ross partridge
ross partridge was born on february 26, 1968 in kingston, new york, usa as ross whitman partridge. he is an actor and producer, known for
- daniel wu / ross partridge / cherry glazerr (2015)... himself - guest
ross partridge directs himself in this tricky yet clear - eyed adaptation of bonnie nadzam' s novel .
ross partridge is an american actor who portrayed lonnie byers in the netflix original television series stranger things .
ross partridge, oona laurence, jess weixler, tom bower, scoot mcnairy, joel murray, lindsay pulsipher, jennifer lafleur, ron burkhardt .
“lamb, ” with ross partridge, the director, left, as the title character and oona laurence as the girl he takes on a journey .
with: ross partridge, oona laurence, jess weixler, tom bower, scoot mcnairy, joel murray, lindsay pulsipher, jennifer lafleur, ron burkhardt .
steve coogan - 2008 - 09 - 12 - jonathan ross [ couchtripper ]. avi
steve coogan on the jonathan ross show full interview (20 - 4 - 13) .
when steve coogan was on the jonathan ross show as alan partridge to promote his new book. broadcast on 1st october 2011. check out my family guy vid - urltoken
- the pressure to murder (1996)... eric temple (as ross patridge )
ross also lived with actor michael paul for more than twenty years, until his death in 2011 .
april ross is a beach volleyball player who, along with teammate jennifer kessy, is a dominant figure on the international circuit. ross and kessy took the silver medal at the 2012 summer olympic games .
production: a shot clock presentation in association with silent helicopter. produced by mel eslyn, taylor williams. executive producers, ross partridge, william ruch. co - producer, jennifer lafleur .
paste: wow…alright, so let’s hit the pause button. lafleur: pause. now we go to ross .
with: dax shepard (darren), katie aselton (annie), frankie shaw (coffee girl), ross partridge (bartender), sean nelson (john) and bellamy young (jessica) .
it all starts pleasantly enough. partridge introduces his guest keith hunt, the fictional new host of
ross partridge doesn’t harbor any illusions about the controversial nature of his feature film, “ lamb, ” a project that he deems both “troubling” and emblematic of audiences’ desires to box emotionally fraught stories into easily consumable boxes .
paste: nice. and ross, how about you? have you found the next novel to adapt? partridge: i have not. i am looking. i’m open to suggestions. i’m reading a bunch of stuff .
as self - made men who are victims of a biased media, perhaps trump and partridge will get along swimmingly. partridge, as the most abrasive persona of the nineties, has perhaps inadvertently inspired farage, and farage inspires trump. in fact, all told, partridge has a lot to answer for .
paste: so i understand. and was that a good experience, ross? should we all be looking forward to that ?
tracee ellis ross is an american actress known for roles on such tv shows as' girlfriends' and' black - ish.'
paste: who should go first, who’d make for a better story? partridge: jenn should go first .
on the big screen, ross appeared in the drama the evening star (1996) with shirley maclaine and bill paxton. this film was the sequel to the 1983 hit tear - jerker terms of endearment. a pop culture icon, ross also appeared in celebrity ads promoting milk with fellow famous tv moms shirley jones of the partridge family and florence henderson of the brady bunch in 1998 .
actress marion ross became one of america' s favorite television moms in the 1970s for playing mrs. c on the sitcom happy days .
a dangerously unclassifiable relationship between two lost and lonely individuals is the focus of “lamb, ” writer - director - star ross partridge’s beautiful and troubling sophomore feature. in adapting bonnie nadzam’s novel about a middle - aged man who befriends a young girl and coaxes her into joining him for a week at his rural hideaway, partridge navigates risky material with assurance, [ … ]
in addition to film, ross worked steadily on the small screen as well. she made guest appearances on such shows as the lone ranger and perry mason. in the early 1960s, ross landed her first television series. she appeared on the short - lived the gertrude berg show .
as a teenager, ross and her family moved to san diego, california, where she enrolled at san diego state college. there, she continued to pursue her passion for performing. ross & apos; s talent became apparent early on—she earned the title of
most outstanding actress
during her first year .
according to legend, betsy ross made the first american flag. despite a lack of credible evidence to support this, she remains an icon of american history .
partridge describes himself as
misled
about participating in the not - entirely complimentary portrayal of his life as a failed bbc broadcaster .
known for his fast and easy
wet - on - wet
painting technique, bob ross reached millions of art lovers with his popular television program the joy of painting .
