So I decided to compile my own list of words that I wish would go away, because they’re annoying, abused, misused, or they just don’t make any sense to me. I want to stop making the expression in this picture because it causes wrinkles.

Here goes:

• Nom nom. Is this supposed to be an onomatopoeia? It doesn’t sound like any noise I’ve ever heard anyone make while eating something delicious. It sounds more like someone chewing with their mouth open.
• Interwebs. I think someone was being cute, came up with an alternative to Internet—a smush of Internet and World Wide Web?—and then that person’s friend said, “Hey, that’s cute! I’m going to use it, too!” A million people later, it’s not cute anymore.
• Lurve. In high school, all the “luv” in my yearbook made my teeth hurt, and now it’s the updated version of the lame-ass alternative people use when they can’t or don’t want to say “love.” Say the real word and mean it, or don’t say it at all. Who wants to be lurved?
• Shit ____say/s. First it was my dad, now it’s girls, black girls, white girls, San Franciscans, L.A. people, rich people, and now even Liz Lemon. Say it isn’t so, NBC. Enough with all the shit already!
• Can of whoop/whup ass. It’s not 1998 anymore.

• Grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. I was in a bookstore recently and saw this phrase as a blurb on 1 out of 2 books I picked up. Granted, I was in the mystery/thriller section so this phrase may not be as prevalent on, say, romance novels (unless the characters like a little rough action). But seeing it on so many books I read has made it completely useless to me, and I wish reviewers/blurb writers would let the phrase go.
• Totes (in place of “totally”). Do I have to say anything more?
• Anyhoo. This one confounds me. It’s not a shorter version of “anyhow,” and is spelled almost exactly the same. When you get to that last letter, is it so much easier to type an “o” instead of a “w”?
• Literally (when it’s not literal at all). Just today, I read that a recently Oscar-nominated actress said, “Literally, like, my brain snapped in two.” Really?

Of course, I’m not literally having conniptions over these words; this is done in ranty fun. Now it’s your turn. What words or phrases would you like to see exiled from our vernacular? Did I use any of them in this post?

Photo: Greg Gorman

But speaking of happy and new, Robert Crais‘s latest novel, Taken, drops tomorrow (Jan. 24, Putnam), and I have a Q&A with him today. The novel moved me so deeply, I almost can’t talk about it for fear of diluting the feeling. So I’ll just say a few words and force encourage you to experience it for yourself.

Taken has the usual action as Elvis Cole and Joe Pike go up against deadly human traffickers, but it’s also a story about love, friendship, compassion, and chasing your dreams. There’s a scene that defines how Joe feels about Elvis, expressed in the only way Joe knows how—wordlessly. It’s breathtaking for both its simplicity and depth of feeling, and one day, when someone compiles a list of iconic scenes in private eye novels that best exemplify the relationship between a detective and his partner, this moment must be on top. It makes you wish you had friends like them; it makes you wish you could be like them.

I’m thrilled to have Robert in the PCN house, answering questions about the different ways he’s been taken (stop snickering) and sharing his personal photos. Afterward, stick around for a little giveaway.

Pop Culture Nerd: What’s the best trip you’ve ever taken (physical or chemical)?

Robert Crais: Prowling through bear country on Admiralty Island, Alaska, and through the East Kootenay Rockies in Canada at 9000 feet before the snow melts. Dangerous, primitive, natural, beautiful. I enjoy physical outdoorsy things like mud runs, scuba diving, and the adventures I have doing research, but the isolation and purity of rugged wilderness areas like inner Admiralty and the East Kootenays call to my heart. If it’s easy to get there, I don’t want to go.

90 feet down in the Gulf of Mexico

With his team, doing the Camp Pendleton Mud Run

PCN: Where’s the weirdest place you’ve been taken for research?

RC: A whorehouse in Mississippi.

No whores here, just doing research with the ATF

PCN: Huh. I noticed you didn’t send over photos of that. Speaking of which, favorite picture you’ve taken?

RC: Sunrise breaking over Los Angeles while the city sleeps.

PCN: Biggest risk ever taken?

RC: Writing L.A. Requiem.

PCN: What do you most fear will be taken from you?

RC: My mental faculties.

PCN: Best advice ever taken?

RC: Write what you love.

PCN: Biggest misTaken assumption about you?

RC: What do people assume?

PCN: I’ll ask them. Last Q—what do you hope will be taken away from Taken?

RC: That people find it exciting, gripping, moving, and truthful.

