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Interview with America Ferrera and Wilmer Valderrama

Working Author - 5 hours 51 min ago

In the upcoming film The Dry Land a soldier returns from Iraq with post traumatic stress disorder and finds readjusting to his old life challenging. The soldier alienates those close to him, like his wife (America Ferrera), and finds that reconnecting with his former squadmates, like Ray (Wilmer Valderrama), his only solace. The tale is dark, moody and timely. Both America and Wilmer shared their thoughts about working on the project and its impact on our fighting men and women with Working Author.

As a film that touches on a sensitive subject that affects the military it was important to know how the presentation was received. “When we went to Iraq,” America opened, “we didn’t screen the film…. We talked about it a lot with the soldiers there. In some cases, we showed them a trailer so that they got an idea of what it was. Just a couple of weeks ago we screened the movie in the installation at Fort Carson for approximately six to seven hundred active duty soldiers and their spouses. Soldiers who just came back from Iraq or Afghanistan or were going within a matter of weeks…. The response was just amazing and sparked really interesting questions and conversations. [Soldiers] wanted to share their versions of the story with us. It was the ultimate reward to see the film do what we all believed it could do, which was really relate to the soldiers and their families and also spark a conversation and make them feel like it was a compassionate portrayal and not a judgment or a political skewed or driven film that had a certain agenda.”

“I’ve traveled the world visiting our troops,” Wilmer added. “I’ve been to Iraq. I’ve been to Afghanistan. I’ve been to over nine countries and I couldn’t be more proud to have met thousands of soldiers and heard hundreds of stories. And that kept fueling me more and more to find the right vehicle and the right character that somehow would shine the light on something that was important to them.”

Considering the subject matter all of the roles carry a certain amount of weight and it would be easy to assume that America’s character, Sara, is her most challenging role to date, but America doesn’t necessarily agree. “I don’t know,” she admits, “I don’t think I can really compare it to anything else I’ve done. Every role I take on because it’s a challenge to me. I will say that this probably the most grownup role I’ve gotten to play. It had its challenges, but in some ways I felt I could relate to Sara. I could understand her as a woman outside of the military context.”

Wilmer also shared about his character Ray and how he fits into the bigger picture. “When you grab a character like this…we’re not telling the story of every soldier. My role in the movie specifically was to show the audience that I was truly the one guy [the main character] could relate to. We went through the exact same situation, except we’re both coping with it very differently. One thing I’m really excited about this movie is that I really do believe these characters. I believe they live and breathe and that they are really affected by this hard-to-control situation.”

To prepare for their roles, the actors who played soldiers received a few days of military training. “It was amazing,” Wilmer says. “We were with the National Guard in New Mexico. We got to sleep in the same facility as them. In fact, the platoon we were training with was going to Afghanistan a month later.”

America actually has two roles in the film. The onscreen role is obvious, but America is also the executive producer of The Dry Land. “I signed on solely to be an executive producer on the project and didn’t have any intention of playing Sara. As an executive producer I got to look at the picture as a whole and I had to think about James – our lead character – and what we needed to feel from him…and so I kind of came from a macro point of view of who is [Sara] in this realm of this film to really falling in love with this strong female character that just had love and compassion and wanted to heal her partner with love and strength and be the sole thing to bring him back. I fell in love with the role [Sara] played in this story.”

Watch The Dry Land when it opens on July 30 and perhaps you’ll fall in love with these characters as well.

Categories: Entertainment

Low-tech Shatner eyes Twitter, says what the "$#*!" (Reuters)

Entertainment Pipe - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 23:00

Reuters - William Shatner confesses he has problems with the digital age. At 79-years-old, he doesn't use Twitter and can't remember computer passwords.

Categories: Entertainment

Fly Eyes Used For Solar Cells

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 22:09

disco_tracy writes "Researchers took corneas from blow flies, fixed them on a glass substrate, added a polymer to protect the shape and then coated nine-eye arrays in nickel within a vacuum chamber. The result was a master template that retained those useful nanoscale features and can be used to make solar cells."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Categories: Geeky

No charges filed in probe of other Jackson doctors (AP)

Entertainment Pipe - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 21:59

AP - State investigators probing the death of Michael Jackson have decided not to file charges against seven doctors who treated him, authorities said Wednesday.

Categories: Entertainment

Black Hat shines light on security (roundup)

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 21:42

Las Vegas is the setting this week for two of the most popular annual security events. First comes Black Hat for the professional crowd, followed by the more antic Defcon gathering.