ross partridge has been cast opposite winona ryder in netflix’s supernatural period drama stranger things. described as a love letter to the ’80s classics that captivated a generation, stranger things is set in 1980 indiana, where a young boy vanishes into thin air. as friends, family and local police search for answers, they are drawn into an extraordinary mystery involving top - secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one very strange little girl. partridge will play lonnie, the disgruntled albeit charming ex - husband of joyce (ryder). stranger things is written by matt duffer and ross duffer, who also executive produce with shawn levy, and dan cohen. partridge, repped by icm partners and weiner management, recently wrapped billy ray’s secret in their eyes and also wrote, directed and starred in the independent film lamb .
head to soho! join director and actor ross partridge and actor oona laurence for a discussion and q & a about
lamb .
the provocative film—based on bonnie nadzam’s novel—centers on the unusual friendship between david lamb (partridge) and tommie (laurence), a neglected 11 - year - old girl he’s drawn to. when he takes her on a road trip from chicago to the rockies, the journey shakes them in ways that neither expects. don' t miss it !
after happy days ended, ross went on to appear in a number of different tv shows. she played a grandmother on the early 1990s sitcom brooklyn bridge. later in the decade, ross landed a recurring role as drew carey & apos; s mother on the drew carey show. she also appeared on several episodes of that & apos; 70s show as well .
in an interview at the times, mr. partridge spoke about the film and the complicated friendship at its center. here are excerpts from the conversation .
born in minnesota in 1928, actress marion ross made her film debut in 1953 & apos; s forever female. she later became famous for playing mrs. c on the sitcom happy days, which aired from 1974 - 84. afterward, ross worked on such series as brooklyn bridge and the drew carey show. more recently, she appeared on nurse jackie and the middle .
after all, the veteran broadcaster might feel that their backgrounds are similar. partridge is, like trump, a shameless self - promoter. when he appeared on
american businessman ross perot ran for the u. s. presidency as an independent candidate twice, in 1992 and 1996. he is one of the most successful third - party candidates in american history .
paste: are you looking through the staff picks at a local bookstore of every town you go to? partridge: yeah, yeah. that’s how i roll. i just do staff picks and then we’ll see. lafleur: that’s it. that’s actually not a bad idea. partridge: it’s not a bad idea at all .
if that sounds familiar, it’s because partridge, like today' s post - truth politicians, channels the worst excesses of the privileged white man who considers himself nonetheless a victim .
singer and actress diana ross was part of the 1960s pop / soul trio the supremes before embarking on a successful solo career, also starring in such films as' lady sings the blues' and' the wiz.'
beloved television actress marion ross was born on october 25, 1928, in albert lea, minnesota, and dreamed of becoming an actress at an early age. when ross was just 13 years old, she changed the spelling of her name from
marian
to
marion
because she thought it would look better on a marquee. she started taking drama lessons as a high school student at minneapolis & apos; macphail center for the arts .
. but his guest quickly wins the crowd over by using his catchphrase and having it completed by the audience. partridge, wounded, then spends the rest of the segment trying to ruin hunt .
paste: she’s like a hurricane - force breath of fresh air. partridge: yeah. it’s not like a gentle breeze, it’s like a “oh, here comes the force. ” [ laughs ]
he brings hunt' s son on stage, but warns hunt that he can' t talk to his son, because he doesn' t have custody that weekend. partridge proceeds to humiliate hunt live on air, by showing how he has forgotten his estranged son’s birthday. “don’t despair, ” partridge then comforts the son .
we’ve got you a present. we’ve got you an alan partridge tie and blazer badge combination pack – there we go, you take that – and not only that, we’ve got you an all - expenses - paid trip to disneyland with your mummy and her partner this weekend! ”
paste: maybe a fallback plan? partridge: maybe something with stability would have been the perfect remedy for someone like me, but no. lafleur: maybe a completely useless minor in something like computer sciences .
nigel farage famously copied partridge' s blazer, but the two men' s resemblance is more than sartorial – it extends to the former ukip leader' s anti - immigration stance and his “traditional” views on women .
if you’re an indie film fan, you’ve probably seen at least a few of the performances of ross partridge—perhaps the off hours, baghead, cold turkey or this year’s lamb (which he also wrote and directed) —and of jennifer lafleur—perhaps the do - deca - pentathlon or the midnight swim. if you’ve seen their performances, you know how talented they are. and, if you’ve met either of them, probably walking around a film festival, you know how wonderful they are .
this nostalgic sitcom proved to be a big hit with tv viewers, and ran from 1974 - 84. several years after happy days went off the air, the show remained popular in syndication. ross received two emmy award nominations for her work on the series .
