Sunday, January 15, 2012

Out Spotlight

Today’s Out Spotlight is an American actor and producer. He has been nominated for and Academy Award, received four Golden Globe nominations, an Emmy Award nomination, and a Tony Award nomination for his acting. He has received Emmy award and theater awards as an actor and as a theater producer he has won a Tony Award as a lead producer of the Broadway musical Spring Awakening. Today’s Out Spotlight is Tom Hulce.

Thomas Edward Hulce was born in Detroit, Michigan on December 6, 1953, the youngest of four children, to Joanna and Raymond Hulce. He was brought up and raised in Plymouth, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit where his father worked for the Ford Motor Company. Although he originally wanted to be a singer as a child, he switched to acting after his voice changed as a teenager. He left home at the age of 15 to attended the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Hulce made his acting debut in 1975, playing opposite Anthony Perkins in Equus on Broadway. Throughout the rest of the 1970s and the early 1980s, he worked primarily as a theater actor, taking occasional parts in movies. His first film role was in the James Dean-influenced film September 30, 1955 in 1977. His next movie role, one that is one of his best known, was as good guy freshman rush Lawrence "Pinto" Kroger in National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978.

In the early 1980s, he was chosen over intense competition (which included David Bowie and Mikhail Baryshnikov) to play the role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in director Milos Forman's film version of Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus. In 1985, he was nominated for his first Best Actor Golden Globe award and received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance for portrayal of Mozart, losing to his co-star, F. Murray Abraham in the Oscar race. In 1989, he received his second Best Actor Golden Globe Award nomination for a critically acclaimed performance as a developmentally challenge garbage collector in the 1988 movie Dominick and Eugene. He went on to play supporting roles in such movies as Parenthood, Fearless and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

In 1990, he was nominated for his first Emmy Award for his performance as the 1960s civil rights activist Michael Schwerner in the 1990 TV-movie Murder in Mississippi. He went on to star as Joseph Stalin's projectionist in Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky's 1991 film The Inner Circle. In 1996, he won an Emmy Award for his role as a gay pediatrician in a television-movie version of the Wendy Wasserstein play The Heidi Chronicles, starring Jamie Lee Curtis. That same year he provided both the speaking and singing voice of the protagonist Quasimodo in the Disney animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Although he largely retired from acting in the mid-1990s to focus on producing, he has had small parts in recent movies including Jumper and Stranger Than Fiction.

Hulce remained active in theater throughout his entire acting career. In addition to Equus, he also appeared in Broadway productions of A Memory of Two Mondays and A Few Good Men, for which he was a Tony Award nominee in 1990 and received Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor the role of Lt. Daniel Kaffee. Hulce received Aaron Sorkin’s screen adaptation and suggested to his agent who also represented Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer that they might be better for the role. Cruise went on to play the part on screen. In the mid-1980s, he appeared in two different productions of playwright Larry Kramer's early AIDS-era drama The Normal Heart. In 1992, he starred in a Shakespeare Theatre Company production of Hamlet. His regional theatre credits include Eastern Standard at the Seattle Repertory Theatre.

Hulce went on to become an acclaimed theater producer, including bringing two major projects to fruition: the six-hour, two-evening stage adaptation of John Irving's The Cider House Rules, and Talking Heads, a festival of Alan Bennett's plays which won six Obie Awards, a Drama Desk Award, a special Outer Critics Circle Award, and a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. He also headed 10 Million Miles, a musical project by Keith Bunin and Grammy Award-nominated singer-songwriter Patty Griffin, that premiered in Spring 2007 at the Atlantic Theater Company.

He was a lead producer of the Broadway hit Spring Awakening, which won eight Tony Awards in 2007, including one for Best Musical and also won four Drama Desk Awards, while its London production won four Olivier Awards. The musical has had worldwide success and continues to be brought to the stage around the globe. Warner Bros. has announced consideration of making a movie adaptation of McG (Whose production company purchased the rights to adapt the musical) is rumored as being attached to direct.

