Rush back to save old enemy in 'Pirates'

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Geoffrey Rush lives the actor's life much the way his buccaneer character Barbossa lives the pirate's life.
Both Rush and Barbossa, who's back on board for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," strike a balance in their jobs between gravitas and goofiness, menace and madness, versatility and buffoonery.
Rush, 55, who won the best-actor Academy Award for his breakout role as dysfunctional piano master David Helfgott in 1996's "Shine," was seemingly out of the picture after Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow killed him at the end of the first flick, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." (Watch the pirates of "Pirates" discuss the film )
Yet Barbossa, Jack's mutinous first mate, popped up at the end of last summer's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," brought back from the dead to join a mission to rescue his old nemesis from Davy Jones' locker.
In "At World's End," Barbossa becomes an uneasy ally to Jack, a juicy role that allows Rush to strut the decks with a blend of the comic abandon the actor honed in his early stage career in Australia and the weightiness he has shown in such films as "Elizabeth," "Les Miserables" and "Lantana." (Read the review)
Rush sat down with The Associated Press to discuss his late-blooming cinema career, the lure of the high seas in the "Pirates" movies and his thoughts on whether the Black Pearl might sail again in future films.
Q: What did you think when you heard Disney was making a movie based on its "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride?
RUSH: On the first film, there was always lots of talk from the more cynical corners of the press. "Oh, we've reached that point of moviemaking where Hollywood is now basing movies on theme-park rides." And I would always go, the pirates of the Caribbean is a very specific point in colonial history that maybe lasted from the mid-1600s to the early 1700s. Two generations. This is when all the powers of Europe were starting to ransack the New World and colonize it. Piracy kind of emerged around that, because there were so many bountiful ships at sea. ...
When I looked at the creative team and I thought of the scale, that this film was going to require all the skills of (producer) Jerry Bruckheimer, with his track record, and the fact that he was throwing in Johnny Depp, the actor's actor, pretty much in his first full-blown, commercially driven role, I found that very exciting. It wasn't rounding up the usual A-list box-office stars. Jerry wanted fresh, he wanted new, he didn't want predictable. (Watch the stars arrive for the "Pirates" premiere )
Q: At what point did you suspect there would be "Pirates" sequels?
RUSH: We got an inkling of it as we were completing the last two weeks of shooting on the first one. The call sheets would start not just having "Pirates of the Caribbean," but "Pirates of the Caribbean" -- colon -- "The Curse of the Black Pearl." Once we saw that colon, we started smelling sequel.
Q: How surprising was it that you were brought back, given that Barbossa dies in the first movie?
RUSH: I more or less said to them, "Well, that's good, I hope you guys have a great time." They said, "No, no, we are going to create a new villain. We're going to move the story at one point to Asia. We're going to involve sea monsters and all that, but Barbossa is going to return."
They were saying, "Keep this under your hat, but Jack Sparrow's going to die in the second movie." I went, "You're kidding me. The fans are going to go berserk."
They said, "Yeah, but there's this great teaser moment at the end, just when the film reaches a kind of melancholy wake, suddenly Barbossa emerges, and he's the guy that's got the goods and the map to go to the other side to bring Jack back." My mind was boggling with the potential of that, the story lines that could come out of that.
Q: The third movie seems to set up a potential new rivalry between Jack and Barbossa. What are the chances for more films?
RUSH: The writers always wanted to have this huge, rolling conflict between Jack and Barbossa. Even in the pre-story of the first film, where we heard a lot about how Barbossa was Jack's first mate, then he mutinied and took over. There's never going to be a resolution to that conflict.
So, sure, there are potential story lines, not uninteresting ones. I joked and said, "Why don't we do a prequel? If they find the fountain of youth, wouldn't that be fantastic?" They could CGI us up, so I could be 25 and Jack could be 10. There's a lot of fun in it.
Q: More sequels make good business sense, but what would it take to get you and the other creative people back on board?
RUSH: I think the same rules would apply. No one would want to do more of the same. I'm sure the studio heads would go, "Come on, we could bang one more out." But I just know that's not how Jerry would think, and Johnny. There'd be creative input. People would say, "Wow, you come up with a good script and a good set of conflicts and swerve it in a new direction, then it would be legitimate." But Disney's not going to say, "That was aesthetically pleasing. Let's put it to bed now." I can't see that sentence coming out in the board room.
Q: Your early career was mostly stage work, but in the last decade, you've played Peter Sellers, Trotsky, the Marquis de Sade, a couple of great Elizabethan characters, a larger-than-life pirate on film. If someone told you pre-"Shine" that you would have all those film roles, would you have believed them?
RUSH: Not at all. I think it has reflected very pleasurably the sort of diversity, the kinds of roles I used to play in the theater. I've managed to find some kind of cinematic equivalent to that. I was never a leading man. I've always been in the outer concentric circles in the company, being a character actor, which is a good place to be. It gives you that diversity.
