In a town normally known for poor odds, the CineVegas Film Festival was a sure thing. The nine day extravaganza turned The Palms Casino Resort into a hotbed for film screenings, conversations and parties. The celebration kicked off with a Hollywood Reporter cocktail party, followed by a screening of Strangers with Candy starring the likes of Stephen Colbert, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker and Philip Seymour Hoffman. While none of those leads showed, the real CineVegas star was present throughout: Dennis Hopper, chairman of this year’s fest.
In between birthday celebrations (including a cigar party at Casa Fuente and evening bash at the Venetian’s Tao), Hopper honored Hollywood peers with awards: Laurence Fishburne (recipient of Half-Life Award), Sylvester Stallone (recipient of Brenden Star Award), director Taylor Hackford (recipient of Vanguard Director Award), Helen Mirren (recipient of Marquee Award) and Christina Ricci (recipient of Half-Life Award).
The self-proclaimed “World’s Most Dangerous Film Festival” concluded with a screening of Lies & Alibis (Rebecca Romijn, Selma Blair, John Leguizamo) and afterparty hosted by Ricci at the Green Valley Ranch in honor of Vegas Magazine’s 3rd Anniversary.
We tagged along for the latter part of the week where we chatted it up with Hopper and caught Ricci chewing on red licorice as she took the stage to talk shop.
Q&A with Christina Ricci
Hollywood.com: It’s hard for actresses who start as children to have a full career. Did you sense that?
Christina Ricci: I lived in New Jersey. I started out in commercials as a kid. There was a whole group of us that, after school, we’d take the bus or the train in from Connecticut or Long Island into the city to audition for commercials, movies, tv, Broadway shows…Whatever. You were a kid so you didn’t really have talent. You’d be lucky to get something so they’d send you to everything. There was this belief that once you hit 13, you weren’t cute anymore. So you’d have to quit and wait until you’re 18. Then you were sexy and could play sex kittens and then you could start acting again. Nobody wanted to turn 13. The stage mothers were waiting to get pregnant when their one kid turned 13. It was really weird and my mother wasn’t a stage mother at all so we thought this was strange. I never thought I’d have a career past 13.
HW: Did you dread your 13th birthday?
CR: By the time I was 13, I was already doing movies and we never thought that was going to happen. We never thought I was going to get a movie. My mom made this bizarre promise. For the first movie I got, we could go into Tiffany’s and I could have any ring I wanted. She would never have made that promise to an eight year old girl if she actually thought I was going to get a movie.
HW: Did anything professionally torture you as a child?
CR: I loved working. I was one of those kids who was bored at school and I needed a creative outlet. Until I had that, I was a menace. I was writing on the bathroom walls and getting into fights… and I was only seven. I was kind of a brute and I was quite small. To be a brute and small, it’s just unseemly. Once I started spending time with my mother going on auditions every day, it gave me a sense of purpose and meaning like I was good at something.
HW: Do you feel like a veteran?
CR: I feel like I know what I’m doing when I get on a set. And I feel like I belong on a movie set. I feel like I’ve been doing this a pretty long time. I always joked… You know “raised by wolves?” I was raised by P.A.s. My heart skips a beat every time I see a base camp. It’s true. I’ll be driving around LA and I’ll see in LA a base camp and I’ll think, “Go to it.” I don’t feel like a veteran, but I do think I’ve been doing it a long time. Sometimes I’ll see young actors… When I realize how little time they’ve been doing this, then I’m punched in the face with, indeed, how long I’ve been doing this.
HW: You’ve worked with a number of veteran actors. What did you observe?
CR: I’ve been blessed to be able to sit back, be quiet, and watch the different ways all these actors around me work and put together a character and understand, “Oh, it’s OK to do that. It’s OK to look like that. And that’s not embarrassing.” It’s hard to describe.
HW: Do you remember an example of that?
