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Appearances > 2013 > Clos du Bois Kicks Off Summer With A Chardonnay – May 21

But by spring 2011, Algrant pretty much believed he’d never find that special someone he wanted, no … needed to play the late, lamented, now-legendary alt-folk singer Jeff Buckley. “In fact, I was ready not to make the film.” Then he watched an audition tape featuring Penn Badgley. Somehow the then-24-year-old studly star of the hit teen TV soap Gossip Girl and recently splitsville beau of the bodacious Blake Lively had gotten hold of Algrant’s script and here he was, doing this madcap scene where Buckley, young woman in tow, walks into a vinyl record store and begins a twisted a cappella reading of songs from Led Zeppelin III (“Valhalla, I am … cuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-miiiiing-uh!”).

Algrant was transfixed. He had found his Jeff Buckley. But it was “both blessing and liability. I mean, it was Penn Badgley, for Chrissake,” even as Algrant admitted he’d never watched Gossip Girl. He knew his belief “that this young man could be our sacred person” might encounter resistance from colleagues doubting his seriousness. Algrant persevered nevertheless, then prevailed – and at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where the resultant film, Greetings from Tim Buckley, had its world premiere, Algrant’s instincts were proved 100-per-cent correct.

For Badgley, interviewed in Toronto, the movie was nothing less than “a birth for me as an actor … me realizing after 13 years working professionally that I actually enjoyed acting. And I think that shows. I was having an experience; I felt I was bringing the best that I could to it.” Shot that summer in just 23 days in and around New York, the film nonetheless has a loose-limbed, unhurried, naturalistic feel which Badgley, he of the lantern jaw, chiselled cheekbones and just-so three-day growth of facial hair, especially appreciated after five seasons of grinding out Gossip Girl. “With TV, you have no time, dude. Everything is, like, face, face, face, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, whereas this was, like, ‘Stretch out for a second, man.’ It was so wonderful, so, so … beautiful.”

Greetings from Tim Buckley is, in fact, two pictures in one or, more precisely, two juxtaposed stories. The primary one, set in April 1991, deals with a pre-fame 24-year-old Jeff Buckley travelling from California to Brooklyn to perform at a tribute concert for his father, Tim. Dead at 28 from a heroin overdose in 1975, the elder Buckley by this time had posthumously achieved near-mythic status, thanks to an octave-spanning voice and a body of achingly beautiful songs that owed as much to jazz and the blues as folk.

While Buckley fils never really knew his feckless father – indeed, they met only once, briefly – it’s clear the elder Buckley’s artistic legacy was at once impediment, burden and goad to his son. The film’s secondary story serves up interstitial scenes from Buckley père’s heyday (with Ben Rosenfield playing Tim), pushing the narrative to the climactic tribute concert where Jeff, in finally accepting his father as a sort of musical soul mate, paradoxically discovers his own voice. It’s a crossroads moment and, as music buffs know, the road chosen would lead to Jeff Buckley’s own premature death, by drowning, in 1997.

Unsurprisingly, Badgley came to see Greetings from Tim Buckley as his own fork on fame’s highway, a casting coup that might permit him to recast his life and art. While he claims most of the cues for his performance came from the script, he also worked with a vocal coach and guitar teacher, listened to the Buckley oeuvre, researched his life, even went on a raw food diet to achieve the requisite Buckley skinniness. At the same time, he stressed he wasn’t aiming to reincarnate the artist.

“For this little slice of Jeff’s life, I knew I could do it. Not all of Jeff Buckley, mind you, because, Jesus Christ, no one could do that. And when I say ‘it,’ it’s because it’s not about doing him. Like, it’s a movie, it’s not real, I’m not him. As long as I can do it justice so that people aren’t focusing on whether I can or can’t play like Jeff and just let the story take them … People can get so obsessed with the minutiae of biopics. Well, who cares if it’s not him? Why not just tell a story so that you forget about that, so you can feel something, y’know?”

Much of the film’s charm comes from the poignant rapport Badgley has with its leading lady, British actress Imogen Poots, who plays Allie, a free-spirited assistant to the production crew mounting the tribute concert. “I was falling in love with my current girlfriend at that time [Zoe Kravitz, daughter of Lenny, and an actor and singer in her own right] and what was beautiful is that Imogen and I were allowed to have the trust and gentleness of a platonic love … At the same time I was also very much falling in love so I had that quality in my blood, y’know what I mean?”

Emboldened by the musical side of his performance in Greetings from Tim Buckley, Badgley intends to “play a lot more and write more,” with the aim of releasing a recording online and on vinyl. But he’s going to do it “on the quiet” for a while because “I want to step away from Jeff.”