Thank you, Robert, for answering my questions. Readers, it’s your turn to be Taken. For more info, go to his website or peruse his tour dates on Facebook.

But first, I have a little giveaway. I’m giving away five Elvis Cole Detective Agency business cards with a slogan that comes straight from the novel. I won’t ruin it by showing or saying what it is. If you win one and don’t like spoilers, make sure you read the book before I send it to you!

I printed these cards myself and they are in no way official, but they will be signed by Robert. To enter, leave a comment below answering his question of what you assume about him. Be creative—the more wrong the assumption, the better!

Winners will be chosen randomly via random.org. Giveaway is open to everyone, and will end this Sunday, Jan. 29, 5 p.m. PST.

Buy Taken from Amazon| From an indie bookstore

Raylan Givens, a U.S. Marshal whose no-nonsense way of upholding the law is viewed by his higher-ups as too reminiscent of the Old West, gets relocated from Miami, Florida, back to Harlan County, Kentucky, where the friends and enemies of his youth don’t exactly admire his current profession.

Although the dust jacket suggests a single plot involving our hero on the trail of redneck brothers Dickie and Coover Crowe when they decide to branch out from pot dealing into organ trafficking, the story actually covers multiple cases. There’s Raylan tracking down a college-poker-player-turned-bank-robber who skipped out on her arraignment, and reluctantly playing bodyguard to a sexy female spokeswoman for the coal industry as she faces down an angry crowd of Appalachian locals who suspect her of murdering one of their own. These stories play out as vignettes initially and connect as a whole by the end of the book, but the appeal for me was not so much the plot as Elmore Leonard’s mastery in putting it all together.

I was able to embrace this novel on two levels. First, as an appreciative reader of Leonard’s succinct and unique, character-tailored prose, and secondly as a fan of the current TV show based upon this character. Die-hard Leonard fans might remember Raylan from two of the author’s previous novels (Pronto, Riding the Rap) as well as a novella (“Fire In The Hole” from his collection When the Women Come Out to Dance). I was first introduced to this character via the FX series, Justified, but don’t judge me too harshly because Leonard’s name is what made me watch the show in the first place (season three premieres next Tuesday, Jan. 17, the same day the novel comes out).

Actor Timothy Olyphant’s portrayal of this righteous badass with a past is so on point with the author’s intention, it’s hard not to visualize the actor while devouring the prose. Justified fans who pick up this book will undoubtedly recognize Boyd Crowder (played by Walton Goggins) and Art Mullen (Nick Searcy), but may have a few head-scratching moments when encountering plotlines the show took creative license with during the first two seasons, and the difference in gender of one pivotal character. But hopefully, this won’t discourage watchers from becoming readers and enjoying the work of the man who created Raylan.

Buy Raylan now from Amazon| Buy from an indie bookstore

But I like to sample everything, and just like potato chips, I couldn’t stop at one episode. This thing sucked me in and next thing I knew, I was chatting up strangers at the supermarket and—gasp!—teenagers at the movie theater, saying, “Oh my gosh, slutty FauxAmanda needs to go away!” and “I can’t stand Tyler!” and “Can they please get rid of stupid Declan and annoying Charlotte?” I make my friends watch it, I’ve recommended it to my sister-in-law who’s on maternity leave, even Mr. PCN watches it with me.

If you haven’t tuned in yet, here’s the basic stuff you need to know. Emily VanCamp plays Emily Thorne, who arrives in the Hamptons and immediately takes up with Daniel, the handsome son of Victoria and Conrad Grayson, prominent figures in the social scene. Thing is, Emily is actually Amanda Clarke, who lived in the area as a little girl with her father, David, who was framed by the Graysons for a heinous crime and sent to prison, where he was killed. With the help of local rich boy Nolan, who knew her dad and remains loyal to him, Emily/Amanda is out to take down all the people responsible for ruining her life.

The word I hear most often about this show is that it’s addictive. All the nasty twists and turns, fabulous clothes, and bad people getting what they deserve add up to a satisfying hour every week that usually leaves me wanting more. The MVPs are undoubtedly VanCamp, nimbly switching between blond innocence and dark avenging angel, and the gorgeous Madeleine Stowe, who has mastered the art of smiling sweetly at people while her big soft brown eyes say she wants to stab them in the face. And Joshua Bowman, the British actor who maintains his American accent well as Daniel, has surprised me. I was prepared to hate his character but Bowman, with the help of the writers, has made Daniel quite likable, if a bit clueless about his friend Tyler.