He was also a lead producer of a stage adaptation of the Green Day album American Idiot. The musical had its world premiere in Berkeley, California, at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2009 and opened on Broadway in April 2010. American Idiot won two 2010 Tony Awards: Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Christine Jones, and Best Lighting Design of a Musical for Kevin Adams. It also received a nomination for Hulce for Best Musical. Due to the success of the Broadway show, a film adaptation had been in the talks in April of 2011, the American Idiot film was confirmed. Michael Mayer, director of the Broadway musical, will be directing the film. It will be produced by Green Day, Pat Magnarella (Green Day's manager), Playtone (Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman) and Hulce.

This will not be his first film producing credit, in 2004 he brought, A Home at the End of the World, based upon Michael Cunningham's novel of the same name, starring Colin Farrell to the screen.

For many years, Hulce was the subject of unsubstantiated and unsourced rumors that he had married an Italian artist named Cecilia Ermini, with whom he had a daughter. Although this was repeated as fact on many websites, including imdb.com, he himself debunked the rumor as completely false in a 2008 interview with The Seattle Gay News.

Andrews-Katz: In 1996, you married the Italian artist Cecilia Ermini and your daughter Anya was born in 1997. How do you respond to the many lists that place you among openly Gay actors?

Hulce: That information - having a wife and child - is false. In the world of the internet, there are many falsehoods. Anyone can write stuff on Wikipedia and it doesn't have to be true. I'm comfortable being among the lists although I stopped acting about 10 years ago. The exceptions are a brief moment in Stranger than Fiction or (what was left of my work) in Jumpers. If I found the work intriguing, I would do it again.

While on a trip up to Vancouver Island Hulce fell for the Seattle Washington area, it is there where he makes his primary home.

44 comments:

Cute said...

Tom is very cute. :)

Methodical Muser said...

"It's all right here in my noodle. The rest is just scribbling. Scribbling and bibbling, bibbling and scribbling." Amadeus

Love Tom Hulce. Great fine, Special. I had my suspicions for many years, particularly after Hulce dropped out of working, in a lead role capacity, in films. Very talented guy. He was great as Mozart and certainly deserved the Academy Award along with F. Murray Abraham, who was also terrific.

Methodical Muser said...

If you go back to the original post on One Adorable Blind Vice from March 10, 2005, Ted referred to the extended hands flat on the marble table (i.e. 5 digits), which was a clue about Austin Nichols.

The clue to Austin in the original 2005 One Adorable Blind Vice was: It was late in the afternoon; everybody had cleared out. Save Tile and his man-amigo, who extended his hands flat on the marble table (yes, that's a hint) until they were intertwined with Tile's.

When you extend your hand, you see five digits/fingers.

Five=Nickel

Ted indicated that two hands were extended flat on the marbled table, which means he was talking not about one nickel, but about two:

NICKLES-NICHOLS

I also think that Ted got a kick out of the idea that a word spelled differently, but is pronounced the same and has a different meaning is a HOMOPHONE.

prairiegirl said...

I just think that is incredibly clever, M&M. I NEVER could have, would have come up with that. Never.

Double nickels. Nichols.

You guys, we are so lucky. You don't know how blessed we are to have Special and to have had M&M stumble upon us. These 2 ladies are such walking Jaustin encyclopedias and I'm constantly blown away by what they remember, what they analyze, and what they see that I just can't see.

I wish everyone else had the desire and yearning to learn about these two guys and can for themselves share and experience it. If you did, you would see. You would. You would feel it.

Jake and Austin are together. They're married. And they have a family. This confidence can't come from just Special's posts and what we are given by the media. Too much is out there which you have to go research and seek out.

Anyway, enough of that.

Who in the heck is this guy sitting next to Kelly Osborne?! Whaaaaaa...he's a High Talker!!! Are you kidding me?

prairiegirl said...

This confidence can't come from just Special's posts

lol. Now Special, you know I'm not dissing your posts. LOLLLL!!! I can just hear you. They're a huge part of it but it still takes a lot more. You know what I mean. lol

Who is that guy?!!!! He's a High Talker.

Can't wait to see Jake in his tux!!!!!!!!

Special K said...

Jake in a tux is definitely a sight to behold.

I think one reason Adam Levine is a part of the broadcast tonight is that he is on one of NBC's highest rated shows (The Voice) and they are the network host for the Golden Globes.

