[Gio Gio]

Proof - Jack and Gwyneth have much chemistry together!

Plot Summary
The daughter of a brilliant but mentally disturbed mathematician, recently deceased, tries to come to grips with her possible inheritance - his insanity. Complicating matters are: one of her father's ex-students who wants to search through his papers, and her estranged sister who shows up to help settle his affairs.
Source: imdb.com

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Auburn, "Proof" follows a devoted daughter (Paltrow) who comes to terms with the death of her father (Hopkins) a brilliant mathematician whose genius was crippled by mental insanity -- and is forced to face her own long-harbored fears and emotions. She adjusts to his death with the help of one of her father's former mathematical students (Gyllenhaal) who searches through her father's notebooks in the hope of discovering a bit of his old brilliance. While coming to terms with the possibility that his genius, which she has inherited, may come at a painful price, her estranged sister (Davis) arrives to help settle their father's affairs.
Source: yahoo.com

Poster


Stills





Trailer
http://movies.channel.aol.com/movie/...lers&mid=18015

Official Site
http://www.miramax.com/proof/

[wanderer78]

I read the play, and to be honest didn't care for it. But I think the themes are interesting. And it has a great cast.

[ROCKSTAR]

I like movies about mathematicians (don't ask lol) so I'm looking forward to this.

[Gio Gio]

I'm really curious about this movie. Yesterday I saw the press conference in Venice and Jack talked about his chemistry with Gwyneth and Anthony was really happy about his job with this cast and with Madden. Gwyneth wasn't present for the many problems with her trip.

Proof photocall in Venice- 090505


Jack and Anthony Hopkins



Proof Premiere in Venice

[UnsilentMajorty]

Small TEASER for the film

[Gio Gio]

An Italian fan writed this "review" about this movie (He saw the movie in Venice)
Sorry for my bad translation..

Very attractive, good test of actors is of Hopkins that of the attractive Paltrow and also Jake Gyllenhaal that was the better one between the 2 cowboy gay of Brokeback Mountain.. Good film on the doubt of the protagonist (Paltrow) of ever inherited from the father genius (Hopkins) of the alone mathematics the insanity or also the genius..
Hit the flash back that don't explain you until the end the truth (for this I didn't write you the final...)

Credit: mauri - comingsoon.it

[shrrshrr]

Originally Posted by wanderer78 I read the play, and to be honest didn't care for it. But I think the themes are interesting. And it has a great cast.

Really? I'd like to know more not being familiar with the story. What about it put you off? (and yeah, great cast!)

[Gio Gio]

Proof Premiere at the 30th Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto September 12, 2005.
The movie tells the story of the daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) of a brilliant but mentally disturbed mathematician, recently deceased, who tries to come to grips with her possible inheritance.


Jack, Gwyneth and John Madden


Jack and John Madden

[Quarterley]

Toronto Star - Sept. 26, 2005:

Mad Hopkins, again

Hannibal Lecter's alter ego, who's made a career playing lunatics, is comfortable in his skin as both an actor and a person


RICHARD OUZOUNIAN
ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER

If you sit down to dinner with Anthony Hopkins, don't expect him to order the Hannibal Lecter special: liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

The 67-year-old star of Proof, which opens Friday, has been "a virtual vegetarian" for years, effectively ruling out the liver.

And you might as well forget the Chianti as well. This December will mark the 30th anniversary of Hopkins' sobriety, a fact that makes him "very happy and very grateful."

"Three decades of clarity and calm," he sighs, settling back into an easy chair in his Toronto hotel room during the recent Toronto film festival, "it's been a blessing."

The irony is that during those years, Hopkins has played some of the most frightening lunatics in cinematic history: Adolf Hitler, Captain Bligh, Titus Andronicus, Richard Nixon and — on three occasions — "Hannibal the Cannibal" Lecter.

His current turn in Proof also sends him into the world of mental instability, but in a much more sympathetic way.

He plays Robert, a once brilliant mathematician, who slowly descends into madness under the horrified eyes of his equally gifted and disturbed daughter, Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow).

But when asked if it's different playing a kinder, gentler lunatic than a raging homicidal one, Hopkins shakes his head emphatically.

"It's all the same. It doesn't matter if you're a benign madman or a malignant one. I know those method actors, the Stanislavski guys, want to figure everything out. That's fine if it works for them, but for me, it's utterly useless."

"Just learn the lines, show up and do it."

Hopkins has been making claims like that for so many years that it's worth challenging him on how deeply he actually clings to that philosophy.

"Look," he begins in a conciliatory fashion, as though aware he might have been speaking glibly. "I'm not saying that acting is easy. It takes years and years to figure out how to do it properly. But once you've got it down, it's like driving a car or flying a plane: it's a skill-set and you utilize it as best you can."

Hopkins flips the pages of an imaginary script. "I start with whether or not to make a film largely depends on that."

He had never seen David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play on stage but "as soon as I read the screenplay, I wanted to do it. It's excellent writing: clear, intelligent, but still full of passion."

Another major inducement was the chance to work with Paltrow. "I was so respectful of her. I think she's a truly spectacular actress. She's quite unique."

He leans forward excitedly and gushes like a fan. "My favourite performance of hers is in The Talented Mr. Ripley. That moment when she says to Matt Damon `Why are you doing that, Tom?' Such ice, such hatred, such talent."

Hopkins was well aware that it was emotionally tricky for him to be playing Paltrow's fictional father, since she was still dealing with the death of her real life one in 2002.

