the teen comedy Easy A about who’s film will be more successful.

“I have a bet with Penn Badgeley on who’s movies will ope... Read the complete interview here Celebrity Interviews

Katie Holmes Interview for The Romantics - Celebrity Interviews

Katie Holmes

Began her film career with a small role in Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm before her propelling into teen stardom by the hit TV drama Dawson’s Creek brought the young actress big roles in films like Disturbing Behavior, Teaching Mrs. Tingle and The Gift.

Before her career became overshadowed by her personal role as the wife of Tom Cruise, Holmes had made inroads in her post-Dawson’s-Creek career with roles in Phone Booth, Batman Begins, and Thank You For Smoking. Now after a stint on Broadway, the 31 year-old returns to film with her latest role as Laura in the new romantic comedy

The Romantics.

In the film, Katie plays Laura, a maid of honor whose former flame is the groom of the wedding, played by Josh Duhamel. She says it’s the film’s “love triangle” that first attracted her to the role.

“Well, I think that the love triangle of this film is really one of the things that I found wonderful about the movie,” Holmes says, “And these conflicts are something I think many people go through and it makes for a good film.”

Holmes elaborated with us on what attracted her to the role.

“I was signed to play Laura from the start,” she says, “I really loved this when I read it and I loved the feeling and to me, it felt a lot like The Big Chill and St. Elmo’s Fire, I thought, and also, a little bit of a John Hughes feeling and I always loved those movies growing up.”

“And then, I met with [director] Galt [Niederhoffer] and I thought she was really so smart,” Katie adds, “And the cast started coming together and it was something that was really exciting, just the feel of it and the look of it and the people that were involved in it was really exciting. The look of the movie is very French in a way.”

We asked Katie if she had to draw upon any personal experiences to deal with the situation of the characters in this film.

“Hopefully not as bad, but yes,” she replies, “I think, that’s the beauty of friendships and that’s what you see in this film. When you have real friends, you can be all of those things and people lov... Read the complete interview here Celebrity Interviews

Justin Long Interview for Going the Distance - Celebrity Interviews

Despite being in a wide variety of films, Justin Long’s perennial home has been consistently in the world of comedy in films such as Galaxy Quest, Dodgeball, Accepted, and Zack And Miri Make A Porno. His latest role is as Garrett, who play one half of a couple with co-star Drew Barrymore dealing with a long-distance relationship, in the romantic comedy Going The Distance.

The 32 year-old says the experience of doing a film with such a talented and funny supporting cast like Charlie Day, Jason Sudekis, and Christina Applegate proved to be more hard work than one would think.

“I always pride myself on being able to hold it together and kind of stable and kind of keep it together and take it,” Long says, “I’ve never had a harder time keeping a straight face and working these guys in. Rob Riggle and Kristen Shaal, you’re just so lucky to be surrounded by these people.”

Long shared with us the most challenging scene he had to do in the film.

“I would say some of the naked stuff was a little uncomfortable,” Justin reveals, “But I think the most challenging was trying to keep a straight face around my clown co-stars. I think just a lot of the intimate sexual stuff around a room full of 30-40 grown men, that was a challenge.”

And Justin says the kiss scene between he and co-star Drew Barrymore was hardly any less so.

“It was like a necessary evil, OK, here we go,” he says, “No, the first kiss in for us in the movie was, it was sloppy, we were stoned and so, it was easy to do. It was so comfortable. I like to think about my grandmother just because she’s always been an inspiration to me in my life.”

“No, I think you’re invested in the scene hopefully and sometimes it can be a surprise that you’ve never kissed anyone before that you met recently and people like different ways of kissing,” Long adds, “And sometimes, it can be very jarringly uncomfortable. It can be very little movement involved and it could be a quick sudden movement of the tongue that you don’t expect. She’s a great kisser, by the way.”

Going The Distance’s dinner date scene between Garrett and Drew…. Read the complete interview here Celebrity Interviews