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Sundance Film Festival 2018: Quotes From Opening Weekend In Park City

This article is more than 6 years old.

A star-studded stampede from out Hollywood way came rumbling into Park City, Utah last week for the start of the renowned Sundance Film Festival. Thus far, the 2018 edition has been graced by the A-List likes of Jack Black, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hilary Swank and a mountain of other household names too extensive to list.

In the frenzy of interviews and appearances from established and obscure performers, writers and directors alike, the frosty mountain town is abuzz with industry chatter from sunrise to last call at scores of cast and promotional parties.

From Lizzie actress Chloë Sevigny divulging to The IMDb Show that she paid her mortgage with earnings from a single episode of Law and Order, to Michael Shannon declaring to The Hollywood Reporter that his family bonds over "Our loathing of the president," the following excerpts from Armie Hammer, Jonah Hill, Debra Messing and Ethan Hawke round-out the most interesting nuggets from a swarming opening weekend in the snow.

Actor Armie Hammer (in attendance promoting Sorry to Bother You) on losing the role of Batman in writer-director George Miller's scrapped Justice League: Mortal due to the 2007-08 writers' strike--and another critical factor:

"They built a whole functioning suit that had hydraulics and worked and had microphones all through the suit so I could hear everything happening around me. 100% function because we had 300 million dollars (for the) budget we had on the movie... It was amazing: We were down in Australia for like a month or two doing shoots, doing rehearsals in the suits--all the characters in their suits. And then we get a call one day from the producers saying (they) need everyone to come in and bring all of your materials. Bring your scripts, bring your notes, bring everything; and we were like, "O.K, O.K." And we show up, they had big bins and they were like, 'Put it all in here,' and I was like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.' (So) I quickly snuck a CD out of my computer, put it in my back pocket... and I managed to basically steal a script--but other than that I had nothing to show for it. I'm sure there's pictures floating around somewhere with all of us in our costumes; but yeah, you know, the tax budget all kinda went away in Australia and then the government had a huge reform and they sent us home."

The IMDb Studio At The 2018 Sundance Film Festival - Day 2

A film 20 years in the making, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot from director Gus Van Sant frames the true story of a quadriplegic, alcoholic cartoonist (Joaquin Phoenix) shepherded through recovery by an offbeat, "pajama-clad" sponsor (Jonah Hill).

Having achieved rare and meteoric success on the silver screen as a dual comedic and dramatic actor, Hill, 34, considers this latest role one of his most rewarding.

"This is probably one of the top two or three, if not the best, acting experience I've ever had," Hill told Vanity Fair over the weekend. "I had experiences on this movie that were very life-changing in a lot of ways."

 
Will & Grace and Search star Debra Messing on the latter-day reboot of the hit NBC sitcom after an eleven year absence:

"This April will be 20 years since the pilot... When we came back we were all sort of like looking at each other going, 'What is going on?' It's the same hair and makeup team, wardrobe team, cameramen. I mean, literally everybody came back... It's kind of beautiful because it feels like riding an old bike, but better; and I feel like when we were in the middle of it there was just so much happening around it and I think because we got 11 years away from it and we chose to come back, I think that there's this sort of gratitude around it that I think we're free-er and I think, in a way, everybody is better than we were."

Actor-director Ethan Hawke, a Sundance darling making his 11th appearance at the festival, discussing the persona of departed country musician Blaze Foley, the subject of his latest directorial feature, entitled Blaze:

"We live in a culture right now that thinks anything that's bigger is better, that more money is better," Ethan Hawke told Deadline. "Blaze symbolizes a counter current to that, of somebody whose life was not full of those seductions. He symbolizes something larger to me. He wanted his music to stand for something beyond himself, kind of like a Japanese poet who doesn't sign their name."

XX at the IndieWire Studio Presented by Dropbox.