Source thanks to @ChandlerDillon

Thanks to @roughrider92!

ELLE: You picked up the guitar as a teenager. Was that to impress women?

PENN BADGLEY: I’ve never been that guy. I’d just feel so cheesy.

ELLE: Were girls into you in high school?

PB: I couldn’t really tell. I didn’t start to understand my own appeal to women until later.

ELLE: What is that appeal?

PB: I still don’t even know. [Laughs] There definitely is something.

ELLE: You and your ex Blake Lively had to work together after she got married last year. Was that difficult?

PB: No, we were ultimately professional.

ELLE: What did the end of that relationship teach you?

PB: I don’t know if I can distill it into a sentence, or even articulate it. We were very much caught up in the show, which itself was a six-year endurance test. Our relationship was a part of that and helped us through it. I mean, like anything valuable, it was good and it was bad and it was a learning experience.

ELLE: Did you send a wedding gift?

PB: No, I didn’t.

ELLE: Is there a movie that gets love right?

PB: [Laughs] No, movies lie.

ELLE: Okay. Is there a Jeff Buckley lyric that gets love right?

PB: Yeah, actually. The lyrics to “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over”: “Sometimes a man gets carried away/ When it feels like he should be having his fun/ Much too blind to see the damage he’s done.”

ELLE: Why do those lyrics resonate?

PB: I’m pretty sure that song is about ending a relationship because he cheated. I’m not saying that I’ve cheated, but, you know, being in an intense love with somebody while also feeling the pulls of being a young man, especially being an object of attention…. That song is basically saying, whatever happens, I still love you and want you, even if that’s impossible.

ELLE: Your character on Gossip Girl was nicknamed Lonely Boy. Do women expect you to be sensitive?

PB: Some of them do. But the kind of women I’m interested in—they’re smart enough not to expect me to be Dan. In fact, they probably didn’t watch the show.

ELLE: Women loved that show. Was there a time you took advantage of the fame?

PB: I’ve had some fun nights. But I learned early on that that stuff is never satisfying in the end. There’s a reason the French call the moment of orgasm la petite mort, “the little death.” No matter how good the moment was, the moment after is always revealing.

ELLE: You’re dating Zoe Kravitz—Lenny Kravitz’s daughter. Does he play the protective dad with you?

PB: Not at all. We get along, we talk music. He took me to Harlem to see this little jazz show in the back of a church. It was just shitty fluorescent lights and a small stage piano, but this band tore it up.

ELLE: Lenny was famously celibate for three years. Could you do that?

PB: I guess? I don’t know how I would fare. I’m sure I could do it. But I don’t know that I’d want to.

ELLE: You and Zoe travel often for work. How do you deal with being apart?

PB: There’s definitely no secret. I’d say honesty is always the best policy. There are always a lot of arguments—but even if honesty starts some, it avoids bigger ones.

ELLE: What does that mean?

PB: It means being honest with yourself, about what you want and what you need, and then being honest about what those things are with the person you’re with. As an actor, being in a relationship you have this opportunity to have something really exceptional, because you don’t have a regimented schedule or lifestyle. But then it can also be very warped. You have on-camera romances, which ordinarily I don’t have a problem with. There are complications being an object of attention. I’ve found it’s a double-edged sword. But I’m happy to wield it.

ELLE: Have you written a song for Zoe?

PB: I’ve written a song for every woman I’ve been with.

ELLE: Would you share a lyric?

PB: No, I couldn’t. If it ever comes out and you hear it, I’m happy for you to do so. The song is a sprawling meditation on love. I’ll give you that.

ELLE: Your parents divorced when you were young. How did that affect your views on marriage?

PB: I think every person’s parents teach them a lot and also mess them up royally. I think their separation probably split me down the middle, 50/50. For a while I didn’t believe in marriage. But I think I do believe in having a love. I’m not saying only one love ever, but in having a good, solid relationship. I think that’s possible.

ELLE: Would you get married?

PB: Yeah. Eventually. I want the ceremony. I want the bond.

ELLE: If I asked all the women you’ve ever dated to agree on something about you, what would they say?

PB: God, that’s a terrifying thought. If I could answer that, I feel like I would have the answers to all of life’s questions.

Source thanks to @roughrider92 & @chanderdillon

Thanks to @Rali55!

I am home in New York, eating oatmeal. It’s one of the first beautiful days of the year, so I think I may go to the park. Lay in the sun, on the grass, get some fresh air. That’s really all I have planned.

