Entertainment

For 20 years, he's played 'Saw's' boogeyman. He doesn't see it as a trap

Published

1 year ago

October 1, 2024

For 20 years, he's played 'Saw's' boogeyman. He doesn't see it as a trap

I’m sitting across the table from veteran actor Tobin Bell, whose gaze I try to hold. Between us lies a hefty metal briefcase containing nine composition books. One for each “Saw” film he’s appeared in. Two decades of rigorous preparation to play a horror mastermind.

The first page of handwritten notes for 2004’s “Saw” includes a drawn spiral interrogating the likes, dislikes and motivations of John “Jigsaw” Kramer, the methodical, hyper-intelligent, deadly-contraption designer who some call a righteous vigilante and others a ruthless killer.

“Each film is a different story and John’s in a different place,” Bell tells me, wearing a dark red-carpet-ready suit. “Same guy but different circumstances.” When speaking about his morally questionable character’s philosophy, Bell occasionally quotes Kramer’s phrases verbatim, with the same muted ferocity and growly voice as I’ve heard him do on screen.

“Live or die, make your choice,” he adds, sending chills down my spine on what would otherwise be an unremarkable sunny afternoon at the Lionsgate offices in Santa Monica.

Bell and Shawnee Smith in 2006’s “Saw III.”

(Lionsgate)

As part of this year’s Beyond Fest, Bell will attend a 20th anniversary screening of the first “Saw” in its unrated version on Friday at the Egyptian Theatre. (Later in the month, the chapter that kicked off the gruesome franchise will return to theaters for a limited time.)

Bell, 82, an acting savant who broke into cinema’s foreground in his sixties, explains that the pages are occupied by a series of questions about the character. They start with the most basic details — “Where am I?” for example — and evolve into increasingly specific queries until they form an inverse triangle brimming with insight he’s deciphered on his own.

He learned this method from Oscar-winning actor Ellen Burstyn at the Actors Studio in New York City back in the ’70s and has applied it to every role he’s landed since.

“By the time I get to actually rolling the camera I’m up to 128 answers,” Bell says. “You never know everything, but hopefully I know enough so I don’t go mad trying to play someone I don’t f— know at all.”

He has always pursued the kind of lived-in performances of actors such as Montgomery Cliff, Gary Cooper or Spencer Tracy, whose movies Bell says he watched in the theater as a child in his hometown of Weymouth, Mass. every Saturday. “They became their characters,” he says of those screen legends. “You didn’t feel like they were indicating.”

Before stepping into the still-expanding “Saw” saga, Bell had been a working actor for almost three decades, amassing a varied collection of screen credits. Among them were memorable supporting parts in the racially charged crime thriller “Mississippi Burning” and Sydney Pollack’s “The Firm” (two of the four times he’s acted opposite Gene Hackman).

He watched Sidney Lumet direct Paul Newman in “The Verdict” while sitting in the courtroom next to Bruce Willis, another unknown at the time. And he’d experienced the heartbreak of being left on the cutting room floor after working with Martin Scorsese for “Goodfellas.”

“I had a scene with [Robert] De Niro that got cut,” he says. “You’ve got to be prepared for that s— too. I’m now in it only for a handshake and I say, ‘Come into my office.’ ”

Although Bell worked in summer-stock theater as a young man, he attended Boston University to study journalism, with specific aims to work in broadcast television. (In an alternate universe, Jigsaw would have become Walter Cronkite.) It was there that the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy would reset the course of his future.

Soon after the tragedy, Bell snuck into a drama-department-only session to hear Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy speak about acting as an honorable profession. That day, he concluded the world didn’t need one more talking head and decided to become an artist.

“Kennedy says in a speech to the poet Robert Frost that the artist is the last great defense of freedom, and that the artist has a love-hate relationship with society and keeps us on our toes,” Bell recalls. “I felt I no longer had any responsibility to anything. I wanted to just follow my instinct rather than some kind of idea of a career.”

