SPIDER-MAN PRODUCER TAKES ON OSCAR
Mon, Jan 29, 2007
Producer Laura Ziskin has her hands full these days. Not only is she working on this summer’s Spider-Man 3, but she is also producing the 79th annual Academy Awards which will air on Sunday, February 25th to a worldwide audience. ”When I was a little kid, I’d always put on plays and shows, and this is like that feeling of, `Let’s put on a show,’” says Ziskin. ”But instead of me inviting the neighborhood kids to put on a show, I get to invite the biggest stars in the world, and they come for that night and they’re our cast.”
Producing such a monumental show isn’t new to Ziskin. She was behind the 2002 telecast which she produced while putting the finishing touches on the first Spider-Man film. What allured Ziskin toward such an endeavor? ”A film is a very manipulated reality,” she says. ”A live show, the whole appeal of it is that it’s live, it’s happening. We’re not manipulating it. We’re creating an environment where something’s going to happen. Obviously, every envelope that’s opened, we don’t know what’s in it, so that’s where the excitement is.”
As for what drives the acclaimed producer to take on such difficult, yet diverse projects? ”I love what I do,” Ziskin says. ”I either like to do absolutely nothing or I like to be really busy. I don’t like that in-between.”
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