LETTERS - Brief Article

Man on the Moonstruck

Dear Interview,

I just finished reading Courtney Love's interview with Milos Forman ["Laughter in the Dark," January] and found it a meeting of two fascinating minds. I was beginning to feel jaded and worried that there wasn't anything left to grab my undivided attention--no television program, motion picture, album, or anything else--but now I feel mentally replenished.

BEAUX ENRIQUEZ-BERKEY

LA VERNE, CALIFORNIA

Dear Interview,

In her interview with Milos Forman, Courtney Love claims she was in fifth grade when she watched Andy Kaufman on Fridays, a now-infamous moment in television history which occurred in 1981. Courtney, though she has been known to fudge the date from time to time, was born in 1964 (birth certificates are public record). Was she a seventeen-year-old fifth-grader? A product of the same birth year, I can't decide which to be more smug about: that at the same age I was in college, or that I don't feel the need to pretend I was really born in the 1970s.

SUSAN MELBOURNE

VIA THE INTERNET

Always on Their Minds

Dear Interview,

First, Neil Tennant interviewed Elton John [January 1998], then he was mentioned in an interview with Robbie Williams [March 1999], and most recently he and bandmate Chris Lowe had a photo spread in your January issue ["Pet Shop Boys"]. I don't want to sound like a cliche, but the third time is a charm. Thanks, Interview, for not giving up on the Pet Shop Boys. I know I haven't.

JASON SMITH

PEARLAND, TEXAS

Dear Interview,

I love that you chose to profile the Pet Shop Boys in your January issue, a band I've long admired as the best lyricists anywhere, and one I see very little type on. As Neil Tennant says in the piece, the Pet Shop Boys make very romantic club music--and it's true; there's virtually no one out there creating music you can move to, listen to, and actually feel to. But maybe that's because no one's making dance music with words anymore! Just once I'd love to walk into a major dance club on a Saturday night and see everyone grooving to a remix of "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk" from the Boys' new album. Now, that would be a night to remember.

CHRISTOPHE LANDY

MONTREAL, CANADA

Ripley's Believe It or Not

Dear Interview,

In her January cover story, actress Cate Blanchett says that she saw Meredith, the character she played in The Talented Mr. Ripley, as "someone who is trying to break out of the chrysalis she's in, but she probably never will." It's interesting that Blanchett chose this image, because watching her indelible performance in the film, I myself kept thinking she was like a not very elegant butterfly that was both attracted to and frightened by the light. In my opinion, she could not have been more convincing as a privileged, not particularly interesting young woman determined to make herself into someone more exotic. She broke my heart, and I can't wait to see what she does with it in her next role.

A. ATCHESON

SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA

Dear Interview,

I love how you continually shine the spotlight on talented artists who may not be on the public radar yet. One of the first things that convinced me to subscribe to your magazine a year ago was the fact that a year prior you ran a two-page feature on one of my all-time favorite actors, Linus Roache. So in the spirit of that fine discovery, I'd like to nominate the gifted and gorgeous Jack Davenport from The Talented Mr. Ripley, whose unique presence made the final, haunting frame of that great movie all the more devastating.

ANNA SADO

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Va-Va-Va Reader Response

Dear Interview,

I was just wondering why there is no interview with Discovery Portfolio va-va-va Ashton's photo ["The Interview Discovery Portfolio," February]? Ellen von Unwerth's two-page shot has clearly captured my attention!

STEVEN B. MONZ (SVEN)

VIA THE INTERNET

Dear Interview,

With Hollywood's current obsession with well-built young male actors, it's refreshing to find one, namely Josh Hartnett ["The Interview Discovery Portfolio," February] who admits so freely that he doesn't have "a very good body" and that he rarely goes to the gym. The fact that, despite this, he is still nothing short of magnetically adorable is, as they say, icing on the cake. Thank you for such a delectable Valentine.

NAME WITHHELD

VIA THE INTERNET

The Dimple Dynamo

Dear Interview,

I enjoyed the interview with Kirk Douglas in your January issue ["The Not-So-Rough Cut"]. I see he has a sense of humor and a good philosophy on life in spite of his recent tragedies, including a stroke and a helicopter crash. Instead of just giving up, he has gone in the other direction and tried even harder, writing children's and adult books, rediscovering his Jewish faith and even making a movie, which at eighty-three years of age is absolutely amazing. Kirk Douglas indeed has a Lust for Life!

KENNETH ZIMMERMAN

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIA

Good Goth!

Dear Interview,

I just read Julia Szabo's piece on Thomas Woodruff ["Ready For Blast-Off," December] and found the comparison of Woodruff to Norman Rockwell, Van Eyck, and Thomas Hart Benton especially revealing of Woodruff's gothic vision of a Twilight Zone set. I liked his show very much and was glad to see a piece on him in your magazine. I look forward to future articles.