Q: What do you think about the pirate iconography that's become so omnipresent largely because of the movie franchise?
RUSH: [When] I was staying at the Chateau, West Hollywood was rancid with pirates last Halloween. I was very tempted, if it didn't involve a 2 1/2-hour makeup job, I was so tempted to go out and just walk down Sunset Boulevard and knock everyone in a bandanna with a sword in their belt out of the water by parading along as Barbossa. It would be kind of fun.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Celebrating an 'indestructible' American legend

NEW YORK (AP) -- On the 100th anniversary of John Wayne's birth, the Duke still swaggers through the American psyche as not just an actor, but a patriot -- his centennial spawning fond remembrance, and perhaps a few small protests on the side.
Wayne's legacy is unique because of the dual perspectives that pervade his memory. Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Garry Wills, who wrote "John Wayne's America" in 1997, described Wayne as "the most popular movie star ever, but also the most polarizing."
It could be argued that no other film actor has ever come to symbolize so many things: rugged masculinity, the frontier, even America itself. The Duke has remained, in the truest sense, an icon.
For many, an entire way of life is epitomized in the tired, unblinking eyes that peered knowingly from his cocksure pose ("walks around like a big cat," said Howard Hawks). His voice, too, seems etched in the collective memory: With a simple "pilgrim," a whole lost world is summoned.
Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison, would have turned 100 on Saturday. He died at 72 of stomach cancer in June 1979 after a career that spanned more than 170 films. He didn't win an Academy Award until 1970 for his performance in "True Grit." (He was nominated twice earlier -- for best actor in 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima" and best picture for 1960's "The Alamo," which he directed and produced.)
To this day, he still ranks atop polls rating the most adored actors; a Harris Poll conducted just this year rated him as the third-most popular movie star behind Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks.
Nostalgia for strong, silent heroes like those Wayne portrayed can regularly be spotted in places like HBO's "The Sopranos." Of course, even Tony Soprano sees a shrink, and Wayne's rugged masculinity is now often viewed as the symbol of bygone era; feelings are now meant to be openly expressed and analyzed. Those who keep their emotions locked up have even been referred to as suffering from the "John Wayne syndrome."
He seldom deviated from heroic roles, often set in the West or on the battlefield. Among his most beloved and acclaimed films are "Stagecoach" (1939), "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949), "The Searchers" (1956) and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962). His range was limited, but he mined a narrow path of the reluctant but obligated hero -- a consistent approach that furthered his iconic stature.
He knew it, too.
"When I started, I knew I was no actor, and I went to work on this Wayne thing," he once said. "I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn't looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror."
It's a notably different -- and perhaps dated -- tactic in a profession that values, above all, malleability. If you want to be an actor, study Brando. But if you want to be a movie star, study Wayne.
"He never tricked the audience with the characters he played," says Gretchen Wayne, who heads her late husband Michael Wayne's film company, Batjac Production, which was formed in 1954 by her legendary father-in-law. "His films started in the late '20s, early '30s, so there's three generations of people who have grown up with him."
She will host an evening presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles on Thursday, where a new restoration of "The High and the Mighty" (1954) will be shown. (Wayne was married three times and had seven children.)
Turner Classic Movies (like CNN, a unit of Time Warner) has been paying tribute throughout the week by airing a 35-film festival of his movies. His birthplace, Winterset, Iowa, will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday for a new John Wayne museum. "Hondo" (1953), recently restored in digital 3-D, will screen at the Cannes Film Festival.
Hollywood studios are also rolling out a small army of DVD releases, including collector's sets from Lionsgate, Universal, Warner Home Video and Paramount.
Representing
This is all evidences an enduring love for Wayne that may surpass even his esteemed contemporaries: Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, whose centennial was earlier this month.
Unlike some of the stars of his day, Wayne never served in World War II, ironic since Gen. Douglas MacArthur said he "represented the American serviceman better than the American serviceman himself." He was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 1979 shortly before his death.
Jim Olson, a Sam Houston State University history professor who co-wrote the 1995 biography "John Wayne: American," believes Wayne's guilt over not serving in the war propelled him to compensate by being a fervent anti-communist and symbol of American ideals.
"Wayne was a confused young man," says Olson. "He sort of grew up searching for the meaning of life and I think he found it in the values he ended up portraying on screen. His screen image and his individual persona kind of kept ricocheting off each other over time until the image on screen became his alter ego."
Especially in his later years, Wayne came to symbolize political conservatism and a dedication to country. His stand against communism during the Cold War was so influential that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin plotted to assassinate him, according to Michael Munn's 2005 biography "John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth."
Wayne famously said, "I always thought I was a liberal. I came up terribly surprised one time when I found out that I was a right-wing conservative extremist."