Saw somewhere that Jake is introducing Michelle's movie.

Methodical Muser said...

Who in the heck is this guy sitting next to Kelly Osborne?! Whaaaaaa...he's a High Talker!!! Are you kidding me?

That's Ross Mathews. He's openly gay and use to be known as "Ross the Intern" on Jay Leno's show. He does fashion commentary for many of E's Awards' shows.

tweet said...

marcusjdl Marcus
@
@jfraseruk did you see Ryan's blushing and preening like a schoolgirl last year when Jake Gyllenhaal flirted with him haha
7 minutes ago

Clue to Austin said...

Thanks for that Methodical Muser. I always wondered what Ted was talking about when he said that the hands on the table were a hint. So this means that Austin was identified as the other half of the Adorable Blind Vice from the very beginning. Interesting.

prairiegirl said...

Okay, that's great....but gee whiz. My sister walked in the door and stared at the TV screen. LOL! I said, he's a High Talker! LOL.

Where in the heck is Jake? Sofia from Modern Family was beautiful - I loved her dress. Chris Colfer looked really good as did that guy with the Mohawk from Glee. He is a really good looking guy. Mark Sallinger, I think is his name.

Oh brother, there is Brangelina. lol, Angelina must have put the gavel to Brad and told him to get up close and personal with a bar of soap.

I wish more of the girls would wear navy dresses - they look really great. And there's Laura Dern!! Homer Hickham's teacher!!! Hope Jake gets to see her, that'd be great.

Special K said...

I just caught Tilda Swinton getting out of her car and for a split second I thought Bowie was bringing the Thin White Duke back.

prairiegirl said...

Okay, his name is Mark Salling and he sounds like a 15 yr old. 5 minute crush is over!

prairiegirl said...

LOLL! I did too, Special.

I have always liked Charlize's name. Her dress was a beautiful shade of blush. Just very elegant.

Finishing the Jake discussion thread said...

@marcusjdlMarcus

@jfraseruk did you see Ryan's blushing and preening like a schoolgirl last year when Jake Gyllenhaal flirted with him haha

24 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

replies ↓

@jfraserukJohn Fraser

@marcusjdl let's face it, wouldn't any gay man go weak at the knees if Jake was flirting with them? I'd be unable to talk

21 minutes ago

replies ↓

@jfraserukJohn Fraser

@ jfraseruk I would be a trembling mess on the floor it's true

20 minutes ago

prairiegirl said...

Madonna!!!!!!!!!

She's still Madonna. (I think she made Ryan nervous at first when she called him Playboy. LOLLLL!!)

I missed part of Michelle Williams' interview but she sounded very gracious. I liked how she said that she never loses part of her characters - a part of them always stays with her. I thought that was very admirable.

Oh brother. There's ol' Ice Maiden.

Special K said...

Looks like Jake skipped the red carpet and going to save it all for the show.

prairiegirl said...

Wow, Jodie Foster looks great. She does not age at all.

Bummer. No Jake. What is up with that?!!

REd Carpet said...

No Jake. What is up with that?!!

Nothing to promote? Do they have a release date for his next movie? Don't blame him skipping it... same questions being asked... eh... why bother if you don't need to?

prairiegirl said...

I'm just disappointed, that's all. I'm not blaming him for anything.

Isn't Christopher Plummer just still so debonair? Oh my gosh, he said his wife's beauty still "haunts him still".

WOW. How romantic. **SIGH**

And Ewan McGregor looked soooo handsome in the crowd.

Methodical Muser said...

Apparently, there's a release date for EoW for Sweden set at January 25, 2013, but no word yet about America.

Special K said...

Jake just introduced My Week with Marilyn and looking damn good in that trim cut tux.

Twitter said...

HousePartyFun House Party
@
@artfulgourmet Last time time I was in TriBeCa Justin Timberlake was in the restaurant where I was. THAT was cool #goldenglobes #hptvchat -J
10 minutes ago

artfulgourmet Kristen Hess
@
@HousePartyFun I saw Jake Gyllenhaal drive by in an SUV in TriBeCa about a month ago!
16 minutes ago

Twitter said...

