CASTING STEVE CARELL
Julianne Moore responded with an enthusiastic, drawn-out “Great!” when asked what it was like to work with Steve Carell again in Freeheld (they were in Crazy, Stupid, Love). And she helped make sure he’d take the small but influential role of gay rights activist Steven Goldstein in the civil rights drama. Director Peter Sollett ( Raising Victor Vargas) offered Carell the part and asked Moore to follow up with an email. “I said, ‘Hey Steve, they sent this to you and we hope you’ll do it, and we know it’s a tiny part and you’re so, so busy.’ And he emailed me right back and said, ‘I’ll do it. I’m in.’ “We were all so delighted,” Moore continued. Carell plays Goldstein, a selfdescribed “big, loud, gay Jew” whose in-your-face style of activism comes as a shock to Laurel Hester (Moore) and her partner Stacie Andree (Ellen Page), as well as Hester’s police detective partner, Dane Wells (Michael Shannon). His full-on portrayal of Goldstein is passionate and often hilarious. “We were blown away by everything he did,” said Moore of Carell. Linda Barnard