Michelle Williams talks Marilyn, Matilda and musicals

Actress Michelle Williams, who portrays Marilyn Monroe in the film ''My Week With Marilyn'', poses at a screening of the movie during AFI Fest 2011 in Hollywood November 6, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Danny Moloshok

By Zorianna Kit

LOS ANGELES | Fri Nov 25, 2011 9:01am EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michelle Williams takes on the iconic role of Marilyn Monroe in the indie film "My Week with Marilyn." Currently in theaters, the film is based on Colin Clark's book of the same name and chronicles his time spent working with Monroe while she was in England shooting the romantic comedy "The Prince and the Showgirl" in 1956.

Williams sat down with Reuters to talk about portraying Monroe, the film, shooting her current role of Glinda the good witch in Sam Raimi's "Oz: The Great and Powerful" and her six-year-old daughter Matilda with late actor Heath Ledger.

Q: Did you have an awareness of Marilyn Monroe and her starpower when you were younger?

A: "I was interested in her, but then I kind of lost track of her over the last 10 years or so. I had a poster of her up in my room. It wasn't a picture of her as the icon, it was a picture of her looking like an ordinary joyful girl. So I definitely had some kind of connection. (Working on this film) reignited whatever initial, sort of, attraction I had to her when I was a teenager."

Q: Did you do your own singing in the film?

A: "Yes and my mother is going to be so excited when she sees this. She always wanted me to sing and dance. I had so much fun doing that!"

Q: So doing a musical could be in the cards for you?

A: "I would love to. What's so liberating about singing and dancing is that it turns your head off. You coast on this wave of muscle memory. You literally can't think while you're performing. There's a kind of transcendence to it. I think maybe that's why Marilyn was so especially talented at it. Her singing and dancing are unparalleled and her musical numbers are just breathtaking."

Q: The film used many of the same locations in shooting "Prince and the Showgirl." Did that add to the production?

A: "There was a lot of synchronicity. We shot in the actual Parkside house (that Marilyn lived in). My dressing room at Pinewood was Marilyn's actual dressing room. That was so special. The stage where she shot that song and dance number was the stage where I shot mine. So many of the props in our movie were in the original 'Prince and the Showgirl' movie."

Q: Did it ever feel ghostly?

A: "Well, it's all energy. And it's what you make of it. I like to make things out of nothing! (laughs) I like to spin things out of thin air, so that stuff works for me."

Q: Did you wear wigs for the part, or grow out your hair?

A: "I wore wigs, but I had to keep my hair really bleached underneath because it would show through the wigs. My eyebrows had to be dark and they were reshaped. You go through so many grotesque phases making movies (laughs). I never really feel quite like myself. I just feel like a mutant -- always halfway in between some other person and myself. I don't know what belongs to me and what doesn't!"

Q: After filming ended was it hard to let go of Marilyn?

A: "I think when you work in a way that really gets under your skin, its not an easy break. You make a little extra room for these people that you play and then they leave. You're left with this hollow space. I wish I could play her again."

Q: Does your daughter Matilda come to set?

A: "She comes with me everywhere."

Q: How do you balance getting into character and then going home at the end of the day to be a mom?

A: "What works for me is to have a commute from where we live to where I work. So that in the morning, I leave the house behind and walk clean and fresh into my professional life. And then the same thing on the way home. I find that a 20 or 30 minute commute makes a kind of passageway for me that I need."

Q: You're currently shooting "OZ," playing Glinda. Matilda must love coming to that set.

A: "It's the best thing professionally that's happened to us. It has brought her on board my work in a way that wasn't possible in a movie like 'Marilyn' or 'Blue Valentine.' On those, there was no space for a kid to come visit and be a kid. (With 'Oz') she comes every single day after school because it's like a playground. She says, 'There's only one good witch and it's my mom.' She's very excited about it."

Q: It's interesting that you said the project was the best thing to happen professionally to "us" not "me."

A: "Definitely. Every choice that I make is about how it's going to affect our life -- where it films, how long it is, what else is going on in her year, what's the last job I did, how much time I've had off in between, how much time we had to really deeply connect and how long can we sustain a period of time where I'm working. So when 'Oz' came along, it was very clear to me that it was the right decision for us."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Eurozone set for a busy summer of crisis talks (AP)

BRUSSELS – The eurozone's hope that it could enjoy a summer lull in its crisis has vanished as quickly as it appeared.

Last week, it seemed all sides would get a time out. Greece had avoided a default on its huge debts. Banks had agreed to roll over their holdings in Greek bonds, and finance ministers signaled that a second bailout would be agreed — though not before the autumn.

But while few observers believed that Europe's crippling debt crisis had been resolved, the good mood was shattered after ratings agency Standard & Poor's warned that the banks' plan to contribute to a new Greek rescue package would likely cause a default.

Rival agency Moody's then reignited market jitters in countries outside Greece when it slashed Portugal's credit grade to junk, saying a bank contribution plan would likely push it to take a second bailout.