crew: directed, written by ross partridge, based on the novel by bonnie nadzam. camera (color, widescreen, hd), nathan m. miller; editor, chris donlon; music, daniel belardinelli; music supervisor, marguerite phillips; production designer, lanie faith marie overton; art director, sarah eslyn; costume designer, diaz; sound, james weidner; sound designer / re - recording mixer, kelsey wood; assistant director, drew langer; casting, allison estrin .
paste: how bad was this mustache? was it like the hitler mustache, like michael jordan? lafleur: no… partridge: it was more like tom selleck. lafleur: yeah, it was more like tom selleck .
paste: no doubt. i have used the phrase “breath of fresh air” to describe jenn much more than once. partridge: now it’s more like she’s a breath of fresh air that comes in like a goddamn hurricane .
, therefore, makes perfect sense. but, given the international aspirations of some of this country' s leading brexiteers, you must wonder if partridge' s ability to embody the future goes further than the under - fished shores of little england. farage was an advocate of donald trump' s campaign for presidency, and the feeling was mutual. trump even described farage as
mr brexit
. so will partridge be a trump fan ?
based on bonnie nadzam’s novel of the same name, “lamb” features partridge as david lamb, a down - on - his luck 47 - year - old who forms an unexpected connection with the equally as hapless tommie, an 11 - year - old girl played by the remarkable oona laurence. as the pair become more involved with each other, the film edges closer and closer to some very complicated situations that are likely to put more than a few people into the throes of some serious unease. but what’s really playing out on screen? is it, in fact, a controversy worth getting worked up about? or is nadzam and partridge’s story just something different? partridge has some ideas .
partridge, too, is a regular chauvinist, who describes his first sexual encounter with his new wife in painful detail .
i was a virgin ,
he says .
whereas carol had been hymen - free for the best part of six years .
on this evidence, the farage who said on lbc that women who wished to breastfeed should
perhaps sit in the corner, or whatever it might be
, might well enjoy a pint with partridge .
a dangerously unclassifiable relationship between two lost and lonely individuals is the focus of “lamb, ” writer - director - star ross partridge’s beautiful and troubling sophomore feature. in adapting bonnie nadzam’s novel about a middle - aged man who befriends a young girl and coaxes her into joining him for a week at his rural hideaway, partridge navigates risky material with assurance, delicacy and a deepening sense of intimacy that can turn, without warning, into complicity: the more at ease we feel in the characters’ company, the more disturbingly questionable the situation becomes. superbly shot and movingly acted, especially by young oona laurence, this arthouse - ready item should prove a potent conversation - starter at festivals, where even naysayers may be hard pressed to deny the film’s cumulative emotional impact .
i try to be as objective as possible in my interviews, but it should be noted that not only am i a raving fan of ross, of jenn, and of ross & jenn, they also appear in my upcoming movie, 6 love stories. so i could in no way be objective about my love for them when we sat down to discuss their background, their relationship, and the ups and downs of being an indie film couple. but i do hope you’ll find our conversation interesting and inspiring—and be sure to stick around until the end for a special surprise guest appearance !
read article :
happy days’ cast: where are they now ?
the
happy days
cast (clockwise, from top left): henry winkler, tom bosley, anson williams, marion ross, ron howard, erin moran, and don most. (photo: abc / photofest )
paste: exactly, you could both be working at xerox right now. so why don’t one of you take the lead in telling me how y’all met? who tells the story better about how you met? partridge: who do you think ?
paste: ross, i think there needs to be an amazing panel you need to lead at the sarasota film festival about how to write an amazing script that needs very little rewrites. because i know a lot of people, including me, could use that panel. partridge: it’s much easier when you’re adapting a book. writing something from scratch, i don’t know about that capability [ laughs ]. lafleur: i think he was so great about sticking to the heart of the book. bonnie nadzam wrote such a beautiful book, but ross diligently had to think about how the poeticism of the writing could translate onto the screen and work with that. he really just stuck to the heart of the film and didn’t try to overcomplicate it. he is just a great writer and a very soulful person and i feel like that shines through in the final project as well .
the sketch not only shows how close to the bone tv chat shows really are, but serves to illustrate the narcissism and barbarism of partridge, a failed broadcaster from norwich, who spends more time settling personal scores and balming his embittered ego than doing a professional job .