**Spoilers if you haven’t seen the latest ep**

Ah, Tyler (Ashton Holmes). I don’t love to hate him, I don’t love anything about him, I just hate his ass. I detest his skeevy, two-faced, blackmailing ways and hope we won’t see him again anytime soon after he got hauled away by his brother. I am a bit disappointed he didn’t actually shoot somebody, though, before Jack and Daniel tackled him. There were a few characters around that dinner table I wouldn’t mind seeing eliminated—namely Declan (Connor Paolo), Charlotte (Christa B. Allen), and the useless party planner, Ashley (Ashley Madekwe). She should be killed just for entertaining the idea of Tyler as a boyfriend.

Oh well, I can’t have everything, but I would like to see the following happen as the show moves forward:

• Emily using some of her ninja training. When Nolan mentioned that she held back her inner ninja during the gun situation, I shouted at the TV, “Unleash it!” There are certainly plenty of people who deserve a good whupping, and I thought Victoria’s divorce lawyer, who was involved in the frame-up of David Clarke, was going to feel some pain from Emily after the way she looked at him when she recognized him.
• Ashley either contributing something valuable to the show or leaving the Hamptons. She showed a nasty side recently and I thought she was going to team up with Victoria against Emily, but she’s slipped back into uselessness, lurking in the background looking pretty and not doing much else. She did throw a snippy remark at Emily last night—”Empathy. You should try it sometime”—but it’s still not clear why she hangs around when Victoria treats her like a doormat and she can’t even pull off one stinkin’ event without some disaster happening. “Hey, come to the party I organized and you’ll get a gun pointed at your head! Or see yourself on video confessing your most embarrassing secrets to your shrink!” How does this girl keep her job?
• More people who were directly involved in the David Clarke situation destroyed. In the beginning, Emily took out a person a week, and while I’m glad the show expanded beyond that formula, we haven’t seen anyone taken down in a while.
• Tyler staying away permanently. The story is not about him. He’s just a distraction.
• Jack realizing that FauxAmanda is not the girl he fell in love with years ago. If love is a chemical reaction, and he didn’t feel it with FauxAmanda when he first met her, wouldn’t that clue him in that something’s not right?

What would you like to see happen? Are you sucked in by this show yet? If not, go here and get caught up now!

Photos: Top two—ABC/Colleen Hayes; bottom two—ABC/Carol Kaelson

That said, I thought I’d set a challenge for myself this month, since I know my habits and can set the bar as low as I’d like. I simply want to finish the January releases already in my TBR stack. Here’s what I’m looking at:

1. Lunatics by Dave Barry by Alan Zweibel
2. The Jaguar by T. Jefferson Parker
3. All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley
4. The Chalk Girl by Carol O’Connell
5. City of the Lost by Stephen Blackmoore
6. Start Shooting by Charlie Newton
7. The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
8. The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi
9. The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney

That looks like a reasonable list, don’t you think? Just nine books, two a week and three one week. Oh, wait, I have to squeeze in a couple of February titles for Shelf Awareness—Lisa Gardner’s Catch Me and Erin Kelly’s The Dark Rose—since reviews are due a month in advance. And there are some December titles I want to finish: Taylor Stevens’s The Innocent, Colin Cotterrill’s Slash and Burn, and DC Brod’s Getting Lucky. Plus, I received The Hunger Games for Christmas since my friend Lauren got fed up with my saying I still haven’t read it. AAACKK! I’m stressed out already! Whose idea was this??

Do you have reading goals this month/year? What’s at the top of your TBR stack?

Before Bosch can make much progress, he gets a fresh case involving a jumper at the famed Chateau Marmont. This one is full of “high jingo”—internal politics—since the body belongs to the son of Irvin Irving, the former deputy chief of police and current councilman who hates Bosch and has long tried to derail his career. Did George Irving commit suicide, or did someone with a grudge against Irving père murder him? Bosch juggles both cases, while also working in dates with an attractive psychologist and spending time with his fifteen-year-old daughter, Maddie, who now lives with him full-time after the events in Nine Dragons. The work leads him to horrific places, revealing things that will change him forever.

That’s one of the reasons I keep reading this series—Bosch changes, for better or worse. Some series authors hit the reset button as soon as one novel ends, with the next one showing no consequences from previous incidents. Connelly paints his detective more realistically. Bosch is dealing with advancing age, the cumulative effects of his years on the job, and being a single dad. This doesn’t mean he’s slathering on Ben-Gay or baking cookies with his kid. He’s just questioning whether he’s lost his edge to be a cop, if he should retire to be a full-time father. But how can he when there are still so many monsters to fight, so much more he must do to make the world a safer place for Maddie? It’s a dilemma that’s perfectly understandable, especially after what he encounters in this novel.

