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Tag: Tim Robbins

  • Tim Robbins Joins Shawshank Redemption Reunion

    Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman have done lots of films, but The Shawshank Redemption will follow them forever. It’s been 20 years since Shawshank hit the big screen. And now Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and director Frank Darabont are commemorating the modern classic.

    Based on a novella by Stephen King called “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, the film has stood the test of time. It did not do that well in theaters originally, but caught life when it hit video. Tim Robbins’ portrayal of Andy Dufresne, a man imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, is among his finest roles.

    “€œIt was the best script I had ever read,€” Robbins said of the film.

    But think about how long it’s been since the film was released. Twenty years — that’s longer than it took Andy to dig out of Shawshank. As Morgan Freeman famously narrated:

    “In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man 600 years to tunnel through the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than 20.”

    Speaking of Morgan Freeman, his character has become a bit of a legend. It’s not just Freeman’s now-ubiquitous resonant narration. It’s the fact that he’s black.

    In the film, Andy Dufresne asks his new friend, Ellis Boyd Redding, why they call him “Red.”

    “Maybe it’s because I’m Irish,” Red replies.

    The line always gets laughs. But in the original novella, Red actually is an older, white Irishman. When he says that line to Andy, it is not all that funny. But after casting Morgan Freeman, Frank Darabont left the line in the movie as a joke.

    Frank Darabont himself has gone on to do many things, and is currently best known for The Walking Dead television series.

    “I really cling to the letters from people for whom the movie really meant something,” Darabont said at a Shawshank reunion and screening hosted by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. “It stopped somebody from committing suicide, or at least they credit it for it having saved their lives that day. Whatever someone needed to hear that day to reinforce them as a human being, the movie gave it to them. It’s only then you realize you’ve made something more than just a two-hour movie.”

  • Eva Amurri Martino is Having a Baby

    Eva Amurri Martino is Having a Baby

    Eva Amurri Martino, the daughter of actress Susan Sarandon, announced on Valentine’s Day that she is expecting. This is the first child for Martino, and first grandchild for Sarandon.

    Martino and her husband, former soccer player Kyle Martino, released a statement about the big news:

    “We are so excited to announce that we are expecting our first child together. Having a family has always been a priority for us both and we couldn’t be happier!”

    The pair wed in a 2011 ceremony that Sarandon and her former partner Tim Robbins hosted.

    Sarandon shared her joy on Twitter:

    Amurri Martino also tweeted her excitement:

    Amurri Martino, whose father is Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri, was three years old when her mother and Robbins became a couple. Sarandon and Robbins split in 2009 after 23 years together.

    Amurri Martino shares her mother’s passion for acting, and has been seen in episodes of The New Girl, Californication, How I Met Your Mother, and The Mindy Project.

    Image via YouTube

  • Susan Sarandon: Involved in a New Relationship?

    Is Susan Sarandon in a relationship with Jonathan Bricklin? The two appeared together in December during a meeting of New York’s Hudson Union Society, as seen in the video clip above, and they are co-investors of a ping pong bar in New York City called SPiN. People have speculated for a while that more was going on between the two. Susan and Tim Robbins ended a 23 year relationship back in 2009. Apparently Sarandon wanted a much younger man this time around. She is 67 and Bricklin is just 36 years old.

    During a recent interview with AARP magazine, Susan Sarandon talks about her previous relationships, raising her two daughters with Tim Robbins, her activism and her business ventures. Some of her activism work involves amnesty organizations.

    Sarandon posted a photo of herself with Yoko Ono at one such recent event via Twitter.

    When asked about the status of her relationship with Jonathan Bricklin she had the following to say.

    “Jonathan and I collaborate on different things,” she says. “That means a lot of things.” When asked if that might mean romance, she says, “Yeah, I think so.”

    And although the age difference between her and Bricklin never arises she does talk some about aging.

    “I’m getting that sagging thing,” she says of the skin under her eyes. She claims she had the fat “suctioned” off several years before.. She doesn’t like facial fillers — “they make everyone start to look alike” — and she says she hasn’t had any Botox injections. So how has she managed to keep such beautiful looking skin? She avoided lying out in the sun, but “not because I was thinking of my skin, but it bored me to lie there baking.”

    If two people were ever to maintain a relationship with more than 30 years between them, at least Susan Sarandon looks the part of a much younger woman. And as to whether or not Jonathan Bricklin minds that sag underneath her eyes–she doesn’t say. It would be the sag elsewhere that a man of 36 would likely complain about first.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Tim Robbins in Prison, Teaching Acting

    Tim Robbins is in prison, but don’t worry, he’s not walking in the footsteps of his infamous Shawshank Redemption character. This time, he is working with the group he founded in 1981 and funds himself, called the Actor’s Gang. He teaches acting to prison inmates as a way to help rehabilitate them. CBS News’ Serena Altschul joined him in a Norca, California medium security prison to see what it’s all about. See the interview here!

    When asked how he would respond to those who say prison isn’t about having a good time, he stated, “It’s not a good time. It’s tough work they’re doing. It’s physically demanding, it requires discipline. We want full commitment from them. What we’re asking them to do they haven’t been asked to do before. It takes a lot of courage. They’re actually putting on makeup and putting on costumes. It creates this place, particularly important in prison, where people can step outside of what’s expected of them and try to explore new emotions, create new realities, create new truths for themselves.”

    Tim Robbins’ first experience of prison was playing Andy Dufresne in the 1994 film “The Shawshank Redemption.”
    “I spent some time in solitary, to prepare for ‘Shawshank.’ I asked to be locked up. It gives you a good idea of what the isolation is, and what the loneliness of it is.”

    “I never thought I’d be happy to tell another man I put makeup on!” said prisoner Yousef, who told Altschul preparing for a performance was liberating.”You can always say ‘ We’re acting, that’s not really me.’ But the truth is, this is us. We’re not all bad people.”

    “A lot of people are afraid to show they could be sad, or they could be happy,” said another inmate, Yoshi. “They gotta have this mad mug all the time.”

    Robbins recalled one inmate telling him, “I didn’t realize ’til I took this class that I’ve been wearing a mask on the yard for the last eight years.”

    image via IMDb