With a mattress tied to the top of his car, a resolute Bell moved to New York City in 1964 after being accepted at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. Little did he know that in order to chase his acting goals, he would be laying on his back painting the underside of stairwells in a 17-story apartment building to make a living.

“I worked at 53 part-time jobs to keep myself going for more than 20 years in New York,” he says. “I loaded trucks, parked cars at the Hilton garage, bussed tables, waited tables, tended bar. I worked as background and a stand-in in 35 films before I ever spoke.”

His entry into an artistic life was far from linear, however. At one point during his time in New York, Bell married and had a child. In need of steady income, he took a master’s degree in environmental science and for the next six years created educational experiences for school children on the Hudson River, catching, observing and releasing fish.

Throughout it all, Bell held onto a strong conviction. “As much stage work and television as I did in New York, I believed I would become a film actor,” he says. Being part of the Actor Studio, a membership-only organization for professionals, help him keep that dream alive.

“I had a place to belong,” Bell says. “If they took you into the Actors Studio, it made one say to oneself, ‘Maybe I have something. Maybe I’m good enough.’ ”

But the years piled on and one day, a scene moderator at the famed acting workshop suggested that in order to advance his career, Bell should go to Hollywood and play “bad guys.”

“I always thought I was going to be a romantic leading man,” Bell says, remembering the frustration. “But an agent also once told me, ‘If you want to work, Tobin, they’ve got to see you as something.’ ”

Then came Alan Parker’s 1988 “Mississippi Burning,” in which Bell played an FBI agent. Bell remembers the late British director asking him, “You know why I had you come in, Tobin?” Parker then pointed at the headshot that Bell was using and said, “Because there’s power in that headshot.” A year later, on the recommendation of his “Mississippi Burning” co-star Kevin Dunn, Bell moved to Los Angeles.

He wasn’t here two weeks before he was cast as a criminal in the pilot episode of the 1990 television series “Broken Badges” that would shoot in Vancouver, Canada. From there, one job after another followed and for the first time he was able to make a living solely working as an actor. The quality of the projects ranged from compelling to forgettable. You may have seen him in one episode of “The Sopranos” as the head of a military academy, or on “Seinfeld” as a no-nonsense record store owner.

“I’ve learned more doing crap than I’ve learned doing good stuff,” he says. “Because you have to try to make it better, more interesting.”

“Saw” would eventually come his way in a fortuitous manner, like most breaks. He’d played Patrick Dempsey’s father on the TV show “Once and Again,” and while his character was a shadowy figure, Bell’s potent, piercing voice cut through. That series and “Saw” shared the same casting director, Amy Lippens, so when the debuting Australian director James Wan needed a voice for Jigsaw’s tapes in “Saw,” she suggested Bell.

It wasn’t until the first sequel, “Saw II” that Bell felt more substantial ownership of the character of John Kramer, whom he describes as a “King Lear-size guy,” making suggestions for the screenplay, including dialogue, which he has continued to do for each new film. And though Bell doesn’t condone Kramer’s actions, he understands his disdain for those he traps.

“John feels that the world has been taken over by mediocre people,” Bell says. “He believes we all have to deal with the consequences of what we create. And that these people are not appreciative of what they have.”

Admittedly, Bell has never been a fan of horror (though he was impressed by the Australian slasher “Wolf Creek”). He prefers historical films and period dramas. But through conventions and casual meetings with horror fans, he’s gained an appreciation for their devotion to the genre and the thoughtfulness of their questions about Kramer’s worldview. He also has his own theory about why people like being scared.

“It’s a visceral experience that you can’t control,” Bell says. “You’re not just sitting, passively watching. All of a sudden you [jumps up from his chair, startled]. Some people like that. Not my cup of tea, necessarily. When I was a kid I didn’t like going to horror films. As soon as the scary part of a film would come up, I’d be down behind the seat.”

When I ask if he’s ever felt pigeonholed in the billion-dollar-grossing phenomenon of “Saw,” Bell suggests that every actor gets pigeonholed, whether as “an ingenue, the girl next door,” or in his case, a “bad guy.”