a minor blip on a warm chicago afternoon. no one seems to notice that an 11 - year - old waif, tommie (a precocious oona laurence) is grabbed and pushed into a car by a stranger, the 47 - year - old david lamb (director ross partridge). her pals — two seventh - grader girlfriends from school standing beside her — don’t even bother to report the feigned abduction, which is david’s twisted provocation after they dared the diminutive, eager - to - please child, decked out in attention - grabbing stiletto heels, to bum a cigarette from this complete stranger .
ross has two children from her marriage to freeman meskimen, jim meskimen and ellen plummer. the couple divorced in the late & apos; 60s. both of her children have followed in their mother & apos; s footsteps. her son is an actor and her daughter has worked as a producer and a writer on such shows as friends .
when confronted by plaid cymru leader leanne wood after speaking out against the alleged 60 per cent of hiv - diagnosed uk residents who are not british nationals, farage protested :
it' s a fact. it' s a fact. it' s a fact. well, it' s true .
it could be a direct callback to partridge' s comment about the number of people in china in a 2011 interview he did with jonathan ross .
there are loads of them ,
he says, explaining his intention to crack the chinese tv market .
there are! it' s a fact !
paste: and then ross came walking right behind him. lafleur: [ laughs ] and i was kind of just staring at him and admiring how handsome he was and wondering why he had this terrible mustache. he kind of just stopped right in front of me, and at first i thought it was because i was staring at him. but he looked at me and said “are you here for bash? ” i said “yes i am, i’m jennifer, ” and he said “hi, i’m ross. ” and i said, “nice to meet you. so, the mustache. is it yours or for the character? ” and he was like “oh, it’s for the character. ”
paste: so i just realized, i don’t think i’ve ever talked to either one of you guys about your growing up, your family, the early years. lafleur: we pretty much had the opposite experience in childhood. partridge: you couldn’t meet two more different people [ laughs ] .
after graduating from college in 1950, ross worked at the la jolla playhouse. she made her film debut in forever female (1953) with ginger rogers and william holden. other film work followed, including sabrina (1954) with audrey hepburn and humphrey bogart. she later appeared in the popular comedy operation petticoat (1959) with carey grant and tony curtis .
paste: [ laughs ] so for this valentine conversation, i kind of felt that i would start by talking to both of you about growing up and where you’re from and what make you who you are…all that kind of stuff. then i’d love to talk about how you met, and obviously we’d want to talk about lamb, and then what you all are doing now. i also want to get into what the ups and downs of being a couple in the same crazy industry is like. how does that sound? ross partridge: that sounds great. although, the fact that this is a crazy industry…i don’t know what you mean. [ laughs ]
paste: please tell me you all have tracked down the employee who picked it and sent them a thank you note. lafleur: that is a great idea! we haven’t. partridge: i tweeted at the store and they did tweet back, but we should find out who it was. lafleur: ross was like, “i don’t know if i’m crazy, but i think i want to make this into a movie. ” i read it that night and was just like, “oh, for sure this is what were doing. ” we had been bouncing around all these different ideas, and it was just 100 percent crystal clear that this is what it should be. ross went about getting the rights, connecting with the author and building a relationship with her. by december 2013, we had the rights, and by february 2014 he had written an amazing version of the script that needed very little editing and rewrites, so we just tweaked it a little bit here and there. we were in preproduction by may and shooting by june .
lamb — played by the movie’s writer and director, ross partridge — first meets tommie (a solid oona laurence) when she toddles up to him in a parking lot clutching a pink purse and almost falling off her high heels. she’s a stick figure with a curtain of lank hair, but she has grit, watchful eyes and friends who have dared her to bum a cigarette. for reasons that are never altogether clear, including, apparently, to lamb, he gives her a smoke and then hustles her into his suv, insisting that he’s teaching her a cautionary lesson. this abduction turns out to be a practice run for the extended snatching that consumes much of the story .
paste: that actually suggests another good question. jenn, jumping forward, what is the biggest difference between the way you thought about ross then and the way you think about ross now, as far as who he is? if you have gone from a breath of fresh air to a hurricane of fresh air, he has gone from what to what for you? you don’t have to match it in romanticism, you can just be honest. lafleur: i don’t know that it’s changed all that much. i think. partridge: old dog. lafleur: that’s definitely true, there have been moments where i’ve said “people don’t change, do they? ” and he’s an old dog. that’s okay, i think that the ways that we are different are what makes it work. i don’t know if ross would be able to operate in this world with someone who is exactly like him, and i don’t know if i would be able to operate in this world with somebody who operates the same as me. i think that if i was with someone just like me, we would run each other to the ground by never stopping. we would go, go, go, go and ross and that other person would run each other to the ground. [ laughs ] he is so incredibly bright and creative and soulful and inventive. he’s always thinking about new things, and i help him harness those things and bring them into a reality. in a lot of ways, he is the creative force behind a lot of the stuff we work on together while i work in the beginning part to get it going and then i grab it and run with it and drag him along with me on the adventures or misadventures, however they may turn. luckily there have been far more adventures than misadventures. i don’t know if that answers your question or not .
