Gawker: edie falco

Alec Baldwin Reveals The Secret To His '30 Rock' Performance: Bad Acting

Kyle Buchanan — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:05:13 EST

Alec Baldwin has never been a shrinking violet, but his recent rash of revelations (like suicidal thoughts and coked-up alien gunfights) is candid to a fault. Now, he reveals his secret to acting: be bad!

E! caught up with Edie Falco, who recurred memorably as Baldwin's love interest on the last season of 30 Rock. The actress said she'd love to make a return appearance in the sitcom—ironic, as she was terrified to do it at first until Baldwin's performance advice calmed her down:

As for working with this year's Best Actor and Actress in TV Golden Globes winners, Falco says, "I was actually very scared. You watch Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey; it's like they are speaking Swahili. It's like, 'What the hell is this?'"

Still, she says she learned a lot, especially from Mr. Jack Donaghy himself: "Alec Baldwin actually said to me, 'Everything you ever taught yourself as an actor not to do because it's bad acting, do it on this show.' Because it's larger than life, it's just different."

In a world where 30 Rock is filled with "bad acting," we can't imagine what tier the performances on 'Til Death, Two and a Half Men, and Gary Unmarried fall into. Sorry, Steve Carell and David Duchovny—do a little worse next time, and Baldwin's Golden Globe could be yours!

Is Edie Falco Coming Back to 30 Rock? [E!]

Which "Big Stars" Were Grossed Out By Their Portraits In New York?

Moe — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:19:04 EDT

I sort of loved how most of the actors Dan Winters photographed for New York's "New York Actor" photo essay looked basically like hell. This is not freaking Santa Monica. If someone invented indulgences for all the sins we commit against our skin we'd be the Avignon Papacy. But enough wishful thinking: Liz Smith reports today "some big name stars" were "not amused" by the harsh realism of his portraiture, which Smith credits to his past shooting spreads for Texas Monthly, "where they like things rough and tough." (This assertion appears to have no basis in fact, but it was fun checking out his portfolio.) So: who's the vain aging diva/o who told Liz she wasn't the only one who was put off by Mr. Winters' verisimilitude schtick? Let's examine the evidence:

Well I think we know who it's not:

Jessica Lange: hair looks good, but the eyes look all senile and disoriented. Possible?

Oy, Edie Falco. But it's nowhere near as scary as the Wikipedia photo she has not to my knowledge made any attempts to alter, so it's probably not her.

Ha ha ha, Lypsinka

Oh God it's totally Ellen Barkin, duh. Maybe don't pose with Julianne Moore next time, lady! But what a week for the phantom plastic surgery shadow, huh.

Oscar Brand Still Good For Something

Seth — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:00:58 EST

· The five Best Picture nominees have earned $97 million since they were announced, more than twice what last year's nominees made in the same time period. Expect a two-page trade ad from the Academy touting that sum in 248-pt. font over the words "BIGGEST. OSCAR. BUMP. EVER." [Variety]
· Former Hobbit Dominic Monaghan has been cast in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He won't be subjected to further brutal spirit-gumming sessions, however, as he doesn't play a mini-Wolverine, but "a mysterious character...who has the ability to manipulate energy and electricity." Aw, we wanted a Wolverinezuki! [Variety]

· Edie Falco follows in Mary Louise Parker's footsteps, starring in a half-hour comedy for Showtime produced by Lionsgate, about "an iron-willed Gotham nurse balancing the challenges of work in an urban hospital and a difficult personal life." No title yet, but may we suggest Needles? Then they can plug it as the "Weeds n' Needles Comedy Hour." [Variety]
· Discovery Channel got cold feet about airing Oscar-nominated documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, about the murder of an Afghani cab driver at a U.S. air base, so HBO scooped it up for a September airing. [Variety]
· THR questions if the lack of post-strike activity suggests "the calm before the storm or the calm before more calm?" Not to criticize their coverage, but they completely left out the possibility of it being the calm before the storm before another brief period of calmness before a steadier storm front moves in. So many possibilities! [THR]

Casting "Judith Miller: The Movie"

abalk — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:15:57 EDT

Good news for cineaste media junkies! Variety brings news of a film based on the Judith Miller affair!

Rod Lurie will next direct his script "Nothing but the Truth," a drama about a D.C.-based female newspaper reporter who outs a CIA agent and is imprisoned for refusing to reveal her source.Cast is mobilizing for an October production start. Talks are under way for Kate Beckinsale to play the journalist, Matt Dillon the prosecutor, Vera Farmiga the CIA agent, Edie Falco (in her first role since "The Sopranos") the editor of the newspaper that published the story...

Does that make Edie the Times's Jill Abramson? And who will play Time's Norman Pearlstine, who caved in the face of threats from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and told his reporter Matt Cooper to testify? Anyway, interesting choices. Let's see how the cast stacks up against their real-life counterparts?

As Judy Miller: Kate Beckinsale

As Valerie Plame: Vera Farmiga

As Jill Abramson: Edie Falco

As Patrick Fitzgerald: Matt Dillon

As Norman Pearlstine: A pile of folded laundry

'Truth' lures writer-director Lurie [Variety]

Gossip roundup

Gawker — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 16:32:20 EST

· Edie Falco and Stanley Tucci's romance in Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune wasn't great acting. They were having an affair. [Page Six]
· An NYU professor is suing Madame Tussaud's wax museum after running into the glass entrance and breaking his nose. [Page Six]
· Socialite import and Vogue writer Plum Sykes is returning to England to finish her novel, Bergdorf Blondes. [Page Six]
· Overheard on Wall Street: "I'll tell you how bad I'm running. The Dow Jones and my cholesterol are now the same number." [Cindy Adams]
· Actress Meg Ryan: "I used to feel like a phony if I was out there with colored nails and a lot of makeup...but now I see that you can go a long way on that stuff—the nails, the breasts, the high heels, the walk, the deep voice. Men don't realize how manipulated they can be. They are really sitting ducks a lot of the time." [Liz Smith]
· Andy Rooney to Webster Hall curator Baird Jones: "I'm not about to start caring about how long my eyebrows are. I find that kind of vanity in a man abhorrent." Ex-con Abe Hirschfield was distributing press kits about himself at the media bias lunch sponsored by The Week. [NY Daily News]