“If within being pigeonholed I can create a rich acting experience — which is why I became an actor — pigeonhole me, go ahead,” Bell says. “It’s every artist’s responsibility to create within whatever is given to him and it’s my job to change your perception of me. If you want to perceive me in a certain way, maybe you’ll see me differently when you see the next film.”

About the upcoming “Saw XI” slated for release during the fall of 2025, Bell confirmed he’s a main part of it. The hope, he says, after the reinvigorated critical and audience reception to last year’s Mexico-set “Saw X,” is to continue elevating the quality of the series.

“It’s all in the writing,” he adds. Bell believes horror films can be as layered as those of any other genre. “It’s not all one guy outside the screen door with sidelight on him.” And the fans, he says, always want to talk to him about the big moral questions of “Saw,” not the gory particulars.

“I’m really excited about continuing to develop him,” he says. “John Kramer is not done. There’s more to learn.”

Even after 50 years devoted to acting, there’s just as much left to be seen from Bell, who is also writing a memoir and his own screenplays — he’s putting on one of the pieces he’s penned at the Actors Studio soon. As he starts a new composition book for another Jigsaw tale, his own storied life keeps adding pages.

Entertainment

Philip Glass canceled a Kennedy Center show, but this conductor brings his work center stage at L.A. Opera

Published

1 hour ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Philip Glass canceled a Kennedy Center show, but this conductor brings his work center stage at L.A. Opera

When Dalia Stasevska heard opera music for the first time, it was a moment of profound self-revelation. She was 13, growing up in the factory town of Tampere in the south of Finland, and her school librarian gave her a CD of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” along with a translation of its Italian libretto.

“As a teenage girl, this dramatic story touched my soul,” Stasevska says, adding that she still remembers the experience and thinking, “ ‘This music understands me, this is exactly how I feel.’ And that was…when I knew that I wanted to become a musician.”

Stasevska is now chief conductor of Finland’s Lahti Symphony Orchestra and a prodigious conductor of orchestral music in all forms. A busy guest baton with companies around the globe, she will make her L.A. Opera debut this Saturday with a production of “Akhnaten” by Philip Glass, running through late March.

John Holiday in the title role of L.A. Opera’s 2026 production of “Akhnaten.”

(Cory Weaver)

The seminal work by Glass lands at L.A. Opera just a month after the world-famous composer abruptly canceled June’s world premiere of Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “While Philip Glass has pulled out of Kennedy Center, his music will be front and center at our production,” a rep for L.A. Opera wrote in an email.

Stasevska, with her razor-sharp appreciation of the power of Glass’ work, is the ideal conductor to bring it there.

Stasevska, 41, walks from the ornate foyer of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with its emerald green carpets and gleaming chandeliers, to the more ordinary hallways and cubicles of L.A. Opera’s offices. She’s been in town rehearsing for a few weeks and jokes with some of the show’s jugglers in a kitchenette, where she makes herself a machine pod coffee.

The conductor is petite with large, expressive eyes and a Cheshire cat’s smile. Her mouth often pulls to the right when she speaks, her admirable non-native English tugged easterly in a Finnish accent.

Opera remains her great love, and it seems a perfect twist of fate that Stasevska was tapped to conduct “Akhnaten.” She saw it for the first time in 2019 at a Helsinki cinema, in a global broadcast of a production by the Met. She couldn’t believe her friend dozed off.

“I was like, ‘How could you fall asleep? This was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I would do anything to conduct this opera,’ ” she recalls saying.

Stasevska was born in 1984, the same year that Glass’ hypnotic, ritualistic opera, about an Egyptian pharaoh who dared to push monotheism onto his polytheistic culture, debuted in Stuttgart, Germany. Eight months later, Stasevska entered the world in the Soviet-controlled city of Kyiv, the child of a Ukrainian father and Finnish mother.

It was a fluke that she was born in Ukraine. Her parents, both painters, were living in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, also under Soviet rule, but found themselves in a Kyiv hospital close to family when Stasevska arrived. She’s never lived in Ukraine — she spent her first few years in Tallinn before moving to Finland at age 5— but her life has been infused with its heritage.