Ally_Keck Allyson Keck
Oh Jake Gyllenhaal.Gylenhall? Gillynhaal. I didn't totally hate him until I tried to spell his name. Fuck that guy.
1 hour ago

EtrudeauT Elodie Trudeau
JAKE GYLENHALL. I have no idea how to write his name but he's hot and my dad once had a beer next to him in a bar. #jetset
1 hour ago

Special K said...

Jake was wearing a double breasted Ferragamo tux tonight.

courtjustice Courtney Justice
Jake Gyllenhaal and Brad Pitt - both in @Ferragamo tonight at the #GoldenGlobes tonight! More on TheFashionCourt.com later!
6 minutes ago

golden globe tweets said...

@tessakrippaehne Tessa Krippaehne
Jake Gyllenhaal is Golden Globes perfection. Boys take note.. that's how you wear a tux.
50 minutes ago via DROID

@aholmes24 Alex Holmes
My roommate just "rawred" (complete with the hand motion) at Jake Gyllenhaal. Can't say I blame her! #beautiful #GoldenGlobes @leanna_barker
46 minutes ago via web

Derek Blasberg
@derekblasberg Derek Blasberg
I would like to know who did Jake Gyllenhaal's makeup at the Golden Globes. He looks airbrushed but in real life.
1 hour ago via web

@Bairdo87 Philip Baird
Jake gyllenhaal apparently only eats tacos. Or it's become really cool to tilt your head when you talk
1 hour ago via Twitter for Android

@RonnyBaroody Ronny Baroody
Jake Gyllenhaal pulls off a DB tux like no other. Well done!
1 hour ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

Gawker
Jake Gyllenhaal... I'd lick him. I really would. #goldenglobes
1 hour ago

@Jezebel Jezebel
Jake Gyllenhaal demands that you take him seriously. (In bed.) #goldenglobes
1 hour ago via TweetDeck

AUS10 said...

Even when they seem out of reach, never stop chasing your dreams. Run at them. Head First.
5 minutes ago

prairiegirl said...

Supporting you, Austy buddy.

Great words tweeted by Austin. Seems like he is saying to never give up.

Well, enjoyed seeing all of the stars tonight. I have no idea who won the games today so I have no idea who's in the Super Bowl.

All I care about the Super Bowl is if there is going to be a new Maxwell commercial!!!! I hope so!!!

1/2 day of work tomorrow so better hit the ol' hay. Sweet dreams to everyone!

destiny said...

Interesting Spotlight, I knew nothing about Hulce apart from his work in Amadeus and a few other things, and that he'd seemed to have disappeared, had no idea he was gay or that he's been producing.

Regarding the original TT item, interesting take on the digits M and M. There are a couple of other reasons why it's a clue.

One, the week before the TT item there was an item about Jake and a guy pal that was clearly the same sighting, sans the gay angle. The restaurant they were seen at had tables with marble tops.

Two, this was not long after his sister did the movie Secretary, and there's a scene in it in which she places her hands down flat on a desk top.

the real m said...

More football here today - we rooted for the Giants so that the game against the 49ers next week would be a home game. More exicting here if that happens.

I did not watch the Globes- no patience for awards shows, but I had the show on in the family room while we ate dinner. As I was clearing the dishes, my husband shouted out theres Jake so I saw played it back and was able to see his brief appearance. His bit could not have lasted even an entire minute, but he looked great.

Super detective work. Ted selects his words carefully, and we are lucky to have so many clever sleuths to decipher his clues. I would never in a million years made the connection on my own. But hearing it now it sounds so obvious.

Jason said...

I grinned when I saw that Sophia Bush RT Austin's tweet from last night after no achknowledgement of even his existence for months and months. She's manipulating her fans to the hilt, no doubt about it. And, that stunt of being photographed with Minka Kelly was ballsy as well as vindictive.

I've been around discussing the Toothy story since 2005 on various blogs, a real old timer, and I had never heard about the five digit angle. Very clever. Another clue that Austin Nichols was always The One. And, trolls are still arguing about Ted's October 18, 2007 Bumps in the Day? I remember that item being discussed way back when at the time of its appearance. All the blogs discussing it, including the original WFT talked about the BT angle and that Austin had probably flown into NY for the weekend then flew back to LA on the 15th. Recognizing that sightings like this one never appear in real time, but actually happen earlier.

