Adam Driver likes what he sees as he gets plump for Venice film
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[September 01, 2022]
By Crispian Balmer
VENICE (Reuters) - U.S. actor Adam Driver
piles on the years in his latest film, "White Noise", which premiered in
Venice on Wednesday, but said he liked what he saw as his hairline
receded and waistline bulged.
A former Marine who has appeared muscle-bound in previous films, Driver
was asked if he had been "freaked out" by having to become a middle-aged
dad with a paunch in the new Netflix movie directed by Noah Baumbach.
"I am very satisfied where things are going. It was a window into the
future and I am ready," the 38-year-old star told reporters, adding that
his body double had not been called on.
"I put on weight. As a back up, we had a back-up stomach, and then we
didn't need the back-up stomach. It was just my weight," he said.
Driver portrays a Hitler studies professor who has to face an "airborne
toxic event" with his inquisitive children and wife, played by Greta
Gerwig, who is suffering from a mysterious ailment that brings its own
set of trauma.
"The movie is about life and death and how essentially we have to
acknowledge they are the same and exist together rather than be two
different things," said Baumbach, who last worked with Driver in the
2019 picture "Marriage Story".
"White Noise" is an adaptation of a satiric 1985 novel by Don DeLillo,
but the film still resonates in a world grappling with the lessons of
the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The 79th Venice Film Festival - Photo
call for the film "White Noise" in competition - Venice, Italy,
August 31, 2022 - Cast member Adam Driver poses. REUTERS/Guglielmo
Mangiapane
"I was re-reading (the book) by
chance to coincide with the pandemic. I couldn't believe how
relevant it felt and how it felt so much like the moment," said
Baumbach.
The movie projects a sometimes surreal version of small-town, 1980s
America, with exaggerated colours, dancing in the supermarket
aisles, atheist German nuns and university classes that view Adolf
Hitler and Elvis through the same warped lens.
"DeLillo's novel is a satire of academia as well as pop culture,"
said Baumbach.
"White Noise", which also stars Don Cheadle and Jodie Turner-Smith,
is one of four Netflix films premiering at the 2022 Venice Film
Festival, highlighting the growing ambitions of the U.S. streaming
giant.
The highly anticipated "Blonde", starring Cuban actress Ana de Armas
in a take on Marilyn Monroe's tragic life, opens next week, while
Alejandro González Iñárritu's long-awaited film "Bardo" hits the
Lido on Thursday. French film "Athena" completes the Netflix lineup.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer, editing by Deepa Babington)
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