Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to catch an advance screening of the highly-controversial, highly-anticipated drama BLUE VALENTINE. The film stars Oscar Nominees Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling as two halves of a disintegrating marriage in this international film festival phenomenon. In my humble opinion Michelle and Ryan are two of our generation’s greatest actors, continuously going against the grain of their Hollywood peers by taking on daring projects with fearlessness.
BLUE VALENTINE captures two critically-acclaimed and career-defining performances by both Gosling and Williams, and I am pleased to have had the opportunity to chat with Michelle Williams prior to the filmâ??s opening at our Angelika New York location on December 31st!
At the time of our conversation BLUE VALENTINE was given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA, but the following day Harvey Weinstein (Co-Chairmen of The Weinstein Company) successfully appealed for an R Rating. Check out my interview with Michelle Williams below at our very first proper press junket before being rushed off to round table discussions. [Also available on our YouTube Channel]
 
Blue Valentine Star Ryan Gosling
 
During the round table panel, Director Derek Cianfrance described working with Michelle and Ryan after the 6-year break of filming Blue Valentine:
 “When we started shooting last year it turned out to be a blessing because I had so many years to work with Ryan and Michelle, and they had so many years to work on their characters and they really became what I consider to be co-writers of the script. I wrote 66 drafts in those 12 years and many of those drafts came because I would have a dinner with Ryan that would go on for 12 hours and then I would come home and re-write the scripts based on our conversations. They really had a lot to say about characters, about dialogue, about feelings, about scenes. About the story, Ryan and Michelle are also children of divorce, like me, and we all wanted to make our generationâ??s love story. This film isnâ??t about our parents; itâ??s about us trying to deal with our own relationships basically.“