Her father, who as a teenager in Tallinn began to rebel against Sovietization, insisted on teaching Stasevska and her two younger brothers to speak Ukrainian at home. Her grandmother, Iryna, lived with the family and was an important caretaker for much of her childhood. Stasevska grew up hearing fantastic stories filled with dreamlike imagery of the homeland.

“She was such a civilized, cultural person,” Stasevska says of her grandmother, adding that she taught her grandkids everything she knew about her home country. That’s why, even though Stasevska was raised in Finland, she grew up eating Ukrainian food and hearing Ukrainian folk tunes. “I know the language and understand the culture,” she says.

Stasevska grew up poor, but music education was mandatory for her and her brothers: “My father said, ‘This is going to be your profession.’ It was no question that this is not a hobby. So we started practicing immediately, very determined. There was maybe some forcing involved,” she says, laughing.

She played the violin from age 8, but it was only after she heard Puccini at 13 that she fell in love with classical music. She became obsessed with the opera and orchestral repertoires and was immediately determined to play in an orchestra. She approached the headmaster at her conservatory who placed her in a string ensemble before advancing her to the symphony orchestra as a violinist.

At 18, Stasevska entered the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, which is named after Finland’s most famous composer, Jean Sibelius. She couldn’t stop herself from stealing a peek at the school conductor’s score, copying bowings and poring over the details, but she didn’t indulge any dreams of taking the podium herself. “I was going every week to the concerts,” she says, “but it took me so long to see somebody that looked like me.”

She was 20 when she saw a female conductor for the first time, calling it “the second big moment in my life.” When Stasevska expressed interest in trying it herself, she was referred to Jorma Panula, a legendary conductor and teacher in Finland. Panula invited her to attend one of his masterclasses, and on the first downbeat of her first experience conducting, “I knew immediately that this was beyond anything I’ve experienced in my life,” she says. “It became this kind of madness moment.”

She loved the sheer physicality of it, she says, but also “that I can affect the music, and that I can affect the interpretation, because I had so much in my heart that I felt about the music.”

After completing her conducting studies in 2012, Stasevska assisted Panula — who emphasized discovering unique “gestures in such a way that the orchestral musicians know what you mean,” she says. She also worked with her fellow Finn, Esa-Pekka Salonen. Stasevska became principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2019 and chief of the Lahti Symphony in 2020.

When she’s not globetrotting, Stasevska lives in Helsinki with her young daughter and her husband, Lauri Porra — a heavy metal bassist who is also the great-grandson of Sibelius.

She likes to champion new music — her 2024 album, “Dalia’s Mixtape,” featured works by Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw and other contemporary composers. She is also a vocal supporter of the land where she was born and has spoken out against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Stasevska’s L.A. Opera debut arrives on the same week as the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion. Both of her brothers — one a film director, the other a journalist — moved to Ukraine and have borne witness to the war, which has given her “another level of experiencing this horror,” she says.

Stasevska has made it her mission to raise funds — more than 250,000 euros to date — to provide basic supplies particularly for children and elders who are without power and huddling in freezing cold homes. She has even driven in supplies herself by truck.

She has also conducted concerts there — and her next album will celebrate the country’s composers in a meaningful way. “Ukrainian Mixtape,” which she recorded with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, features works by five composers who range from the 19th century to the 1960s. Three are premiere recordings of artists who have been completely forgotten, which required a year of searching for materials.

“I think that it will not leave anybody cold,” Staveska says, “and I hope that it will inspire everybody to discover Ukrainian music more, and that we will hear it more on main stages of the world — where it deserves to be.”

For now, though, her focus is on ancient Egypt and Philip Glass — and opera. She says her goal, in every concert, is to give audiences the same experience she had when she was 13, that remarkable feeling that the music uniquely understands them.

