By Chrisdfw (Chrisdfw) (209.244.93.51 - 209.244.93.51) on Tuesday, October 16, 2001 - 12:16 pm:
| By Chrisdfw (Chrisdfw) (209.244.93.51 - 209.244.93.51) on Tuesday, October 16, 2001 - 12:16 pm: |
Ron Livingston as Lt. Nixon
| By Rhonda Wallace (Rlwtexas) (216.134.0.179 - 216.134.0.179) on Wednesday, October 24, 2001 - 08:42 pm: |
Have you seen the interview with Ron Livingston in this week's TV Guide? It's very interesting and has a great full page pic of him! Check it out!
| By Chris Langlois (Chrisdfw) (64.157.116.58 - 64.157.116.58) on Thursday, November 29, 2001 - 04:06 pm: |
Livingston earns his stripes with roles in TV's Band of Brothers, The Practice
By Eirik Knutzen
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
Los Angeles-area neighborhood paper
A very bright lad, Ron Livingston made his Lutheran minister mother and electronics engineer father very proud when he earned an academic scholarship to Yale University — the prestigious Ivy League training ground for such dignitaries as Presidents George Bush and George Bush.
The excellent scholar from Marion, Iowa, then proceeded to shock his parents by majoring in theater studies and English literature.
"Acting was something I always did in high school but, like wrestling, I treated it more like a hobby that I eventually wouldn't pursue anymore," says Livingston.
"But there was a fine acting teacher at Yale whom I wanted to work with, so I declared theater as my major, thinking I would change it to math or science later," the 34-year-old actor continues, laughing.
He worked hard for the tens of thousands of dollars doled out for tuition and, by the time he graduated in the Class of '89, he had learned to type 65 words per minute.
Livingston soon brought his impressive diploma to Chicago, where he joined a low-grade repertory company performing Shakespeare plays for 10 bucks a show. He went on to appear in a number of locally staged plays, including productions at the famed Goodman Theater. But he paid the rent for the next five years as an extremely efficient temporary secretary.
His big break came in 1994, shortly after moving to Los Angeles — when a hapless motorist made an illegal left turn and broadsided Livingston's car. The impact totaled his old wreck and induced the insurance company to fork over $1,500. Combined with the $2,000 he had just been paid for a small role in The Low Life, an independent feature film, he was able to walk away from his temp job for Universal Studios' theme park division.
Finally able to concentrate on his acting career, he quickly nailed down decent parts in the feature film Swingers and as a regular on the short-lived sitcom Townies (1996). Things heated up with the TV series That's Life (1998) and continued with a number of movies, including Office Space (1999), The Brass Ring (1999), Body Shots (1999), Buying The Cow (2001) and the upcoming Adaptation.
Very, very hot, Livingston has joined David E. Kelly's drama series The Practice this fall as hotshot Assistant District Attorney Alan Lowe, a sexy devil guaranteed to stir up Helen's (Lara Flynn Boyle) hormones.
And last, but not least, he headlines as Capt. Lewis Nixon with the huge cast Band of Brothers (9 p.m. Sundays, HBO), the 10-part, $120-million miniseries based on Stephen Ambrose's best-selling book of the same title, executive produced by the Saving Private Ryan team of Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
The mammoth true World War II drama chronicles the history of the young men in Easy Company, the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army, an elite rifle company trained in Georgia before they parachuted into France on D-Day, fought in the bloody Battle of the Bulge and eventually captured Adolf Hitler's infamous Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden, Germany.
Band of Brothers was shot in Hertfordshire, England, at the Hatfield Aerodrome — a former British Aerospace facility — between April 3 and November 24, 2000, on a 1,100-acre back lot featuring villages, POW camps, lakes and rivers. In all, the project features 500 speaking roles and more than 10,000 extras re-creating some of the most serious conflicts of the era with four tanks, 700 authentic weapons, 400 rubber prop weapons and 14,000 rounds of blank ammunition.
The miniseries started with a brutal two-week boot camp conducted by Capt. Dale Dye, a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer suspected of having satanic impulses by some of the actors he whipped into shape before the cameras rolled.
