With 2014 winding down, HitFix has been dabbling in all corners of the “year-in-review” game. Hopefully you've enjoyed the trip down recent memory lane. Now it's time for a thorough assessment of the year in film performances, and for a 12-month stretch marked in some quarters as “weak,” there sure was a lot of stand-out work in front of the camera.

One curious note on the year's best portrayals, as we see them, is how many of the characters seen on screen this year were broken or damaged, desperate to show a forthright side, or to earn love or respect. Or to just be who they are. As well and otherwise, there are brilliant examples of outward showmanship, and plenty others of internalized drama. The resulting cross-section is as varied as ever.

It was tough to narrow it down even to 30, of course, so at the end of the day, great work didn't make the cut. Matthew McConaughey (“Interstellar”), Robin Wright (“The Congress”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Imitation Game”), Scarlett Johansson (“Under the Skin”), James McAvoy (“Filth), Emma Stone (“Birdman”), Miles Teller (“Whiplash”), Reese Witherspoon (“Wild”) and Jessica Chastain (“A Most Violent Year”) are just a few examples of great actors that came close but couldn't find room.

Who did? Click on through the gallery below to find out, and feel free to give us your own list of the year's best performances in the comments section.

We haven't done one of these in a while, as the Oscar season has continued to take hold and staggered releases have made it a little difficult to suss out just how available some of these films might be to a wider audience. But obviously “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” has been blasted out globally, and I imagine there are some opinions on it locked and loaded.

My take? I sort of loved it. It might even be might favorite of the entire “Lord of the Rings” saga (save, perhaps, the extended “Fellowship of the Ring”). I actually felt something, which was a shift for the “Hobbit” series for me, and the action and spectacle was absorbing and fantastic. Martin Freeman also crushed it, proving that his might well be the finest performance of all six films. But I was never a big “Ringnut” and always found the original trilogy severely overvalued, so take from these thoughts what you will. After being more or less OK with “An Unfinished Journey” and finding “The Desolation of Smaug” pretty much impossible to engage with, this was refreshing. But it's also packed with all the stuff we've been waiting to see depicted. There's probably a great four-and-a-half hour version of this trilogy to be pieced together.

Anyway, enough about me. What about you? Did you make it out to see the close of Jackson's Middle Earth sextet? (Though I guess he's been suggesting/threatening more.) If and when you do catch it, head on back here with your thoughts and vote in our poll.

When producer John Lesher first told me way back in June that “Birdman” was a bit of a “magic trick” designed to look like a single take, my jaw dropped. How had I not heard about this? “We're not really talking about it too much,” he said at the time, a few months ahead of the film's Venice film festival debut. Which is fair enough. You don't want the technique to overshadow the experience of the film.

But then again, the technique of “Birdman” is the experience. It's the thematic soul of its very existence. So naturally, I was dying to talk to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (“Chivo”) once the season got underway. Only problem: he was stuck in Calgary shooting Alejandro González Iñárritu's follow-up, “The Revenant,” a production that runs through April. What???

Suffice it to say I've never been so desperate to get someone on the phone. But I also understand why one might want to stay away from all of this for a moment. As Iñárritu and I discussed the morning of the Golden Globe nominations (when he was driving to a location with Chivo in tow), it's best to stay busy when the insanity of awards season takes hold. And for Chivo's part, he just came off a whirlwind with “Gravity” that ended with an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The prospect of diving back into the circuit's press demands had to be an unattractive one.

Nevertheless, 'tis the season for miracles! We finally connected Saturday morning and I talked his ear off about this masterpiece I consider to be the best film of the year, the difficulty in filming it with a series of extended takes through the constructed bowels of a Broadway theater (the production design in this film really is an unsung hero), the challenges in staging those scenes, let alone lighting them, and what it took to pull off that outrageous Times Square sequence.

So Christmas came early for me. I was a kid in a candy story. Read through my euphoria below.

***

HitFix: Hey Chivo!

Emmanuel Lubezki: Mr. Kris. How are you?

I'm doing cartwheels.

Cartwheels!

I finally have you on the phone! You have no idea. I was going to drive to Calgary.

You should have! To see what we were, you know – it was rough. It was nasty. It was cold.

After I saw your photo of the guy with the icicles on his mustache I figured I would stay put.

[Laughs.] Yes. Yeah, we got in trouble. We created a hell and we were living in it.

Well that movie, “The Revenant,” I can't wait to see it. But we have other business here. And listen – you can't shoot a movie like “Birdman” and then go away!

OK, sorry. [Laughs.] It was just so insane. Our locations are far from the hotel. We have to travel, sometimes, an hour and a half and there's no connection. And sometimes you get a connection for one second.

Are you in LA now?

I am in LA, for the holidays.

Well, welcome home. Now I can't imagine how many times you've been asked or will be asked about the manner in which this film was shot. But I'll just start by asking what your immediate reaction was when Alejandro told you what he wanted to do.

First he told me about the story. He said, “Oh, I have an idea for a film. It's a comedy and I want to do it in one long shot.” And the moment he said that I thought, “I hope he doesn't offer me this. I hope he gets someone else to do it because it just sounds awful.” And then he said, “Would you like to read the script?” I said yes but I truly did not want to have anything to do with this movie. I was just going to read it as a friend. And as soon as I read the script I started to understand the idea of the one shot. The seed of this idea was there in the script. I sat down and we talked about the script and changes he was going to do and what he thought about his life and Riggan's life and our life. Alejandro is a great storyteller, so there was probably four and a half hours of talking about the movie. And at that point I was hoping he would offer me the movie. That's how good he is at selling stuff.

Of course I was very concerned about – I didn't know who the cast was. I was also concerned about [the fact that] there was nothing really shot before like that, where we could go and do some research. So my first idea, and Alejandro's, was the only way to learn how to do it is if we start doing it. We decided to build a little proxy stage in Los Angeles, in Sony studios, and started trying to figure out how to do the movie with a little camera and a few stand-ins and go scene-by-scene, just to figure out if it was possible, you know? Once we felt that it was possible, we started blocking the scenes. Then we brought a few props and Alejandro hired a production designer and some crew started to join in, the editors started coming and we started trying to figure out how to link some of the scenes together. Because we knew we weren't going to find a theater that had all the back[stage areas] in the same place. So the idea of doing the whole thing in one shot was going to be, probably, impossible.

So once [production designer] Kevin Thompson came and [editor Stephen] Mirrione and then we had Sanchez come, Antonio, the musician – it was very important to have sketches of the music because music was also informing a lot about the pace of the scenes and so on. It was like an upside down movie where you do post-production before the production. Different than “Gravity.” “Gravity,” we had a little bit of that, but this one was completely, like, start with the post-production, trying to edit the movie, and then bring the actors and do the scenes once we kind of knew what the rhythm of the scenes were.

