Shrink Press Conference

Keke Palmer and Saffron Burrows

Keke Palmer saves Theaterific Kevin Spacey in Shrink

Reviewed by Correspondant Ali Kahn

“In the World Capital of Narcissist’s” Henry Carter played flawlessly by Kevin Spacey is a psychiatrist who is in a state of denial and self medication but is certainly not grappling with his grief, he is actually trying to do anything to avoid it and it’s only through a public service case assigned to him a high school teenager Jemma played beautifully by the young singer/actress Keke Palmer that someone starts to penetrate through his “hazy” lifestyle. Psychiatrist on the big screen have been portrayed in multitudes and different point of views although this movie is able to distinguish itself because of the place (L.A) where he practices and is able to capture a niche at the unexpected resolution that is provided to Dr. Carter through a teenager is herself is seeking escapism through cinema ironically in a witty way by director Jonas Pate in La-La Land.

Kevin set the tone of the press conference with his opening remarks at the Parker Le Meridian Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He explains, “It’s very different in film than in theatre…. because you don’t ever really play the character, you play bits of the character…. I think unless you are playing this day after day after day…. their are times when you do a play when you are living in a character over a 2 hour period and you can feel like you got hit by a truck, there are some plays I thought I might feel that way, but then there are periods where you come down, usually during the curtain call…. but movies you rarely experience that, you really, at least I really experience that.”

To open up the usual boring character preparation questions in the press conference I asked both Keke Palmer (Jemma) and Saffron Burrows who plays Kate Amberson, a once famous actress in Hollywood seeking therapy, to describe their ideal film role. Fitting considering her background as both a singer and actress, Keke would like to play the Aliyah in biopic about the late the actress/singer. Saffron wants to play Maud Gonne, an English born Irish revolutionary feminist and actress best who had a turbulent relationship with W.B. Yeats and protested against Victoria in the late 19th century.

As a passionate film/theatre student myself, I couldn’t help but ask Spacey what advice he would offer to graduating theatre students. With fierce David Mamet-style fire in his eyes, he responded, “If you have trained that’s great, and at a place that was really about training not academic, and have learned about your instrument, your voice, my opinion, the best actors were the ones that came out of theatre, that is a fact if you go back to any period in time.”

Kevin’s has not abandoned his first love, theatre – after all, he is playing Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind at the Old Victoria Theatre in London, where he currently serves as the Artistic Director. As for me, for the remainder of the summer, I’m headed back to rehearsals The Domestic Crusaders and Leaves of Grass. See you all in the fall…. Until next time sofanites, I give Shrink 4 head nods out of possible five until I start feeling a strain.

SOFA this SUMMER

Even though it’s summer, SOFA has still been attending screenings and red carpet events. Stay tuned for summer movie reviews and red carpet interviews from SOFA correspondants!