I had worried a teenager might cause unwelcome headaches in Bosch’s life, but Maddie is evolving into a young woman who’s sharp in thinking and shooting. Bosch has taught her how to use and respect guns, develop excellent observational skills, and she wants to follow in her father’s career footsteps. It’s a clever turn because if Harry does retire, it looks like there’s another relentless Bosch waiting in the wings.

Nerd verdict: Bosch not ready to Drop

Buy it now from Amazon| From an Indie Bookstore

Writer/director Alexander Payne has a thing for making films about people who aren’t readily likable, the type we laugh at, not with. Ruthlessly ambitious Tracy Flick from Election, pregnant junkie Ruth from Citizen Ruth, and depressed Miles and philandering Jack from Sideways aren’t the kind of company most of us would want to keep in real life. But while his latest protagonist from The Descendants—an adaptation of Kaui Hart Hemmings’s novel—is flawed in many ways, Matt King is someone audiences can root for. The fact that he’s portrayed by George Clooney has a lot to do with that, but not for the obvious reasons.

Matt is a lawyer living in Hawaii whose wife, Elizabeth, slips into a coma after incurring head trauma in a boating accident. He’s suddenly faced with raising his two daughters (Shailene Woodley and Amarie Miller), something he’s rather helpless about, having been the “back-up parent.” Worse, he finds out from his older girl, Alex, that his wife had been having an affair. He takes his kids and Alex’s doofus friend (Nick Krause) on a trip to track down Elizabeth’s lover. In the midst of all this, he also has to decide whether to sell to developers the acres of untouched land that have been in his family for generations, a deal that would make him and his cousins phenomenally rich but may not be best for the island.

Audiences have never seen Clooney like this—he’s an ineffective man. There is nothing slick or sly about him. Yes, he’s successful professionally but out of his depth in his personal life. He doesn’t know how to communicate with his daughters, he can’t seem to even get angry at his wife for cheating on him, he takes verbal abuse from his father-in-law (Robert Forster), who irrationally blames Matt for Elizabeth being in a coma (Matt wasn’t even there when the accident occurred), and when he does come face to face with her boyfriend, he doesn’t confront him in the way we’d expect, though the scene is much more affecting for it. Clooney internalizes Matt’s struggles, and there are times when I wanted him to explode, to express his anger and pain, but that would have been predictable and Clooney’s performance is anything but. Matt may suffer quietly, but he’s not a doormat, and in the end he shows that perhaps he has more backbone and dignity than anyone else.

The supporting cast is superb, even Matthew Lillard, aka Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo movies, as Elizabeth’s lover. His pivotal scene with Clooney shows more depth than I’ve ever seen in his previous work. Judy Greer also has a memorable scene when her character—don’t want to spoil who she plays—behaves in a completely surprising way.

The big discovery, though, is nineteen-year-old Woodley (The Secret Life of the American Teenager). When we first meet Alex, I thought she’d be the kind of sullen, disrespectful teenager I have no patience for. But as the movie progresses, Alex slowly becomes not only someone who takes her father’s side, but a substitute mother to her ten-year-old sister. Woodley’s performance, combined with her striking looks and husky voice, signals a major star in the making.

Payne said something in the post-screening Q&A that best sums up what he did with this movie. He quoted Billy Wilder: “Say 2+2, never say 4.” (Clooney interjected, “Some [American films] say 5.”) Descendants is as striking for what Payne chose to omit as for what he included. When he said he didn’t show certain things because the audience already knows what happened, he’s absolutely right. I so appreciated his decision because obviousness is a pet peeve of mine in narrative fiction. How often does a director trust viewers to use their imagination to fill in the blanks?

What Payne didn’t leave out was humor, making us chuckle even while the characters squirm in uncomfortable situations. He also used entirely pre-existing Hawaiian music for the soundtrack because he wanted to “give a gift to Hawaii.” In the process, he also created one for the rest of us.

Nerd verdict: Transcendent Descendants

Photos: Fox Searchlight Pictures

When I told a friend I was going to see a silent, black and white French film set in 1920s Hollywood during the transition between silent movies and talkies, she joked that she’d fallen asleep while I was describing it. Normally, I might have been snoozing right alongside her, but this was the most buoyant, unique, and charming film I’ve seen in a long time. If that’s not enough, it features a really cool Jack Russell terrier who should get an award for best supporting dog.

