USA: KEVIN SPACEY AND HELEN HUNT ATTEND THE PREMIERE OF NEW THEIR FILM "PAY IT FORWARD".

Record ID: 390291

  • Title: USA: KEVIN SPACEY AND HELEN HUNT ATTEND THE PREMIERE OF NEW THEIR FILM "PAY IT FORWARD".
  • Date: 7th October 2000
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 7) (REUTERS) MCU: (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) KEVIN SPACEY SAYING OF OSMENT, "We were rehearsing a scene and he was sort of furrowing his brow as he said a line and I could tell there was something wrong and I was looking across the table. Then he said another line and then he finally closed the script and we all looked at him and
  • Embargoed: 22nd October 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES, US AND FILM LOCATIONS
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA7CZJ8FRUS081GEQ2B08ZINV3W
  • Story Text: Two recent Oscar winners and one recent nominee came together for the World Premiere of their newest film "Pay It Forward." Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and 12-year-old "Sixth Sense" star Haley Joel Osment were the guests of honor.
    The film is based on Catherine Ryan Hyde's best-selling novel about a young boy whose unique social studies project actuallyup making big changes in the world. In fact, the cast and crew were at work on the film before the novel was even published.
    Haley Joel Osment stars as Trevor, a young student in Las Vegas who comes up with the idea for "Pay It Forward," a system whereby one person does something positive for three other people, and then they, in turn, must each do something good for three other people, and so on.
    The idea is hatched when Trevor's social studies teacher Eugene Simonet, played by Kevin Spacey, challenges his class to devise a plan for changing the world and put it in action.
    Ironically, Simonet himself is unable to give or receive kindness, as he is emotionally and physically scarred by childhood abuse.
    Trevor's first test of "paying it forward" comes with his own mother, Arlene McKinney, played by Helen Hunt.
    A single mother holding down two jobs while struggling to raise her son, McKinney is an alcoholic who moonlights as a cocktail waitress at a sleazy Vegas strip joint.
    Hunt, who won an Oscar playing opposite Jack Nicholson in "As Good As it Gets," plays the part of a boozy Vegas working class woman complete with gaudy hair, nails, makeup and trashy outfits, something most Hollywood actresses aren't used to doing. But Hunt says she had a lot of fun picking out the look of her character.
    Both Hunt and Spacey were overwhelmingly impressed with the talent and dedication of Osment, who turned 12 during production.
    He also received word of his Oscar nomination for "The Sixth Sense" while working on location in Las Vegas.
    The good news also reached Spacey on the set when he was nominated for his role in "American Beauty." He went on to win the Oscar, his second following his Supporting Actor victory for "The Usual Suspects" in 1995.
    "Pay It Forward" is the most intimate and character-driven film yet for director Mimi Leder, who previously helmed such big budget action fare as "The Peacemaker" with George Clooney and Nicole Kidman and "Deep Impact" with Morgan Freeman.
    It was this small scale and the story's emotional depth that drew her to the project.
    Also in the cast are "Frequency" star James Caviezel as a homeless man, Angie Dickinson as a homeless alcoholic woman, Jon Bon Jovi as a dead-beat father and "Jerry Maguire" co-star Jay Mohr as a reporter covering the "pay it forward"
    phenomenon.
    "Pay It Forward" opens in theaters throughout the United States on Friday, October 20.
    --ENDS--
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