This second archive covers the period of April - July of 2001
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June 28th, 2001: Whoa! Over a month has passed since the last update. I was busy studying for my entrance exams and then promptly took a week off and went on a holiday. Thankfully there haven't been a lot of news during this time. I expect TSN will wrap up any day now. There is some information on the SAG-ATA issue, and an amusing small article of the crew in Newfoundland.
May 16th, 2001: Yay, finally some new photos! Check the Various 1 & 2 pages, plus some new info KS's Internet domain name disputes.
May 10th, 2001: Another news update on the SN, read up on Kevin's involvement in SAG-ATA dispute, and information on Kevin's law suit against the owner of kevinspacey.com domain.
the shipping news Is currently in post-production. The shoot was four months long (finished in June). Lasse Hallström is the director. KS plays the male lead, Quoyle. Other actors: Judi Dench as Quoyle's mother, Julianne Moore as the love interest, Wavey, and Rhys Ifans as a colleague. Cate Blanchett will star as Quoyle's adulterous wife. The daughters will be played by triplets from Texas. Halifax actor John Dunsworth has been cast as Quoyle's father, and Gordon Pinsent, another Canadian actor, will also star. Jason Behr is latest addition to the cast. He will play Dennis Buggit, a local carpenter battling his own demons and whose estranged father (Scott Glenn) owns the local newspaper. The Opening Date: Christmas Day 2001.
A synopsis: Based on the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Annie Proulx, "Shipping News" centers on a man who tries to piece his life together after a marriage to a woman who has run off with his two daughters and sold them into prostitution. He moves to Newfoundland with his daughters to get in touch with his ancestral roots. He finds work as a foreign correspondent to a newspaper and falls in love with Julianne Moore's character.
Some fun gossip from the set: according to the New York Daily News, Kevin has been spotted buying loads of American newspapers and entertaiment magazines in order to keep up with what's happening in the States (and rest of the world, I imagine). He's also been seen at several of Halifax's "hotspots". According to Reuters,
When actor Kevin Spacey arrived in Trinity, Newfoundland, to film The Shipping News, he was accompanied by five security guards, but within a few days four of them were sent back to the United States. The Oscar-winning Hollywood star discovered that he could walk the quiet streets of the 17th century eastern Canadian village without being pursued by the tabloid press or obsessive fans, and even enjoy a game of pool in the village's only bar without being hounded for an autograph.
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John Fisher, the owner of Fisher's Loft inn, kept the chef on call 24 hours a day. But he said his guests were "extraordinarily good at being ordinary people." Spacey would sometimes eat dinner in his suite and in the morning "he would bring his dishes to the kitchen," while British actress Dame Judi Dench went one step further and "put her dishes in the dishwasher," Fisher said. Trinity, a former fishing community that hosts a summer theater, seems to take the stars in its stride. Rocky Johnson, owner of Rocky's, the only bar, talks matter-of-factly about shooting pool with Spacey.
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A Newfoundlander on the crew tolld Reuters his favorite moment was when a fisherman "walked past Spacey to shake (veteran Canadian actor) Gordon Pinsent's hand, then turned around and walked by Spacey again and never made eye contact." He said Spacey "smiled ... he is just an average Joe."
Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.sag vs. ata The Screen Actors Guild could go on strike this summer after their contract expires July 1st. SAG and ATA, Association of Talent Agents, haven't returned to the negotiating table after their talks broke off in last November. The ATA wants SAG to ease its financial interest rules so that talent agencies could own, or be owned by, production and distribution companies. SAG opposes this, however, claiming that that would create conflicts of interest that violate California's labor code.
Kevin spoke at SAG's board meeting in L.A. on April 1st, emphasizing the need to return to the bargaining table with the ATA to try to work out an agreement on a new set of agency regulations. The board voted to take the fight to Sacramento instead, where California state Senator John Burton will be holding "informational legislative hearings" to look into the afore-mentioned issues.
SAG President Daniels told reporters at a press conference on April 9th that he had named KS and Richard Dreyfuss to serve as co-chairs of an ad hoc subcommittee, which would organize the guild's participation in the hearings. However, Kevin declined to accept the co-chairmanship, and in a letter sent to SAG's Board of Directors he objected to his name having been used at the press conference without his permission. He also critized SAG for not returning to the bargaining table, noting that "Senator Burton's hearings cannot replace, mediate, remove or solve our negotiations with the ATA. That responsibility remains with us." Kevin also wrote that he does not think that the ATA's proposed easing of the guild's financial interest rules will fly with the guild's membership, but he stressed that that shouldn't prevent the guild from trying to come up with an alternative that is acceptable to both the ATA and the guild's membership.
However, Kevin has agreed to co-chair a committee with Richard Dreyfuss that allows open and honest discussion on the SAG vs. ATA -issue. He is working with Dreyfuss to expediently organize the forums, which will be held in cities around the country.
On Friday May 4th, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) reached a new contract, thus averting a strike. John Wells, president of the WGA West and producer of NBC shows such as "ER", "West Wing" and "Third Watch", was praised among his colleagues and by Kevin as well. He complimented the WGA negotiators, but suggested that the outcome should be encouraging to his own Screen Actors Guild members in their contract talks, set to begin [the following] week. Kevin said, "It is the responsibility of both SAG and the studios to demonstrate comparable wisdom toward a fair deal between all actors and their employers."
As the end June draws nearer and the current contract expires, insiders say that the walkout is looking increasingly unlikely. The talks began again on Monday 25th of June, "[b]ut trade magazine Daily Variety reported on Tuesday that union leaders had no plans to ballot their members on industrial action, which they must do before going out on strike." (BBC News) There is also a strict news blackout imposed on the negotiations. However, if the SAG and AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) decide to ballot their members about the strike, they would need at least a week to put the ballot paper together, then union members would need time to receive and return the papers. There couldn't be a strike until August at the earliest.
various INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATIONS
On July 4th, USA's Independence Day, ABC broadcast an Independence Day 2001 Special. It was hosted by Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson, and the event took place in Philadelphia. It featured a reading of the Declaration of Independence by stars including Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Bates, Edward Norton, Kevin Spacey and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Norman Lear, who owns an original copy of the Declaration, produced the reading.
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