And, Jake was certainly all business last night. I liked that he came out alone (no beautiful female starlet on his arm) and that he was completedly low-key. He looked handsome in that tux, but without his typical debonair flair. He was far too serious to be carefree and affable, but he certainly was gorgeous.

prairiegirl said...

Jason said...
I grinned when I saw that Sophia Bush RT Austin's tweet from last night after no achknowledgement of even his existence for months and months. She's manipulating her fans to the hilt, no doubt about it.


Sure she is. And what's irritating about it is that his tweet became hers when so many Little voices RT'd it off of her instead, in addition to generating several squees from fans who tweeted that they loved it when they tweeted at each other.

What? He didn't tweet that at her. She's become a barnacle. This is like Reese all over again.

prairiegirl said...

Happy Birthday (one day late) and Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day - a man who stands for Peace, Equality and Love for me. That's what I think of anyway when I think of him. And courage.

1/2 day work today. This afternoon, my sister & I will take Mom up to see her sister, my aunt. We'll see how she's doing. She's been handling the chemo/radiation pretty well thus far but Friday was supposed to be a 4 hr treatment. Yuck.

At least my Big Buddy will be there today. It's just not as much fun if he's not there - we have some good laughs.

54 degrees today, too. Wow. This is awesome.

Special K said...

Jason you hit the nail on the head about Sophia. She will do what ever she can to string this along a bit longer while at the same time pull stunts like she did with Minka. And people wonder why Austin didn't show up to the OTH events. Who would want to?

He is so done with this whole thing with her.

I think one reason Jake might have been all business last night was he was a little nervous. He has made some big changes in the last few months, it was his first event under WME, and coming off CAA's stunt with the Minka this past week.

prairiegirl said...

He has undergone several big changes. Jake's parting with his manager after so many years is similar to any of us parting ways with a company after having worked there for a long time, a little child parting with their daycare person, someone leaving their church after a long time, etc. It's scary, sure it is.

For him, it might have been like jumping into the middle of the roller skating rink without the bar to hold onto. I mean, I'm sure he already knew he was jumping to William Morris but still. It's an emotional attachment as well.

Huge changes for Jake. It's not easy. But he took the plunge and good for him. Change is hard, no matter what it is and who it involves.

twitter said...

DiazcommaErik
Erik Diaz
Today's supposed to be the day we celebrate our favorite supposedly gay actors, yes? No? Either way, Jake Gyllenhaal.
9 minutes ago

Methodical Muser said...

I agree about those other two clues, Destiny. Basically, Ted pretty much outed Jake as Toothy Tile five days before he even posted One Adorable Blind Vice, in a March 5, 2005 column. In that short blurb, he directly talked about Jake being at West Hollywood's Basix Café, (Boys Town) which has marble tables, along with mentioning that he lingered for over an hour with a guy-pal. At the time, Ted also called the two men, “sensitive hunks,” and talked about their smiling at one another, along with even perhaps some "misty-eyed exchanges of childhood stories.

The intimacy of that meal was unmistakably depicted, followed five days later with a similar description of two guys, hands intertwined, and sharing more than a meal in a WeHo cafe.

tweets falling on deaf ears said...

Busy P. tweets about other celebrity friends, but will never text about Jake or answer the simplestof questions about him (like this one below). What would be so hard about laughing off the question and just letting the woman know that I’m a married woman and mother and Jake is just a good friend? In fact, you would think she would want to dispel any controversial rumors. These are the kinds of things that make you think that Jake is definitely living a closeted life. Even though he seems to know, and is friends with half of Hollywood, his acquaintances/friends never acknowledge or talk about him i.e., Austin Nichols, Matt Frost, Busy Phillips, Sophia Bush, etc. Remember when Jake said on Jonathon Ross a few years back that he had no friends. That would be the kind of exaggerated, slightly bitter statement someone might say who has been living in the shadows. When someone is not out it’s often not what you see, but what you don’t see that is a dead giveaway. Extreme privacy is also another revealing sign.