CR: I don’t know. I feel like actors should talk about their own methods. I shouldn’t talk about another actor’s method, but I do remember once Johnny Depp saying to me… I screwed up and I was mad at myself on this movie. I told him I was mad and he asked why. I said, “I couldn’t do. I was supposed to get upset and I had to fake it a little bit. I could have, but all I wanted to do was punch that wall. But I couldn’t because I knew they’d freak out if I did that.” He said to me, “You do whatever you have to do for the scene. It doesn’t matter. You just do it.” Ever since then, I freak people out a little bit. But I do whatever I have to. It was a good lesson to learn.
HW: What were the pitfalls of growing up onscreen?
CR: There’s a record of what I looked like from 9 until now 26, but I’m playing characters. It’s not really me. They’re not documentaries. It’s the only life I’ve ever known. I don’t have the perspective to compare it to anything else.
HW: In 1998, you had six movies come out. Was it fun to have so many films come out in one year?
CR: You always hear people say “youth is wasted on the young.” And when you’re young, you’re like, “F*ck off.” But I have to say it’s true. If I was a bit more mature, I would’ve enjoyed the success that those years brought me and that those movies brought me. I would’ve handled myself in a better way. It freaked me out. I think that has to do with the fact I was an awkward 17 year old.
HW: What made you awkward?
CR: I was 17 and people were asking me questions that I wasn’t supposed to have insight into. I was 17. I had nothing insightful to say. I was a teenager. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I felt like I was ugly. I was barely graduating high school and taking the SAT’s. And I didn’t understand adults. Some seemed nice and some seemed horrible and manipulative. I was reading these articles where they were writing about me. They were saying awful things about me and my character and I was only 17. I think I was too young. I didn’t handle it well because… I was just too young.
HW: I read somewhere you don’t tolerate phonies…
CR: Not well. I’m not an incredibly social person so I don’t meet that many people. Usually people on set are there to work so you’re talking about the job you’re there to do. You go to parties sometimes, but I don’t go often. I don’t encounter that many phonies and if I do, I make my agent talk to them because he’s very good at that.
HW: You’re usually the aggressor in the roles you play, but in Monster you were a needy girlfriend. Can you talk about that?
CR: I thought it was interesting that she wanted to cast me for that part. I’m usually the more pro-active, dominant person in movies. I didn’t know what she based her choice on. We had a conversation. She said, “I’m not sure if Shelby was being manipulative. If she was using Eileen. If she did this on purpose or if she really was just stupid.” I said, “I don’t know either. I know some people who are like this and they can’t tell you.” We went with this idea… And you’re not supposed to act this way. We did it from the outside instead of the inside out… where all I could do was an impression of people I knew like this. Honestly, we didn’t know her intention. I’ve never known the true intentions of the people in my life who behave the way Shelby does. She’s left up to everyone’s interpretation.
Q&A with Dennis Hopper
Hollywood.com How and why did you get involved with this CineVegas?
Dennis Hopper: Danny & Robin Greenspun are the founders of this festival. They decided to give me an award to honor me. They honored me and I saw the festival they were putting on. I said, “Wow. This is so close to Hollywood. It seems like we should have a lot more action from Los Angeles. There should be more celebrities here. There should be more premieres here.” This has the potential to be even bigger than Cannes, if we really think about the potential of it. Everybody wants to come to Vegas. Everybody loves Vegas. And Brenden Theatres are such a wonderful venue and The Palm is such a great place to put on the festival. It’s starting to happen. The focus is for films that don’t have distribution and films you may not see other places. I’m so proud to be associated with it.
HW: What in your career are you most proud of?
DH: Oh, dear. I don’t know. I suppose Easy Rider is my best contribution. It’s the first one I wrote and directed and also acted in.
HW: What’s been your most challenging role along the way?
DH: I find all of them challenging. Each situation is different and the qualities of the films you’re in are different. I just try to do the best job I can under the circumstance.
HW: What projects are you currently working on?
DH: I think I’m going to go off to the Bahamas and play a pirate…
