Times Insider explains who we’re and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes collectively.
The photographer James Nachtwey confirmed up at Bradley Cooper’s farmhouse in Pennsylvania one freezing morning in January, armed with a coat and a digital camera.
“Let’s take a walk,” an affable Mr. Cooper prompt, main Mr. Nachtwey via his 33-acre property till they arrived at an ice-crusted stream.
After sharing that he practiced mindfulness by taking chilly plunges — immersing himself in freezing water for minutes at a time — Mr. Cooper proceeded to strip all the way down to his black briefs and dive in, flipping over onto his again and shutting his eyes.
“I thought I’d have 30 seconds to take the picture,” Mr. Nachtwey stated in a recent cellphone dialog from his home in New Hampshire. “But he stayed in for at least 10 minutes.”
The ensuing picture of Mr. Cooper, which seems on the duvet of this month’s Great Performers problem of The New York Times Magazine, is one in all 12 portraits of this award season’s buzziest actors. Mr. Nachtwey captured the pictures over a three-week interval in January in Los Angeles, New York, Pennsylvania and Atlanta.
Among them: Mark Ruffalo coaching his personal digital camera on road pigeons, Paul Giamatti curled up on a sofa with cats at his favourite used bookstore and Emma Stone wandering via steamy Manhattan streets.
Mr. Nachtwey acknowledged that initially he may appear an odd selection for the task. He’s photographed many armed conflicts internationally during the last 5 a long time, and earlier than final month, he had by no means photographed a star.
“It seemed like a real stretch, and I didn’t quite understand it at first,” he stated of the task. “But then I saw it as a challenge: How could I visually represent the dedication of these actors to their craft?”
In separate cellphone conversations this week, Mr. Nachtwey and Kathy Ryan, the journal’s pictures director, shared how the picture portfolio got here collectively in simply over two months and the challenges of photographing actors within the wild. These are edited excerpts from the talks.
Ms. Ryan, what was your aim with these portraits?
KATHY RYAN Actors get photographed on a regular basis, so we wished to do one thing completely different that may stand out. We wished to take an unconventional strategy — let’s not {photograph} in a studio, let’s go the documentary route. Jim is likely one of the best battle photographers in historical past. He has an exacting eye and sees magnificence. But additionally, in assigning Jim, I believed he would search one thing else within the actors.
Mr. Nachtwey, what satisfied you to take the mission on?
JAMES NACHTWEY I’m not desirous about celeb or stardom, however I take into account actors to be artists, which is one thing I may relate to and wished to discover. I believed it might be attention-grabbing to look at the issues actors do of their each day lives to strengthen their artwork.
RYAN Despite being a famend battle photographer whose work covers 50 years, in some methods, this was his first time doing this type of pictures, so I revered that he wished to do it.
Did any actors have a very robust imaginative and prescient for his or her portrait?
NACHTWEY Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor wished to do one thing non secular and talked about to David Carthas, a photograph editor on the journal, that she likes going to church. We thought she would possibly pray, meditate, learn the gospel or do one thing that may make an image. But she was very clear that she wished a portrait that may specific her battle in life.
When I defined that photographing one thing that had occurred up to now wouldn’t be potential, she stated she would do it via her facial expressions, physique language, the garments she was carrying. I requested her to take cost. She started to sing gospel music quietly to herself, and at one level she began to cry. It was a second of true emotion, and I managed to seize it.
Tell me extra about that picture of Mark Ruffalo learning a Greek statue on the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
NACHTWEY He’s a sculptor — and fairly an excellent one — so he wished to go to the Met and research the Greek sculptures, which he does very often. After he analyzed a sculpture of Aphrodite, he talked concerning the completely different strategies the sculptors had used. I caught the second when he was adjusting his glasses, so he may see higher.
What was your greatest problem?
NACHTWEY It was discovering the perfect position to place the digital camera in — the precise angle, distance, sense of scale and proportion wanted to seize an actual second. I used to be photographing actors, however they weren’t performing; they had been engaged in issues they usually do of their each day lives. It was as much as me to seize a real second.
What had been your takeaways from the task?
NACHTWEY I went into the expertise with an actual appreciation for his or her artwork as actors, and got here away with an appreciation for who they’re as folks.
RYAN He related with folks actually rapidly, which is one thing he’s developed in his years of capturing world wide. They let him see one thing somewhat extra intimate than what they’d usually reveal.
