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The Hollywood Exclusive

 

Keeping secrecy on 'Crustal Skull' huge task for Spielberg

BY MARILYN BECK and STACY JENEL SMITH

John Hurt confirmed this week that “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” will open at the Cannes Film Festival – and you’d better believe it won’t be a moment too soon in terms of Steven Spielberg’s gargantuan efforts to keep the picture’s secrets secret.
 
“We did a stunt on every major studio lot in town,” reports Dimitri Diatchenko(cq), who plays Cate Blanchett’s right-hand Russian henchman in the film due out May 22. “It was pretty hard considering the news and paparazzi and helicopters flying over. If it was an outside set there were helicopters over us. It was tough. I’m sure he had to pull a couple of strings to clear air space over Universal Studios.” He adds that Spielberg hired “a special team of people, almost like a Secret Service for the movie. All they would do was make sure nothing got out, make sure the scripts were with whom they’re supposed to be.”
Originally scheduled for just 10 days of shooting, Diatchenko says Spielberg singled him out during principal photography in Connecticut.
 
“Steven was like, ‘We’ve got to improvise a lot of the stuff with the Russians,’ then after one take the First AD comes up and says ‘The Gov wants to see you in the tent. The Gov, of course, is Steven Spielberg.’ So I go in there and Steven says, ‘Hey Dimitri, sit down here. We’re going to watch this last take and by the way this is George Lucas, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy.’ He rewinds and everybody starts laughing and he goes, ‘That’s great. I really like that, a big funny guy. I want you in the rest of the movie.’ So after that I go to go to Hawaii for three and a half weeks, then we finished it up in L.A.”



FAMILY MATTERS: Gretchen Mol says being a new mother impacted her work in Lifetime’s Original Movie “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” in ways she never imagined. “My baby was 10 weeks old at the time,” recalls Mol, who stars opposite Dermot Mulroney in the telepic premiering Saturday (4/12). “I didn’t know how I was going to do it with the baby because in the beginning there’s no sleep and all that. This ended up being the perfect job because all the emotions I was feeling were so a part of the role.”

Mol plays a woman distraught over the death of her daughter at birth, when in fact her doctor/husband – forced to deliver the baby girl and her twin brother at home -- sent the infant away because she had Down syndrome. “What I really loved about my character was that she had such a full arc,” Mol says. “She starts off young, in love, about to have a family -- everything’s perfect. Then this one decision that she has no control over is made and her life starts to slowly crumble.”
As the mother of a newborn, Mol says her biggest challenge was “going there emotionally. There’s this real sense of loss because she thinks her child is dead. Every day it seemed like there was another emotional scene. It’s the kind of thing every actor wants, but when you’re hit with a challenge like that, there’s no compromising and it is emotional. And it was really kind of easy to go there in my imagination because I had this little creature here that I’d fallen in love with myself.”

THE VIDEOLAND VIEW: Former “Reba” regular JoAnna Garcia says parts of her are still thawing out from shooting Lifetime’s upcoming holiday film, “A Very Merry Daughter of the Bride” in February in Calgary, Canada.
“At 40 below it was a little beyond comprehension,” says Garcia, who stars in the telepic with Helen Shaver and Luke Perry. “It was so insane they had to cancel a couple of days because the cameras were cracking.” Still she says, “It was a wonderful experience. We almost didn’t feel it after a while. You get a little numb. I was out there powering through in high heels.” Garcia plays a wedding planner in “Very Merry Daughter of the Bride” not happy about one upcoming wedding. “My mother (Shaver) goes off and gets engaged after two weeks. I really don’t like her fiance but I end up realizing that Mom has to move on and life doesn’t have to be planned out to a T.”
 
BYE, BYE BACHELOR?: Reality fans can breathe easy. While the long-running reality series, “The Bachelor,” is no longer the ratings winner it used to be, creator Mike Fleiss says it’s not going anywhere. “Everyone has pursued someone or been pursued. Given that relatability, I think there’s always going to be a show like ‘The Bachelor’ on the air, so it might as well be the original one that started it all,” claims Fleiss of the show currently in its 12th season with British global financier Matt Grant. “We’re always adding little twists and wrinkles to keep it fresh. We’re putting some in now for ‘The Bachelorette’ show, which we are getting ready for summer.” As for having the same show on for so long, he admits, “It is a challenge, but the combination of a few creative decisions and smart casting always gives us a fresh energy.”
Photos by Noel Vasquez and Rob Loud, both from Getty Images