I'm sorry I deviated, but to answer the question, when Alejandro asked me if I wanted to do the movie I thought, “I shouldn't get involved in this.” And then I fell in love with the idea and the project and the challenge. And when we knew who the actors were going to be, I was even more interested, because I adore Michael Keaton and Emma [Stone], all of them – Ed [Norton], I always wanted to work with Ed. So suddenly everything was even more interesting to me. It was an incredible, great, unique experience.

Your camera operator on this, Chris Haarhoff, is obviously a hero.

Absolutely.

But was there much operating from you on this as well?

I did operate a lot of the movie. I don't know what percentage. The movie was done with two basic methods. One was to use the Steadicam for the shots that require more steady-ness and objectivity. The Steadicam is a big machine, smaller than a crane, but it's still a big machine that makes the camera look very smooth, but it's a little bit objective. It feels slightly heavy. For some other scenes, we had a small digital camera, and I was really able to get inside the scenes that needed to feel more subjective or intimate. So we did it with those two methodologies. And some of the takes – I've been doing a lot of handheld, I don't know, 10 movies, but this one was very challenging because of the length of the takes. The length was just long enough that it was not humanly possible, or at least for me and not a sportsman. So I would almost collapse at the end of the take. And also, I am not trained like the actors in memorizing all of these long, long, complicated dialogue scenes and stuff. So I didn't want to be the one in minute 13 suddenly to make a mistake and have to ask Alejandro to redo the scene. So I had to create a lot of ways for me to have memory cues, to know when to pan and when to do this and that and be able to dance. Yeah, it was like a dance. To be able to be a part of this big dance and choreography without messing it up. That was very challenging.

Yeah, a couple of people I've talked to from this movie have said something similar, that they didn't want to be the one to drop the ball and have to start over on a take.

[Laughs.] Yeah, nobody wanted to be the one.

But I'm curious, how often did you have to reset because of something?

I think many times. I don't want to blame it on the actors, but mostly we repeated scenes because the rhythm of the scene didn't feel right to Alejandro or because he didn't feel something felt real, or sometimes because the framing in one part of the scene wasn't exactly what we thought we wanted. But yes, we had to repeat many times. Some of the scenes we did 20 takes. The shorter ones we did 20, 22 takes, which makes it even more difficult physically. Others we couldn't because, you know, we couldn't run through Times Square more than two times without being seen by all the tourists and stuff like that.

I'm glad you brought that up. Was that Times Square scene controlled at all, or was it just into the maelstrom?

When we walked the scene without cameras and stuff, just to figure out the movement, obviously very soon we realized the biggest problem was going to be the people. And we couldn't pay to close the place. I had heard of some movies that have closed Times Square, and that was our dream, but we couldn't do it. We couldn't close it down and then fill it up with extras. So we had to come up with another plan, and the plan happened by another coincidence. One weekend I was walking in New York with Alejandro and we saw this amazing band, like a high school band, playing in, I think it was Union Square. It was so powerful that there was no way for you to not want to approach and watch these kids playing music. It was incredible. So because it was drums, Alejandro said, “Yes, we have to put them in the movie! Somehow we have to put them in the movie!” We had all these scenes outside in the street, so we were trying to figure out how to incorporate this band in the film and incorporate watching them playing and stuff, and not just because it was going to add another layer to the drumming of Antonio. And when we were walking in Times Square, we said, “Wow, that's the answer!” I don't remember who had the idea, probably Alejandro: “If we bring these kids and we cue them to start playing just a second before Michael enters the big Times Square, people are going to want to watch them. And in that moment we cross behind all this mess and hopefully Michael will get a chance to do it.” And so we did.

That's brilliant.

We surrounded Michael with, I don't know, probably 50 of our extras, and on a cue this band started playing and hundreds if not thousands of tourists turned to look at this band and Michael crosses and we crossed with the cameras. So the beautiful thing is that this allows the music to evolve from that drumming getting out of the theater to the big band in Times Square back to the drumming in the theater. It was not only a way to do the scene but it also adds layers to the audio and to the music and to the stress of Michael.

And then you bring the drummer from the band on stage there at the end for that kind of surreal moment.

Exactly.

So brilliant. Now the camera movement and the staging and everything is obviously a feat, but I can't imagine – I mean you were mostly using natural light, but still, the lighting of these environments had to be tremendously difficult.

You nailed it. You hit the spot. That was the hardest part for me, much more than the camera movements. The camera movements were gliding and following the actors, and of course the focus pulling is incredibly difficult, but to light the scenes was incredibly hard. Every cinematographer knows that if you light something in a straight line, a v-axis shot, it's very easy and you can do it beautifully. If you have to light a shot that is in a v-axis that suddenly the camera has to turn to the right or left, it starts to get hard. But if you have to light a 90 degree pan, you're starting to get into major trouble. And a 360 is something, as a cinematographer, if you're interested in lighting, you almost never want to get involved with that kind of movement. And we had, you know, dozens of those shots in the film. I wanted the movie to look as realistic, within the reality of the film, as possible, so all the light comes from the sources, the real practical lights in the theater and all of the mirrors, but the problem was how to control the light when the camera is turning 180 degrees that you don't see my shadow on Michael. Obviously a very simple solution would be just to top-light everything, but it would look like a Mexican soap opera and I didn't want to do that. So how to keep all these sources being the sources, sources that are at Michael's head height or even lower, and still be able to glide in those rooms without seeing our shadows or having to top-light the movie.

There was another thing: we wanted to see the ceilings. A lot of these locations, the real locations behind the theater and stuff are very, as Alejandro would say, very shitty. There's nothing glamorous about the backstage in the theaters. It's almost like a submarine or something like that, and we wanted to have that feeling of claustrophobia. It's like the labyrinth of Riggan's mind or something like that, and we wanted to keep that effect. So a lot of the ceilings are very low. The walls are very tight, so I couldn't hide any film equipment, and that was another reason to try to do everything with real practicals and real sources.

Last thing here, and we've touched on it throughout but I just want to get it distilled in your own words – thematically, as it pertains to what the film is about, why shoot it this way?

The main reason we shot it this way was it was written like that. Alejandro could have written the script in a different way but the seed of it was in the script, and it has to do with getting the audience immersed in the movie and having the audience somehow go through Riggan's emotional roller coaster, through the labyrinth of his mind as his life is collapsing, and have the audience feel what he's feeling as they walk behind his feet. I think in that sense it's beautiful, because this same story could have been told in many other ways. But this one, the form of the movie is really powerful because it makes the inner world of Riggan even more palpable. You feel it. You're right with him through this. And I think that made the movie very special.

Well look, this film is a masterpiece, I don't hesitate to say.