"Dye, who also worked with the cast of Saving Private Ryan, brought 50 guys from different walks of life together to work as a unit," Livingston explains. "It was as important to pulling off this project credibly as it would be in the real military. You couldn't have made this with dozens of actors at cross-purposes with each other."
Before his final audition with Tom Hanks, Livingston wisely read Ambrose's book and researched his character thoroughly.
"When I thumbed through it, I spotted a picture of Lewis Nixon taken at the Eagle's Nest the morning after he and his men liberated a cache of Hitler's champagne. He was staring into the camera, bleary eyed, and I was struck by our physical resemblance. A trained geologist from Princeton, N.J., who happened to go to Yale, he was born rich to a family that manufactured ammunition during World War I. He went through the war without a scratch and died five years ago."
Working sets that cost $17 million — including real trees planted in 5 feet of dirt representing Bastogne in an abandoned hangar — the enormous cast (including Damian Lewis, Nicholas Aaron, Jimmy Fallon, Colin Hanks, David Schwimmer and Donnie Wahlberg) — settled in various parts of London for the duration. The producers housed the married men with families on the West Side of London; the single guys were in an apartment building in Westminster.
"It was pretty rockin' .... a bunch of Americans away from home where they don't know anybody is pretty scary," Livingston says. "London definitely isn't a sleepy town and there are plenty of things to do there. When we had the time, we were right in the middle of it .... I believe that two of them came away with war brides. Well, at least one."
A community of about 25,000 near Cedar Rapids, Marion was a wonderful place in which to grow up, according to Livingston.
"In many ways it's a wide-open town with industry ranging from meat packing and cereal processing to data processing and defense contractors. It's just a matter of going for it. My brother, John Livingston, is a terrific actor who was in the movie Mr. Wrong and on the show Love or Money. My sister, Jennifer Livingston, is a TV news anchor at the CBS affiliate in La Crosse, Wis. My baby brother Nicholas is still in high school."
Having won The Practice role, Livingston once again makes his home in Los Angeles with actress Lisa Sheridan (Freaky Things), whom he met four years ago and had a chance to work with on the independent film Beat (2000). He portrayed poet Allen Ginsberg and she played Sadie Kerouac.
"A perfect day for me is kicking back with a cold beer and a good book," he says, "and maybe a baseball game on TV. Unfortunately, I'm a Chicago Cubs fan."
| By Thomas Patton Crawford (Gr8fulson) (63.193.114.20 - 63.193.114.20) on Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 05:50 pm: |
Ron Livingston showed up last night at the Hollywood Premiere of Vanilla Sky ...
http://www.wireimage.com/GalleryListing.asp?navtyp=GLS====5254&str=&styp=&sortval=0&PageNum=17
| By Chris Langlois (Chrisdfw) (12.239.86.117) on Thursday, March 07, 2002 - 11:45 pm: |
Ron Livingston: SOLID AS A ROCK
by keith bryan jeffreys
Venice Magazine
photography dennis mukai
grooming elke von freudenberg/fred segal beauty/kerastase
Coming off a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in HBO’s acclaimed ten-part series, Band of Brothers, one might think Ron Livingston would be a likely candidate for the typical Hollywood “I’m-a-star-I’m-better-than-you-attitude” endemic of industry newcomers and veterans alike. Fortunately, Livingston is quite the opposite. His down-to-earth demeanor is even more unusual given the wide range of his talent, akin to a hybrid version of Jacks—Nicholson and Lemmon. It’s that talent that has him appearing as a regular on The Practice, ABC’s Emmy-winning courtroom drama as a brash Assistant District Attorney, and as an avuncular fishing village eccentric in A Rumor of Angels, opening this month.
Livingston’s preparation for this point in his upward career trajectory includes steady stage work in Chicago where he performed at the Goodman Theatre, a slew of film work with turns in Swingers and Body Shots, and a leading role in the 1999 comedy Office Space with Jennifer Aniston.
Venice: You graduated from Yale. What did you study?