I thought movie stars were too busy to do that sort of thing?

When you’re working hard and the hours are long, yeah. You’re not sleeping much, you don’t have the time or energy for anything else. But when you’re not …

You can be a bum?

Exactly. It’s a beautiful balance.

Your breakout role was playing Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl for six years, where you became a tabloid fixture (1). What was the best thing about it?

I look at Gossip Girl as an endurance test of all kinds. Six years … I think the best part was a lot of what I have now – the lifestyle, the people in my life, living in New York – because otherwise I might still be living in LA.

Is it true that you don’t like LA much – you grew up there but don’t love it?

I think that’s probably pretty common for actors. Over time we all become very cynical and depressed, having to audition endlessly in LA. It’s such a singular mindset: everyone has a script to sell you, which is fine – everyone has to pursue their dream – but it makes the town a very strange place.

Is it hard to be taken seriously once you’ve done teen stuff for a while?

I think this film has helped. It was something I was always aware of, that was part of the test of Gossip Girl, but it’s something I don’t really worry about now. Doing a film like this and going where I want to go, it all takes time.

Let’s talk about your new film, Greetings From Tim Buckley. There was a lot of buzz about you playing Jeff Buckley – some of it surprised, some negative. (2) How did you deal with that?

It was on my mind, but it was something I left to everyone else to discuss. Taking on a role like this, and the story itself, will surprise people. It’s a strange, quiet meditation on two artists, and I was much more worried about the responsibility of playing a dead artist than worrying about what people would think about the kid from Gossip Girl playing Jeff. I’m well aware that no one would have any reason to think I could do it. But I knew this slice of Jeff that we were trying to convey, I could do. I felt it could be easy.

Were you always a Jeff Buckley fan?

Yeah, since I was 17. I loved his live stuff. His cover of Strange Fruit, in particular, because of the guitar playing, his singing and emotion. He wasn’t really a songwriter in the way people often paint him to be, he only wrote a handful of songs, but his real power as an artist was electric.

I haven’t heard that cover.

You should. He takes a song that to my knowledge only black women had sung, and as a white man he gives it such an unbelievably raw soul. That’s just as impressive as writing a good song.

I read that you had your own pop single back in 1998?

It wasn’t released! How did you know that? (3) It was a little song. When you first go to LA as a kid, there are all these things you have to do, all these workshops you have to take, and a producer found me in one of them. I wanted to make music but as a 12-year-old, you have no idea.

Was it good?

It was terrible.

I bet it was quite creepy.

A 12-year-old boy singing about the beautiful night we spent together? Ha ha, yes. I didn’t know what the hell it was about. It was … misguided.

Did you sing any of the parts on the film?

I sang it all.

Really? I didn’t realise that. I’m sorry, I thought it was just dubbed. Wow.

We sang it all live too.

Even that scene in the record shop? (4)

Yeah, we did three takes of that. I woke up thinking: “This is the worst day.” I tried not to speak beforehand, I barely breathed, but it was pretty spontaneous.

You were quite precocious as a child. You moved to LA at 11 to be an actor and graduated from high school at 13. How does that even happen?

It sounds a bit more bizarre than it was. When you move to LA as a child actor – which you never see yourself as, but you are – you’re thrown into this machine of managers and people who are doing all the pushing, who tell you what to do. You end up doing all of this shit, graduating high school, spending your life on sets.

But graduating at 13? Are you a genius?

No! It’s just this test that is a substitute for a high school diploma in the state of California. It’s really just a bunch of immigrants taking the test who need that qualification.

Oh, that’s almost disappointing.

Yep, me in a room with some older Mexican people looking for work. It happens.

Can you tell me about Gossip Girl and why Dan Humphrey became such a sellout?

Dan is a hard one to nail down. He started out as the theoretical moral centre of the show but then the whole point of the show, and what the writers very quickly realised, was that the show doesn’t require a moral centre.

And it turned out he was Gossip Girl! That was just made up at the end, wasn’t it?

No, there was a very ambiguous, shapeless idea that Dan might be but I think they probably decided … they must have known early on.

When did you find out?

Ah … I didn’t know until the last episode.

Hmm! OK. Your cast was quite unique in that you all had insane real-life names: Penn Badgely, Leighton Meester, Blake Lively, Chace Crawford, I mean –

We definitely noted that. In the pilot shooting we we were like – yeah, our names are crazier than the actual characters. Gossip Girl was like a bizarre college experience. By the end it was time to move on, but I’ll always think of the first couple of seasons with nostalgia.