Wow. You're very kind.

I mean “Gravity” was my favorite movie last year and “Birdman” is my favorite movie this year, so…

Wow! That's so cool.

…no pressure on “Knight of Cups.” [Laughs]

[Laughs.] That is so kind. I'll tell Alejandro.

And I'm happy to finally talk to you about all this. Seriously, bravo, man. Thanks for taking the time.

No, thank you. You are very, very kind. And if you are in Canada, give us a call!

You got it! Take care.

Ciao. Bye.

The Nevada Film Critics Society has come along and added another film to the critics/precursor Best Picture hat – David Fincher's “Gone Girl” – bringing the number of films that have received top honors so far this year up to eight. “Nightcrawler” helmer Dan Gilroy won Best Director while Jakye Gyllenhaal and Rosamund Pike took top acting honors.

Check out the full list of winners below and follow the season at The Circuit.

Best Film
“Gone Girl”

Best Director
Dan Gilroy, “Nightcrawler”

Best Actor
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”

Best Actress
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”

Best Supporting Actor
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

Best Supporting Actress
(TIE) Jessica Chastain, “A Most Violent Year” and Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”

Best Animated Movie
“Big Hero 6”

Best Documentary
“CITIZENFOUR”

Best Youth Performance
Ellar Coltrane, “Boyhood”

Best Ensemble Cast
“Guardians of the Galaxy”

Best Cinematography
“Interstellar”

Best Visual Effects
“Interstellar”

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910344246001

Don't call it a comeback, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” has been here since, um, March.

Yes, Fox Searchlight's spring hit has made a mark on awards season (and also was this pundit's no. 1 film of 2014). I could take credit for believing it would be in the mix for Best Picture since the summer, unlike some of my other prognosticating peers, but let's not get ahead of ourselves shall we? While the SAG Awards ensemble nomination, numerous critical kudos, critics' top 10 lists, four Golden Globe nominations and 11 Critics Choice nods likely add up to something special on Thursday, Jan. 15, there is still much to be done. And while they have “Birdman” and “Wild” to contend with, Searchlight isn't ignoring the growing “Budapest” buzz.

Like many early releases, “Boyhood” being the most prominent, the studio is putting Wes Anderson's latest back in theaters. It re-opened today at the Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles and will return to the Quad in New York on Friday, Dec. 26. That's the best way for Academy members to see it, but the film will also benefit from premiering on HBO later this month:

Saturday, Dec. 27 – 8:00pm and 12:30am on HBO

Monday, Dec. 29 – 10:00am and 7:00pm on HBO2

Tuesday, Dec. 30 – 8:00pm and 5:00am on HBO

Frankly, those airings actually might help it with SAG voters the most. Moreover, even though it's far past its theatrical window and hit DVD and digital download in June, Searchlight is supporting the instant classic with a paid media campaign beginning this weekend. Academy members in New York and LA will see ads on programs such as “The Today Show,” “GMA,” “60 Minutes,” “CBS Sunday Morning,” “The Kennedy Center Honors,” “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and “The Late Show with David Letterman.”

Yes, awards season friends, things are heating up.

I guess the Florida Film Critics Circle really wanted their picks represented in the awards coverage space, seeing as I was pinged twice about it on Twitter today. I hardly see what the rush is, though, as it's more of the same. Kudos to them for picking the best film of the year and all, but as usual, we're getting to the point where these regional critics groups need to stop smelling each other's farts a bit and branch out if possible. At least this crowd got a bit adventurous in the foreign film category.

Check out the nominees here, the full list of winners below and all the rest at The Circuit.

Best Picture
“Birdman” (Runner-up: “Boyhood”)

Best Director
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood” (Runner-up: Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman”)

Best Actor
Michael Keaton, “Birdman” (Runner-up: Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”)

Best Actress
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl” (Runner-up: Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”)

Best Supporting Actor
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash” (Runner-up: Edward Norton, “Birdman”)

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood” (Runner-up: Emma Stone, “Birdman”)

Best Adapted Screenplay
“Gone Girl” (Runner-up: “Inherent Vice”)

Best Original Screenplay
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Runner-up: “Birdman”)

Best Art Direction/Production Design
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Runner-up: “Interstellar”)

Best Cinematography
“Interstellar” (Runner-up: “The Grand Budapest Hotel”)

Best Score
“Under the Skin” (Runner-up: “Gone Girl”)

Best Animated Film
“The LEGO Movie” (Runner-up: “How to Train Your Dragon 2”)

Best Foreign Language Film
“The Raid 2” (Runner-up: “Force Majeure”)

Pauline Kael Breakout Award
Damien Chazelle – writer/director, “Whiplash” (Runner-up: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, actress – “Belle” and “Beyond the Lights”)

Golden Orange
For outstanding contribution to film in Florida
The Borscht Corp.

It seemed this year that if any artist was due for the retrospective treatment, it was “Unbroken” cinematographer Roger Deakins. While I of course did not address all of the 50-plus films he has shot throughout his illustrious career during a recent extended interview, I settled on a few in particular that I think represent a nice cross-section of his work. Each of them – “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” “Sid and Nancy,” “Barton Fink,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Kundun,” “The Man Who Wasn't There” and “The Village” – will get their own space in the next few days.

2001 was an interesting year for Roger Deakins. With John Nash biopic “A Beautiful Mind” – the only time he's ever worked with director Ron Howard – he shot the year's Best Picture winner, while his on-going collaboration with the Coen brothers' yielded “The Man Who Wasn't There” and the chance to work on a cinematographer's dream: a film noir.

“You know, those two films really are, I suppose, the two sides of where I come from,” Deakins says. “I suppose I started doing more stylized stuff with the boys, with the Coen brothers, whereas Ron Howard asked me to do 'A Beautiful Mind,' I think, because he wanted that sort of documentary kind of feel. He wanted a feel of reality. And so it was great to have those two films in a short period together. It was very different approaches and different styles.”

Nevertheless, he says he won't likely work with Howard again if only because their approaches to cinematography are at odds with one another. “I remember the meeting I had with him,” Deakins recalls. “He's somebody that, as a director, likes shooting multiple cameras. And I said, you know, 'I don't know how this works because I don't like shooting with multiple cameras. I just don't work that way. I operate the camera myself.' And he said, 'Well, that's what I want on this film.'”

On the Coen picture, the struggle was dealing with originality versus emulation. Noir is obviously such a familiar, well-worn genre, it inevitably leads to certain signatures. And indeed, it's the only time Deakins can recall the filmmaker siblings mentioning another movie by way of reference: Alfred Hitchcock's “Shadow of a Doubt.”