Ron Livingston: English and Theater, but students at Yale can pretty much study what they want. So I spent a whole year reading Vietnam War truck-stop novels. That segued into video interviews of Vietnam vets about their experiences over there and coming home.
Did that help when you auditioned for the role of Capt. Lewis Nixon in Band of Brothers?
Incredibly. The experience was priceless.
How did that process come about?
Typically, the audition. They didn’t have scripts ready at that point and I didn’t think much of my audition. The war movies I’d seen never had a character that reminded me of Nixon. So I picked up the (Stephen E.) Ambrose book, read through it and came across the photo of Nixon and realized I bear an uncanny physical resemblance to him. It was a great photo of him where he has a bottle of champagne in his hand and he’s coming off a hangover.
And from there?
The next thing I did was to try to figure out what Nixon did as an intelligence officer. It’s interesting because combat intelligence is a lot more day-to-day than people realize. So I read through all the Army manuals on intelligence procedures and gathering. Next, I met Nixon’s wife and visited her at her home in Encino and that gave me a lot of insight into who Nixon was.
In Part 9, “Why We Fight,” Nixon, already distraught over the loss of a stick of Screamin’ Eagle paratroopers who perished in a plane he parachuted from, receives devastating news from home that his wife wants a divorce. Was this a pivotal moment in your portrayal of Nixon?
Yes. As the story goes, Nixon got a Dear John letter from his wife. She wrote that she was leaving him and taking the kid and the dog. I don’t think he cared much about the wife or the kid, but he was pretty upset about the dog.
Has Band of Brothers changed your view of the military?
Incredibly. Especially after 9/11. It’s as if you never quite appreciate that flashlight until the lights go out. Also, I did an armed forces tour with the guys involved in Enduring Freedom. You know they say, “It’s not a job, it’s an adventure.” But it is a job. People who are there, their job is that they’re soldiers. There’s really something to it.
You’ve been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, Series, Miniseries or TV Movie for your role as Capt. Nixon.
This is the bonus round. People look at it and they see we’re going to win a prize. But the way I see it is, I got to play the part. I won the prize already. So now I get to pick the car, the truck, or the washer/dryer.
While Band of Brothers aired this past fall, you also were seen as the abrasive Assistant District Attorney Alan Lowe in The Practice. In particular, you appeared in a very well-written and directed episode entitled, “The Candidate.”
The opener. It was the first time I’ve ever come on to anything that was already successful. The trick is, you have to try to find a place for yourself without breaking anything, and I found the process is somewhat like swapping out a part on an engine while it’s still running.
Nice analogy.
Thanks. It helped that I was able to work with Lara Flynn Boyle and Camryn Manheim. That made it very easy.
Because they’re accomplished actors.
The better an actor is, the easier they are to work with. Plus, both Camryn and Lara were very generous and helped me get on my feet on the show.
Your next movie, A Rumor of Angels is set for a February release. The film has a great look and, in a way, the beauty and the harshness of the Canadian landscape mirror the quirkiness and the relationships of the characters in the film.
Yeah. We filmed in Nova Scotia for about six weeks, and it is an incredibly beautiful place. I hadn’t really thought about the landscape in that way, but what we have is a group of people who are trying to put the pieces of their broken lives back together. They’re trying to make a family out of scraps. I think (director) Peter (O’Fallon) did a good job of using the location, highlighting the needs of the characters and yet not making it too sappy.
You play Charlie, a burned-out handyman who works hard to help out his young nephew. He’s more than just an uncle to the main character.
Yeah. He’s interesting because he’s a little crazy, but fun to be around.
You seem to have a pretty good perspective on your success. Does the fact that you’re from Iowa have anything to do with that?
Probably. There’s also a tradition of laughing at ourselves. In Iowa, if you try to be cool, there’s a tradition that people will ride you for it. Let’s say it’s winter. If you wear the cool-looking hat instead of the warm hat, somebody will say, “Don’t be dumb. Wear the warm hat.”
| By Chris Langlois (Chrisdfw) (12.239.86.117) on Saturday, June 08, 2002 - 05:13 pm: |
Native Iowan has role in war drama
The 10-hour miniseries on HBO takes viewers to the front lines of World War II.
By JOANNE BOECKMAN
Register Staff Writer
09/09/2001
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Band of Brothers," the new 10-hour miniseries that starts tonight on HBO, gave actor Ron Livingston a taste of the experience sought by war re-enactors.
"There's something really compelling about experiencing a piece of history like that," the native Iowan said from his home in Los Angeles.
Livingston, 34, portrays officer Lewis Nixon, best friend of Richard Winters (Damian Lewis), who was commanding officer of a company of World War II Army paratroopers. The story is based on the real-life experiences of the men of Easy Company and it follows them from their training in Georgia through their D-Day landing in France on June 6, 1944.
"Band of Brothers" is based on a 1992 book by historian Stephen E. Ambrose. The executive producers are Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, who were also the director and star of the Oscar-winning 1998 war drama, "Saving Private Ryan." Hanks wrote and directed the fifth episode of the 10-part series.
The first two episodes will be shown tonight at 8 and will continue every Sunday night through Nov. 4. A documentary on the real Easy Company, the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division of the Army, will be aired on Nov. 11, Veterans Day.
To prepare for filming "Band of Brothers," the actors had to go through 10 days of basic training.
When it came to fleshing out the details, no expense was spared, Livingston said.
The $120 million, made-for-TV production took more than seven months to shoot and features 500 speaking parts. It was filmed at the Hatfield Aerodrome, a former British aerospace facility where some scenes in "Private Ryan" were shot.
One reviewer points out that by the third episode, more pyrotechnics had been used in shooting than were used in the entire production of "Saving Private Ryan."
"They really wanted to make this historically accurate," Livingston said.
That made going to work interesting.
"When you get to work in the morning and there are six tanks and 250 soldiers there in period uniforms, and you've been equipped and trained with these period weapons, that's kind of an extraordinary experience," he said.
Each episode is preceded by recollections of surviving members of Easy Company. The resemblance between some of the survivors and the actors who play them is, at times, uncanny, Livingston said.
Ambrose interviewed survivors of Easy Company and relied on journals and letters when he wrote his book. Lewis Nixon, the man Livingston portrays, did not cooperate.
"Lewis never returned Stephen Ambrose's phone calls. Most of the information about him came from his friends," Livingston said.
Many of the survivors met with the actors who portrayed them, but Nixon, a diabetic, died a few years ago and Livingston said he regretted not meeting him. It especially hit him during the screening of the film in Normandy, which was attended by many of the survivors and their families.
"That was tough. It was sort of like being at a school event without your dad," he said.
Livingston said he has met Grace Nixon, Lewis Nixon's wife, who lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif.
"She's a fantastic lady," he said. "I've seen her quite a bit since then."
Livingston, 34, is engaged to actress Lisa Sheridan. He grew up in Marion where his parents, Kurt and Linda Livingston, still live.
He has three siblings, John, who is also an actor, Jennifer, a TV news anchor in LaCrosse, Wis., and Nick, who is still at home.
When asked how three - so far - Livingstons ended up in front of cameras, he joked, "They must not have taken enough pictures of us when we were growing up."
His route to Hollywood went from Marion High School to Yale, where he studied English and theater.
"Part of the reason I studied acting is because there was an acting class I wanted to take that was only available to majors, so in my sophomore year I declared a theater major. I figured I'd change it later."
He never got around to changing it, and after graduation, he headed for Chicago.
"It was within Greyhound striking distance of home. It was a good place to start out," he said.
He performed onstage there three years and made his first movie, "Straight Talk," with Dolly Parton.
"Both my lines were cut," he laughed. "I'm in it for maybe a quarter of a second."
He made other movies, including "The Low Life," released in 1995; "Swingers," 1996; "Office Space," 1999; "Body Shots," 1999; "The Big Brass Ring," 1999; and "Two Ninas," released early this year.
Livingston is taking a new direction with his career. He's currently filming six episodes of TV's "The Practice."
