Austin Film Festival: Where's all the famous people?
A guide to this year's most recognizable faces
Hey, it's that guy from 'Return To Mayberry'!
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Unlike the mile-long red carpets of Cannes and Sundance, the Austin Film Festival isn’t about celebrity. Rather, it’s one of the few film gatherings in the world that puts an emphasis on the screenwriter (hence the typewriter logo), and values input from creative types that goes beyond, “Oh yeah, the people of Vancouver were so awesome to us.” That means its “stars” are generally people that matter primarily to critics, deeply devoted fans, and people in the industry—big shots like writer/director Lawrence Kasdan, screenwriting legend Steven Zaillian, Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz, Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, Lost writer Damon Lindelof, and Freaks And Geeks creator Paul Feig, for example. But that’s not to say AFF doesn’t have its fair share of famous faces, too. You just have to know where to look. Here The A.V. Club presents an alphabetical, illustrated guide to all the guests you won’t need a subscription to Variety to recognize. (Go here for a complete schedule of screenings and panels.)
Diedrich Bader
Where you know them from: Drew’s drinking buddy on The Drew Carey Show; no-bullshit neighbor “Lawrence” in Office Space; Napoleon Dynamite’s master of “Rex Kwon Do.”
Where to catch them: Calvin Marshall
Ben Foster
Where you know them from: Played the supremely needy bisexual twit “Russell” on Six Feet Under and mostly superfluous “Angel” in X-Men: Last Stand before stealing 3:10 To Yuma from Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.
Where to catch them: The Messenger
Alex Frost
Where you know them from: As the creepy Columbine killer stand-in from Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, and possibly as a bully in Drillbit Taylor. (But mostly Elephant.)
Where to catch them: Calvin Marshall; The Vicious Kind
Beth Grant
Where you know them from: The woman who says this in No Country For Old Men: “It’s not often you see a Mexican in a suit.” The woman who says this in Donnie Darko: “Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!” Plus a bazillion more movies and TV shows—most recently Extract and All About Steve.
Where to catch them: Herpes Boy; “What Actors Look for in a Script” panel (Oct. 24, 3:45 p.m.)
Woody Harrelson
Where you know them from: That guy from Cheers who became its biggest breakout (sorry, Shelley Long) with huge movies like White Men Can’t Jump, Natural Born Killers, Kingpin, and Zombieland. You’ve also seen him in just about every documentary or news article related to biofuel, hemp, or weed.
Where to catch them: The Messenger
Cheryl Hines
Where you know them from: Patiently suffers Larry David’s neuroses on Curb Your Enthusiasm; patiently suffered Robin Williams’ Sylvester Stallone impressions in RV.
Where to catch them: Serious Moonlight; “Script-to-Screen: Serious Moonlight” (Oct. 22, 2:45 p.m.)
Clint Howard
Where you know them from: The vaguely creepy guy, often outright assholish guy lurking around the edges of his brother Ron’s films.
Where to catch them: Alabama Moon; “What Actors Look for in a Script” panel (Oct. 24, 3:45pm); “Script-to-Screen: Alabama Moon” panel (Oct. 25, 11:30 a.m.)
Ron Howard
Where you know them from: The narrator of Arrested Development. Oh, and he apparently started out as an actor on cultural phenomena like The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days before becoming a director of some of the MOST POPULAR AND/OR CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED FILMS OF ALL TIME, like Splash, The Da Vinci Code, and Frost/Nixon. Also, he’s Clint Howard’s brother.
Where to catch them: Ron Howard Presents: Apollo 13; picking up his “Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking” award at Saturday’s awards luncheon; “A Conversation with Ron Howard” panel (Oct. 24, 2 p.m.); “The Art of Storytelling with Ron Howard, Mitchell Hurwitz and Steve Zaillian” panel (Oct. 24, 3:45 p.m.)
Michael Keaton
Where you know them from: He’s Batman. He’s also Beetlejuice. And Jack Frost—though we don’t talk about that.
Where to catch them: Handing out awards to his old Night Shift/Gung Ho director Ron Howard at Saturday’s awards luncheon.
Esai Morales
Where you know them from: As Ritchie Valens’ half-brother in La Bamba, as well as a ton of cop roles on shows like NYPD Blue, Vanished, and Jericho. He’s about to play Joseph Adama—Edward James Olmos’ dad—in the Battlestar Galactica spin-off Caprica.
Where to catch them: Caprica; “Script-to-Screen: Caprica” (Oct. 24, 2 p.m.); “What Actors Look for in a Script” panel (Oct. 24, 3:45 p.m.)
Tom Skerritt
Where you know them from: He boasts one of the most authoritative mustaches in Hollywood, which he put to good use in stuff like Alien, Top Gun, and Picket Fences. Also, he totally did it with Drew Barrymore in Poison Ivy.
Where to catch them: Stewart Stern Presents: The Ugly American; “The Art of Storytelling” panel (Oct. 23, 10:45 a.m.); “Teaching Storytelling Through Screenwriting” panel (Oct. 24, 9 a.m., open to high-school teachers only); “What Actors Look for in a Script” panel (Oct. 24, 3:45 p.m.); “Script Reading: From A Buick 8”(Oct. 25, 2 p.m.)
Dana Wheeler-Nicholson
Where you know them from: Seduced by Chevy Chase in Fletch; seduced by Buddy Garrity in Friday Night Lights.
Where to catch them: “What Actors Look for in a Script” panel (Oct. 24, 3:45 p.m.)
Mike White
Where you know them from: As the volatile half of Chuck And Buck, which he also wrote; as the nebbishy half of School Of Rock, which he also wrote; as the younger, non-gay half of the most famous Amazing Race team ever—which he didn’t write, but rather lived, man.
Where to catch them: “Write What You Know: Comedy” panel (Oct. 23, 1:45 p.m.); “Young Filmmakers Panel”(Oct. 24, 10:45 a.m.)