carriebristolCarrie
@
@Busyphilipps25 holy fucking shit...are you dating jake Gyllenhaal?!?!? You lucky bitch!!! I'm so jealous!! I LOVE HIM!!!!
11 hours ago

carriebristolCarrie
@
@Busyphilipps25 k, I'm so confused and I have fallen behind on my jake Gyllenhaal news but I love him so much. I'd DIE to meet him!!!!
11 hours ago

carriebristolCarrie
@
@Busyphilipps25 I'd literally give my arm or my leg to meet jake Gyllenhaal. He is the sexiest man alive, that's ever lived...that ever will
11 hours ago

carriebristolCarrie
@
@Busyphilipps25 btw...I'm so sorry I bugged you but i just love him so damn much!!! #JakeGyllenhaal
11 hours ago
»

carriebristolCarrie
@
@Busyphilipps25 one more thing...tell him to make a twitter!!!!! #JakeGyllenhaal
11 hours ago
»

carriebristolCarrie
@
@Busyphilipps25 just tell him I love him & I'd die happy if I ever got 2meet him. Maybe he could call me! Or Skype!! lol. A girl can dream!
11 hours ago

destiny said...

I can understand why celebs don't answer twitters from obsessed fans about their personal life. It just seems really bad to go down that road. I also see nothing odd about celebs not necessarily talking about other celeb friends.

I Spy/Posted on WFT2 said...

Last night I posted about how out of almost 1900 comments I'd bet 1600 of them were about OMG and the people who post at OMG, and how UV, Bobbyanne, Jack, Prophecy Girl and probably some OTH fangirls are so obsessed about even the possibility of Jake and Austin being together.

I was polite, unlike the people who are free to bash OMG, Special, PG, etc.

So why was my comment deleted? Does the truth hurt Jackie?

prairiegirl said...

Two, this was not long after his sister did the movie Secretary, and there's a scene in it in which she places her hands down flat on a desk top.

This was a good point, too. I didn't think about that.

I can understand why celebs wouldn't want to tweet back at fans. Fans (and I include myself) can be pretty annoying with opinions and rants.

But on an issue where a fan asks if you are dating him and you don't answer? Then you look at today's post on Just Jared and once again, Jared Eng's post seems to mislead at first. Some of the comments said the people were caught off guard at first because of the nature of the picture and Jared Eng's title. They thought at first that Jake & Busy were an item.

I also see nothing odd about celebs not necessarily talking about other celeb friends.

Oh, I do. When Busy tagged along on the Mumford & Sons Railroad Tour, I found it extremely odd that she didn't tweet about it. She tweeted about being at a prior concert date but she didn't tweet about the Railroad Tour. Celebrities do it all the time. But for some reason, Jake seems to be totally off limits for Busy.

A lot of people need to wake up about how Busy and Birdie relate into Jake and his family life. It's staring us right in the face if eyes are truly open. And if not, well that's fine. But one of these days, I know I'm going to be one of the ones to say I told you so.

prairiegirl said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
prairiegirl said...

lol. Wow, let me edit that last comment. It went on forever, didn't it? LOL!

Last night I posted about how out of almost 1900 comments I'd bet 1600 of them were about OMG and the people who post at OMG, and how UV, Bobbyanne, Jack, Prophecy Girl and probably some OTH fangirls are so obsessed about even the possibility of Jake and Austin being together.

I was polite, unlike the people who are free to bash OMG, Special, PG, etc.

So why was my comment deleted?



Wow, I'm sure sorry about that, I Spy/Posted. What is going on there is totally confusing. I thought the two blogs were supposed to be allies, so to speak. Somewhere along the way, things have changed dramatically with the focus seeming to be on bashing this site.

It's a a travesty, really and I feel bad for the old regulars of WFT2. I'm not sure what is going on with the administration of the blog. At all.

I miss the old WFT2.

prairiegirl said...

I just noticed something. Why did Jared Eng leave out the picture which included Busy Phillips' husband?

What is with that guy? He's really becoming quite the tool.

:-) said...

I just noticed something. Why did Jared Eng leave out the picture which included Busy Phillips' husband?

What is with that guy? He's really becoming quite the tool.


Busy once tweeted to the PopSugar girls to leave Marc out of pap pics because he hated that. Maybe Jared read that tweet and honored Busy's request.