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Finding the Right Role

Matthew Broderick, Brittany Snow, David Strathairn, and Josh Lucas hit the big screen this week.

Matthew Broderick (© Mark Rupp)

There's good news for fans of two-time Tony Award winner Matthew Broderick; he's tentatively planning to return to Broadway next spring in what he coyly describes as "not a one man show and not a musical." Until then, fans of the actor can content themselves with a one-two indie film punch: Peter Tolan's Finding Amanda (June 27) and Terry Kinney's Diminished Capacity, which co-stars Alan Alda, Bobby Cannavale, and Dylan Baker (July 4).

In Tolan's quasi-autobiographical film, Broderick plays Taylor Mendon, a comedy series writer with major gambling and alcohol problems. To try and win back his wife, Taylor heads to Vegas to rescue his niece Amanda (Brittany Snow) from a life of drugs and prostitution by getting her into rehab. The hitch is that Amanda doesn't want to be rescued.

So how does Broderick compare to Taylor? "I have no addictions and can leave a urine sample right now," deadpans the actor, who pauses before asking, "Do anabolic steroids count? Seriously, the script appealed to me precisely because Taylor's not simply a good guy or a bad guy, he's a flawed guy."

As for Snow, who played Amber von Tussle in the film version of Hairspray, she loved the chance to play what seems to be the happiest hooker in all of filmdom. "I did some intense research talking to girls who looked just like me and it really changed my preconceptions," she says. "They helped me create Amanda's happy façade, but it is a façade."

Meanwhile, Broderick's famed stage partner, Nathan Lane, is just one of numerous stage stars reading the letters of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in Peter Askin's documentary Trumbo, opening June 27, based on the recent play written by Christopher Trumbo and directed by Askin. "Trumbo's letters are like little one-act plays, each with its own arc," says Askin, whose upcoming projects include the Broadway-bound musical The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.

"This whole thing started as a one night benefit at the University of Southern California in 1997," explains Christopher Trumbo. "The original reading had four roles, including a narrator (played by Ed Asner) with Steve Martin reading Trumbo. The reaction was phenomenal and the idea of doing it as a real play was born." Since then, almost three dozen actors across the country have starred in the revised two-hander, including Lane, Ed Harris, Richard Dreyfuss, Tim Robbins, Chris Cooper, Alec Baldwin, Eddie Izzard, Bill Irwin, and Paul Newman.

In the film, Trumbo's letters are "read" by such acclaimed stage and screen actors as Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Liam Neeson, Paul Giamatti, David Strathairn, and Josh Lucas. "None of us tried to be Trumbo, which allowed each actor to bring his or her own style to the letters," says Lucas. As for Strathairn, he felt it was important to participate in such a worthy project. "History repeats itself and it's important to acknowledge and keep it alive," he says. "Today, incursions are still being made into our constitutional and civil liberties so this film is truly timely."

 

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