Welcome, Anthony Rapp!- Page 168

[xM3L24x]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 8:12pm

whats zoloft for?

[Mandi Moo]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 8:12pm

Well, I wasn't sure if it would offend people who are on Zoloft...glad you like it though.

[xoxRogue]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 8:17pm

I have to refrain from watching it repeat over and over again. "The Cliff" is addicting in any form.

[LariTheLoud]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 8:18pm

I told you.

The Cliff is a magical place.

[Mandi Moo]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 8:22pm

No idea. Zoloft was the only anti-depressent I could think of. *shrug*

Very magical. Is he up there for a long time? LOL Oh man. At least I know it's coming, so I can allow myself to laugh.

[LariTheLoud]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 8:24pm

I don't know.

I'll be able to tell you tomorrow, though. I have passes to a screening tomorrow night.

[One Song Glory]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 8:44pm

This thread is really making my day.

[Atrias]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 8:46pm

Wait, wait! Was it Zoloft that has the ad slogan," It works for your depression with a low risk of sexual side effects!"? I thought that was Welbutrin XM!

[Dirty Rotten Scoundrel]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 8:51pm

haha this is wonderful! Gosh I can't tell you all how much I admire Anthony. He's so just, for lack of a better word, amazing! I so wish that I could meet him, I'd die! lol. Everytime I'm in NYC I hope that I'll miraculously run into him but it never happens. . Oh well, I do have many pics of him in my locker- which is now totally dedicated to Broadway of course! I guess that will do..? lol. Yay for Anthony!!!!

[Dreamcatcher]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 9:12pm

Hahaha that icon is amazing. :-P Hilarious!

[xoxRogue]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 9:33pm

I don't know if anyone saw, or if they didn't know but I'll repost it:

"is the Nov. 22 screening at midnight the night of the 21st to the 22nd, or the 22nd to the 23rd? I never know how to figue that out."

It says 12:01 Am on the 22nd of Nov. on moviefone....anyone whos going, can you explain? (I'm having a mind blank today)

[SignoraDiva]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 9:40pm

I think that means midnight on the 21st

[xoxRogue]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 9:45pm

Thanks for your imput. :)

[WickedRentLuv]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 9:47pm

Hmmm, I thought it meant midnight on the 22nd...since that was why people were wondering if they should go since the movie would be available in just a few hours at the Ziegfield.

[xoxRogue]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 9:52pm

My confusion is still here. Haha

[Fantabulous428]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 9:59pm

pretty sure it's midnight the 22nd, as in 12:01 the morning of the 23rd. Directly from the blog:

Be one of the first to see the movie RENT! Come to the midnight screening on Tuesday, November 22 at the Ziegfeld Theater on 54th Street in New York City - songsheets in hand (unless you already know all the words). And there are rumors afloat that some of the movie's cast members will be at this showing. Tickets are on sale at Moviefone. See you there!

[xoxRogue]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 10:05pm

It's really hard to understand! Moviefone says: 12:01am for Nov. 22, but if you click on it, it says 12:01am, the evening of the 22.

From just reading the blog, I would go the night of the 22nd.

Oh well. *le sigh*

Thank you all.

[Shiksa Goddess2]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 10:16pm

OMG!!!! I am literally peeing my pants! Those icons.... OMG, I need a moment to start breathing again.

[Dreamcatcher]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 10:20pm

WickedRentluv, I'm in love with your avatar! Who's that as Mark?

[renthead1223]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 10:35pm

Looks like Matt Caplan.

[WickedRentLuv]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 11:07pm

Yup it's Matt! Glad you like the icon, lol. I like it too :-p That picture was just begging to have an icon made of it.
Updated On: 11/15/05 at 11:07 PM

[Dreamcatcher]

Posted: 11/16/05 at 12:48am

Oh no wonder I didn't recognize him. :-P the only pics I've seen of Matt Caplan are the very recent ones where he has a buzz cut. Very cute though, looks like hes petting his camera.

[WickedRentLuv]

Posted: 11/16/05 at 12:58am

"looks like hes petting his camera."

Exactly :-p

[Dreamcatcher]

Posted: 11/16/05 at 1:47am

Awww that is the most "squee"-able thing I've seen in all week. :-P

"My own, my preciousssssss..." *cough* OK, lord of the rings moment is over now......

