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Picture of Naomi Pfefferman

Naomi Pfefferman

Kevin Spacey gets in touch with his inner Jew in ‘Casino Jack’

Two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey lifts his fork from his plate of lox and eggs and jabs it in the air. He’s tucked away in a back booth at Art’s Deli in Studio City, recounting his monologue from the opening scene of the black comedy “Casino Jack,” which opens Dec. 17. The film is inspired by the true story of the disgraced right-wing former super-lobbyist and Orthodox Jew Jack Abramoff, whom Spacey portrays. In that scene, Abramoff wields not a fork, but a toothbrush, as he informs a bathroom mirror that, as a result of “a s—load of reading and studying and praying,” he’s come to some conclusions he’d like to share — ostensibly with the reporters and FBI agents circling him: “You’re either a big leaguer or you’re a slave clawing your way onto the C-train,” is one of them. “You say I’m selfish — f— you,” is another. “I give back, plenty. … I’m humbly grateful for the wonderful gifts that I’ve received here in America, the greatest country on the planet! I’m Jack Abramoff, and, oh yeah, I work out every day.”

Screenwriter’s stammer inspires ‘Speech’

In 1944, future screenwriter David Seidler snooped through his father’s chest of drawers and discovered a hidden stash of Life magazine clippings. “They were early pictures that had come out of the concentration camps,” said Seidler, whose British family had fled the Blitz in London for the United States. “And then my father came into the room, ashen-faced, profoundly upset, and told me never to look at those pictures again. Later, I learned that his [own] parents had died in the camps.”\n

Treating mental illness with respect

In “Next to Normal,” the bipolar Diana Goodman (Alice Ripley) sings about the litany of side effects caused by her medications: vomiting, anxiety, sexual dysfunction and, finally, “I don’t feel like myself. I mean, I don’t feel anything.”

Fairness not just a game for director

Director Doug Liman’s Manhattan home is adorned with more than a dozen photographs and even a painting of his late father, the legendary Jewish attorney Arthur Liman.

What Judd Apatow finds funny

Judd Apatow, Hollywood’s leading comedy mogul, was running late. “I actually have to leave, because I’m going to therapy to discuss what happened in this interview,” he said wryly in a conversation on his cell phone from somewhere in Los Angeles. “I don’t know if I’d call it psychotherapy,” he said, when asked. “I’m not a psycho.”

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