Source: Chicago Sun-Times

She sounds like any other working mother who takes her Oscar-winning self around the globe with her toddler to film movies.

Rachel Weisz — mom to toddler Henry Chance Aronofsky — says that making “The Brothers Bloom” wasn’t just a film experience for her.

It was also a major life moment.

“We filmed in Prague and Romania like a traveling circus moving from country to country,” Weisz says. “My son was with me and he was tiny. Just nine months. One day we woke up and he decided to learn to walk in Belgrade.”

That was an expensive long-distance call home to Dad.

“He’s a seasoned travelers now with international memories in his baby book,” Weisz says with a laugh.

How is it to roam Europe with someone entering his terrible twos? “It was definitely ambitious,” Weisz says. “But you know what? My baby is a seasoned traveler now. Anyway, I think kids are fine as long as their moms or dads are there.”

The 36-year-old lives in New York City with director Darren Aronofsky when she’s not filming movies. “The Brothers Bloom,” now in its opening weekend, stars Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as the best con men in the world. They swindle millionaires with complex scenarios. Now they have one last job, which is showing a beautiful and eccentric heiress love, romance and adventure … for a price.

Weisz plays poor little rich girl Penelope, who has been raised in an isolated way, meets the Brothers Bloom and falls in love. Continue Reading.

Source: Variety

Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz and Robert Pattinson will star in the period drama “Unbound Captives,” with Madeleine Stowe making her directorial debut from a script she wrote.Gil Netter and Grant Hill will produce with Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment. They are eyeing a year-end production start.

Though Stowe’s a newcomer behind the camera, getting the job and landing that cast is a payoff for her risky decision to turn down millions of dollars for the script in 1993. Under pseudonym O.C. Humphrey, Stowe teamed with her husband, actor Brian Benben, to write “Unbound Captives” as a star vehicle for herself.

She would have played a woman (now to be played by Weisz) whose husband is killed and her two children kidnapped by a Comanche war party in 1859. She is rescued by a frontiersman, to be played by Jackman. Pattinson will play the son.

Fox offered Stowe $3 million, and later $5 million, for her script, with Ridley Scott poised to direct and Russell Crowe to star. She turned down what was among the highest sums offered a first-time scribe because there was no promise she would be anything more than screenwriter.

Stowe, who has never publicly spoken about her decision, said she can still remember the surreal moment of turning down all that money over the phone while staring in disbelief at her husband.

“There was never a moment’s hesitation on my part, but it felt unreal, and I can remember my husband putting a finger across his neck to signal not to take the offer,” Stowe said. “There are moments in life where you need to follow your heart. The script remained my singular focus, but directing it myself wasn’t something I ever dreamed of.”

The idea came from Netter as she spent years honing the script and visualizing every scene.

“Gil made me realize it when he said there isn’t anyone who’s going to make the movie you want to make,” said Stowe, who then faced the painful task of finding an actress for a role that was once worth $5 million to her.

“I saw three actresses, and knew after meeting with Rachel that she was the person I wanted to hand this role to,” she said. “Robert said yes last fall, before everything broke with ‘Twilight.’ Hugh said yes a couple of weeks ago.”

Amritraj sparked to the idea of Stowe directing; she’ll be helped by an experienced cinematographer in John Toll, who shot epics “Braveheart” and “The Last Samurai.”

Hyde Park Intl. will sell offshore territories at Cannes, and Endeavor Independent, which packaged the pic, will sell North American distribution rights.

Jackman, fresh from “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” is formulating a sequel to that film for Fox. Weisz next stars in the Peter Jackson-directed “The Lovely Bones” for Paramount, and Pattinson is reprising his role as Edward in the “Twilight” sequel “New Moon” for Summit.