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'Barbie' Director Gerwig Honored by 'Terrifying' Movie Industry

Greta Gerwig was honored at the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation gala, which raises funds to support movie industry workers suffering injury or illness. Amy Sussman / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
Greta Gerwig was honored at the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation gala, which raises funds to support movie industry workers suffering injury or illness. Amy Sussman / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
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'Barbie' Director Gerwig Honored by 'Terrifying' Movie Industry

Greta Gerwig was honored at the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation gala, which raises funds to support movie industry workers suffering injury or illness. Amy Sussman / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
Greta Gerwig was honored at the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation gala, which raises funds to support movie industry workers suffering injury or illness. Amy Sussman / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

"Barbie" director Greta Gerwig paid tribute to risk-takers in the "terrifying" entertainment industry as she was honored for her pioneering filmmaking at a prestigious Hollywood gala on Wednesday.
Gerwig, 41, is the first-ever female director to make a $1 billion movie, and all three of her solo directorial movies to date -- "Lady Bird,Little Women" and "Barbie" -- have been nominated for best picture at the Oscars.
"A showperson is the only person I've ever wanted to be," she said, as she was named Pioneer of the Year at the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation gala in Beverly Hills, AFP said.
"I wanted to be one of those people who are a little bit wild, a little bit on the edge and filled with a kind of joyful madness.
"I think pioneer is the right word."
Gerwig's most recent artistic gamble paid off as her $1.4 billion-grossing feminist satire "Barbie" became the top-grossing movie of 2023.
Improbably based on the popular doll franchise, but given unusual creative license, the film's success came at a crucial time for an increasingly risk-averse industry reeling from the pandemic, strikes and swingeing job cuts.
The film, alongside Christopher Nolan's Oscar-sweeping "Oppenheimer," was widely credited with keeping the movie theater industry afloat last year.
Gerwig is reportedly set to write and direct two Netflix film adaptations of C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia."
"There are easier ways to make money, and there are less terrifying businesses, but there are none that are more exciting and filled with as much joy and wonder," she said.
Wednesday's Pioneer of the Year gala raises funds to support movie industry workers suffering injury or illness.

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Timothee Chalamet Channels Young Bob Dylan in 'A Complete Unknown'

FILE PHOTO: Timothee Chalamet attends a premiere of the film "A Complete Unknown" at Dolby theater in Los Angeles, California, US December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Timothee Chalamet attends a premiere of the film "A Complete Unknown" at Dolby theater in Los Angeles, California, US December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
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Timothee Chalamet Channels Young Bob Dylan in 'A Complete Unknown'

FILE PHOTO: Timothee Chalamet attends a premiere of the film "A Complete Unknown" at Dolby theater in Los Angeles, California, US December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Timothee Chalamet attends a premiere of the film "A Complete Unknown" at Dolby theater in Los Angeles, California, US December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo

Timothee Chalamet likened his journey to playing music legend Bob Dylan to an athletic feat. It turned into a marathon that stretched longer than the actor had expected.
Chalamet signed up to play Dylan in 2019. Then came a global pandemic and labor strikes in Hollywood, forcing two extended delays to filming.
"A Complete Unknown," the movie about Dylan's quick rise to stardom in the early 1960s, will finally be released in theaters on Wednesday, Christmas Day, by Walt Disney's Searchlight Pictures.
The disruptions gave the "Dune" actor more time to work out how to translate the towering figure to the big screen. Chalamet learned to play guitar and harmonica and worked with a vocal coach to evolve from his smooth "Wonka" singing to Dylan's distinctive, nasal voice, Reuters reported.
"It was the most I've ever taken on," Chalamet said in an interview, comparing the preparation to "the climbing of a steep hill."
"A Complete Unknown" chronicles Dylan's arrival in New York in 1961 at age 19, his rapid ascent in folk music circles with songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind," and his divisive turn to electric rock music in 1965. The movie's title is taken from a line in the Dylan hit "Like a Rolling Stone."
Chalamet said he immersed himself in whatever video he could find of Dylan in the early '60s, a time of political and social upheaval in the United States.
"There's a finite amount of material available, especially in this period," Chalamet said. "At some point you can turn every page over. Not to say that I have, but if I haven't I've come damn close to it."
In the summer of 2023, Chalamet said, "I felt like I hit a runner's high" in the preparation.
"I felt like my muscles were strong and I was well prepared, and that every day was sort of just chipping away slowly at this bigger thing," he said.
Just as Chalamet was ready, Hollywood actors went on strike, and he worried that funding or casting might fall apart. The final go-ahead to start filming came in March 2024.
DYLAN WEIGHS IN
The real-life Dylan provided input on the script to director James Mangold but never met or spoke with Chalamet, though he recently described the star as "a brilliant actor."
"I'm sure he's going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me," Dylan wrote on social media platform X.
Chalamet's performance has earned praise from critics and predictions that he could garner his second Oscar nomination. He and co-star Edward Norton were nominated for Golden Globes.
Other co-stars include Elle Fanning, who plays girlfriend Suze Rotolo who appeared on the cover of the album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" but goes by the name Sylvie Russo in the film.
Monica Barbaro portrays singer Joan Baez, who had already landed on the cover of Time magazine when her career intersected with Dylan's. At the time, Baez was trying to figure out how to use her platform as an activist.
"Bob came in and was kind of a mess of a boy, but also an absolute poet and brilliant lyricist, and was putting words to all of these things that she felt," Barbaro said. "On top of his charisma, I think, she just was sort of magnetized to him."
Norton plays Pete Seeger, a banjo player and prominent singer of protest music who mentored Dylan.
"I think a lot of people have lost sight of who these people actually were and what they did and what they sounded like," Norton said. "If we can get some people tuning in again, that's probably worth the whole enterprise."
Chalamet agreed.
Dylan is "one of these names that is iconic to my generation," the 28-year-old said. "You know the name, but because he's such an elusive figure and a reclusive figure ... a lot of people my age don't know the music."
"This felt like an opportunity to be a bridge in some way and bring life to this amazing period," he added.