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Aside from his serendipitous surname, Webb wasn't an obvious choice to reboot the franchise, but he proved to be an inspired one. Prior to directing "The Amazing Spider-Man," Marc Webb's only other claim to fame was helming the surprise indie hit "500 Days of Summer." That movie connected with its audience because he worked with the actors to make the characters' love affair feel fresh and real. For "Spider-Man," Webb managed to keep that same light touch with the actors while still making a CG-heavy action spectacular -- no mean feat.

I sat down with Webb the other day after doing a press junket with the cast of "Spider-Man."  We talked about how he managed the transition from indie to blockbuster, casting the movie, and creating a space for spontaneity on a massive production.


Jonathan Crow: Going from "500 Days of Summer," a small movie, to this must have been intimidating.  What was the difference between making these two movies?

Marc Webb: It was a different process, but the foundation of both movies is that this movie is based on character the same way that "500 Days of Summer" was.  Emotionally, there are a lot of similarities.  It was just finding the access to Peter Parker in that and the journey he was on. I'm a fan of action movies. I have studied them and thought about them.  I felt that if I expanded out from Parker, and really stayed loyal to that journey, then the rest of the film would sort itself out.

And that's how I went about it, taking it one day at a time. Prior to shooting, I would do a lot of pre-visualization, where I would sit in a room a group of pre-vis artists and design the sequences. It was just about defining a film language while giving room for spontaneity.

JC: So, the trick you found was balancing between the special effects, most of which aren't present on the set, and trying to get the performances that you want.


MW: Yeah.  I mean, it's really important.  I wanted to create a movie that has a more naturalistic feeling to the performances.  I wanted the actors to be spontaneous and try to do new and different things to create something a little a little more grounded, which is kind of crazy to say when you have a nine-foot lizard walking the streets of New York.

Fortunately, we have actors who were incredibly gifted. Martin and Andrew and Emma and Dennis, they're all really gifted improvisers and that was a wonderful gift.


JC: Tell me about casting Andrew and Emma —

MW: Sure, yeah.  When we started off, it was easy to think about the character in the abstract.  But ultimately, you have to sacrifice the abstract for the concrete, and that's a tricky moment.  And it was scary at times too. So we were looking and looking and looking and I couldn't really find anybody.  And then we screen-tested Andrew and it became clear very quickly that he had the ability  to embody not onlythe emotional gravitas of Peter Parker — there are a lot of tragic elements to that character — but also the humor and the wit and the lightness. That combined with somebody who can do the intense physical demands of that character while wrapped in the body of a teenager. Finding that combination was difficult, but he had that thing.

He's really quite gifted at the nonverbal kinds of acting. He can get underneath the surface of the lines and behave in a way that we understand, because he's always grappling with the subtext of the scene. And that makes him just damn good in acting. I just felt like he was the guy.

JC: And how about Emma Stone?  The chemistry they have on screen is remarkable.

MW: Well, their relationship is the most important part of the film and I think that that chemistry is incredibly important.  Emma is a superstar in the best sense of the word.

I remember they did a screen test, Emma and Andrew together -- this was before they knew each other. She's very fast and very smart and very funny and she really kept Andrew, who is also very smart, fast, and funny — on his toes.  There was just something about the way they interacted that that was wonderful. They come from very different schools of acting.  Emma had done "Zombieland" and stuff with Judd Apatow. She has a great comedic sensibility.  And Andrew has been in "Boy A" and "The Social Network" and "Red Riding" -- these very intense dramas.

But they both had this ability to be alive and spontaneous within a moment.  And I think he brought out more gravitas in her, especially later in the film, and she got him to be funnier and lighter.  It was really fantastic and wonderful to watch.


JC: How versed where in you in the whole mythology of Spider-Man before you got this whole thing?

MW: Well, I knew a lot about Spider-Man. I was a fan when I was a kid. I think what I most loved about that character was that he's not a billionaire — he's not an alien, he was just this kid. I think that's what makes him so powerful and so relatable.

JC: Are you planning on a sequel?

MW: I don't know.  I'm at the final phases of finishing the film.  I'm very pleased with the movie, and I'm excited to get it out into the world.  I just don't know. I'm going to take a vacation; that's the first thing I'm going to be doing.

News of the loss of writer-filmmaker Nora Ephron has fans and journalists alike recalling a famous line from "When Harry Met Sally" -- the 1989 romantic comedy for which Ephron wrote the script and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay.

The line is "I'll have what she's having." And it is uttered just after Meg Ryan (Sally) demonstrates the sounds of a fake orgasm to Billy Crystal (Harry) and proceeds to take a bite of her meal while the two dine at a New York delicatessen. (By the way, the line was delivered by director Rob Reiner's mother, Estelle.)

What commenters, tweeters and even some journalists aren't realizing -- NPR mistakenly attributed the aforementioned line to Ephron in their on-air obituary today -- is that Ephron didn't actually write that line.

As the famous fake orgasm scene was being shot, it was actually Billy Crystal who suggested the line. Reiner decided on the spot to make the quip the button of the scene, giving the line to his mother.