“It wasn”t so much the photographic look of the film they were relating to than it was the sense of the small California town and the atmosphere of the town,” he explains. “We talked about it and it was like – it wasn't 'doing noir.' We wanted to do a modern film but it just happened to be this. We weren't trying to copy a film noir or anything. If it looks film noir it's just because I was playing with the lighting and what felt right at that moment. It's not like the film I'm doing with them now ['Hail, Caesar!']. There's definite elements in that film where I'm going to consciously recreate, if you like, film noir and other kinds of lighting that I wouldn't normally do. But for 'The Man Who Wasn't There,' I didn't have references or anything. It was nothing like saying, 'Oh, I'm going to do this kind of scene that we saw in 'Citizen Kane' or 'Sunset Boulevard.' It wasn't about that. I just approached it in the way I would any film, thinking, 'What should this scene feel like,' you know?”

One such example brings some of the heightened atmosphere to a head in the film, which, anyone who has seen it knows, goes into much more strikingly stylized territory than simply film noir.

“I remember the scene they were most particular about the lighting was when the character who's murdered in the film, when his wife comes to the doorway and talks about being taken by aliens or whatever it is,” he says. “They were very keen that that had a spooky kind of feeling about it and that the shadows of the trees should start moving and the wind should come up as she's talking. They wanted something really odd about it.”

As the film progresses, it's almost as if the Coens had certain '50s sci-fi tropes in the back of their minds. “I'm sure they did,” Deakins says. “I'm sure those things are there. I'm sure it was like thinking of a Michael Rennie film or something.”

And as for his favorite films of the genre? “I loved 'Kiss Me Deadly,' actually,” he says. “It's so great and unpretentious. I mean it's a fantastic movie. And 'Sunset Boulevard,' you know? And – I guess it's film noir – 'The Sweet Smell of Success,' I think, is one of the greatest movies of all time.”

Deakins went on to win his second American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award for the film, but unfortunately he was in Canada working on Ed Solomon's “Levity” and could not attend. Those who accepted the honor in his stead referred to him, fittingly, as “the man who wasn't there.”

Don't forget to read our “Unbroken”-centric interview with Deakins here.

Friday morning, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its Foreign Language Film short list for the 87th Academy Awards. Out of 83 films, nine made the cut, with familiar titles like “Ida” and “Force Majeure” making the cut, along with Golden Globe-amplified “Tangerines” slipping in over expected contenders.

The full list, alphabetically by country, is as follows:

Argentina, “Wild Tales,” Damián Szifrón, director
Estonia, “Tangerines,” Zaza Urushadze, director
Georgia, “Corn Island,” George Ovashvili, director
Mauritania, “Timbuktu,” Abderrahmane Sissako, director
Netherlands, “Accused,” Paula van der Oest, director
Poland, “Ida,” Pawel Pawlikowski, director
Russia, “Leviathan,” Andrey Zvyagintsev, director
Sweden, “Force Majeure,” Ruben Östlund, director
Venezuela, “The Liberator,” Alberto Arvelo, director

Noticeably  missing from the list are Dardenne brothers” “Two Days, One Night,” which picked up major steam after star Marion Cotillard picked up a number of critics awards for Best Actress. And after winning the Palme d”Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Turkey”s “Winter Sleep” is nowhere to be found. Another Cannes-approved picture, Xavier Dolan”s “Mommy,” proved not to have the gusto needed to trounce Arvelo”s “Liberator” and Ovashvili”s “Corn Island,” two pictures simmering in the conversation”s background.

Um..

– Xavier Dolan (@XDolan) December 19, 2014

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The Oscar nominees will be announced Jan. 15, 2015, with this year's Oscar ceremony taking place on Feb. 22, 2015.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910352789001

“Do you ever think you”ve seen things or done things that you wish you hadn”t?” goes the new trailer for “American Sniper.” For those who haven”t, the two-minute sizzle reel is happy to oblige.

Starring Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, considered one of the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history, “American Sniper” jumps back and forth between military operations and the SEAL's life back at home. He struggles on both fronts. The film costars Sienna Miller, Jake McDorman, Luke Grimes, Navid Negahban and Keir O”Donnell, but seems to entrench itself inside Kyle”s mind as he navigates his noble and peculiar life.

The film comes from Clint Eastwood, the man behind such war pictures as “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” and “Jersey Boys” (maybe that last one just felt that way). The film earned lackluster reviews out of its AFI Fest premiere – our own Drew McWeeny praised Cooper but found Eastwood”s direction underwhelming, calling “American Sniper” a “perfunctory tribute to a man who seems to have lived an anything-but-perfunctory life” – and wound up without any nominations when the Golden Globes rolled around, a snub considering the talent involved. Could “American Sniper” play better to audiences outside Hollywood? That was the case for “Lone Survivor,” which overcame negative reviews to gross $125 million at the box office.

Check out the new trailer for “American Sniper” above, which amps up the bombast and splashes the picture with dizzying critic quotes. 

“American Sniper” opens Dec. 25, 2014.

For those who thought the Hollywood Film Awards were a bit too virtuous, PEOPLE Magazine decided 2014 was the year to throw a hat into the awards ring, conjuring its own set of accolades to hand out during a star-studded gala event. Thursday night, the winners of the first annual The PEOPLE Magazine Awards were announced during a two-hour NBC special hosted by Nick Cannon. Completely comprised of talent-based honors, Jennifer Aniston took home the show”s Movie Performance of the Year – Actress award for her work in “Cake,” while Michael Keaton earned the Male equivalent for his turn in “Birdman.” Hey, PEOPLE is following the awards circuit!

After squeezing her way into the SAG and Golden Globes, the PEOPLE award marks Anison”s win for “Cake,” and the first award she has won for feature film work. Which is nice in an Al-Pacino-wins-for-“Scent of a Woman”-plus-every-other-contribution-to-the-medium kind of way.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bztybR7QS5E]

There is shortage of sure-why-not wonderment on display in the The PEOPLE Magazine Awards winners. Comedian Billy Eichner earned the ceremony”s Breakout Star award for his contributions to the art of scream comedy, Karlie Kloss won Model of the Year for her hard work promoting Warby Parker, “American Idol” judge Jennifer Lopez was deemed a “triple threat” (despite not having a film play this year), through a very scientific process, Kate Upton won Sexiest Woman, and Kate Hudson took home the Role Model award because she”s always been true to herself and her collaborators, which proved especially difficult during the making of Zach Braff”s 'Wish I Was Here.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGQSjzhWG8c]

The real deserving honor of the evening went to Kevin Hart, the hardest working man in show business who won”t get a lick of respect for killing it in 2014. Remember: Just because “About Last Night” fails to land on Best Ofs or awards shortlists doesn”t mean it isn”t funny. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RViSUJfNiLo]

See the full list of winners below:

