My Top 3 Interviews of 2011

With 10 days left in the year, I am going to start doing a few "Best of 2011" posts to highlight some of my favorite moments of the year.  Today's feature is my favorite Top 3 interviews of 2011.  This was a hard one to whittle down since I had everything from the Oscars to the Tonys to countless other red carpets and gifting suites to choose from.  The interviews were chosen for particular reasons, whether they were funny or poignant, they just resonated with me this year.  Here are the Top 3:

1.  Joel Grey from Anything Goes at the Tony Awards:  I spoke about this interview at length in this post, but nothing was ever better than having the opportunity to speak to someone who was one of your childhood heroes.  I know, I know, I was a musical theatre geek, so I wasn't looking up to Molly Ringwald, it was Joel Grey.  Here is the unedited footage so you can see how it all went down at the Tony Awards while I was working for Starpulse:



2.  Josh Sussman from Glee at GBK Productions MTV Movie Awards Gifting Suite:  I think this was easily my funniest interview of the year, no one made me laugh more on camera than Josh.  He's just quick with a quip and he and his super cute girlfriend, Tess, are incredibly nice......even though he still owes me a Justin Bieber movie viewing! You can see it all here on Red Carpet Report:



3.  Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds at the press junket for The Change-Up:  I don't know if your day can get any better when you walk into a room and two really good-looking guys are waiting for you to sit down.  I thought my heart was going to belong to Ryan that day, but Jason was a big flirt who won me over.  I should have known better, I loved him on Silver Spoons. Here's my interview for iVillage:



So, there you have it, my Top 3 Interviews for 2011!  Who was your favorite out of my Top 3 or is there another interview I missed?  I would love to hear from you, so don't forget to leave a comment below.

The Friday Five

Friday is here and I have a busy weekend planned.  I will be moderating a panel on the "New Critics" at ITVFest on Saturday at 6PM.  If you are in LA and looking for the inside scoop on film and TV critics that work in the online space, click here for more info.  On Sunday, I am headed back to the Hollywood Bowl where I get the opportunity to see my pal, Corbin Bleu, perform onstage in the Broadway hit, Hairspray.  So, enjoy your weekend and here's my Friday Five, my favorite moments from the week:

1.  The Change-Up:  Um, I interviewed Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman AT THE SAME TIME!  Want to see it?  Go here or if you are a dude, here's Olivia Wilde.  It's my first correspondent gig for NBC/Univeral's iVillage website and it was an absolute blast.  If you like the interview, I would love it if you could comment over on their site under the video.  You don't need to register, you can just enter name, or you can even comment anonymously. (Thanks!)  I have another series of interviews from Spy Kids 4 coming up soon.  Think Jessica Alba, Joel McHale, Jeremy Piven, and Alexa Vega.

2.  Spy Kids 4: Speaking of Spy Kids, this was the amount of tape I walked out of the press junket with.  That's a lot of tape!  They gave the press an opportunity to talk to a majority of the press which is rare, but it is appreciated. The iVillage editor is going to have a lot of work to do!  To see what a press junket is like, take a look at my article on the A Little Help press junket for Starpulse.

3.  The Amazing Mat:  This was a first:  a marching band playing in a house on an infomercial set.  It was wild and so much fun.  The house we shot the show in was gorgeous, one of those houses you aspire to own.  My co-host, Jordan Murphy, might be familiar to you too. He was the host of NBC's For Love or Money and VH1's Tool Academy.  I'll let you know when the show begins to air.

4.  Godspell:  My pal, Larry, sent me a text yesterday saying, "Hey, producer girl, isn't this your show?'  Well, it's not MY show, it's being helmed by my friends, Daniel Goldstein and Ken Davenport, but yep, I'm an investor.  I love getting the word out whether it is my new iPhone case or the cool time lapse video they posted of the billboard going up in Times Square.

5.  The Help:  Go see this movie.  It's a wonderful break from robots, aliens, wizards, and the explosive summer movie fare.  If you have read the book, I think you will be satisfied with the screen adaptation. (My mom just sent me her copy yesterday, so I am going backwards:  movie first, book second.) The performances are award-worthy and it's an important story to tell.  I saw a screening and I was lucky enough to hear a Q& A after with stars Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, and director Tate Taylor, and author/writer Kathryn Stockett.  Go see the film on August 10th.  You won't be disappointed.  

Conan O'Brien and Some News!

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to catch Conan O'Brien's new documentary, Can't Stop.  In 2010, I was riveted to The Tonight Show drama started by NBC by originally pushing Jay out, putting Conan in, only to turn around and push Conan out to put Jay in.  Did you follow all of that?  If you missed one of the greatest nighttime soap operas of our time, be sure to catch up with an excerpt from Bill Carter's book, The War for Late Night.  After Conan was publicly kicked in the teeth, he went out on tour.  The documentary became a cathartic, sad, angry, and funny journey for the comedian on how to rebound when life sends you down a path you never intended to take.  How do you pick yourself up?  Well, Can't Stop will show you how.  It's in very limited release throughout the US. In fact, it's playing in one theatre in LA only one time per day:  9:20 PM.  I guess they figure his fans are a late night type of crowd.  Don't miss it and add this documentary to your 2012 Academy Awards nomination watch list.

So, Conan's documentary was a great reminder to persevere even when the deck is stacked against you.  A few months ago, I entered a search for new faces for iVillage's iVoices.  It was a great opportunity video blog or vlog on a terrific site owned by NBC/Universal.  After doing my initial essay, I was asked to submit a video about myself, my interests, and what was happening in my life.  I worked really hard on my submission even though it was a tad long. (Oops!).  I wasn't selected and I was kind of bummed about it.  Fast forward to yesterday:  I received an email from Kelly Wallace, the chief correspondent over at iVillage, asking me to cover one of their press junkets for the upcoming Ryan Reynolds/Jason Bateman film, The Change-Up. Would I like to do it?  Would I?  OF COURSE!  (I snuck my host reel in with my personal video submission.  I was a little worried about doing that, but it was a risk that paid off.)

I am thrilled to be joining the iVillage team as one of their on-air correspondents.  This will be a trial run for me, but I am going to work so hard on this piece because I really want to be here.  I've been a fan of the site for a long time and I am overjoyed at the opportunity.  I will keep you posted on my upcoming coverage.  I couldn't have done it without all of you watching, reading, commenting, and visiting here at Red Carpet Closet all of these months.  Thank you for all of your support!

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