You can’t take anything away from Tommy Lee Jones ... as an actor. He’s three-times Oscar-nominated, winning the gold for his supporting role in “The Fugitive,” and he’s been working steadily in film and TV since the early 1970s. But when you sit down and talk with him about, say, his newest film, “Men in Black 3,” in which he plays gruff, secretive Agent K, opposite Will Smith, for the third time, it’s easy to see that he’d rather be elsewhere. I recently attempted to carry on a conversation with him in Los Angeles. Looking back on the experience, it’s kind of funny. Being there, among …

  If you’re a regular watcher of hospital-based TV series or a fan of Ayn Rand, you’ll already know about Taylor Schilling. She starred as a nurse in the short-lived TV show “Mercy,” and as businesswoman Dagney Taggart in the movie “Atlas Shrugged: Part I.” Schilling, 27, who spent her growing up years in both West Roxbury and Wayland after her parents split, now goes all lovey-dovey in the newest adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks book, “The Lucky One.” She plays Beth, a single mom who, without realizing it, becomes an angel or protector, of sorts, for Logan (Zac Efron), a soldier in Iraq who …

  Singer-guitarist Lenny Kravitz had a great music career going, mixing up a blend of pop, funk, techno, psychedelia, and even a bit of Philadelphia soul, earning multiple Grammys and both gold- and platinum status for his albums. Then he took a stab at acting, gaining accolades for his role as Nurse John – the guy who was dissing McDonald’s food – in the film “Precious.” When writer-director Gary Ross was casting for his new film – the young adult thriller “The Hunger Games” – he immediately recalled those scenes  in "Precious," and thought the stylish Kravitz would make a great Cinna, the …

  When you stand next to Dwayne Johnson, who’s around 6’ 4”, 265 pounds, has huge arms (the left one is beautifully tattooed) and an even bigger smile, you immediately forget his real name, and start thinking of him as The Rock, the former WWE wrestler who liked to drop “The People’s Elbow” on his opponents as a finishing move. I got to chat with him in Honolulu, where he grew up. The topic was supposed to be his new family-action film “Journey 2: The MysteriousIsland,” but we first got around to his upcoming match at Wrestlemania against John Cena. “I quietly retired from wrestling,” he said…

I was in New York last week to chat with David Fincher, who just directed the cool and nasty “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” This is the guy who also made the grim and gruesome “Se7en,” the grim, gruesome, and funny “Fight Club,” and the knuckle biters “Panic Room” and “Zodiac.” My expectation was that he was a fairly serious, maybe slightly scary fellow. A few days before my trip there, I had a tooth removed – one of my upper-middle top teeth (it’s called an incisor) – which left me with one of those goofy big-gap smiles. In fact, when I did smile, I got lots of double takesand astonished…

It wasn’t till after I attended the press conference for Clint Eastwood’s new biopic “J. Edgar” that the fun began for me. I was slightly lost, roaming the corridors of the vast Beverly Wilshire Hotel, looking for the correct elevator, when I bumped into uber-producer Brian Grazer (you can’t miss him; his hair is so spiked he can’t wear a hat), who produced “J. Edgar,” as well as everything from the movies “The Da Vinci Code” and “Friday Night Lights” to the TV series “24.” I pointed a tape recorder at him and asked how the feature film of “24” was coming along. “We’re working on it,” he said…

I do go out to Los Angeles a lot to interview all sorts of movie folks. But every September, a brief trip up north results in meeting, talkingwith, and writing about many more of them. I just returned from the terrific Toronto International Film Festival (my sixth visit), and am ready to drop a few names along with a couple of movie suggestions. My favorites were “The Descendants” (Clooney in Hawaii), “Take Shelter” (subtle psychological horror), “The Eye of the Storm” (Australian family squabbles), and “Shame” (sex!!!). Interviews included Clooney, Geoffrey Rush, Woody Harrelson, Madonna, …

My latest trip to the West Coast was supposed to be a simple but exhausting one. Fly out Friday morning, see the movie “Contagion” Friday night, interview the cast and director Saturday morning, fly home Saturday afternoon. But things don’t always go as planned. There was this event called Hurricane Irene that got in the way. I did see the movie, and liked it. It’s a slick and scary horror film about a virus that starts wiping out the world’s population, with no cure in sight. And I got some good interviews. Here are a couple of bits from them: Matt Damon, on being ready for real-life …

There’s a reason they call the folks who make movies “the beautiful people.” We love to look at them, stare at them, gawk at them, perfectly lit and made up to appear even more alluring, gazing down from the big screen. But there have been occasions when I’ve met some of these starsand realized that they’re actually not very photogenic. That they’re even more gorgeous in person than they are on the screen. It hasn’t happened to me very often. The first time was actually quite unnerving. I was in New York, sitting in a small hotel room with a few other journalists, interviewing the cast …

With six Grammy Awards under his belt, you’d think it would be a treat to see and hear Justin Timberlake pick up a guitar and croon a tune in the new movie “Bad Teacher.” But you’d be wrong. As an ensemble member of the cast, he plays Scott Delacorte, an extremely wealthy fellow who’s slumming it as a substitute middle school teacher and becomes, without realizing it, an object of desire for his money-hungry co-teacher (Cameron Diaz). It’s a funny, totally self-deprecating role for him, complete with bad hair, unfashionable glasses, and a wimpy personality. The song could win him – if it …

As a longtime fan of the DC comic book “Green Lantern” (I started reading it circa 1960), I was champing at the bit for the inevitable film version. Of course, this isn’t a review column, so I won’t get into how or why my hopes were dashed by the over-ambitious movie. But I had a great time chatting with Ryan Reynolds (“The Proposal,” “Blade: Trinity”), who stars as Hal Jordan, the cocky test pilot and everyday guy who’s chosen to wear a special ring that turns him into Green Lantern and gives him extraordinary powers to do or create anything that comes to his mind. We spoke last week in Los …

I attended last week’s press junket for “The Hangover Part II,” where the stars and filmmakers held court in a roomful of reporters at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. I got a couple of questions in, but could’ve used more quality time with the actors. When it ended, and everyone left, I noticed Ed Helms – best known for his stints on “The Daily Show,” “The Office” and, of course, as Stu in “The Hangover” – duck into the men’s room. Not wanting to appear too weird, I did not follow him, but waited till he came out, then approached him, asking if he’d mind a couple of non-movie questions. “Sure, walk…

One reader responded to my story about bumping into Helen Mirren a couple of weeks ago by mentioning that she once saw Woody Allen on the street in New York. That reminded me of my Woody encounter last fall at the Toronto Film Festival. I went to a screening of his film “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” which was followed by a press conference with Woody and some of the stars of the film, including Sir Anthony Hopkins (who, it turns out, likes to be called Tony), Josh Brolin, and the great British actress Gemma Jones. After an hour of questions and answers, it ended, and my journalist pal…

Every once in a while I get to hang out with the “beautiful people” – the actors and directors and various other filmmakers who churn out Hollywood entertainment. They don’t do it for fun; they do it to promote their new movies, during two- or three- day events called junkets. My job is to interview them, then produce a puff piece in advance of the movie’s release that’s supposed to get people interested in seeing it, no matter what the critics say. My most recent junkets were in Los Angeles for the films “Arthur” and “Source Code.” Here are a few highlights: I’m sitting in the lounge at the …