At one point, you were involved with Blake Lively on the show and the tabloid frenzy was insane …

It was intense, but it served to make everything feel pretty strange. It felt electric all the time. We all fell in and out of love a lot at that time.

You’re seeing Zoe Kravitz now aren’t you?

Yes.

Sorry – I was being excessively nosy.

No, it’s OK. But that’s very personal.

Unlike, say … voicing a Mario Kart game for Nintendo!

Ha ha. It was Mario Tennis and Mario Golf, though. I had to do all the [makes bonkers yelps and video game SFX] noises, all that shit.

That’s a good gig! As a kid, surely it’s cool to get paid to make weird sounds?

It was surreal because there were all these Japanese businessmen from Nintendo behind the glass telling me what to say, and one American intern talking into the microphone. You know, I’ve never seen it or played it.

You’re a big football fan and were part of a project with Brad Pitt to bring the World Cup to the US. (5)

I did … yeah, I totally forgot about that. I’m a huge soccer fan, I can’t believe I’ve just managed to forget that whole “bringing the World Cup to America” story.

Because really, it was just you and Brad kicking a ball around, wasn’t it?

Sure, ha ha, in his backyard, just messing around. No big deal.

What’s next for you? Another biopic? You could play Prince, maybe?

Let’s put that out there. I’d love to play Prince. Or do the vocal dub. I could confidently play his hair.

Source, thanks to @ChandlerDillon

Thanks to @ChandlerDillon!

Badgley’s lead performance as a musician living in the shadow of the famous father he barely knew, shows a depth, range, and vibrancy to the actor, who also sings and strums all by himself. Badgley has fond memories of the experience he gained playing heartthrob Dan Humphrey on “Gossip Girl,” the show that boosted him to stardom and a regular spot on the tabloid stage. Now, he’s ready to blaze new paths and escape the comfort zone of series television. During the Tribeca Film Festival, Badgley discussed how becoming Jeff transformed Penn.

Thelma Adams: You’ve said, “Music is more important to me than acting.”

Penn Badgley: Up until this film, music was more important than acting. The irony is that through this role playing musician Jeff Buckley, I realized I truly love to act.

TA: Why?

PB: Because I realized that acting was something that could move me as deeply as music. I’m so proud to have been part of a film that was artful and outside of my comfort zone. I grew up always being passionate about music but I relegated it to the sidelines.

TA: What’s your favorite album?

PB: Time and time again, I return to D’Angelo and his moving, soulful album, “Voodoo.” The instrumentation is deep. That is music that I found when I was 12, and it has grown with me, gotten me through good times and bad. I understand him as an artist. Similarly, I will say that part of this role and the entire experience that made it so moving was that Jeff was an artist I felt keyed into in the same way.

TA: Jeff has a cult following, and his cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” became famous posthumously, but can you explain your connection to him?

PB: The greatest gift Jeff had was his ability to bare his soul and leave himself vulnerable and open to pain. His voice is heartbreaking. He can make women fall to their knees. With his voice, he can take pain and convert it to this joyful energy source. He had that in his voice and in his guitar playing.

TA: Rather than being a sweeping biopic, the movie is set at a very specific time in Jeff’s life when he flies to New York to participate in a memorial concert for his father, Tim Buckley.

PB: At this time in Jeff’s life, he was a depressed session guitarist. Nobody knew he could sing. He didn’t know his father. Every day was a giant step forward. He was growing at an exponential rate. He’d been stuck stagnating in L.A.

TA: Could you relate to that?

PB: I know exactly what that’s like to be cynical and broke in L.A. and, then, come to New York where everything opens up. Jeff was somebody who didn’t work in L.A. I can relate and sympathize.

TA: That’s one way you’re like Jeff. What are other similarities and differences?

PB: No matter how unlike a character you might feel, inevitably a bunch of traits that you share will materialize. Jeff, for instance, was a person who already existed. I had to find the middle ground. I couldn’t intellectualize because then I would be unsure. I had to enter an intuitive head and heart space where I knew elements of him — a lot of it didn’t even surprise me because I heard it in his music. It was very spiritual and mystical. We share that mystical element of life. He was a seeker. He would walk into dark places and have the stories to tell later. I don’t want to self-mythologize but I’ve responded to his fearlessly moving forward.

TA: Being a fearless spiritual seeker is not a trait you share with your “Gossip Girl” character?

