Tonight on BLOOMBERG TELEVISION’s “Night Talk” host Mike Schneider sits down with Hollywood Producer Donna Gigliotti about her films The Reader and Two Lovers starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Pheonix.
She talks about why no names were listed at the Oscar nominations for The Reader, “The Academy has a rule that only three producers can be nominated for an academy award, and as soon as they see more than three producers listed they automatically say ‘To Be Determined’ because they need to go and look at who did what in the production. There is the executive branch committee and they decide. It’s a hot button issue, believe me!”
And She talks about the politics behind the release date of The Reader, “In June Harvey Weinstein said to me ‘This is a very good year to put this film out into the market place because I don’t see any of the big, big gorillas coming into the marketplace at the end of the year’ and by that he means Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, the giants of our industry. He said ‘I don’t see them this year. So I think, if it turns out well, the film stands a chance of being nominated.’ I did my homework and I thought ‘he’s right about this.’”
“We do have an extraordinary circumstance in this film. Two of our producers died during the course of making the film, the great Anthony Minghella and the great Sydney Pollack.”
She also talks about Joaquin Pheonix’s retirement. “He says it. I think he means it in the moment. I think that James Gray definitely thinks he’ll get Joaquin to reconsider.
“Night Talk” airs in the U.S., Europe and Asia on Bloomberg TV at 10PM on weeknights and is simulcast on Bloomberg Radio at 10PM. Bloomberg Radio is broadcast on 1130AM in the New York Metropolitan area and is available on XM and Sirius. The Friday night Show re-airs over the weekend Sat at 8:00-9:00pm, 10:00-11:00pm and Mon 12:00am – 1:00am.