Movie Performance of the Year – Actress
Jennifer Aniston
 
Breakout Star of the Year
Billy Eichner
 
Television Performance of the Year – Actor
Jon Hamm
 
Comedy Star of the Year
Kevin Hart
 
Role Model
Kate Hudson
 
On Screen TV Couple of the Year
Mindy Kaling and Chris Messina
 
Movie Performance of the Year – Actor
Michael Keaton
 
Model of the Year
Karlie Kloss
 
Television Performance of the Year – Actress  
Lisa Kudrow
 
Triple Threat
Jennifer Lopez
 
Next Generation Star
Chloë Grace Moretz
 
Hero of the Year Award
Nora Sandigo
 
Style Icon recipient
Gwen Stefani
 
PEOPLE”s Sexiest Woman
Kate Upton

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910325063001

Two years ago, William Goldenberg took the stage of the Dolby Theater on Oscar night as the Oscar winner for Best Film Editing on “Argo.” This year, he is firmly back in the race, having cut Morten Tyldum's “The Imitation Game.” I recently spoke to Goldenberg about the film, his approach to editing and his career to date.

HitFix: When did you come aboard the film?

William Goldenberg: I was offered the film probably six months before the movie was going to start shooting but I was booked. I had all of these people calling me saying I had to do it but I said I couldn't do it. But I became available and luckily for me they hadn't hired an editor yet and I was thrilled that they hadn't!

How would you describe your approach on a macro level?

My main goal when I'm cutting is always story. By that I mean what's the story of each scene? What's the story of each character? What's Alan [Turing] thinking? He's saying these words but he means this and how do I convey that and juxtapose to convey that? This was challenging because of the three time periods and making them clearly delineated but also all part of the same film.

How did you seek to create suspense while telling a very human story?

We realized that the ticking clock of the movie is the war and the failure to break the code. And we tried to accentuate that the war is an unrelenting thing to remind the audience and remind our heroes that this isn't a bunch of people in a village outside of London but the whole world is at stake here.

I originally tried to give the film a pace that was a bit of the pace of a thriller. We did that in some early versions and quickly realized that we had gone too far and we realized we needed to let some of the characters truly breathe. We went back to the film and opened things up and lots of key moments open up, and it cements you and draws you in. It's a constant balancing act because every moment cannot be as important as every other moment. And that's something as an editor you feel, that “this is the moment” and “this isn't the moment.” And it's also just experimentation and hard work.

Could you expand on Alexandre Desplat's role?

We didn't have a composer and we were sort of running out of time. I knew Alexandre [the duo have also worked on “Argo,” “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Unbroken” together] and I asked him if he would look at it even though he said he didn't have time. Magically, space opened up in his schedule and he wrote the whole score in three weeks. I watched him go to the piano and saw him play a theme he wrote in his head 30 seconds before!

It didn't really affect how I cut but we were always hoping that the music would reflect the mathematics of the movie and would reflect the sound of Christopher. In many ways, he's the “other central character” in the film and everything Alan is doing is to make Christopher proud of him. Benedict [Cumberbatch] said he was hoping that Christopher was proud of him and Alexandre was able to reflect that in the music to have the feel of the machine. It's hard to explain something that feels like magic but he managed to do something that was incredibly beautiful. The music is also so elegant and fits the time period and makes you really feel like you're there.

Does anything stick out as a particular challenge?

The movie is a serious story with a lot of humor to it. We experienced the same thing on “Argo” and it really helped me in the cutting of “The Imitation Game,” to make sure the comedy was organic to the film and organic to the characters. We had things in the film that were really funny and we took out because it seemed a fumbly moment that was going to get a laugh but was beneath the level of our film.

Was there anything here that you hadn't done before in your career?

It was the first time I cut a movie about a gay mathematician who was persecuted by the British government! Every film is sort of a unique challenge though you learn not to panic after a while.

Changing the topic a little bit, how did you get into film editing?

I'm from Philadelphia originally and my father was very intent on me being a doctor. I went to Temple University intent on doing that but luckily for me, I bailed after a semester. I came under the tutelage of this professor who encouraged me to edit and I liked it. I came out to Hollywood and I ended up working for Michael Kahn, Steven Spielberg's editor. He was my “graduate school” and he said, “You don't know you're talented but I know you're talented.” I get chills thinking about it. He taught me everything, including being a good psychologist for your director because you're there to help make them feel good about what they're doing. And when I went out on my own, he'd say, “Hire Billy and if it doesn't work out, I'll cut your movie for free.” I had cut one movie before working for him and it wasn't very good. I jumped at the chance to work for him because I took the time to really learn it from someone like that. That was the single smartest thing I'd ever done in my life, to work with him.

I take it you like your job?

I have the greatest job in the world. I get to sit in a room by myself and tell these stories and I don't ever take it for granted because it's a lucky spot I'm in. All the time I hear about people who hate their jobs and I love my job!

What was it like to win an Oscar?

It was fantastic. It was surreal. The luck starts to roll your way and it goes all the way to the end, with the film and the screenwriter [the other Oscars “Argo” won]. I think about it sometimes and it still seems like it really didn't happen. The highlight moment was after I won, I went back to my seat and I stopped at the TV monitor and George Clooney had just presented an award. I was standing beside George Clooney, who had produced “Argo,” watching Barbra Streisand sing. I said, “This is the most surreal moment I've ever had in my life.” And he said, “Yeah, probably.”

When you look back on “The Imitation Game,” what do you think you'll think of the most?

Hopefully people will learn about Alan and what he did for the world and what a tragic end he had. But it's really the people who you work with. I was so proud for [producers] Nora [Grossman] and Ido [Ostrowsky] as this was their first movie, and [screenwriter] Graham Moore. We're going to try to do something together. I won't forget these friendships.

The Las Vegas Film Critics Society is the latest regional critics group to unveil award winners for 2014. It was “Birdman” that came away the biggest hit with seven awards, including Best Picture. And for the second time today, a critics group has totally shut Richard Linklater's “Boyhood” out. I'm beginning to wonder if that's a reaction to widespread acclaim, but maybe not; after all, it's #2 on the Las Vegas critics' top 10 list. Just an interesting note.

Check out the full list of winners below and, you know, The Circuit.