[Fantabulous428]

Posted: 11/16/05 at 9:06am

This was posted on forget-regret.net:

Forget Regret Exclusive: Jason interviews Anthony Rapp

This is an interview that I recorded on my answering machine with the expressed consent of Anthony Rapp.

Jason: Okay cool. I wrote all of these questions actually last night, just to let you know. I’m not the best interviewer but I’m going to try my best. My first question to you is, um, How is the experience of making the movie different from making the stage show?

Anthony: Well, there’s a whole other set of challenges and questions you have to resolve in a film because everything takes place in the real world in film and on stage it’s taking place in the abstract. So, there were a lot of decisions we had to make throughout of like how do you tell the story in this way, and some of them Chris sort of already made and we were like, “Oh, that’s great, lets do that.” And then there were other questions we all worked out together. That was one of the challenges, and then there were the physical challenges like “La Vie Boheme” taking 5 days conceptually to film, and it was like 6, 7, or 8 in the morning until 8 at night, which was physically demanding, but very rewarding at the end of those 5 days. Those are some of the more direct challenges.

Jason: I was actually wondering with the exclusions of a few songs and voice mails, do you feel that Jonathan’s vision has been preserved in the film?

Anthony: I do, and I know that there’s a lot of uproar going around especially, seeing as some people have seen it and some haven’t. I do admit to not having a tremendous amount of objectivity, but, you know when I watch the film as objective as I can be, I feel like it is an incredibly human, very visceral, emotional, at times very funny; but it’s a very human story on screen, and feel like above all else that Jonathan wanted to do was capture the lives of the people who lived in the East Village in that time, some of whom were HIV positive, some of them were gay, some were straight, some were black and white, and present their stories. And I believe that at core we achieved that in a big way. In the details there will be quibbles, I’m sure, with some of the choices we made, but I just want people to know that we leveled with all of them and made the best choices that we knew how to make. And considering how it could’ve turned out, I just wish people would quibble less and appreciate more the greater good of what we’ve achieved.

Jason: That’s very reassuring, thank you…

Anthony: Again, I would hope that…. Some people are thinking, you know, they’re accusing us of being blind or something. This piece has been a part of my life for eleven years. I’ve experienced this piece up and down and in and out and I’ve seen people’s reactions over the years and people have always had quibbles with aspects of the material but it has never detracted from the overall experience of it being very powerful, unless they just didn’t like it. If people can remember that it’s not in the details, I mean it’s somewhat in the details but its not only in the details, but in the overall story we’re telling, the overall experience we’re trying to convey.

Jason: Definitely. And people can’t always rely on the critic reviews because critics aren’t always going to like everything. Now, as a follow-up to that, there seem to be rumors going around that “Halloween” and “Goodbye Love” have been cut from the film, is that true?

Anthony: “Goodbye Love” parts 2 and 3 and “Halloween” are not in the film.

Jason: Oh gosh! At least we got them on the sound track… darn it!

Anthony: But they will be deleted scenes on the DVD.

Jason: Okay perfect! That’s something people were wondering as well! Now, just as a fun question: Is there any truth to the rumor that the cast of the film will be reprising their roles on Broadway?

Anthony: No, but we will be doing the 10th anniversary concert in April. It’s going to be expensive… we’re raising money for three organizations, and we consider it to be a very special event and we’re really hoping that people will be very generous that night to help us celebrate such a monumental achievement. That’s 10 years on Broadway. That’s the closest any of us are coming to recreating our rolls.

Jason: And that’s in NY at the…

Anthony: Nederlander Theater

Jason: Is there a date set yet?

Anthony: Hold on, let me check that…. April 24th . And tickets aren’t on sale yet. I think you can register at a couple different websites. I believe that’s how they’re working it.

Jason: How has the character of Mark evolved since the original production. For instance, have you taken any influence from any other actors that have portrayed him?

Anthony: I’m not sure I’ve taken any influence. I mean, sometimes when I see their tangos I hope that mine is as funny, for instance. I’ve always gone back to the work that Michael Greif and myself and the rest of the cast have done on it. I’m not sure that I’ve really hooked from what other people have done since… I don’t know if that makes sense or not….

