AdamBertocci-Writer

Redditor Ringwald:

GETS CHALLENGED WITH INTERNET MEME

RESPONDS WITH A BETTER ONE

Hi, thanks for doing this. "The Exorcist" is on my personal top ten list, I even visited the house and stairs when last in DC.

I've got two questions:

(1) For me, it's one of those rare projects that works well as both a book and a movie, with the book still feeling literary and the film still feeling cinematic, with neither medium feeling enslaved to the other even though the film is quite faithful. What do you think accounts for that? (Although no doubt Blatty writing both helped a bit, heh.) Put more eloquently, in your view, what are the most important lessons to take from "The Exorcist" in terms of the similarities and differences between literary and cinematic storytelling?

(2) Could you give some insight on the design and inclusion of the 'demon face'? On one level it's so simple, but geez, those quick cuts continue to haunt my nightmares.

TMNT still holds up, sir. It's not just a fun "franchise" movie for kids, it's a real movie with a real look and feel of a gritty New York. You can get into it as an offbeat genre movie even if you never heard of the characters. Thanks for going above and beyond with that project.

(1) What were your references or inspirations for TMNT, cinematically? I detect a bit of love for 1970s Noo Yawk crime flicks but I could be wrong.

(2) Judith Hoag is so wonderful. How did you cast for a role to interact largely with the Turtles, what were you looking for going in?

Thanks for doing this!

(1) I watched the short film you made, "Belinda's Swan Song", and thought you really touched on something, you said the things that a lot of creative/artsy types wish people would know but can't actually say without sounding impolitic (at best) — the struggles of the working singer, working actor, whatever, who got so much farther than most folk but never quite had a stable foothold.

Can you tell us of a time in your career where you were feeling a little Belinda-ish, like things weren't working out for you? How did you (presumably) break out of that funk?

(2) "Mr. Holland's Opus" is one of my very favorite tearjerkers. I always weep in an incredibly embarrassing fashion when we find out what became of your character. :)

I realize this is a while ago but can you share some memories of the filming, of the process, of what you summoned up to play Gertrude?

(3) What was the deal with your "Two and a Half Men" episode — replacing Missi Pyle for the second of four episodes where her character appeared? (She's awesome and you're awesome, but not exactly the two most similar people on the planet. And it just seemed so weird to me that they'd replace her with you, then you with her.)

My kindhearted side figures it was just a case of Pyle being unavailable for one episode. My cynical side tells me that the producers just wanted to show you in a state of undress and didn't care about shoving actors around. I dunno, I know it's a silly part in the grand scheme of things but the story might make prove educational on the practicalities of the acting biz.

The C64 "Ghostbusters" was part of my childhood in a pretty big way — thanks for that. You completely captured the fun of the movie's concept in the way that many other Ghostbusters games they've made haven't.

Did you have any input / directives from the filmmakers or studio on what they did and didn't want in the game, things they wanted that you weren't fond of (or vice versa)? Or were they hands-off?