Movie Reviews

Vishnu Vinyasam Movie Review – Gulte

Published

12 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

2.5/5

01 Hrs 59 Mins | Romantic Comedy | 27-02-2026

Cast – Sree Vishnu, Nayana Sarika, Satya, Brahmaji, Praveen, Murali Sharma, Srikanth Iyyengar, Satyam Rajesh, Srinivasa Reddy, Goparaju Ramana and others

Director – Yadunaath Maruthi Rao

Producer – Sumanth Naidu G

Banner – Sree Subrahmanyeshwara Cinemas

Music – Radhan

Since 2023, with three commercial hits and one critically acclaimed film, Sree Vishnu has established himself as a minimum guarantee hero and built a loyal audience. To continue the success streak, he chose yet another romantic comedy film, directed by debutant Yadunaath Maruthi Rao. ‘Aay’ fame, Nayana Sarika, played the female lead role and Radhan, scored the music for the film. After creating enough curiosity among the audience with the teaser and trailer, the film was finally released in theatres today. Did Sree Vishnu, deliver yet another hit with a romantic comedy film? Did Nayan Sarika, score a hit in Telugu, after AAY & KA? How does the debutant director, Yadunaath Maruthi Rao, do? Did the music director, Radhan, come up with memorable songs and score? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

Vishnu(Sree Vishnu), works as a junior lecturer at a college, where Manisha(Nayan Sarika), works as the head of the department(HOD/faculty). Manisha, with her eccentric characteristics, intrigues Vishnu and both of them eventually fall in love with each other. When everything is going well for the couple to get married, Manisha informs Vishnu about a flaw in her Jathakam. What was the Dosham(flaw) in Manisha’s jathakam? How did it impact her prospects of getting married before meeting, Vishnu? Why did Vishnu initially get reluctant to marry Manisha, after hearing about her Jathaka Dosham? Will the couple sort out all the issues and get married eventually? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Sree Vishnu, with his comedy timing generated a few fun moments that worked in favour of the film. However, in an attempt to appear effortless, he went overboard at times and appeared monotonous at a few places. Nayana Sarika got a good role and she delivered a good performance. She looked good throughout the film and appeared confident.

Satya, got a full-length role and he was able to generate a few laughs here and there with his comedy timing. Srikanth Iyyengar’s performance looked over the top and his portions looked rushed and very artificial. Srinivasa Reddy played a role similar to Mallikarjuna Rao’s role in Raviteja’s movie, Venky. He did an ok job but it seemed like he did dub for his role in the film? The film had Brahmaji, Praveen, Murali Sharma, Satyam Rajesh, Goparaju Ramana and a few others, in character roles. All of them made their presence felt but none of their roles gave the desired impact and extra mileage.

Technicalities:

Cinematography by Sai Sriram, is a major plus to the film. The visuals looked colourful, vibrant and gave a pleasant look to the film throughout. Radhan’s music should have been better. The songs scored by him were below par and the background score was pretty standard. Editing by Karthikeyan Rohini, was alright. He tried to cut the film with a very crisp runtime of around two hours and yet, ended up having a few repetitive sequences. Production values by, Sree Subrahmanyeshwara Cinemas, were decent and were within the limitations of a midrange romantic comedy film. Let’s discuss the work of the writer and the director, Yadunaath Maruthi Rao, in detail in the analysis section.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠First Half
2.⁠ ⁠Comedy Portions
3.⁠ ⁠Sree Vishnu & Satya’s Timing
4.⁠ ⁠Cinematography

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Second Half
2.⁠ ⁠Lack of Strong Emotions
3.⁠ ⁠Music

Analysis:

The debutant writer and the director, Yadunaath Maruthi Rao, wrote a so-called peculiar characterisation of the female lead in the film and tried to generate enough fun moments using the comedy timing of his lead actor, Sree Vishnu and the lead comedian, Satya. Right from the word go, the writer intended only to make the audience laugh at any cost, and in doing so, he succeeded in parts but would have done a better job in other parts, especially the latter part of the second half. The film had at least five to six notable actors but for some reason, the director only concentrated on generating fun by using his lead actor.

