The calendar has turned to November, and the Oscar awards season is now hitting its stride. So, it is time for the return of my weekly Deadline video series The Actor’s Side. And even though the SAG-AFTRA strike is still rolling along, now with “cautious optimism” towards a hoped-for resolution, there are contenders out there with interim agreements that allow their actors to talk.
One of those movies is BlackBerry, the indie spring hit that chronicles the rise and fall of the infamous BlackBerry smartphone and the real-life people behind it. Ever since its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, the movie became one of 2024’s earliest to generate Oscar buzz, primarily for its co-star Glenn Howerton who plays the intense, take-no-prisoners CEO Jim Balsillie in a performance in which he manages to steal every scene he’s in. In fact, he was just recently nominated for Outstanding Supporting Performance at the Gotham Awards, and you can be assured there is more to come.
Howerton joins me for this edition of The Actor’s Side and we talk about the wild ride he has been on thanks to BlackBerry, which has opened up new career doors for this star whose biggest successes have been in television; he continues to star as the equally intense Dennis in FX’s long-running comedy It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, on which he is also a co-creator and executive producer. He also had a good run as the lead in NBC’s (and later, Peacock’s) A.P. Bio among many other credits. But it is BlackBerry that is winning him a new audience and new critical acclaim on the big screen for a role that he even shaved his head to play. We talk about the journey to this new phase of a career that is still in high gear, and the challenges he faced along the way.
To watch our conversation and to get “the actor’s side” of it all from Howerton, click on the video above.
Join me every Wednesday this season for another episode of The Actor’s Side.
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