paste: as your relationship progressed, what was the first project you two initiated together? not just as actors on someone else’s projects, but the first that was yours, that you did together. lafleur: well, after we did bash together, my friend justin ball and i created a small theater company called the great theater, and the first play that we did was called things beyond our control by a playwright i went to grad school with named jesse kellerman, and we knew that we wanted ross to be a part of that. ross’s title was an actor but he had come from a production background and really just came on as producer and made it happen. we were this scrappy little theater company making productions working with new playwrights. we did a couple of plays together doing that. so it really started in the theater, both working as actors. ross had met mark and katie duplass at the nantucket film festival right before he and i met, and they really hit it off. mark encouraged his brother jay to come and see the play that we were in together, to come see bash and after he saw ross in bash, they cast him as the lead in baghead. he said to me, “you’re wonderful, we don’t really have a role for you, but do you want to come out and play this small little role? ” i had never done a film before, so i was like “yeah, let’s go to austin, texas, let’s do it. ” but i think collaborating with the duplass brothers is how we started to work in film together. ross went on to then produce their next film, the do - deca - pentathlon, which i acted in. then we made wedlock together. so we started with them, then peeled off and started to develop scripts. ross would primarily come up with the ideas and bounce them off me, and we would hash them together and go back and forth, and then we would write the script and i would edit them, and then he would do a rewrite. he found the book lamb when he was at skyline books. it was a staff pick, and he kind of just picked it up and started reading it. and an hour later he was just standing there like “i should probably buy this. ”
the friendship between a middle - aged man and a young girl is at the heart of “lamb, ” a drama from the director ross partridge, who also stars as the lead character david lamb, and adapted the screenplay from the novel by bonnie nadzam. the character, adrift and searching for meaning, meets an 11 - year - old girl, tommie (oona laurence), in a parking lot when she asks him for a cigarette. this begins an unlikely friendship, one that may raise eyebrows and cause discomfort for many viewers. the film, and book from which it is adapted, looks at the not - easily - definable contours of the relationship in compelling ways, but the subject matter is tricky to say the least .
paste: [ laughs ] i’m not going to touch that one. partridge: that story has been nearly perfected of how that went down, and every time i tell it, i’m immediately edited with “no, no, no, you’re telling it wrong. ” lafleur: [ laughs ] well ross is the one to always kind of downplay things. i, i, have a small— partridge: and jenn’s always the one to want to embellish things. [ laughs ] lafleur: it is not embellishment. [ laughs ] just a little flourish here and there. partridge: it kind of goes back to how different our paths are. she comes from this beautiful type of background where her parents love her, they adore her, they have video footage of her singing when she was four, five six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. lafleur: i mean, i’m still sending them videos. partridge: the first time i went over to her house, her dad was like “have you seen the dvds? ” and i’m like “what are the dvds? ” and it is literally chronologically organized from every month of jenn’s life since she was like five. [ laughs ] it’s her singing, every month of her life since she was five. so i come from a background where we’d move around and have a family get - together and look at each other and wonder “how the hell are we related? ” [ laughs ] we come from completely different upbringings. so i’d say one is light, one is dark and somehow we find it in the middle. so yeah, jenn is better at telling happier stories, that’s not my natural tendency .
now in her 80s, ross continues to perform on the small screen, acting in a variety of series and tv movies. she has enjoyed recurring roles on such shows as gilmore girls and brothers and sisters. her trademark red hair and warm smile have been seen on everything from medical drama grey anatomy to the family sitcoms the middle and hot in cleveland. she also has provided the voice of grandma squarepants on the popular cartoon, spongebob squarepants .