Jason: It does! I have a question that’s really just for me. My favorite song in the play is “Another Day.” I was wondering if you guys were able to preserve the powerful visual that was on stage. I know it must be a difficult song to film.

Anthony: Well it is a difficult song and it’s actually turned out to be somewhat of a controversial subject for some of those at the early screenings. Remember, the difficult thing to achieve is on stage you can abstractly show that these other voices join Mimi, and on film part of the question becomes how to achieve the same thing? Because part of the power of that song is it’s not simply Mimi saying these things to Roger, it’s other people as well. But, on stage they’re not literally, directly saying it to him; but on film you couldn’t very well cut away from Mimi to those other people at that moment, it would be jarring, probably, and let alone the fact we wouldn’t be at the Life Support meeting in real time for all that time. Because in the film landscape, it’s much later. So, you can’t be as literal in that way on film but you have to do something ‘cause you can’t just have disembodied voices singing. So we found a way to achieve that… I mean, it was really Chris’s initial idea and we sort of worked it out and worked it through. I think we found a good solution… there may be a better one, I don’t know, but I think the one that we found makes an internal logical sense. The person next to me at this last screening I was at, at the end of “Another Day” was like “God, that’s so intense!” She said that out loud! I mean, I don’t have a tremendous amount of objectivity about all things so, it’s hard for me to tell for sure. What I can say is that real thought and real care went into it and, you know, it’s not the easiest thing to solve. I think we did a good job of solving it.

Jason: Now again, to reassure fans, is there anything else that you may not have said already that you can now to those who are feeling apprehensive about seeing the movie?

Anthony: Well, a friend of mine that I have known for years and have struggled together with in New York, she saw the screening and sent me an incredibly powerful and tearful message about how much she loved it. And I promise you this is someone who is a very authentic human being. So if that’s any comfort, I mean, someone who was deeply invested in it being good, who could just as easily have been disappointed by it was blown away by it.

Jason: That does say a lot.

Anthony: And friends of mine who never saw the show: blown away! And they are my friends. But part of the reason they are my friends is because they are honest people. They would tell me. I have been in things that have not blown them away by, believe me. I mean, I don’t do well with cynicism. I mean it really gets me to the core. I encounter cynicism… I don’t have a lot of armor against it. I’ve encountered a lot of cynicism that has been swirling around in some corners of the internet right now and it’s driving me a little crazy because I would take… if the movie has flaws, which I’m sure it does, it’s hard for me to see them all because I’m so close to it but I’m sure it’s not perfect… but I would rather take a flawed movie that has as much heart and passion and life and joy and energy and truth in it as this film does over any film that is completely perfectly presented and perfectly constructed but has none of that heart and life. That’s what I’ve said about the show all along to the critics of the material in the first place. You know, RENT is messy in ways and it’s incomplete in ways but it has this undeniable life force in it that far surpasses that of most pieces of theater and I believe that’s the same thing in the film. I mean, I challenge you to find films that are released today that have a shred of humanity that this film has… the level of intensity this film has.

Jason: I can agree with that, after seeing a lot of films this year.

Anthony: Well, not that there aren’t interesting films being made here, but what this film has is unique, and it’s something to be celebrated. And yes, you can have quibbles and complaints, you know but what’s going to win the day over at the end of the day… what are you most committed to: you being right about your little quibble, or embracing the message and intentions behind all of it?

Jason: Definitely, I agree the message is more important.

This is where the tape runs out, and I took notes on the last question….

Jason: What are your plans for the future?

Anthony: I have three independent films that I’m working on right now, along with my book that’ll be coming out soon. For right now I plan to do nothing but experience RENT as it is released to the world.


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That's all gang. I hope you enjoyed that. I've stayed up late working on this when I should be in bed so I can rest up for the screening, which happens to be today! I'll be sure to update about that as soon as I can!!

Have a good evening! And remember those words from Anthony in this interview... he was incredibly passionate when he spoke them. I could upload an audio version of this interview, but it's rather difficult to understand and I've cleaned up a lot of what we said so that it makes sense. Show some interest if you want me to upload it?

Much Love ,

~ Jason

Updated On: 11/16/05 at 09:06 AM