The film was a collaborative venture, the product of a collection of stories about the relationships of those involved with the film. The faux documentary vignettes sprinkled throughout "When Harry Met Sally" depicting older couples are real-life stories that Ephron amassed. (They were later recreated by actors.)

Ephron expertly gathered and distilled the stories into a script, but clearly, there was room for improvisation once filming started. Billy Crystal, for example, also improvised the line "Waiter, there is too much pepper in my Paprikash!" -- and Ryan's look off camera to Reiner, breaking character, was kept in the film.


As a demonstration of Ephron's generous spirit, she was happy to share the credit -- though the main idea behind the scene was most definitely hers. From the Washington Post:
Ms. Ephron said it was Ryan's idea to film the scene in the deli, and it was Crystal who came up with the one-liner. But the core idea came from talks between Ms. Ephron and Reiner.

"One day, we were sitting around and Rob said to me, 'You know, we've told you all this stuff that you didn't know about men, now you tell us something we don't know about women,' " Ms. Ephron told an audience at a book reading in 2006. "It was almost like, 'I dare you.' And I said, 'Well, women fake orgasms.' And he said, 'Not with me.' "

"And I said, 'Yes, we do,' " she added. "Maybe not all the time, but sometimes. He still didn't believe me. So we went thundering into the bullpen at Castle Rock Pictures where all the women work, and he asked them, 'Is it true that women fake orgasms?' And all these women nodded yes. What a shock that scene was for men."

To her credit, Ephron wrote many other memorable lines, often with the help of her sister Delia -- whose writing credits appear on a handful of Ephron's films. Here are a few her noteworthy lines:

• "I always read the last page of a book first so that if I die before I finish I'll know how it turned out." -- "When Harry Met Sally"
• "Destiny is something we've invented because we can't stand the fact that everything that happens is accidental." -- "Sleepless In Seattle"
• "I have to murder and dismember a crustacean." -- "Julie & Julia"
• "I remember in high school her saying, 'Now what'd you want to take that science class for? There's no girls in that science class. You take home ec, why don't you? That's the way to meet the nice boys.' 'Mom,' I said, 'There ain't no boys in home ec. The boys are in the science class.' " -- "Silkwood"

You may already know that rising starlet Riley Keough is the granddaughter of someone very very famous: the late rock 'n roll icon Elvis Presley. The daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and her first husband, musician Danny Keough, 23-year-old Riley is carefully carving out her own niche in Hollywood.


With but four films under her belt, Keough appears in a small role in Steven Soderbergh's male stripper film coming out this weekend, "Magic Mike," starring Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey. She plays Nora, an enigmatic figure with a pet pig romantically sexually linked to another lead in the film, Alex Pettyfer, who plays former footballer and new-school male stripper, Adam.

The two, who are said to have first met on the set of "Magic Mike," are romantically linked in real life and are thought to be engaged. Keough has been seen sporting a ring on her left-hand ring finger since mid-March.

There is little doubt the gorgeous young blonde bears resemblance to her famous grandfather, not to mention her mother and grandmother Priscilla Presley. Indeed, "Magic Mike" director Steven Soderbergh is reported to have said that Keough "got the best from everybody in her lineage."

Keough was a successful model before testing the celluloid waters. She broke onto the scene in 2004 when photographer Annie Leibovitz shot her along with her mother and grandmother for a Vogue magazine cover. A Dolce and Gabbana appearance in Milan followed along with appearances in ad campaigns -- most notably Christian Dior. (Incidentally, Pettyfer, who is British, also started out as a model.)


And while she plays a bad girl in "Mike," she is said to be far from it in real life: "I'm kind of shy and quiet. But I'm only shy in my personal life. If I'm working, somehow I'm not and it goes away… I think acting is a fun thing because you get to have so many lifetimes in one lifetime, being all these different people," Keough recently told Vanity Fair.

Keough has a starring role in the upcoming lesbian-themed horror-esque indie film "Jack and Diane," to be released in the fall. And there are supposed to be a lot of make-out scenes.

She appeared in the 2010 movie "The Runaways," playing Dakota Fanning's sister. Kristen Stewart also starred in the film and is said to be among Keough's biggest competitors when going up for roles. Keough recently revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that she too competes for high profile roles that Stewart, Lily Collins and Jennifer Lawrence have wound up landing.

In the same THR interview Keough revealed that growing up with Michael Jackson as her stepfather really wasn't all that weird, nor was her mother's marriage to Nicolas Cage:

Regarding the eccentric Jackson, who married her mother, Lisa Marie, in 1994, Keough says she mainly knew him as the stepdad who went swimming with her, dropped her off at school and indulged her candy fixes at Neverland from the time she was 6 till she was 11. A few years after divorcing Jackson, her mother wed Oscar-winning professional firebrand Nicolas Cage, which barely registered on the infamy scale with a teenaged Keough, long since inured to the tabloid gold mine that was her family.


Look for Keough's star to rise as she has three upcoming films: the drama "Yellow," starring Sienna Miller and Ray Liotta; Kough has a starring role in "Kiss of the Damned" alongside Milo Ventimiglia; and perhaps the most high-profile project of the three is "Mad Max: Fury Road," starring Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy.