Emile Hirsch on His Piggy Woodstock Experience

In the recent "photo issue" of Entertainment Weekly there are a few photos of Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, which is shooting in upstate New York and is based on the memoirs of Elliot Tiber, the gay figure who helped facilitate the famous music festival.

In the film, Emile Hirsch plays a Vietnam vet ("Woodstock becomes a way for him to find the joy he has left in his life.").

Hirsch tells the magazine: "The mud's pretty cold. It's later in the year than it was during Woodstock. We were all shivering, and we had these silver-foil space blankets that miraculously keep you really warm...I did a Superman slide down a hill, and started turning on my back. I was covered in mud. I think there was pig crap mixed in, because we all smelled like crap."

A shirtless Hirsch before he dirtied himself up, AFTER THE JUMP...

Previously
First Look: Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock [tr]
Emile Hirsch Explains 'Gay' Moment with Fellow Actor [tr]
Emile Hirsch Gets Wetter for David LaChapelle [tr]
Emile Hirsch Strips Down for David LaChapelle in Hawaii [tr]

Sphere: Related Content

First Look: Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock

Entertainment Weekly published the first photo of director and cast on the set of Taking Woodstock, the film based on a memoir by Elliot Tiber, the gay Greenwich Village interior decorator who facilitated the legendary music festival.

Ang Lee starts his productions off with a "Big Luck ceremony" which is what's happening here, EW writes: "Also pictured are screenwriter/producer James Schamus (in white hat), and actors Demetri Martin (in striped shirt), Emile Hirsch (V-neck T-shirt), and Jonathan Groff (with bag slung over his shoulder and across his chest). The movie also stars Imelda Staunton, Henry Goodman, Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mamie Gummer, Dan Fogler, Richard Thomas, Skylar Astin, Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, and Eugene Levy."

You may have missed...
Stellar Cast Lined Up for Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock [tr]
Ang Lee to Make Film About Gay Woodstock Figure Elliot Tiber [tr]

Sphere: Related Content

Stellar Cast Lined Up for Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock

Since I posted in May about the casting of Demetri Martin as Elliot Tiber, the gay interior decorator, hotel manager, and Bethel, NY Chamber of Commerce head who played a central role in facilitating the legendary rock festival in upstate New York, the cast has evolved quite a bit.

Variety reported this week on these developments: [Imelda] Staunton and Henry Goodman will play Tiber's parents, and Jonathan Groff (currently starring in the Shakespeare in the Park production of 'Hair' in Gotham) will play Woodstock organizer Michael Lang; [Emile] Hirsch will play a recently returned Vietnam vet, Eugene Levy will play Yasgur, and [Liev] Schreiber is in talks to play a transvestite named Vilma. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is set as a closeted married man having an affair with Tiber, while Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan play a hippie couple attending the concert. Dan Fogler will play a local theater troupe head, and Mamie Gummer will play Lang's assistant."

It's a New York theater junkie's acid trip!

Previously
Ang Lee to Make Film About Gay Woodstock Figure Elliot Tiber [tr]

Sphere: Related Content

News: Ryan Seacrest, Howl, Ang Lee, Jay Brannan, The Cock

UK teen fights for his life after anti-gay attack: "Michael Causer, 19, was battered on Friday morning in Tarbock Road, Huyton, as he walked home after a night out. Today police described the attack as a hate crime. Locals said Mr Causer was never involved in trouble or fighting. One friend told the ECHO: 'Michael is just a tiny lad really. He’s not very big at all. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s a little sweetheart. I can’t believe this has happened to him. Everybody’s thoughts are with his family. I can’t believe Michael has been attacked because of his sexuality. It’s disgusting.' Friends said Mr Causer lived with his parents in Whiston and has two sisters and an older brother. Residents said he was delighted after getting a job at a hairdressing salon."

Ryan Seacrest attacked by a shark!

Ang Lee holds open casting call for Elliott Tiber film in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Those of you attending Stockholm EuroPride in Sweden may want to check out this concert on August 1 conducted by New York's Jonathan Sheffer with several guest opera singers. We hear John Cameron Mitchell is also in town for a performance of Hedwig Wednesday night.

U.S. Olympic team's Ralph Lauren outfits on display.

Harsh lighting does not suit Daniel Craig.

WordPerfect creator Bruce Bastian writes $1 million check to fight Proposition 8 at San Francisco HRC dinner: "Supporters of the effort to ban same-sex marriage already have taken in more than $1.2 million from out-of-state contributors for the fall campaign. And even before Bastian, a co-founder of the WordPerfect software company, opened his checkbook, gay and lesbian rights groups and their supporters from around the country had put more than $1.3 million into the fight against the ballot initiative."

A Mexican man's journey to see Jay Brannan.

Colorado bans WTF license plate: "Other combinations banned by the state include KKK, ASS, HEL, FAG, COP, FBI, GAY, JEW, JAP, WOP and CAT."

Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan love The Cock.

Obama supporter's car keyed: "The words 'white power' and 'I'm gay' were etched into the car of Karen Wastradowski last Saturday. Wastradowski had left her car in the driveway of her home when the vandals struck. She filed a report with Vancouver police. Wastradowski said a blue "Elect Obama" sign in her yard could have caused the crime."

Howl: James Franco to play beat poet Allen Ginsburg. “I’ve certainly read ‘Howl.’ I was very into the beatniks when I was in high school, and I still am. So I certainly have read Howl many times.”

Shia LaBeouf's pre-DUI arrest confession: "It’s not something that is conducive to being a role model. … And I don’t know how to do it like a gentleman. I don’t know how to have one drink."

AfterElton calls out science fiction author Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game) for a homophobic essay in the Mormon Times: "In this essay alone, he calls us liars, says that we have 'sex-role dysfunctions,' and that we’re 'tragic genetic mix-ups' (even as he indicates elsewhere in the essay that humans have an absolutely unalterable 'long mammalian tradition of heterosexuality'). Previously, in a long history of anti-gay screeds, Card has said he supports anti-sodomy laws that would criminalize same-sex behavior (though he grants that we shouldn't all be thrown in prison and labeled sex offenders — just enough of us to set an example so that we all go into hiding, living lonely, miserable, fearful lives)."

Show us the proof.

Mario Lopez named host of Extra.

Canadian court claims Nigerian asylum seeker "cooked up" story that he's gay to obtain refugee status: "According to court documents, the man mixed up the names of gay bars he claimed to frequent in Winnipeg, called no witnesses to support his claim, and although he joined the gay lobby group EGALE, he could not describe that organization's function and was therefore accused by the board of only joining up to bolster his claim."

Sphere: Related Content

Extras Needed for Ang Lee film about Gay Woodstock Figure

If you're anywhere in the Albany, NY area this weekend and you're interested in being in Ang Lee's film about gay Woodstock figure Elliot Tiber (more on the film here and here), there's an open casting call:

"An ad in today's paper says the production partners, Focus Films and Tuxedo Terrace, are seeking 'all types (college kids, hippies, townspeople, police, etc)" for various filming dates beginning in mid-August and running through mid-October in Columbia County. The casting calls take place from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday in Hudson at the Smith Middle School, 215 Harry Howard Ave.; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday in Albany at the College of Saint Rose Event & Athletic Center, 420 Western Ave.; and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday in New Lebanon at the Church of the Immaculate Conception at 732 Route 20. Applicants should bring a non-returnable photo and must be a legal U.S. resident. The production is also looking for vintage vehicles from the era; if you have one, bring a non-returnable photo and a description of its make, model and condition."

Previously
Demetri Martin to Star in Ang Lee Film About Gay Woodstock Figure [tr]
Ang Lee to Make Film About Gay Woodstock Figure Elliot Tiber [tr]

Sphere: Related Content

Demetri Martin to Star in Ang Lee Film About Gay Woodstock Figure

Last week I posted about Ang Lee's next project, Taking Woodstock, about gay interior decorator, hotel manager, and Bethel, NY Chamber of Commerce head Elliot Tiber and his role in facilitating the legendary rock festival in upstate New York.

Today, Variety reports that comedian Demetri Martin is in negotiations to star in the feature:

"Martin is best known for his "Trendspotting" segment on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Film is based on Elliot Tiber's memoir, which is being adapted by Focus topper James Schamus. Tiber wrote the book -- which was published last year -- with Tom Monte. Martin will star as Tiber, an in-the-closet gay man working at his parents' motel in the Catskills, who inadvertently sets in motion the generation-defining concert in the summer of 1969. Focus is eyeing a late August start date. Martin's upcoming films include Fox Atomic's The Rocker and Universal's Kids in America. He also wrote and is attached to star in DreamWorks' Will, which Jon Stewart is exec producing."

AFTER THE JUMP, Martin in one of his stand-up routines. More on the Woodstock film here.

Sphere: Related Content

Ang Lee to Make Film About Gay Woodstock Figure Elliot Tiber

Ang Lee has set up another film with Focus Features, the studio behind Brokeback Mountain, this one based on the memoir Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life by Elliot Tiber, with Tom Monte.

Taking Woodstock tells the story of Tiber (right, today), a gay interior designer, part-time Catskills hotel manager and head of the Bethel, N.Y., Chamber of Commerce, and his role in facilitating the Woodstock Festival, providing the permit that made the Festival possible, as well as the eventual location on his milkman Max Yasgur's farm.

According to MSNBC, "The project is set up at Focus Features, and will be adapted by the studio's CEO, James Schamus. Lee and Schamus' most recent collaboration was Focus' Chinese-language drama "Lust, Caution," which earned $66 million worldwide."

The Miami Herald recently interviewed Tiber and Monte about the memoir as Tiber was screening his "docu-comedy" Woodstock: Ticket to Freedom (watch a clip, AFTER THE JUMP) in South Florida:

"The result was a sprawling 575-page manuscript Tiber tried for years to condense. 'I just couldn't do it,' [Tiber] says. So he worked with Tom Monte, an author best known for books on healing. In an odd way, it was a perfect pairing. Monte kept the focus on Woodstock and on Tiber. 'My work was about finding the heroic in Elliot and putting that on the page,' Monte says. It wasn't hard. The Tiber of Woodstock days 'had an amazing amount of energy. He worked so hard and he was an incredibly creative man doing everything he could think of to keep his parents out of the poorhouse and keep that hotel alive. He was also really smart,' says Monte. 'Bethel was not the great metropolis -- it was pretty sleepy, pretty backward. It wasn't doing anything for itself. Elliot brought the great spaceship Woodstock to Bethel. If it were not for Elliot, it would not have happened.'"

AFTER THE JUMP, watch a clip of Tiber's docu-comedy Woodstock: Ticket to Freedom.

Ang Lee, Focus trek to 'Woodstock' [hollywood reporter]
Ang Lee to make gay Woodstock film [msnbc]
The man who brought us Woodstock: Elliot Tiber [miami herald]
(image: jared lazarus, miami herald)

Sphere: Related Content

News: Ang Lee, Malaysia, Amy Winehouse, Uganda, Sean Penn

Malaysian minister vows to go ahead "with plans to open a church embracing homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals, despite government protests."

Jake Gyllenhaal's basketball buddy Austin Nichols busted for DUI.

Researchers: 250,000 to 350,000 cases of breast and colon cancer a year could be prevented worldwide if people spent 10 or 15 minutes in the sun each day. "The mechanism by which vitamin D works is only partly understood, but it slows the rate of cancer cells' growth. It is made when the body is exposed to the sun's UVB rays."

"Brilliant" gay white rappers break out at the New York Fringe Festival.

Lust, Caution: Ang Lee's latest slapped with NC-17 rating.

After bloody brawl with husband, Amy Winehouse text messages Perez Hilton.

Ted Haggard in "cash for Heaven" offer.

Marine sergeant found guilty of "improperly touching" four junior Marines: "The club was crowded that night, and the four Marines — who then were lance corporals — said at first they thought Agosto was joking when he sidled up to them throughout the night and placed his hand on their thighs as they stood together. But they said he repeated his advances, convincing them he was making homosexual overtures. One said Agosto leaned over and whispered in his ear: 'You know you want to.'"

Human Rights Watch calls on Uganda to repeal sodomy laws.

Sean Penn: shirtless activist.

New study on late Medieval French "brotherment" may help historical arguments for gay marriage: "For example, in late medieval France, the term affrèrement -- roughly translated as brotherment -- was used to refer to a certain type of legal contract, which also existed elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe. These documents provided the foundation for non-nuclear households of many types and shared many characteristics with marriage contracts, as legal writers at the time were well aware, according to Tulchin. The new 'brothers' pledged to live together sharing 'un pain, un vin, et une bourse' -- one bread, one wine, and one purse. As Tulchin notes, 'The model for these household arrangements is that of two or more brothers who have inherited the family home on an equal basis from their parents and who will continue to live together, just as they did when they were children.' But at the same time, "the affrèrement was not only for brothers," since many other people, including relatives and non-relatives, used it."

Five former leaders of "ex-gay" ministries in Australia condemn the practice. Melbourne Exodus leader: "There was not one person that I met or worked with who, in any genuine way, achieved the fundamental transformation from homosexual to heterosexual. The stress of attempting to change their sexual orientation, however, increased the risk of suicide, and absolutely led to erosion of self-esteem and increased levels of depression and self-deprecation at a very deep level."

Sphere: Related Content

Jake Gyllenhaal Receives Young Artist Award

Although many of you may consider him the work of art rather than the artist.

Jake Gyllenhaal hobnobbed with future biopic subject and BFF Lance Armstrong and Zodiac co-star Robert Downey Jr. at an Americans for the Arts event where Jake was awarded the Young Artist Award for Artistic Excellence.

Jake was honored alongside Jeff Koons, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Aretha Franklin, and Sheila Johnson by the arts advocacy group at Cipriani in New York.

In somewhat related news, Brokeback director Ang Lee has joined the team creating the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics: "Interestingly, Chinese media reporting this appointment refer to Lee as the 'internationally renowned' director without referring to his nationality. China regards self-ruled Taiwan as part of "one China" and censors any reference that suggest its autonomy."

Click to enlarge. Two more Jake shots after the jump...

You may have missed...
Jake Gyllenhaal in Zodiac: New Film, Same Uniform [tr]
Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Lee Hit the Town [tr]
You Can Have Jake Gyllenhaal's Bone [tr]
Jake Gyllenhaal at the Beach [tr]

(photo source)

Sphere: Related Content