I’ve been awfully cavalier with this challenge and, I’m sorry. Besides, I don’t really know whose house I’d like to take a tour of. Maybe I’ll visit Graceland someday, but in fact, I’d rather see places where Hemingway and Faulkner lived. I’d visit Tennessee Williams’ house, and Truman Capote’s, and Harper Lee’s, and Eudora Welty’s, and Flannery O’Connor’s. And W.E.B Du Bois’. And Francis Scott and Zelda Fitzgrerald’s place in New York. And Norman Mailer’s. And now that it’s finally open to the public, I want to visit Greenway: Agatha Christie’s house in the Devon. I’ve already seen the beautiful gardens, but I want to walk in the room where she penned Death on the Nile. So, I guess I know: I want to see the places where my favorite authors have let their creative brains function, where they have invented wonderful tales to tell, where they have suffered writer’s block, where they have lived and loved and had terribly heated arguments and amazing sex, where they have been happy and sad, and where they have grown old (or not).
Again, I have to say, asking a movie lover who their favorite actor is, is sort of cruel. You have to pick one and you feel either like a bad mother or a cheater. I’m neither a mother nor a cheater, so I wouldn’t know for sure; but I assume this is how it’d feel. And if I’ve never actually cheated on someone, I’ve cetrainly taking liberties with this challenge, giving multiple answers and all. So, I’m gonna try to keep my answers simple from now on. I admire several actors, but Edward Norton is probably on top of my list. He is a fantastic actor and I pride myself on my loyalty to him. Ever since American History X, I’ve thought of him as an Actor rather than a movie star. And that is the kind of people I admire: someone who dedicates themselves to their art, not fame. His choice of films show that about him: doing American History X andFight Club were not safe choices, neither was Primal Fear or The People vs. Larry Flynt earlier in his carreer. And that’s why I not only admire him for his incredible talent, his subtle acting and his intensity; I respect him too for his low-key life and (most of) his film choices. It might have not been a box-office hit -or even a critical success for what matters- but his and Naomi Watts’ performances in The Painted Veilwere absolutely overwhelming in my opinion. And I can’t wait to see Moonrise Kingdom!
All people are paradoxical. No one is easily reducible, so I like characters who have contradictory impulses or shades of ambiguity. It’s fun, and it’s fun because it’s hard.