"I'm going to be the assistant district attorney, working with Lara Flynn Boyle in the prosecutor's office. That's pretty exciting."
He has no commitment beyond that, but said he's waiting to see where the story goes. A renewal is a possibility, he said.
http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4788998/15800169.html
| By Admin (Admin) (12.239.86.117) on Friday, July 05, 2002 - 07:17 pm: |
Still photographs of "Office Space", Ron Livingston, Gary Cole
www.imdb.com
| By Chris Langlois (Chrisdfw) (12.239.86.117) on Wednesday, August 07, 2002 - 03:42 am: |
Hit and Ron
''Office Space'' antihero Ron Livingston moves uptown to ''Sex and the City''
by Dan Snierson
LOVE AND WAR Livingston, who'll guest on ''Sex and the City'' as a potential love interest for Carrie, also starred in HBO's battle drama ''Band of Brothers''
It's summertime and the Livingston is...doing fine, thank you. Ron Livingston -- that clean-cut 35-year-old Iowa native who's graced screens big (''Office Space,'' ''Swingers'') and small (''Band of Brothers,'' ''The Practice'') -- begins a guest stint Aug. 18 on ''Sex and the City'' playing Jack Berger, a struggling novelist and potential Carrie crush. Before he writes the next chapter of his career, Livingston submitted to our less-than-literary Q&A.
How does one go from ''Band of Brothers'' to ''Sex and the City''?
The first thing you need to do is take a long, hot shower and get used to wearing something other than green. I feel like it's HBO's way of saying thank-you. All of a sudden I'm in Manhattan with beautiful women and cocktails.
Tell us about filming your nude scenes.
I haven't done any. I've done nude scenes before, but there's always been an element of comedy in them, which makes it a little easier to do. Generally you've got some 300-pound grip standing around, eating Cheetos. But any nude scene on [''Sex and the City''] will be slightly different.... The girls seem pretty game about it, so, hell, if they're up for it, I guess I am too.
In ''Swingers,'' your character was rejected for a job playing Goofy because he didn't have enough theme-park experience. Did you have a comparable career low in your own life?
That was sort of based on a true story. [''Swingers'' writer-star Jon] Favreau and I knew each other in Chicago, and we did a PR gig where we wore foam Cap'n Crunch suits -- mascot work. It was a lot of waving, a lot of waving. [It was] like wearing a 40-pound Nerf ball. Sure, it was a little hot and uncomfortable, but you could get hit by a commuter train and walk away unhurt.
You were nominated for a Golden Globe for your poignant portrayal of Captain Nixon in ''Band of Brothers.'' So, what was it like kissing Jennifer Aniston in ''Office Space''?
Uh, it didn't suck.
Speaking of ''Office Space,'' the most underrated comedy in the history of film, do random people now confess to you how much they hate their jobs?
I've had a lot of people tell me that the movie was their inspiration to quit their job, which is a lot of responsibility.
If people recognize you on the street, what's the first thing they say?
''What was it like to kiss Jennifer Aniston?''
http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,333321~3~0~swingerronlivingstonon,00.html
| By Chris Langlois (Chrisdfw) (12.239.81.247) on Tuesday, November 12, 2002 - 08:59 pm: |
| By Leonie ten Cate (Lechan) (217.120.162.33) on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 05:57 am: |
woww hey, Nice piccie!
May i say one more thing?:
He looks pretty good for a 35-year old...!!!
| By Li Bernardo (Hotaruanne) (66.185.84.80) on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 10:45 pm: |
thanks for posting the pics and the articles...very cool. and yeah, he does look great for a 35-yr-old! 
| By christine (Tendmd) (202.57.109.160) on Friday, September 12, 2003 - 02:00 pm: |
two days ago, i was watching entertainment tonight and saw a news about a new movie titled "litlle black book" starring brittany murphy. guess who was kissing her? ... ron livingston. glad he has a new movie. don't have any more info about the movie though.
the episodes in the series "sex and the city" where he guest starred hasn't been shown yet in hbo asia although 1 episode of season 4 was scheduled to air on september 23.
christine