The entire first half of the film unfolded without any major complaints. There were enough comedy sequences in the first half that engaged the audience in a fairly decent manner and the revelation of the conflict point during intermission, worked as well. However, after the initial few minutes of the second half, the film got into repetitive mode and the drama during the last thirty minutes was the film was written and executed in a very unexciting manner without any proper emotional depth. The twist during the climax was very predictable and it was narrated in a bland and rushed manner. Better care in writing and execution during the second half would have elevated the film’s overall graph.

The bare minimum that the audience expects from debutant writers and directors is original characters and characterisations, isn’t it? In Vishnu Vinyasam, to a crucial character, it was surprising to see a debutant director use the characterisation of ‘Jagadamba Chowdary’, a character from Ravi Teja’s movie Venky. Also, at just around two hours of runtime, the film makes the audience feel monotonous with a few repetitive sequences. One of the major negative points of the film is the songs. For a romantic comedy film to work, it is necessary to have at least one or two chartbuster songs. Unfortunately, none of the songs composed by, Radhan, helped the film in any way.

Overall, the core point of, Vishnu Vinyasam, has enough potential to become a very engaging romantic drama film. But, the half-hearted effort from the writer, director and the music director, ended up making it a decent watch. You may give it a try watching for a few well-executed comedy portions, Sree Vishnu and Satya’s timing.

Final Verdict – Partly Entertaining

Rating – 2.5/5

Entertainment

Shia LaBeouf to undergo judge-ordered rehab after Mardi Gras incident

Published

13 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Shia LaBeouf to undergo judge-ordered rehab after Mardi Gras incident

Actor Shia LaBeouf’s raucous Mardi Gras episode in New Orleans earlier this month has now earned him court-ordered drug and alcohol treatment.

A New Orleans judge on Thursday ordered the former Disney Channel star, 39, to begin substance abuse treatment and undergo weekly drug testing after he was arrested on suspicion of assaulting two men in the city’s famed French Quarter. He was charged with two counts of simple battery, the Associated Press reported.

“Transformers” and “Honey Boy” actor LaBeouf agreed to the updated terms of his release, including posting bond of $100,000, and underwent a drug test during his court appearance on Thursday. His attorney said the test did not show illegal substances in the actor’s system.

Orleans Parish Criminal Court judge Simone Levine criticized LaBeouf for his behavior during the Mardi Gras celebrations. In addition to striking the two men at a bar, LaBeouf allegedly yelled homophobic slurs. Levine expressed concern for “the safety of this larger community” and said LaBeouf “does not take his alcohol addiction seriously.”

A legal representative for LaBeouf did not immediately respond to a request for comment but said during the actor’s court appearance that “being drunk on Mardi Gras is not a crime.”

The actor has yet to enter a formal plea to the charges.

The New Orleans Police Department said its officers responded to a report of an assault in the 1400 block of Royal Street. The former “Even Stevens” child star was “causing a disturbance” at the business, leading staff to remove him from the premises, police said. The actor allegedly “used his closed fists” on one of the victims “several times.”

Authorities said LaBeouf left the business but returned, “acting even more aggressive.” According to the incident report, an unspecified number of people tried to subdue him and eventually let him go “in hope that he would leave.” Instead, police said, LaBeouf began assaulting the same man as before, hitting his upper body with closed fists. The actor is accused of punching the second man in the nose.

People held down LaBeouf until officials arrived. He was transported to a hospital and treated for unknown injuries and was arrested and charged upon his release.

An additional police report identified a local entertainer as one of LaBeouf’s alleged victims. The “Megalopolis” actor, whose history of violent behavior has led to previous arrests and other legal troubles, allegedly threatened the man’s life and shouted homophobic slurs.

Levine ordered that LaBeouf refrain from contacting the two victims and visiting the bar at the center of the brawl. She also denied his travel requests.

Hours after news of the brawl and his arrest spread, LaBeouf issued a brief statement on social media.

He posted to X: “Free me.”