He angered more people with his support of the Vietnam War, which he expressed openly in 1968's "The Green Berets," a film he co-directed and starred in.
"Wayne lived in a world of absolutes. He did not like ambiguity," says Olson. "He lived in a world where, in his mind, right was right and wrong was wrong. And evil was real and evil had to be crushed with violence if necessary.
"There's a generation of Americans that kind of grew up with Wayne, matured with Wayne and grew old with Wayne, through all the trials and traumas of modern American history -- and in doing so, found in him a voice they understood."
It's been not only 100 years since his birth, but nearly three decades since his death. Yet Wayne still remains one of the most recognizable faces in the world. He is, as New York Times film critic Vincent Camby once wrote, "marvelously indestructible."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Legendary actress still a special voice

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Julie Andrews has been Hollywood royalty for decades. Lately, she's had the parts to prove it with queenly roles in "The Princess Diaries" and "Shrek" films.
Andrews -- who reprises her voice role in "Shrek the Third" as Queen Lillian, mother-in-law to Mike Myers' ogre and mom to Cameron Diaz's ogre princess -- is a pragmatic monarch.
Since throat surgery ruined the glorious singing voice of the star of "Mary Poppins," "The Sound of Music," "Victor/Victoria" and other films, Andrews finds other ways to express herself, continuing to moonlight as a children's author and director. (Watch the "Shrek" cast members talk about their characters )
Though she managed a subdued little musical number in 2004's "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement," Andrews said she has not recovered her singing voice in the 10 years since the surgery.
"No, sadly," Andrews said in an interview to promote "Shrek the Third." "I'm not singing. My daughter, the one that I write with, said something so lovely. I was bemoaning the fact that I wasn't singing and how much I missed it. And she said, 'Mom, you've just found a different way of using your voice by writing.' It made me feel so much better. ...
"I do miss singing with an orchestra, the beauty of it all. I miss the music. But at least I am able to still contribute, which is lovely."
Andrews, 71, has referred to her talent as "my freak four-octave voice," which gave her an early start in show business in England. The daughter of music-hall performers, Andrews was singing on stage as a child and was still in her teens when she debuted on Broadway.
She quickly became a Broadway superstar as Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" and followed that musical as Guinevere in "Camelot," though success in Hollywood initially was elusive.
Andrews was passed over in favor of Audrey Hepburn for the big-screen version of "My Fair Lady." But Walt Disney cast her as the perky, singing nanny in 1964's "Mary Poppins," a screen debut that earned Andrews the best-actress Academy Award. That same year, Hepburn was not even nominated for "My Fair Lady."
A year later, Andrews was nominated for best actress in "The Sound of Music," and she earned a third nomination for 1982's "Victor/Victoria," one of seven films she made with her husband, director Blake Edwards.
Andrews' voice problems developed while she was performing in the Broadway production of "Victor/Victoria" in the mid-1990s. She underwent surgery to remove non-cancerous nodules, but the operation left her without her singing voice.
She sued two doctors and Mount Sinai hospital in New York and settled out of court in 2000, with no terms disclosed.
By then, Andrews had long since established herself as a children's author, a sidelight that became increasingly important with her singing career over. Her books include "Mandy," "Little Bo," "The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles" and her "Dumpy the Dump Truck" tales.
Daughter: 'Write me a story'
Andrews and daughter Emma Walton Hamilton write together and oversee a collection of children's stories under Andrews' name that includes their own works, tales by others and books that had gone out-of-print.
The writing career began about 30 years ago during a simple game with her children "that required the paying of a forfeit," Andrews said. "I was the first to lose, and I said, 'What shall my forfeit be?'
"My eldest daughter said, 'Write me a story,' and I thought, OK, because I used to make up little tales for them. I thought a couple of pages of an Aesop's fable would be fine, but she was my new stepdaughter, and I thought, well, maybe I can really make something of this and give her a gift."
The pages piled up, husband Edwards urged her on, and "when the book was finished, I felt empty and I wanted to do it again," Andrews said. "It's been going on like that since."
After another children's book, William Steig's "Shrek!", became the basis for the 2001 animated hit, Andrews was brought in for 2004's "Shrek 2" as the voice of Lillian, wife of the frog king Harold.
"We were thinking, OK, we need a queen who has really got it together but has got to have a sense of humor because of the world she lives in," said "Shrek the Third" producer Aron Warner. "Her husband's a frog, her daughter's an ogre. So we had to have someone we knew could laugh but could also carry that sort of regalness.
"Julie's an icon and a dream to work with. We were just talking about how sometimes during her recording sessions, we would sit there and go, 'That's Julie Andrews.' You need to be paying attention to the lines and not the fact that it's Julie Andrews, and I wasn't listening."