Best Picture
“Birdman”

Best Director
Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman”

Best Actor
Michael Keaton, “Birdman”

Best Actress
Reese Witherspoon, “Wild”

Best Supporting Actor
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

Best Supporting Actress
Tilda Swinton. “Snowpiercer”

Best Screenplay
“Birdman”

Best Art Direction
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”

Best Cinematography
“Birdman”

Best Costume Design
“Guardians of the Galaxy”

Best Editing
“Edge of Tomorrow”

Best Score
“Birdman”

Best Song
“I Love You All” from “Frank”

Best Animated Film
“The LEGO Movie”

Best Foreign Film
“Ida”

Best Documentary
“CITIZENFOUR”

Best Action Film
“Guardians of the Galaxy”

Best Comedy
“Top Five”

Best Horror/Sci-Fi Film
“The Babadook”

Best Family Film
“The LEGO Movie”

Best Ensemble
“Birdman”

Breakout Filmmaker of the Year
Damien Chazelle, “Whiplash”

Youth in Film
Jaaeden Lieberher, “St. Vincent”

William Holden Lifetime Achievement Award
Bill Murray

Top 10
1. “Birdman”
2. “Boyhood”
3. “Whiplash”
4. “Nightcrawler”
5. “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
6. “Wild”
7. “Selma”
8. “The Imitation Game”
9. “Snowpiercer”
10. “Under the Skin”

A top 10 list is a such a subjective quandary. It should speak to the consensus of cinematic quality to a degree, but it also needs to reflect the films that moved you personally. A great piece of cinema can entertain and it can inform, but as art you need to feel something from it. It needs to haunt you. It needs to stick with you. Therefore, in theory, the list should be the films that immediately come to mind when you ponder the last 12 months. As a critic, it's a reflection of your taste at the time. There is no justification; it's an opinion. Simple as that.

Keeping that in mind, 2014 was a very good year at the movies, just not a great one. There were some incredibly strong films and performances, but was there truly a masterpiece among them? (And, yes, feel free to question if that's how we should judge cinema). The adoration for Richard Linklater's “Boyhood” is across the board (It's even President Obama's favorite movie of the year). And yet, there are some of us who respect it more as a filmmaking accomplishment than for the actual story on screen. Alejandro González Iñárritu's “Birdman” earned a high ranking on my top 10 list. Is it a “masterpiece?” Not in the same vein as my top films over the past five years or so.

Of course, it should be noted there was one film that hit theaters this year which absolutely qualifies for that moniker, Jonathan Glazer's “Under the Skin.” However, that picture made my list last year. My mantra is if I see it projected at a public event it qualifies in that calendar year. So, yes, there are two Cannes titles in the top 10 that may still be off your radar that haven't even hit the art house circuit yet.

Overall, the past year's films seem to have succeeded with an emphasis on characters and divisive conflict. The scope might have been slightly be smaller, the adventure less grand and the romance subdued. Laughs, on the other hand, were abundant. Considering all the great talent we lost far too early this year, many of those movies provided an unintentional and thankful reprieve from the sadness in the news or social media. But, oh, those characters! M. Gustave from “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” Amazing Amy from “Gone Girl,” Bigfoot Bjornsen from “Inherent Vice,” Mason from “Snowpierce,” Louis Bloom from “Nightcrawler,” the wonderful Groot from “Guardians of the Galazy” and even Jazzy Dee from “Top Five.” You just can't forget them. They simply punctuate the year.

This pundit won't be sad to see 2014 pass, but these movies made it a slightly easier pill to swallow.

Numbers 20 through 11 in alphabetical order:

“A Most Wanted Man”
A smart and entertaining thriller with a haunting performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman. And that last scene! Simply classic.

“Beyond the Lights”
Gina Prince-Bythewood's romance turns every music industry rags-to-riches movie cliche on its head in the best possible way.

“Boyhood”
The film's impact feels a little projected, but as a film achievement? Bravo.

“Guardians of the Galaxy”
Probably the most fun Marvel movie since the first “Iron Man.” (Yep, that means it's even more entertaining than “The Avengers”).

“How to Train Your Dragon 2”
Not as breathtaking as its predecessor, but pretty damn close.

“Mommy”
Contains one of the most cinematic moments you'll see in a movie in years and a powerhouse performance by Anne Dorval that deserves more attention than it's getting.

“Nightcrawler”
Not sure I believe the film's rogue shooter scenario, but Jake Gyllenhaal's Louis Bloom is as authentic an LA character as anyone in “Inherent Vice.”

“Still Alice”
This wonderfully restrained drama isn't just about Julianne Moore's performance, it's a harrowing look at the repercussions of a family's nightmare.

“The Theory of Everything”
James Marsh's moving romance featuring a performance for the ages from Eddie Redmayne.

“Whiplash”
Hands down, the greatest opening night film in the history of the Sundance Film Festival.

As for my top 10 itself? We count them down in the embedded gallery below…

Agree? Disagree? Let it out commenters. You always do.

It seemed this year that if any artist was due for the retrospective treatment, it was “Unbroken” cinematographer Roger Deakins. While I of course did not address all of the 50-plus films he has shot throughout his illustrious career during a recent extended interview, I settled on a few in particular that I think represent a nice cross-section of his work. Each of them – “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” “Sid and Nancy,” “Barton Fink,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Kundun,” “The Man Who Wasn't There” and “The Village” – will get their own space in the next few days.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins knew director Michael Radford from their film school days. They cut their teeth together in 1983 on their theatrical narrative debut, “Another Time, Another Place,” which caused a stir at the Cannes Film Festival and led to Radford being presented the opportunity to tackle a dream project: an adaptation of George Orwell's pivotal 1948 novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Today, looking back, Deakins puts his work on the film on a very high pedestal.

“I wouldn”t honestly say anything I”ve done since is any better than 'Nineteen Eighty-Four,'” he says. High consideration for a guy responsible for some of our most indelible modern cinematic imagery. But when Deakins thinks back on the project, you quickly discover that there's a touch of nostalgia there, a longing for the days when cinematography had a touch of alchemy, when practical wizardry truly made a film set another world to behold.

“It was in a time before we had a lot of CG, so we did everything for real, in camera,” he says of the film's effects aesthetic. “I don't think there were any optical effects in that. We did all the playbacks in camera. We even did a wide shot of a big telescreen with, you know, the big playback on it. A little thing of walking through this deserted area with a couple of tower blocks. And we actually did a glass shot. We set the camera up and this artist painted, on a piece of glass, the frame of the telescreen, and then we projected the image on a piece of glass. It was so much fun, you know?”

He recalls around the same time a commercial Ridley Scott directed that was very “'Nineteen Eighty-Four-ish'” in its design, big screens littering the frame. But that was all done with blue screen and after effects. “He was surprised we did it all live,” Deakins says. “It was fun but it was also cheaper to do it live. And the actors always had something to relate to. The big scene where the guy is being hanged and it was being shown on the screen, everybody could relate to what was there. It was quite shocking to actually be there filming it.”

He misses that ingenuity, he admits. But he also recognizes the industry as an ever-changing beast. He famously made the jump to digital photography with Andrew Niccol's “In Time” in 2011, a moment akin to Bob Dylan going electric, and has said he doesn't like a lot of bells and whistles cluttering things. But “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” for all its old school, longed-for processes, certainly has a place in the progression of cinematic technology, too.