The film opens in 1927, with silent movie star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) at the height of his popularity. At one of his premieres, he literally bumps into one of his fans. They mug for the cameras and she ends up with her picture on the front page of Variety but remains a mystery woman. Turns out she’s an aspiring actress named Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) and the two meet again when she gets a bit part in his next movie. The chemistry between them is potent, but the friendship stays platonic as George remains faithful to his wife despite their unhappy marriage.

As the story moves forward into the next few years, George’s fame starts to wane when he resists the advent of talkies, while Peppy becomes a sensation by embracing the new technology. But she never forgets the man who gave her valuable advice at the beginning of her career, watching over him even when he thinks he’s lost everything, and eventually helping him find his way back to what he loves most.

Now comes the part when I unleash a bunch of glowing adjectives to convince you to see the movie. Writer/director Hazanavicius has created a lovely valentine to the cinema, showing the heart and sometimes heartbreak behind the magic we see on screen. His cast is led by the exuberant Dujardin as Valentin—he deservedly won the best actor award at Cannes this year—and the captivating Bejo as Peppy. They spark together, managing to convey first attraction and then something much deeper, all with minimal physical contact and no dialogue.

The supporting players include John Goodman, James Cromwell, and Penelope Ann Miller, but the standout has to be Uggie, the dog who plays Valentin’s loyal companion on screen and off. He’s a combination of Asta and Lassie, accomplishing feats both clever and heroic.

The period costumes by Mark Bridges are gorgeous (Bejo’s nightgown is glamorous enough to wear to an awards show), composer Ludovic Bource hits all the right notes with the score, which is even more important in conveying the tone in the absence of dialogue, and DP Guillaume Schiffman makes everything look stunning in black and white photography. Every aspect of this movie is a delight, and not only did I not fall asleep, I left the theater feeling revived and, well, peppy.

Nerd verdict: A delightful, creative Artist

Photos: The Weinstein Company

Note: If you’re interested in hearing the stars speak about the movie, check out this video of the Q&A they did after the L.A. Times Envelope screening I attended. Bejo spoke fluent English but Dujardin brought an interpreter. He also claimed he didn’t speak “American dog” well enough to communicate with Uggie during filming but helped things along by carrying sausage in his pockets.

Spencer as Minny (L.) and Davis as Aibileen

In case you’re a Help neophyte like me, the story takes place in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, and follows the travails of black women working as maids for rich white families. The central figures are stalwart Aibileen (Viola Davis) and sassy Minny (Octavia Spencer). Their lives change when Skeeter (Emma Stone), raised by a maid and newly graduated from college with dreams of being a writer, asks to interview them and tell their stories in a book. Since it was illegal at the time to read or write anything that supported racial equality, the maids resist the idea. That is, until events push them into a corner and they can hold their tongue no more.

While the whole cast is superb, there are a few standouts. Davis anchors the movie with her portrayal of a woman much more dignified than her position in life, carrying a world of wisdom and pain in her eyes. Aibileen’s body may be tired but Davis makes it clear her spirit is still strong. Spencer has a breakout role in Minny, almost stealing every scene she’s in with her spunk and comic timing. Perhaps this isn’t surprising since she says the character is “very, very, very loosely based” on her. (See notes from the Q & A below.)

Chastain as Celia

Bryce Dallas Howard plays über mean girl Hilly convincingly because she commits to the character’s ignorance and sense of entitlement. It’s a tricky part she pulls off well. Cicely Tyson has only a couple scenes as Constantine, the maid who raised Skeeter, but she has enough time to make your throat clench up. And Jessica Chastain’s performance as Minny’s employer, Celia, is such a mesmerizing combination of vulnerability, compassion and sex appeal, it explains the actress’s hot streak of prestige films this year (she’s already been seen in The Tree of Life and has about five more projects in the can, including the next Terrence Malick.)

Screenwriter/director Tate Taylor, a friend of Stockett’s from before she wrote the novel, guides the movie with a sure hand. He allows the actors to shine and doesn’t exploit the maids’ suffering. We never see Leroy, Minny’s abusive husband, but we briefly hear the sounds of his violence and can fill in the rest. There are a couple scenes, both involving Allison Janney’s Charlotte, that felt a little synthetic emotionally, but overall Taylor has crafted a truly moving film.

Nerd verdict: Get yourself some Help

After the screening, Davis, Stone, Howard, Janney, Spencer and Chastain (plus a surprise guest) participated in a lively and, at times, poignant Q & A moderated by film critic Pete Hammond. Davis and Spencer were introduced to standing ovations from the audience.