paste: do you have “work ross & jenn” and “home ross & jenn” and you have to toggle between the two? or is it pretty much a very similar dynamic both ways? lafleur: i think it’s probably a pretty similar dynamic. if anything, we have to challenge ourselves to differentiate them a little bit more. you know, almost create business hours and outside of business hours where you’ve got to just drop it and not talk about the movie for a little bit. because we definitely went down rabbit holes where, you know, it’d be, like, two o’clock in the morning and we’re still talking about a certain scene and whether to use this take or that take and what we need to do for the story arc and going on and on and on and finally it got to the point where i needed to start saying, “i can’t talk about the movie anymore today. starting at 9 a. m. , i’m reopen for talking about the movie, but for tonight i’m done. ” especially when it is, you know, an indie film and ross is writing and directing and producing and going on location scouts and starring in the movie. you know, i was producing. which again, on an indie film means that i’m, like, helping out with catering and craft services and locations and casting. so when you’re wearing so many hats, it feels like it takes every single second of every day. so you’re just supposed to keep working on it no matter what the time and i think that, you know, we had to just kind of create boundaries there. partridge: jenn was better at it than i was. for sure. lafleur: yeah. he wouldn’t shut up about it. [ laughs ]
paste: that’s awesome. and ross, what were you thinking at this time? besides, obviously, “hubba hubba? ” partridge: originally when i saw her i was like wow, she was so…i am 11 years older, and i had been living in la and i’d been dating a bunch. i felt a bit sullied by the time i met jenny, and i just felt a bit downbeat, like this is never going to work out. she was just a breath of fresh air, she just had such a spirit. and i immediately was like, “this is such goodness in people’s lives. ” she was new start…i think i said to her at some point, “you’re like my last shot at doing it right. you’re a good person in people’s lives. ” she’s such a good human being that you just have to hold on to .
mr. partridge, a character actor who looks like he auditions for dermot mulroney types, has a relaxed, pleasant presence; what he doesn’t have is a grasp on the story’s ugliness, its viewpoints or how his nice - guy vibe is at odds with the self - deluded exploiter he plays. in the novel, lamb is a fantasist who uses tommie as a blank (pure) slate on which to write a new life story. mr. partridge never figures out how to complicate his version and its voices, or maybe doesn’t want to. he softens lamb and tommie with tears, safe hugs and averted looks and, once they land in the countryside, mires them in sentimentality. he tries to turn lamb into a sheep in wolf’s clothing, but it’s a bad fit .
the cigarette is a ruse, a macguffin really, which triggers some latent impulse in david to seize the chance for some highly unusual, if highly stigmatized, unspecified, uncategorizable form of bonding. the bottom line, as partridge tells stephen saito in urltoken, is “ (david’s) need for love is so much greater than his logic. ” conventional filters dissolve in a jumble of mental shakeup and surfaced repression .
partridge: yeah, it’s a great show. i just did, like, a small little arc on it. but it’s really cool—it’s kind of one of these shows you can watch with your whole family. i’ve actually seen a couple of the episodes already and i think it’s going to do really well. it’s a really fun, clever world, so i look forward to it. yeah, it was great .
paste: and ross, tell me more about where you were born and grew up? partridge: i was born in morristown, new jersey. i lived there very briefly. my father was involved in radio. he was kind off a big radio disc jockey, and he was on the radio in manhattan with a station called wnew, and has a radio show called milkman matinee, which was kind of big for early morning commuters. i’ll talk to people’s parents and they’ll know about my dad. he had a booming radio voice, and he was the quintessential spokesperson. he did commercials, and did radio. that’s kind of how i was around it. my mom worked in traffic, and was in the traffic department of the radio station, and that is basically how they met. my mom was his third marriage, for my mom, my dad was her second marriage, so she had two sons prior, and my dad had four children prior .
paste: beautiful. well the last question i have for you guys is that, given you two are individually—like, every single person who knows either one of you, individually each of you is one of their favorite people. people hold you—each of you—very near and dear to their heart. and then together you’re, like, just this unbelievable couple. so, since this is the valentine’s issue and we’ll have some lovers reading, why don’t you give your best advice for the lovers out there? how to be a couple as awesome as the two of you. [ laughter ] lafleur: you go. partridge: aw, come on. lafleur: ross is actually really blushing right now. he’s full - on blushing. he doesn’t do well with compliments. [ laughs ] wait. we’re gonna get some advice from mark duplass here. partridge: hey, mark, what’s the key to keeping, uh— lafleur: to being a good working relationship and personal relationship. he’s the master. partridge: mark’s the master. mark duplass: um. i would say proper grooming is very important. don’t let yourself go. [ laughs ] um. i would say, what i call 98 percent honesty. don’t lie 98 percent of the time; that’s very important. and then i would say make sure you pick someone whose smell you really, really like, because that will get you through it. that’s my top three. partridge: actually, one of marks’ favorite pieces of advice that he gave a long, long time ago is when you were talking about when you were planning the wedding and you were like, “you know, when your wife is planning the wedding you basically just have to say, ‘uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, ’ and you agree to, like, five out of the seven things she’s bringing to you on a daily basis, but on the sixth time you basically, just have to be like, ‘no! ’ no matter what it is, you just have to say no so they know you’re paying attention. ” [ laughs ] lafleur: see, i was going say something sweet, like, “kindness and patience. ” (laughs) but really it’s just about, you know, proper grooming and telling mostly the truth and picking somebody who smells good to you. [ laughs ]
paste: i’m here. keep going! partridge: i mean, when you work on something, you know, it’s two years of your life so you have to, i think, be very specific and be aware of the fact that it’s going to be this much all - consuming and you have to—it’s almost easier because, you know, you lay your head down at night and you’re with the person who’s working on it with you the most and they understand .