"The scene on the park bench by Lake Michigan was our first morning of working together," he recalls, "On that day we had a lot of time to get to know each other because the wind was blowing and they had to keep resetting the screens around us. I waited for her to mention the topic of her father and when she did, all she said was, `It will take me a long time get over it.'"

The look on Hopkins' face is sheer admiration. "She was obviously still feeling these things deeply, but she never let it spill over into her work in a negative way. I'm sure it must have informed every choice she made, but it was done with impeccable taste."

He puts his hands behind his head, leans back and laughs.

"Of course, I wasn't nearly as tasteful. One day, we were shooting a scene and I felt myself well-up with tears because I thought it was so tragic. Fortunately I stopped myself in time. It wasn't right for me to comment on my own performance. After all, my character doesn't know he's mad." His eyes glint. "Or does he?"

"It's always wonderful to feel emotions, but you've got to be guarded about letting them out. Actors love to cry, because it shows they're acting, but it's not always the right choice."

Once again, something about Hopkins' breezy dismissal of his emotional reaction warrants a closer examination. What exactly happened in the scene that made him cry?

He looks out the window for a moment before answering.

"It's like the end of King Lear to me. A sudden burst of lucidity in the midst of all the madness. One second where he can see the void." He quotes the plays almost reverently. "`I am a very foolish, fond old man.'"

There's another silence before he speaks again.

"I played King Lear once, 19 years ago. It was the last time I ever set foot on a stage."

And up to that point, he had experienced one of the most turbulent careers of any actor from his generation.

Born in Wales, on Dec. 31, 1937, to a family of bakers, he tersely describes his childhood as "difficult ... I never felt that I really belonged anywhere." His childhood nickname, in fact, was "Mad Hopkins."

Like many alienated children, he sought the combination of escape and community that the theatre offered. He trained at the Cardiff College of Drama, spent two years in the RAF as a bombardier, then studied at RADA and plunged into the British repertory theatre scene.

By the time he was 27, Laurence Olivier invited him to join the National Theatre and two years later he shot to stardom when Olivier was stricken with appendicitis and his understudy, Hopkins, went on as Edgar in The Dance of Death on a few hours notice.

The next year, 1968, he made his film debut as Richard in The Lion in Winter and spent the next five years alternating between TV, movies and a series of dazzling leading roles at the National Theatre. It looked fine on the outside, but Hopkins was falling apart. "I was suffering through a private hell, which my excessive alcoholic consumption only exacerbated," is how he remembers that time, which climaxed in 1973, when he quit the National Theatre in a flurry of bad publicity while playing the title role in Macbeth.

It took him two more years to bottom out, during which time, amazingly enough, he dazzled Broadway as Dr. Martin Dysart in Peter Shaffer's Equus.

"I can now appreciate the humour," he chuckles, "of the fact that at my craziest, I played a psychiatrist and at my sanest I'm playing a madman."

Hopkins prefers not to discuss the details of his transformation, but the simple facts are these. On Dec. 29, 1975, he woke up in Phoenix, Ariz. having driven there from Los Angeles in an alcoholic blackout.

From that day forward, he never took another drink and his career started to shift into high gear again, with acclaimed performances in films like A Bridge Too Far and The Elephant Man.

He also dazzled the London stage in 1985 with his virtuoso turn as Lambert Le Roux — a monstrous Rupert Murdoch-esque newspaper tyrant in David Hare's play, Pravda.

Hopkins beams recalling it. "That was a lot of fun to do," he says, of the few times he admits to actually having enjoyed one of his roles.

"I liked playing him because he was a monster, a giant shark, who would say all the politically incorrect things people want to hear, but never dare say, because we live in such a climate of fear."

He snaps into an instant imitation of Le Roux walking on stage firing a shotgun and explaining it by saying "I'm out killing birds."

It's easy to see how the part was a sort of unconscious warm-up for Lecter and Hopkins agrees, "we're all thrilled by the kind of dynamic creature who can lead us to the abyss. It's the fascination of Lucifer."

Hopkins followed that triumph in 1986 with King Lear, "which was the last time I will ever appear on stage."

"Why? For good reason. It's soul destroying. That Lear was ripped to pieces by the critics and I don't enjoy standing on the stage like a good British gentleman night after night after I've been told by the press that my work is garbage. Adieu. Adieu."

He waves the image away with his hand. "Besides, it's tedious doing the same thing night after night and — true confession — I was never really that comfortable on stage."

So, for the past 20 years, he's focused his talent exclusively on movies and TV, being involved with 45 different projects.

But he will always remain infamous for playing Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991 Oscar for Best Actor), Hannibal (2001) and Red Dragon (2002).

He graciously attributes his original success in the role to the script by Ted Tally.

"Look, it's like Bogart in Casablanca. Everybody talks about Rick for so long that when he finally appears, you believe everything they've told you about him

"The same with Lecter. People keep saying he's a monster, he's Hannibal the Cannibal, don't get too near the glass ..."

His eyes grow cold . "All I had to do was be as still as possible." And like flicking a switch, he turns into the worst of all fiends.

"Good morning, Agent Starling ..."

He holds it for a moment, then roars with laughter at the sudden chill brought into the room by his transformation.

"You see? It's what I told you before: just learn the lines, show up and do it."



Anthony Hopkins, who’s played everyone from Adolf Hitler and Captain Bligh to prime ministers and presidents, says it’s all acting to him, whether lunatics or heroes. His next movie, Proof, opens Friday.

[AutumnColorsღ]

This looks like it will be good