PB: That’s something that I don’t see at all in Dan. That is an alien quality to the “Gossip Girl” world. In that way, that was a giant dissimilarity with my TV character. We’re both literate and intellectual but with Dan, over time those connections became far less fun to explore. With any TV show, you keep hitting the same notes. In retrospect, I didn’t respond to my character as much as I did to the life experience. Those six years led to everything I have now. I don’t look at Dan so much as a role but as a thing I lived in for a long time.

TA: How would you describe your acting approach?

PB: I try to live in a way that feeds me so that I can bring my life experience to the roles that I play. I like to explore and travel and experiment. The biggest thing with Jeff, for instance, what allowed me to get in that headspace, was that I very simply was going through a lot of things he was going through: living in the same neighborhood, the same age, so many things that were happening, intuitively.

TA: How has playing Jeff changed the way you look at your acting career going forward?

PB: Playing Jeff was such a great watershed experience for me. I saw what it was like to be incredibly inspired. I started reading more scripts and realizing that the roles you want are few and far between. Producing and writing is something that is brewing in me. If I’m going to produce or write something, the biggest thing is that I must have a story to tell. So that will come in time.

Source, thanks to @ChandlerDillon

Badgley, 26, stars as late U.S. musician Jeff Buckley in the indie film “Greetings From Tim Buckley,” opening in limited release in U.S. movie theaters on Friday.

The film chronicles Buckley in the days leading up to his first public performance at age 25: a 1991 tribute concert at New York’s St. Ann’s Church for his late father, experimental rock great Tim Buckley.

In theory, a TV star with a big following of teenage fans may have seemed an unlikely choice to play the brooding musician who died of an accidental drowning at the age of 30.

The film’s director Daniel Algrant told Reuters even his own producers had those same reservations – casting a “kid from a teeny-bopper show” to play the soulful, reserved Buckley.

But luckily, Algrant had never heard of “Gossip Girl” and cast Badgley based on his audition tape.

“I wanted someone who was willing to take risks and on this tape, he took so many risks,” the director said.

Among them is a scene that takes place in a record store where Buckley sings several different songs as he tries to impress a young girl.

Out of the 100-plus tapes Algrant watched of potential Buckleys, Badgley was the only actor who tackled the challenging record store scene effectively.

“It was so riveting,” recalled Algrant. “It was 10 minutes long; he’d interrupt himself and say, ‘I made a mistake let’s do it again.’ But it was so real and so true. And he could sing.”

Algrant’s gut instinct proved right. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Badgley’s portrayal of Buckley is a “vibrant break-out performance” while Variety said the actor “does a thrilling job” on vocals.

The Playlist observed that Badgley’s performance reveals “that the ‘Gossip Girl’ star has quite a few more talents than he’s thus far been given credit for.”

PAYING HIS DUES

Badgley appreciates the recognition, but harbors no resentment towards those who may have doubted him at first.

“You pay your dues,” Badgley told Reuters matter-of-factly. “I wouldn’t expect anyone to expect that I could do something like this, so it’s nice to have people respond so positively.”

He said his biggest fear in taking on the role was “not wanting to misrepresent” a singer whom so many hold dear.

“The greatest Jeff Buckley fan should rest assured that I was the last person on Earth who wanted to screw it up,” said Badgley. “I never intended to not give it everything I had.”

To prepare for the role, Badgley studied the singer’s life, his interviews, spoke to people who knew him, and practiced his vocal skills in front of a crowd at St. Ann’s church, the same place Buckley performed 22 years earlier.

Both Badgley and Buckley struggled in Los Angeles before finding success in New York.

“Jeff was a depressed out-of-work session guitarist in L.A.,” Badgley said. “Then he came to New York and the whole world opened up for him.

“I know what that’s like to be despondent and broke and out of work, and then coming to New York and this whole world of success kind of greeting you, falling in love, and all sorts of things like that.”

Badgley began his career making guest appearances on TV shows like “Will & Grace” and playing supporting roles in movies. But three network series he signed onto from 2002 to 2006 never made it past their first season.

All that changed in 2007 when the actor was cast as the soulful poet Dan Humphrey on “Gossip Girl,” which ended its run after six seasons last December.

The show had a huge fan following among teen girls and put the public and personal lives of stars Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Chace Crawford on magazine covers. Badgley’s one-time off-screen romance with on-screen on-and-off girlfriend Lively also fueled attention.

With “Greetings from Tim Buckley,” New York became once again a blessing, providing Badgley with an opportunity to showcase his acting and musical chops in a new way.

“I’m really grateful for this film to have come along, and for me to be challenged like this,” he said. “And to have risen to the occasion and not fallen on my face.”

Source thanks to @ChandlerDillon!

Thanks to @roughrider92!