gary and tommie may get hugsy, but whether he crosses the line into pedophilia is an unresolved question, at best, for the viewer. is his behavior towards her sexual, predatory? or is it an expression of platonic affection? lacking the two astonishing lead performances, the film’s courageous forays into relatively untapped territory might bypass credibility. bonnie nadzam’s 2011 novel, on which the film is based, is equivocal about gary’s motives: he wants to rescue tommie from a life of mediocrity, but he also owns up to her sexual effect on him. in the film, partridge restrains himself from digging too deeply into either impetus, enabling us to calculate results for ourselves. all of the cuddling with tommie, whom he’s wrapped in a blanket, his caressing her face and assuring her how beautiful she is: david goes up to the edge of transgression. crossing the line or not, partridge, unlike nadzam, maintains an air of ambiguity .
paste: well, i mean there is a certain element of that kind of, uh, andre agassi / steffi graf thing. right? where— partridge: you couldn’t have picked a better quote for me! could not have picked a more right quote for me. you know i’m obsessed with tennis? lafleur: he’s obsessed with tennis. he’s obsessed with andre agassi. we’re here at a pool party and he’s feeling sad because his favorite tennis player lost today. [ laughs ]
paste: so you became one of seven, the youngest of seven between them…wow. partridge: yeah. we didn’t see a lot of them often. my brothers came in and out, so it was kind off a very transitory place. my dad, being in radio, eventually got out of new york and then we bopped around the east coast for a while, pennsylvania, new jersey, new hampshire and then we ended up in massachusetts. ironically, 20 miles from jenn’s hometown .
the film, which has played around the festival circuit since first debuting at sxsw last year, even has a poster that boasts of its hard - to - pin - down nature, including pull quotes that hinge on its “intensely provocative” nature and even a rallying cry to “let the controversy begin. ” but that’s not why partridge was compelled to the make the film, which he wrote, produced, directed and starred in. he just loved the story, and maybe that will be enough for audiences to take a chance on it .
paste: but no, there is a sense in which, you know, any of us can appreciate how good either one of you are, but there’s also a sense in which, from the inside as a great actor, ross, you can better appreciate just how good jenn is and vice versa. jenn, as a great actor yourself you can better appreciate just how great—that would make you fall for each other more than it would make any civilian fall for you, i would think. lafleur: for sure. partridge: for sure. i mean, yeah. i think that’s still a matter of opinion, but i aspire to be as good as jenn. i don’t know how she feels about me; i’m actually much more complicated in the sense that, like—jenn also knows that she’s really good. i think she’s great, but i think jenn also is pretty confident that she’s damn good. i don’t think that goes the other direction. i think jenn’s great and i just usually most of the time think that i’m pretty bad. [ laughs ] but yeah, and at least i aspire to, like, wow. i actually am inspired for other people to realize how great she is, too .
paste: yeah, i guess it’s kind of a good - news - bad - news thing. like, that thing you’re thinking about all the time? the good news is your partner’s thinking about it all the time too. the bad news is your partner’s thinking about it all the time too. lafleur: [ laughs ] exactly. partridge: but there’s a point where, like i said, i think it’s easier for them—for jenn especially to kind of put it away, i guess, when we were finished with the movie. then the real work started beginning, when i was trying to get the movie out into the world and then that becomes a whole other beast of conversation. lafleur: yeah. partridge: so for the production of it for a year was one thing, but then it’s the year after where you’re still in this world of trying to get it out there and how to go about doing that and, you know, that can be an all - consuming thing as well, so…she was better at shutting it down, and i still had to live with it pretty much all the time .