Though her singing career is behind her, Andrews does get to hum a tune in "Shrek the Third." In a dizzy moment for Queen Lillian, she trills through a few bars of "My Favorite Things," one of the songs Andrews belted out in "The Sound of Music."
"It felt like a charmingly wicked thing to do," Andrews said.
Andrews has directed for the stage and hopes to do it again amid her writing and acting work, which she hopes will include future "Shrek" films.
"I'm lucky, because I have this job, and I have my wonderful publishing job. I seem to have spread, which makes me feel great, and I'm getting to the age where I love to think about directing now," Andrews said. "I just love to keep myself active, because I've always been active. So as long as I do something that I love, I'm happy."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

DA: No theft charges for Lindsay Lohan

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Lindsay Lohan won't be charged with theft because prosecutors can't confirm she walked off with someone's clothes.
The district attorney's office declined to file felony grand theft charges on May 9 because of insufficient evidence, spokeswoman Jane Robison said Thursday.
An e-mail to a representative for Lohan seeking comment was not immediately returned.
A woman claimed that Lohan walked away with a shirt and other clothing after visiting her apartment while she was away for a few days.
The rejection notice said a housesitter had invited Lohan over and told authorities that she had given Lohan some clothing.
However, a plaid shirt that Lohan supposedly was wearing didn't match photos of a shirt that the alleged victim said was missing.
"The bottom line is that Lohan can't be shown to have been seen either taking or to have been later in possession of missing items and items she can be shown to have possessed were with (the housesitter's) permission," Deputy District Attorney Greg Somes wrote in the rejection notice.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: 'Shrek' continues genial hit-or-miss ways

(CNN) -- The monstrously popular but desperately hit-and-miss "Shrek" series continues on its merry way in its inevitable third installment, even if the ogre himself is in danger of being sidetracked altogether.
Actually, that would probably be just fine with Shrek (voice of Mike Myers), a cantankerous and, by and large, humorless fixture in his own franchise. True to form, he spends most of this movie ducking his responsibilities and yearning for a quiet life back at the swamp with Fiona (Cameron Diaz) at his side.
Fate has other plans: when his ailing father-in-law, the frog king, finally croaks, Sir Shrek is next in line to the throne. That is, unless he can persuade Fiona's callow cousin Artie -- that is, Arthur -- to take the gig instead.
Princess Fiona doesn't get much say in all this, but her revelation that Shrek can expect to hear the pitter-patter of not-so-little feet doesn't improve his mood. A surreal nightmare sequence with Shrek babysitting vomiting infant ogres (ogrets?) is as close as this comedy is prepared to risk upsetting its family demographic.
Which isn't to say that it doesn't meander all over the place.
With seven official screenwriters and several more credited with additional dialogue, story ideas and such (including "Silence of the Lambs" scribe Ted Tally) it is hardly surprising that "Shrek the Third" feels like it's been assembled by committee.
Some promising ideas aren't as developed as they might be. Undeterred by the dismal example of "Happily N'ever After," the villainous Prince Charming enlists the aid of a rogue's gallery including Captain Hook, Rumplestiltskin and the Evil Queen, but it says something that they're all upstaged by a couple of enchanted trees. And there's terrific potential in the magical mix-up that sees those reliable scene-stealers Puss (Antonio Banderas) and Donkey (Eddie Murphy) switch hides, but they don't do much with it.
Other sketches fall flat and are allowed to keep right on plummeting: a frog chorus of Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" at King Harold's funeral is particularly terrible, though you know someone somewhere obviously loved the idea to death. "Worcestershire," a medieval academy populated with Valley Girls and stoners -- laughing yet? -- is another elongated fizzle that smacks of marketing strategy meetings.
Artie himself (Justin Timberlake) is a bland non-entity in the very worst Disney tradition. And Eric Idle's disenchanted New Age-y Merlin is a mildly amusing comic creation encouraged to overstay his welcome.
But it's not all bad, by any means. You've got to love Donkey's brood of braying dragon babes. There's a delicious moment when Gingerbread Man's life flashes before his eyes and he's so moved he breaks into song.
And a baby shower featuring Fiona, her mom (voiced by Julie Andrews), Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Rapunzel gives birth to a spirited girl-power finale, with Snow White (Amy Poehler) storming the gates. (Heaven knows what Julie Andrews is capable of -- the woman did bare her breasts in "S.O.B.")
On top of it all, the animation is more impressive than ever. Facial expressions render nuances you would be hard-pressed to find from Mike Myers or Cameron Diaz in the flesh. It was a nice idea to stage the climax against a theatrical operetta of Prince Charming's devising, and this splendidly creaky, ear-piercing production is lovingly realized.
Verily, then, it's more of the same shtick, but likely a hit with the fans. "Shrek the Third" is beginning to smell a little ripe, but that's just how we like him.
"Shrek the Third" runs 93 minutes and is rated PG. For Entertainment Weekly's take, click here.