Some highlights of the discussion:

• Davis, who’s from South Carolina, said, “I had a lot of trepidation as a black actress playing a maid.” But she wanted to get involved because “you don’t get many good roles as an actress of color” and it was either “go on a journey” with Aibileen or “have four scenes as a facilitator” in another project. She also didn’t want to be in the audience watching The Help and thinking, “Damn, I want to be in that!”
• About Aibileen, Davis said, “She had no choice. I don’t think she wanted to change the world…she’s not that brave. But she found a purpose as they went along.” When Hammond asked the actress where she thought her character went beyond the story in the novel, Davis said she imagined that Aibileen became a freedom fighter like Fannie Lou Hamer. Spencer interjected, “She opened a restaurant with Minny.”
• In talking about her experience on this movie, Stone said, “It’s incomparable to anything I’d ever been part of before…My mom was a huge fan of the book. Oh boy, she loved the book.” Hammond asked, “So you had no choice—you had to do it?” “I had no choice at all,” Stone replied. “I don’t know if it was the public school [system] in Arizona but my knowledge of the civil rights era was Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. That’s it. The greatest gift was learning about everything and the bonding and friendships between [us]. Except Bryce. She was alienated,” she joked.
• As Howard started talking about her audition for Taylor, Hammond pointed out that the director was in the audience and had him stand up. Then, startlingly, Hammond said that Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, was also in the theater. She stood and waved to a crowd already on its feet to give her a standing ovation. It was an incredibly powerful moment that gave me goosebumps. Her thought on the movie, which touched upon the assassination of her first husband? “I loved it,” she said.
• 

  Howard as Hilly

  Back to Howard, who said she hadn’t read the book when she tried out for the movie. “I was wildly enthusiastic [after I got the part] but then I had a panic attack. I had a Cruella De Vil version in my head but didn’t understand [Hilly's] psychology at all. I totally judged her.” Eventually, she built a backstory for Hilly, about how people fed her false information that she believed. “She really thought she was doing the right thing. She was ignorant.”

• Janney said she related to Charlotte “because she was afraid of change and sometimes I’m afraid of change…I loved the journey I got to go on, giving Skeeter back her mother.” She said the production had “the best dialect coach. The people down in Greenwood [Mississippi, where part of the movie was shot,] let us come into their homes and just listen to them.”
• Spencer said that Minny is “very, very, very loosely based on certain aspects of my personality. I met Tate sixteen years ago when we were doing A Time to Kill. I was 100 pounds heavier, we were in New Orleans, and Tate, for whatever reason, wanted to take a walking tour.” It was hot, the two were bickering, and “that is when I met Kathryn. Aibileen was regal so Minny had to be short, fat and on fire.” Hammond asked if she went after the role. “The studio was like, ‘[Should we go with] Jennifer Hudson, or this person you don’t know?’” At this point, Spencer put on a fierce stare, as if she was giving a studio exec the evil eye. “It’s the person you don’t know.”
• Spencer added, “We forgot to say thank you to the Myrlies and Martin Luther Kings. This was a way to say thank you.”
• Chastain said, “I really, really fought for [Celia]. I auditioned and read with Octavia. I knew our combination wouldn’t be the same as any other combination…I became obsessed. I had to play this role.” She went on to praise Taylor’s vision and how he became a cheerleader for her. “Somehow he could see me gaining weight, the boobs, the voice,” said the actress, who, with her petite frame and strawberry blond hair, looked drastically different from the busty platinum bombshell she played.
• Chastain also told a story about meeting a woman at a party shortly before production began, when she hadn’t quite found her character’s voice yet. The woman sat down next to Chastain and “started talking to me in this voice that sounded like Celia. Then she said, ‘I’m Kitty’s [Stockett's] mom.’ Octavia and I took her to lunch and I recorded her. She was an extra in the movie” and at one point stood next to Chastain and announced, “I inspired this figure.”
• The cast said they had two weeks of rehearsal, more than they’re usually afforded on movie productions. “Tate really fought for it,” Howard said. “We rehearsed in the houses we were shooting in. They became our houses.”
• 

  Tyson with Lila Rogers as young Skeeter

  Davis said Cicely Tyson’s legendary performance in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was what made her pursue acting. She “grew up in abject poverty” and was incredibly inspired when she saw “an expert craftsman…who looked like me.” In watching The Help, “To look up on the screen…” Her voice broke off, choked with emotion. “It’s like my life had come full circle,” Davis finally said.