in the mid - & apos; 70s, ross took on the role for which she is now best known: starring as marion cunningham on the sitcom happy days, set in the 1950s and & apos; 60s. her character quickly became one of the beloved tv moms of all time. her character, also known as mrs. c, supported and guided her two youngest children richie, played by ron howard, and joanie, played by erin moran, through the perils of the teen years. she also doted on her husband howard (tom bosley). mrs. c looked after richie & apos; s friends, too, including arthur
the fonz
fonzarelli, played by henry winkler .
paste: sure. lafleur: also, when you’re in a relationship together and you’re working on the same thing, there’s none of those professional filters that you put on when you’re working with colleagues. or, you know, when you’re talking to the distributor you talk a certain way and stay calm and don’t freak out. you get off the phone and we start, not yelling at each other; just basically yelling to each other about what needs to happen and how it’s going to happen and if it’s going to be able to happen. partridge: or at each other, too. it’s definitely the trigger for some greater things, for sure. lafleur: well i don’t think we ever yelled at each other; it often felt like we were. it often felt like you were yelling at me, but i knew that it wasn’t. it was just you expressing concern and talking it out. partridge: i’m an alarmist and jenn is not. lafleur: but me as a producer to you and as a girlfriend to you, i want to be able to provide what it is that you want and feel like you need. and so then it feels like it becomes my burden to take on. partridge: that’s the personal side of trying to manage this stuff in a professional way. sometimes the two go hand - in - hand. i think that’s the thing with also making art of any sort is that it is a personal thing. it brings forth all your most personal sides of who you are: your own psyche, your own insecurity, your own feelings of love. all these things that come into play because you’re making something that you’re passionate about. it’s not like a pragmatic thing; filmmaking is based on feeling and emotion. so how do you really separate the two ?
paste: that’s crazy. so before we start talking about you all meeting, let me just go back for a second. ross, you felt that you wanted to study film studies in college. were you thinking of going on to be a critic, or an academic, or did you not think it through and just wanted to study cinema? partridge: no. i knew i wanted to study cinema and make movies if i could. in high school i had a great english teacher who encouraged me in creative writing. i didn’t have that much confidence. i wasn’t quite into school all that much. i was actually working a lot during high school. i was actually worked almost 30 hours a week all the way through high school. from selling waterbeds to making pizza, to doing whatever i could in order to make some money. so it was kind of like a dream that i would get into film. i loved movies, but i was also not so focused until college. my main goal was to get into college and when i did, everything else like getting into theater just kind of happened, with my roommate and so forth. i had an idea that i wanted to make movies, but at that age it was kind of like if i could do anything, why not make movies? without realizing there were so many more important things to do [ laughs ] .
paste: that’s crazy. partridge: yeah, basically my dad bought a radio station in this small town called auburn, massachusetts. my parents bought it together. and then my mom, we ended up moving to this place from pennsylvania. my father was from worchester mass, so it was like coming home for him. he wanted to be this big fish in a little pond, and boy did he get it. my mom arrived in this town and was basically like “we have to get out of here. ” my parents split up. i moved all over the place. i lived with my mom for some time in upstate new york…
ross partridge ( born february 26 , 1968 ) is an american actor , director , screenwriter and producer . he has worked on a number of films produced by kevin spacey 's production company trigger street productions , including interstate 84 as writer and director , which was shown at the 2000 toronto international film festival , and the pbs documentary america rebuilds : a year at ground zero , narrated by spacey . his most notable work is the 2015 adaptation of the book lamb , which partridge wrote , starred in and directed . he also has a recurring role in the critically acclaimed netflix science fiction series stranger things . 
ross partridge (born february 26, 1968) is an american actor, director, screenwriter and producer. he has worked on a number of films produced by kevin spacey's production company trigger street productions, including interstate 84 as writer and director, which was shown at the 2000 toronto international film festival, and the pbs documentary america rebuilds: a year at ground zero, narrated by spacey. his most notable work is the 2015 adaptation of the book lamb, which partridge wrote, starred in and directed. he also has a recurring role in the critically acclaimed netflix science fiction series stranger things.
ross partridge (born february 26, 1968) is an american actor, director, screenwriter and producer. he has worked on a number of films produced by kevin spacey's production company trigger street productions, including interstate 84 as writer and director, which was shown at the 2000 toronto international film festival, and the pbs documentary america rebuilds: a year at ground zero, narrated by spacey. his most notable work is the 2015 adaptation of the book lamb, which partridge wrote, starred in and directed. he also has a recurring role in the critically acclaimed netflix science fiction series stranger things.