Out of the Archives

Christopher Walken.

Glenn Close plays the grandmother in Hillbilly Elegy directed by Ron Howard from a true story. When the HFPA interviewed her in 1985, the actress spoke about her early film roles, and how they reflected the dilemmas of modern women.

HFPA journalists interviewed father and son together for the 1994 movie Blown Away directed by Stephen Hopkins. JEFF: “We worked together in Tucker: The Man and His Dream by Francis Ford Coppola a few years before this, but we had a lot more scenes to play in Blown Away, and I remembered something that I had forgotten, how much fun it was to work with my dad, because you become peers all of a sudden, especially if you approach the work in the same way, and you get back to that childlike thing of playing with each other, you become these two big kids and you get excited about ideas that you want to try.

Julianne Moore plays feminist icon Gloria Steinem in The Glorias, directed by Julie Taymor. When HFPA journalists interviewed her, Ruth Bader Ginsburg had just passed, two months before the presidential election, and she wore a tee-shirt that said, “Vote like a mother.

Kate Winslet plays 19th-century British paleontologist Mary Anning in Ammonite, written and directed by Francis Lee, her mother is played by Gemma Jones, who had also played her mother in Sense and Sensibility (1995) directed by Ang Lee from the novel by Jane Austen. She spoke to HFPA journalists back then about working with Emma Thompson, who had written the screenplay adaptation of that film and was playing her older sister.

Golden Globe winner Stanley Tucci spoke with HFPA journalists about being a third-generation Italian American and his love for cooking, while promoting the 1996 movie Big Night that he wrote and co-directed. "Big Night is a little bit of my life, not that there's anyone in my family in the restaurant business, but the way people relate to one another is really autobiographical.

His name was inspired by the river of life in Siddartha by Herman Hesse, his middle name Jude by the Beatles song Hey, Jude. The family changed their last name to Phoenix, after the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes, symbolizing a new beginning.

Hugh Grant played the romantic leading man in several movies scripted by Richard Curtis, Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) with Andie MacDowell directed by Mike Newell, Notting Hill (1999) with Julia Roberts directed by Roger Michell, and Love Actually (2003) that he also directed. But in real life, he may not be as nice as he seems in those movies.

Renée Zellweger won four Golden Globes as Best Actress, for Nurse Betty (2000), Chicago (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), Judy (2019). HFPA journalists interviewed her multiple times, but we will never forget the first time when she spoke about her debut film The Whole Wide World (1996) directed by Dan Ireland from the memoirs by Texas schoolteacher Novalyne Price Ellis.

Frank Langella played Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon (2008) directed by Ron Howard from the 2006 play by Peter Morgan, CBS CEO William Paley in Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) by George Clooney, Judge Julius Hoffman in The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. He also played a sensual vampire in Dracula (1979) directed by John Badham from a play based on Bram Stoker’s 1931 novel, that he had performed on Broadway.