And with Greece due for another review of its finances in August, the European Union's traditionally quiet summer period looks set for a repeat of the June drama.

That month, Greece's international debt inspectors spent weeks in Athens trying to save a faltering bailout while eurozone states fought about the role of private creditors and Greeks held days of violent protests.

At what was meant to be their last meeting before the summer, eurozone finance ministers on Monday face the challenge of rebuilding an eroding consensus on how to bailout Greece again.

"It will be a difficult Eurogroup, because positions are hardening," an EU official said of the meeting on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the bank talks.

After rating agency Standard & Poor's said that even the market-friendly French model for a bond rollover would likely be seen as a "selective default" by Greece, Germany is pushing again for its original plan: a bond swap where, instead of buying new bonds, banks and other private investors would exchange their bonds for ones with longer maturities.

"If this French model — depending on how it is shaped — has this problem (of triggering a default rating) too, then we can go back to the model that we had proposed," German Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Kotthaus said Friday in Berlin.

A bond swap is commonly seen as a more radical option than a rollover, because it would be easier to verify how many investors are actually taking part and thus leave more room for naming and shaming.

"We have to walk a very narrow path between a voluntary contribution, and at the same time a substantial one," Kotthaus said.

The situation in Greece and the currency union's other struggling members — already bailed out Ireland and Portugal as well as Spain and Italy — is also set to overshadow the other main topic at next week's get-together: how to deal with banks that fail stress tests.

The results of EU bank stress tests are due next Friday and are seen as an important gauge for the region's credibility, after last year's exercise glossed over massive problems at Irish banks.

The EU's new banking regulator has stressed that this year's tests are much stricter and insists that states have the necessary backstops in place to deal with the results.

"Before the stress tests are published, the affected states have to be in a position to say 'this is how we will react,'" said a eurozone official. That involves boosting safety funds and coming up with models for an orderly restructuring in some cases, the official added. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because EU finance ministers, who will join their eurozone colleagues on Tuesday, still had to finalize the decisions on backstops.

However, fears over the potential costs for states to deal with failing lenders was already pressuring bank shares Friday, especially in debt-laden Italy, whose banks have so far weathered the crisis much better than their counterparts in other European countries.

___

Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this story.

Expedition Impossible’s Dave Salmoni talks tech (Yahoo! News)

Reality television fans rejoice, because this week ABC is kicking off a new summer series called Expedition Impossible, airing Thursday night at 9/8c. The show will follow 13 teams as they race across Morocco and, as you'd expect from reality TV, every week one team will be eliminated while the others trek onward. While we waited for this Indiana Jones-style adventure to air we caught up with the show's host, adventurer and wildlife expert Dave Salmoni, to talk about tech and travel.

When he's not roughing it, Salmoni — a self-proclaimed gadget-lover — is as tech-friendly as anyone and has a long list of gadgets as traveling companions. He says he can't leave home without his iPod or BlackBerry smartphone and likes to keep his PlayBook and Sony Reader with him when he's on the road.

The PlayBook for work and play
The PlayBook hasn't had a warm reception from all tech enthusiasts, but Salmoni has nothing but praise for his BlackBerry tablet. Though he tells us he tried the iPad, it felt more like an interesting toy than a useful device, while the PlayBook lets him mix work and play. Because he has a BlackBerry smartphone, he can take advantage of the PlayBook's ability to sync wirelessly (via Bluetooth) with a BlackBerry phone — something Apple has been slow to develop.

As for apps, he has a lot of games for playing when he's off the clock, finds weather apps to be handy, and, of course, uses the social networking app Twitter. But for the most part, Salmoni seems to use his tablet as a way to stay connected even when he's not in front of a computer. On the couch at home or at a hotel, he can be relaxing but still have easy access to everything the internet has to offer, from work-related emails to looking up sports stats on Google. "It helps me do a bit of work while I'm playing," Salmoni says.

E-reading on the go
Though ebook apps exist for every tablet on the market, if you're doing a lot of reading, a dedicated e-reader is the way to go. Salmoni carries a Sony Reader. "It was the smallest reader I could find," he notes, making it convenient to carry around as well as easy to read one-handed. The Pocket Edition Reader is as pocket-sized as its name implies, weighing just under 5 oz. with a 5" E Ink screen for easy reading in bright light.

Traveling with tech
When we're traveling with gadgets, the biggest problem is always keeping everything charged up and running. So how does Salmoni keep all of his tech ready for action? "I have no idea!" he tells us with a laugh. "There are cables everywhere. When I go into any hotel I plug in my iPod and my BlackBerry right away."

Expedition Impossible
If you want to see Dave Salmoni in his native habitat, you'll have to catch up with him on Expedition Impossible when it airs at 9/8c this Thursday, July 23, on ABC. If that seems a bit too long to wait, you can watch the first 15 minutes of the premiere online at ABC.com.

[Image credit: Edans]

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