Chris Cooper Does Not Regret Leaving Ranching BehindWhile Married Life is Ira Sachs’s first full-length feature film that doesn’t take place in his hometown of Memphis, he says that he and fellow Southerner Patricia Clarkson bonded on the set. “She tells me I have very good manners,” Sachs told us at a Cinema Society screening of the film yesterday. “And you know Chris Cooper is from Kansas City, so we’re all from the river towns.” “He’s such a nice southern boy,” Clarkson said about Sachs, turning to the director. “Ah! You have shoes!” she cried, pointing at his feet. To us, she explained, “Do you know Ira called me to tell me, he’s such a gentleman, ‘Patty, I might have tennis shoes on with my suit’? I was like, ‘Ira, it’s okay — you’re the director!’” Sachs chimed in: “Then I realized I live on 8th Street, so I just went across the street and bought some shoes.”
As for Chris Cooper, he says he’s left his Missouri cattle-ranching days behind for good. “You know, when I was younger, it was a very physical job, and you were called on at any time of the day or night to tend to the cattle and help deliver and castrate and tattoo and wean and all that business,” Cooper told us. “It was a great way of life, but now that I’m a little bit older, realizing how physical it is, I’m glad I stuck with the acting biz.” —Bennett Marcus
party lines
It’s Not That You’re Too Fat, Ryan Gosling, It’s That We Hate YouThinkFilm chief Mark Urman says Ryan Gosling wasn’t too fat for the role in The Lovely Bones, but too young and hot. We’ll buy that! “He gained weight for the role,” Urman said at the Cinema Society screening of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, confirming what was reported earlier this week. “There seem to have been genuine creative differences,” as we heard originally. “I have to say I think he is at least fifteen years too young for the role,” Urman insisted. His firm has worked with Gosling, distributing the movie Half Nelson. “We had a great run with Ryan last year,” he told us. “He is divinely gifted and actually the sweetest guy in the world, and I genuinely think that there was, uh, a real difference [of opinion] in how to play the role.” Wow, sounds like there was a smackdown! We wish we could have seen that, Peter Jackson and Ryan Gosling going at it on set, maybe mud-wrestling. It would be just like that scene in Airplane when the Girl Scouts start fighting. You know, but with more slapping. —Bennett Marcus
Related: Ryan Gosling Left ‘The Lovely Bones’ Because He Was Too Fat? [Vulture]
Get tips on your next nude scene from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Milena Govich, and others at our complete coverage of the Cinema Society and Sagatiba Screening of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.