“It was the first time anybody had done bleach bypass on a European or American film,” Deakins says. “We did that on the print. That was a technique probably invented by Kazuo Miyagawa, who shot color stock film for one of his later films, and he called the process 'silver tint,' but it was probably something similar. He never told anybody what he did because he'd started life as a chemist, I think, and he had actually developed the process himself.”

Deakins did three films with Radford. They were good friends but fell out of touch eventually. It would be interesting, though, to see them come together on another project, since their work together bore such fruit in the early days. Come what may, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” remains a stand-out piece of work in Deakins' filmography, both aesthetically and thematically.

“The film and the book was very much about language,” he says. “If you take away language, do you take away people's ideas? Their thoughts? If they can't express themselves, maybe that reduces the kind of things they can think about. I thought it was very faithful to the book.”

Don't forget to read our “Unbroken”-centric interview with Deakins here.

Jonah Hill and James Franco are both part of Judd Apatow”s comedy crew, together taking lowbrow to new heights (depths?) over the last decade. But they”re also Academy Award nominees; Hill being a two-timer, earning props for “Moneyball” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and Franco earning a nod for his leading work in “127 Hours.” So why don”t they ever act like it when they”re together? Well, now they do, thanks to the cold-as-ice, non-fiction drama “True Story.”

Just in time to bring audiences down from their “Serial” high, Fox Searchlight has released the first trailer for theater director Rupert Goold's feature directorial debut, based on journalist Michael Finkel”s 2005 autobiographical tome “True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa.” Hill stars as Finkel, who fell from his job at the New York Times after fabricating stories while reporting from West Africa. Looking for new opportunities, Finkel found himself sucked into the life of Christian Longo (Franco), imprisoned for allegedly killing his wife and three children. As you'll see in the trailer, the reason they meet makes their individual stories even more bizarre.

“True Story” will debut at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival before hitting theaters on April 10, 2015. Look for our coverage out of the fest and watch the first trailer below.

The Utah Film Critics Association has spoken up with its list of superlatives this year and “Birdman” came out on top, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay honors. Jessica Chastain made for a nice change of pace in the supporting actress category, and guess what film was passed over entirely? “Boyhood.”

Check out the full list of winners below and follow along with the season at The Circuit.

Best Picture
“Birdman” (Runner-up: “The Imitation Game”)

Best Director
Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman” (Runner-up: Jonathan Glazer, “Under the Skin”)

Best Actor
Michael Keaton, “Birdman” (Runner-up: TIE – Benedict Cumberbath, “The Imitation Game” and Ralph Fiennes, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

Best Actress
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl” (Runner-up: Marion Cotillard, “Two Days, One Night”)

Best Supporting Actor
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash” (Runner-up: Edward Norton, “Birdman”)

Best Supporting Actress
Jessica Chastain, “A Most Violent Year” (Runner-up: Tilda Swinton, “Snowpiercer”)

Best Adapted Screenplay
(TIE) “Inherent Vice” and “Snowpiercer”

Best Original Screenplay
“Birdman” (Runner-up: “Nightcrawler”)

Best Cinematography
“Nightcrawler” (Runner-up: “Under the Skin”)

Best Animated Feature
“The LEGO Movie” (Runner-up: “The Boxtrolls”)

Best Non-English Feature
“We Are the Best!” (Runner-up: “Two Days, One Night”)

Best Documentary Feature
“CITIZENFOUR” (Runner-up: “The Overnighters”)

In politics, a Presidential endorsement can be the magic touch, imbuing a candidate with exposure and voter confidence. Does the same hold true in the Oscar race? The team behind “Boyhood” hopes so.

Speaking to People Magazine (via The Huffington Post), President Obama revealed that he fell hard for the Richard Linklater”s 12-years-in-the-making, coming-of-age film. And he was kind of a quote-whore about it. “'Boyhood was a great movie,” Obama told the magazine. “That, I think, was my favorite movie this year.” Is it too late to send out guild screeners emblazoned with that quote?

Obama is, traditionally, a softy when it comes to movies and television. When People put him on the spot with the same question in 2012, the President named “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Life of Pi” and “Argo” as his favorites. He has told the press that “Modern Family” and “Parks and Recreation” are family favorites. He thinks “The Wire” is one of the greatest shows ever made. In 2008, when he was running against John McCain for the Presidency, he told Katie Couric his favorite movie of all time was “The Godfather.” Someone show this man a John Waters movie immediately. (It should be noted that, in response to Couric”s same question, McCain chose Eliza Kazan's “Viva Zapata!,” a game-changing answer to anyone who saw the CBS interview before Election Day.)

When it came to 2014 in film, Michelle Obama was less forgiving. She told People that she was a big fan of “Gone Girl”… the novel. “The book is much better than the movie,” she tells the magazine. Diss.

While The First Lady”s personal favorites aren”t as widely reported as her husband”s, she is the Oscar history books, appearing via satellite to present “Argo” – the President loved that one! – with the 2013 Best Picture Oscar.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtLKn5Y1ulc]

How do Obama's picks rank in Presidential history? Harry Truman loved “My Darling Clementine”; Dwight Eisenhower was a Western buff who adored “High Noon”; John F. Kennedy was a Bond fan, especially “Dr. No”; Lyndon Johnson was a fan of “The Searchers”; Richard Nixon loved “Patton,” which reportedly inspired him to invade Cambodia during the Vietnam War; Jimmy Carter was the first to watch an X-rated movie in the White House (“Midnight Cowboy”); George H.W. Bush praised “The Longest Day”; Bill Clinton had a soft spot for “The Naked Gun”; And George W. Bush had a good cry over “Field of Dreams.”  After the movie theater was installed, Woodrow Wilson became the first person to screen a film inside the White House. The picture? “The Birth of a Nation.” Maybe not the wisest political choice, Mr. President.

With his “Boyhood” pick, Obama joins a major contingent of award season voters. Stay on top of every guild and critic group award over at The Circuit.

Kristen Wiig is taking the road less traveled, and after a bumpy start, it's starting to show signs of life. 

Most former “Saturday Night Live” standouts either head to Hollywood to make as many studio comedies as they can or try to fashion a comedy series on TV. Wiig exploded – and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay – in Paul Fieg's blockbuster “Bridesmaids,” but for the most part she's been exploring her range in indies such as “Girl Most Likely,” “Hateship Loveship” and “Welcome to Me.” Whether or not it's a deliberate strategy, it's paid off with Craig Johnson's “The Skeleton Twins.”

The dramedy reunited Wiig with her former “SNL” co-star Bill Hader as siblings who, after years of semi-estrangement, need each other more than ever. The duo earned raves for their performances, but neither has made a significant mark on the awards season this year. The good news is that “Skeleton Twins” was a solid art house hit for Roadside Attractions and is finally hitting Blu-ray, DVD and online download for those who missed it. 

