#nic

#nic

It's a great story where Conan was 40 years king...and he gets complacent, and he gets forced out of the kingdom, slowly. Then there's conflict, of course, and then he somehow comes back, and then there's all kinds of madness and violence and magic and creatures.

Los Angeles is home to more than a dozen one-of-a-kind cinemas that operate on their own terms. Some of these theaters have been around for 100 years, and in classic LA fashion some of them are owned by living LA legends-think Quentin Tarantino and Kyle Ng. Kristen Stewart recently announced she's also jumping into the mix with her purchase of Los Angeles's Highland Theatre.

I feel incredibly grateful for this kind attention, but to be clear, I also am quite humbled. I'm in a room of actors, many of whom are here because they've been nominated to receive a prize for their amazing work, while I'm here to receive a prize for being alive.

The Welsh-born actor had spent much of the decade living in the United States, where he split his time between the stage and the screen, building an utterly respectable career. He had played a compassionate doctor in David Lynch's The Elephant Man, a murderous ventriloquist in the cult thriller Magic, and the real-life convicted child murderer Bruno Hauptmann in the TV movie The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, for which he had won his first Emmy.

Casting as an artistic discipline has been around in its current form for decades, despite the proliferation of Zoom and self-tapes. Meticulous research, intuition, collaboration, and creative ability to expand on the filmmakers' vision all go into the casting process. We see no reason IndieWire can't retroactively reward that effort - albeit with no statues or acceptance speeches, unfortunately - to build a sense of what could have been a list of the Best Casting Award Winners for the first quarter of the 21st Century.

In fact, I've made a conscious habit of seeking out successful individuals so I can learn from their experiences. But the man often nicknamed the "King of the Hollywood Blockbuster" continues to elude me. And yet, despite never meeting face to face, Spielberg taught me one of the most important lessons of my entire career. It's a lesson I've learned through engaging with his work.