Categories: Geeky

No charges against Michael Jackson's other doctors

Entertainment Pipe - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 21:37

State investigators probing the death of Michael Jackson have decided not to file charges against seven doctors who treated him, authorities said.

Categories: Entertainment

Chevy Volt Not Green Enough For California

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 21:22

thecarchik writes "The first two plug-in cars from major manufacturers will go head-to-head on warranties and lease prices: $350 a month for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, $349 for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Now the choice shifts to other measures, including electric and overall range, as well as the plug-in perks that states like California offer to early adopters to encourage them to opt for electric cars. This is where it gets interesting. While California loves the Nissan Leaf, current regulations deny Chevy Volt buyers two significant perks: a $5,000 rebate, and permission to drive solo in HOV Lanes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Categories: Geeky

Security researcher demonstrates ATM hacking

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 21:04

IOActive's Barnaby Jack reveals at Black Hat how he found ways to remotely log into ATMs without a password and force them to spit out cash.

Categories: Geeky

Amazon unveils new generation of Kindles

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 21:04

The online retailer will ship a smaller, lighter $189 Kindle with new features on August 27. A Wi-Fi-only version will cost only $139.

Categories: Geeky

Seven Jackson Doctors in the Clear, Will Not Face Charges

Entertainment Pipe - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 20:42

Seven doctors who treated the late Michael Jackson will reportedly not face charges related to his June 25, 2009 death.

The Associated Press reports that investigators decided not to bring charges against the doctors. A rep for California Attorney General Jerry Brown told the AP Wednesday that one of the doctors has been referred to the state medical board for prescribing medication to a Jackson alias.

The King of Pop's personal physician Dr. Conrad Murray pleaded not guilty last February to an involuntary manslaughter charge related to Jackson's death.

Categories: Entertainment

Nvidia warns of second-quarter revenue shortfall

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 20:13

Graphics chip supplier pares back revenue predictions, blaming increased memory costs and economic weakness in Europe and China.

Categories: Geeky

ASCAP Refuses To Debate Lessig

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 20:08

An anonymous reader writes "Back in June ASCAP oddly declared war on free culture, specifically calling out Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge, making a number of false statements about all three. The war of words continued as the three groups responded politely, pointing out the errors in the statement from ASCAP's Paul Williams. Larry Lessig wrote a blog post where he asked Williams to debate these topics, saying that it might help if they could get away from making false statements. Williams has now publicly declined to debate saying that it's not worth his time, and once again attacking these groups for trying to 'silence' him. It's difficult to see how a request for a public discussion and debate is an attempt to silence, but that's ASCAP's position and they're sticking to it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Categories: Geeky

GameStop: Game discs are here to stay

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 19:55

Not everyone might agree, but GameStop believes physical game discs will hang around for the long haul.

Categories: Geeky

CNET to the Rescue: No matter where you go, here we are

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 19:23

Rafe and Josh discuss the best mobile apps for finding stuff to do and things to eat near you. Also, your questions answered, including our tips for painting your laptop BMW red.

Categories: Geeky

Apple to investigate iOS 4 problems on iPhone 3G

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 19:15

Some owners of the older model iPhone who upgraded to the most recent system software have complained of slowness and quickly drained batteries.

Categories: Geeky

Microsoft's 'Street Slide' takes aim at StreetView

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 18:17

A new mapping technology from Microsoft's Research team takes the idea of a panoramic street view and stitches it together into one long stream of map tiles.

Categories: Geeky

CBS daytime show aims to be 'The Talk' of the town (AP)

Entertainment Pipe - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 18:06

AP - Sara Gilbert, producer and co-host of the new CBS daytime show "The Talk," said she will share her life as a lesbian partner and mom on the air when it seems right.

Categories: Entertainment

Time Inc.'s iPad problem is trouble for magazine publishers

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 17:54

Time Inc. executives "have been going nuts" trying to figure out how to get Apple to approve a subscription plan for digital editions of its magazines, sources say.

Categories: Geeky

BlackBerry revamp to take on iPhone?

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 17:39

A press conference set for Tuesday has bloggers and analysts buzzing about a potential new touch-screen phone to rival iPhone and Android smartphones.

Categories: Geeky

Google licensing changes could cap Android piracy

Yahoo Pipes - Geeky - Wed, 07/28/2010 - 17:31

Google releases new mechanism for ensuring Android app developers get paid for premium content. The solution to curtail app theft? It's all in the cloud.

Categories: Geeky