Wiig's career also keeps percolating in unexpected ways. She returns to Park City in January with two highly anticipated films, “Nasty Baby” and “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.” She also has a role in Ridley Scott's “The Martian” and is currently working on a new screenplay with her “Bridesmaids” collaborator Annie Mumolo, which she's planning on directing. Yep, Wiig is stepping behind the camera, which is sort of exciting, isn't it?

Earlier this month Wiig took some time to talk about “Skeleton Twins,” “The Martian” and more, which you can enjoy in the Q&A below.

*****

HitFix: Hey Kristen. How are you doing this morning?

Kristen Wiig: Hi Gregory. I'm really good. How are you?

Good. Thank you. So, this is the week when they normally announce the new Sundance slate for the upcoming year, which is almost a year to the day to when you guys found out 'Skeleton Twins' was going to Sundance last year. What has this sort of journey been like for this movie?

Well, that's the fun of doing these kind of smaller movies is you really don't know what's going to happen with them and you just sort of have to find the right group of people that's going to believe in it and all have the same vision for the project. And we just got really lucky. Craig [Johnson], the director and Craig and Marcus, the writers, they just wrote a really good script and it's been really exciting to do something at such a low budget with no time and for people to like it. You never know what to expect.

Does that mean you were relieved about how well it did at the art house box office?

Yeah. I mean when you do a movie you do it because you like it and because you think it's going to be something special. And when you're shooting it you never have that perspective of It's going to be this or it's going to be that; it's never what you think it's going to be, whether people don't see it or people do see it. And this one we all had a really sort of bonding experience making the movie and like I said you kind of hope for the best. And I was just really excited that it did well.

What about your character Maggie spoke to you when you read the script?

The script as a whole was just really interesting and unpredictable and I love stories about flawed people that are trying to find their way because I think that's something everyone can relate to. And I liked that Milo's character was unfulfilled and depressed really because he didn't get what he thought he wanted out of life and my character is kind of the opposite where she was unfulfilled and depressed because she did get what she thought she wanted and then realized it wasn't what she wanted. I just think that's an interesting concept to have someone that has this life on paper where it's perfect but she's still not happy.

I know one of you guys was obviously on board first, but was it Bill or you?

Bill.

I know you've been asked this many times before but did you have any trepidation based on your “SNL” association about working together on this?

I wouldn't say trepidation, I would say it was a conversation that we had because the public perception of that whole thing we didn't want to affect the tone of the movie or how they were going to see the movie. But ultimately it is such a different thing and we just kind of thought, “Well, we're not going to let that stop us from doing this,” but it was definitely something that we talked about.

When I saw “The Skeleton Twins” way back at Sundance one of the things that shocked me was that Craig was able to pull off that musical number in the middle of the movie. Was it always in the script or added on set?

No, it was in the script but it's just a very short sort of action that [a song] played and Bill was trying to get me off the couch and to join him. We weren't really sure what it was going to be until we got there and then we just started playing music and Bill was kind of dancing around and we kind of figured out where we were going to be. We shot it just a couple of times.

So that moment when Luke [Wilson] comes in, was that sort of improved as well or was that in the script?

God, I don't remember. I think it was always in there. I mean it was definitely planned for him to come in. I don't know if it was specifically in the script but I love that part when he is sort of like nodding at Bill and then gives us our time, you know, eating something.

People do bring up that scene a lot and I think it's kind of a relief in the film and a release because there's a lot of heavy stuff around it that I don't think people were expecting. And it's hard to really portray the tone in like a trailer or poster or anything so I think a lot of people didn't really know what to expect. That scene I know is definitely a little bit of an exhale moment for people.

I want to take a few minutes to ask you about the movies you've been starring in recently because “Skeleton Twins” seems to be an example of just the different challenges you've taken with your career since you left “SNL” a couple of years ago. And, correct me if I'm wrong, it appears that you have no fear, you're willing to sort of do anything. Is that a fair assumption?

I think doing different projects and having no fear are two different things. You definitely have fear. I mean you have to if you're doing something that you've never done before. I mean maybe fear ain't the right word but whenever there's a sense of not knowing if you're going to be able to do a good job or do something, there's always going to be a little nervousness, maybe is a better word. But I'm always, every project I do, I'm a little scared. Because I think that's why we do what we do. I think if we're not a little bit nervous then we're just always in our comfort zone. I don't know. That doesn't seem fun to me.

But you are supposed to be in Ridley Scott's “The Martian,” correct or is that upcoming?

Yeah. Well, they're shooting it now but I finished my stuff already.

That's the most hard-core sci-fi film you've done to date.

Oh yeah. I was terrified.

I know they want to keep a lot of things secret but can you tell me anything about your role in it?

This is the first I've ever been asked about it and I'm not sure what can be said and not said. But I will say this, meeting him I was definitely in awe and nervous when I met him because he's one of the greats. I've been a fan of his my whole life so that first day on set was definitely a little nerve-racking for me.

Was this a role you went after or did they approach your reps about it?

I don't know. I mean I don't really know the details of it. I know that they called me to say that Ridley wanted to meet with me about this part. And then I met with him and found out that I got it. So I don't really know the ins and outs of what went on behind closed doors.

I also know you did the comedy “Masterminds,” which sound slightly crazy.

Yes it is. Zack Galifianakis plays David Ghantt, the guy who's story it is, and robbing an armored truck. And Jared Hess, who did “Napoleon Dynamite,” directed. I'm really excited about it. It's really an amazing cast, almost done, and I'm just really excited [for people to see it].

That's awesome. Do you have anything that you have upcoming besides that or are you shooting anything else now?

I have a movie coming out in April called “Welcome to Me” that I'm really excited about that Shira Piven directed. And I think it's coming out in April. It's about a woman who”s got bipolar disorder and she wins the lottery and she uses her money to buy airtime on a local TV show and has a talk show. It's kind of a loaded description but there's a lot going on.

Many people forget you're an Oscar-nominated screenwriter [for “Bridesmaids”]. Are you working on any new scripts?

Yeah. My writing partner and I, Annie Mumolo, we did “Birdesmaids” together, she and I are writing right now what I'm going to be directing next year. So that's what I'm focusing on right now.

Well, congratulations on that. That's exciting!

Thanks. I'm really excited. It's so fun to work with her again.

Are you nervous about directing for the first time? Or are you chomping at the bit to get out there and just do it?

I'm all of those things. I think it's going to be really challenging. I've wanted to do it for so long and the fact that I can do it with something that I've written I think is going to be helpful and fun and I don't know, I'm just really excited about it.

“The Skeleton Twins” is now available on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download.