Jake Gyllenhaal got a chance to roast ex-girlfriend Natalie Portman at last night’s Palm Springs International Film Awards. The two dated back in 2002, and were rumored to have re-kindled their romance in 2006.
Before awarding Portman, 29, the Desert Palm Achievement Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Jake Gyllenhaal was unabashed in his praise for his one-time girlfriend, whom he dated briefly in 2006.
“Natalie is the Audrey Hepburn of our generation,” the actor says, “She is elegant, graceful, has amazing eyebrows … is talented, really short, funny, smart, dedicated, incredibly kind.”
But despite her attempts to prove otherwise, no one is perfect, and with Portman’s fiancé, Benjamin Millepied looking, – and laughing – along, Gyllenhaal eventually got around to the “flaws” of the this award season’s it girl.
“She’s a vegan, which makes it really frustrating when you’re picking a place to eat,” Gyllenhaal said with a laugh, before adding, “She’s also recently announced that she’s going to be a mom, and her child will probably need therapy after seeing Black Swan.”
Natalie Portman took her fans by surprise this week with a big announcement: She’s pregnant and engaged to marry her Black Swan choreographer, Benjamin Millepied. But that’s hardly the only excitement she’s got coming in the new year. The 29-year-old actress — who graces the cover of this week’s Oscar Race issue — is poised to score a Best Actress nomination for her career-high turn as a tormented ballerina in Black Swan, a role she says nearly destroyed her. “There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die,” she says. “It was the first time I understood how you could get so wrapped up in a role that it could sort of take you down.” Instead, the performance has lifted Portman into the ranks of Oscar shoe-ins this year (alongside 127 Hours star and Oscar co-host James Franco, who also gets his own EW cover this week) and turned Black Swan into an unlikely box office star — with a little help from a steamy love scene between Portman and co-star Mila Kunis. “Everyone was so worried about who was going to want to see this movie,” Portman says. “I remember them being like, ‘How do you get guys to a ballet movie? How do you get girls to a thriller?’ And the answer is a lesbian scene. Everyone wants to see that.”
I’ve seen both Black Swan and 127 Hours, and I loved them both!! Black Swan was creepy, and pretty amazing. Natalie Portman (and Mila Kunis, in my opinion, both deserve Oscar nominations. Natalie was brilliant!) 127 Hours is probably one of my favorite films of the year. The 4 minute scene in which James Franco cuts his arm off is extremely brutal – but if you close your eyes (like I did) you will be happy you saw the movie. James Franco not only deserves the Oscar – but SHOULD win!
His only competition would be Jeff Bridges in True Grit, but I haven’t seen that yet. So until then – James gets my vote!
In 2010, James Franco has been the gift that keeps on giving, and this time it comes in form of male prostitution. In a televised interview with James Lipton for ‘Inside the Actors Studio,’ Franco reflects on the time when, researching a role, he ended up watching a gigolo have sex with a man.
“I found this guy that was kind of a perfect model,” Franco said. “He claimed to service both males and females. He took me on one of his jobs.”
At the time, Franco was studying for his role in ‘Sonny,’ where he played a male prostitute. To get a grasp for the part, Franco shadowed a gigolo in the back of a strip club, but things went a little further than he anticipated.
“The guy said, ‘Oh, you wanna play a prostitute? You want some real research? Then come with us,’” Franco recalls. “It went down. Everything went down, as you see in the movies and hear about. The eerie thing is, it was like a movie, but it wasn’t a movie — it was the real thing, happening in front of me.”
Anne Hathaway and James Franco have reportedly been asked to host the 2011 Academy Awards.
In a big shift, it looks like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has moved away from its more mature hosts and instead has chosen these hot young stars!
Deadline reports, “the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has asked James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host the Academy Awards, and it ‘looks like’ both young stars have accepted the offer.” This is going to be one sexy Oscar telecast!
In addition to hosting there is a very good chance James and Anne could find themselves nominees, him for 127 Hours and her for Love and Other Drugs!
Anne made a memorable appearance during the 2008 awards when she danced and sang with host Hugh Jackman during the show’s opening number.
James Franco is one of those actors who is constantly plagued with the is-he-or-isn’t-he gay rumors. And why wouldn’t he be? He’s played gay men – and directed movies about gay men. But no, he’s not gay. In fact, he’s had the same girlfriend (actress Ahna O’Reilly) for five years!
In addition to the two gay-themed poems he adapted for student films (Frank Bidart’s “Herbert White” being the other), Franco portrayed a 17-year-old swimmer dating an older man in the gay indie film Blind Spot and Harvey Milk’s lover in Milk. He also French-kissed Will Forte on Saturday Night Live, took a queer studies course at NYU, and created performance art pieces about gender and sexual confusion. And then there’s Franco’s first solo art show this past summer in New York City; it featured video monologues with lines like “We’re all gender-f**ked—we’re all something in between, floating like angels.”
And now, just in case Franco hasn’t confounded us enough (and blown the lid off the conventional thinking about how many gay projects an A-list actor can tackle without imploding), he’s taking on arguably his most challenging role yet: iconic gay poet Allen Ginsberg, a man who discovered within himself “mountains of homosexuality.”
“If you were gay or bisexual, would you tell me?” I ask him. “Are we at a point where someone like yourself could matter-of-factly come out without the world stopping for a day or two?”
He smiles and glances out the window. One of the college students shuffles closer. “Sure, I’d tell you if I was,” he says. “I guess the reason I wouldn’t is because I’d be worried that it would hurt my career. I suppose that’s the reason one wouldn’t do that, right? But no, that wouldn’t be something that would deter me. I’m going to do projects that I want to do. Everyone thinks I’m a stoner, and some people think I’m gay because I’ve played these gay roles. That’s what people think, but it’s not true. I don’t smoke pot. I’m not gay. But on another level, there’s something in me that is able to play roles like that in a way that’s convincing.”
Danny Boyle, the director who brought us Trainspotting, The Beach and Slumdog Millionaire, returns to theaters this November with 127 Hours.
The movie centers around the true story of Aron Ralston’s near death experience in 2003, in which he was trapped by a boulder while climbing in Utah. He was ultimately forced to cut off his own arm, in order to survive.
The trailer looks amazing, looks a lot like The Beach (which I loved!). Check it out above!
