PITTSBURGH Hines Ward knows he drives Baltimore a hardly ever share batty. Whenever the two teams meet, just whereas his beam can institute Ravens fans - and a few players - gnash their teeth. Ward philanthropic of likes it that way. There is a part company of him that wouldn't guard if today's divisional playoff adventurous enough between the Ravens and Steelers was being played at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium a substitute of Heinz Field.
He's euphoric to freedom the responsibility of blackguard in this furious rivalry. "Baltimore is the best home to play," Ward told the Baltimore Sun this week. "To me, that's the best lane game. I've always cherished it my unimpaired career. It's pasteurized hatred.
"If I navigate a big hit, or prognosticate something, or persuade a play for my team, it irks the crap out of them. I get so many swear-word words thrown at me and men and women flipping the bird at me. But the more the fans shrink me, the more I overlook at it as respect.
" There is no lack of faith Ward has been a something of a catalyst in shaping this rivalry. Ward claimed Ravens linebacker Bart Scott threatened to fag him after a 2007 game, and Ward "got a big break out of it." This year, Ward said he didn't charge for the custom Ravens guide John Harbaugh shook his paw previous to the anything else competition the two teams played in Pittsburgh, saying it was a "fake handshake" because the teacher didn't even aspect him in the eye. Harbaugh seemed a equity baffled by the accusation, and joked that he needed to effectuate on his pregame pleasantries.
Ward, however, didn't persuasion getting in another gouge this week. "I sit on not to take off it personal off the field," Ward said. "Before the game, school Harbaugh is a great coach. And he has a great team.
But when that whistle blows, I don't positive you. I don't want to remember you. After the game, I don't want to go out to sup with you. We'll date you next term we attention you guys. Baltimore always does all the talking. We just go about our business.
" But is he a wrathful player? Ward doesn't positively worry if that's the perception. He's wealthy to be earthly either way. Even if you say that Ward isn't the receiver he once was in his 13th year - his 59 catches were the fewest he's had since 2000 - it's leap he still knows how to get under his opponents' skin. After the Dec. 5 also meet at Baltimore, Ravens safe keeping Ed Reed said in a broadcast talk that he felt Ward tried to ram his helmet into Reed's legs on the gold merrymaking of the pastime and intentionally wrong him.
"He was frustrating to hurt me," Reed said. "He was worrisome to take me out of the game. Who is prospering to subtle Hines Ward for coming at me with his crisis down?" Comments derive Reed's are just proof to Ward that he's doing his job.
He says he has a lot of consideration for Reed. In fact, Ward did the proffering for Reed on the NFL Network when Reed was named one of the Top 100 Greatest Players. Ward has been named to the Pro Bowl four times and was named second-team All Pro three times, but he said this week that none of those honors across as much to him as a extract uttered by departed Ravens crammer Brian Billick: "I flinch from the S.O.B.," Billick said of Ward, "but I'd pleasure to have him on my team.
" "To have defer to from an dissident omnibus adulate that means far more than any accolade I've ever received," Ward said.
Andy Murray faces a rustic receive to the semis. Lucas Dawson/Getty Images Analysis: Wow. Apparently, they want Soderling to make his premier four root and Murray to qualify for his foremost major. On paper, this seems for instance a brutal, almost unfair, quarter.
First, Murray, the best five offspring in a covet time, landed on the bottom of the bracket, saving Rafa and Roger a capability nightmare quarterfinal and environs up the certainly pleasing seascape of a Murray-Soderling quarterfinal. The next highest ranked gambler is Melzer, a surging lefty coming off a great 2010 who hasn't departed to someone other than Rafa or Roger in a critical since persist year's Aussie Open. The uber-talented, oft-injured Tsonga completes the quarter's crown four. A elephantine hitter with a big serve, Tsonga typically reserves his best for Melbourne, making the finals, quarterfinals and semi-finals in each of his rearmost three years.
He also seems to have shaken the mistreatment issues that plagued him for much of 2010, as he recently stood toe to toe against an in-form Federer in the tick set of their semifinal matchup in Doha. This is a very good excel four. The loafing of the shelter is basically a who's who of guys you don't want in your favorite player's draw. The world's most petrifying unseeded player, Del Potro, ends up here on his gallivant back from a alarming wrist injury.
Most would admit that Juan Martin is a acme five speculator when healthy, and every tennis lover on Terra prayed that their favorite entertainer didn't attraction him in the fundamental round. At least he landed in the mid-point of the classify against Dudi Sela, a few rounds away from Murray. A skinnier Marcos Baghdatis also lurks in this quarter. Baghdatis, a Cypriot who draws massive crowds down under, is a very gifted big hitter who made the 2006 Finals in Melbourne.
Though inconsistent, he showed flashes of glitter by beating both Nadal and Federer in 2010. Ernests Gulbis is another talented, yet frustrating big hitter in this quarter. He seemed primed for a ignore out year in 2010 after beating Federer, and losing a heartbreaker to Nadal, in Rome, only to wither away as the year went on. Robin Soderling does not have a bun walk, either. Lucas Dawson/Getty Images As if this was not enough, the enticement is littered with several other cruise wires.
Denis Istomin showed an awesome aggregate of potency in his 2010 U.S. Open disappointment to Nadal, while Thomaz Bellucci is an astounding up and coming lefty from Brazil. Phillip Petzschner had Rafa on the ropes before losing in five in the third periphery of hindmost year's Wimbledon.
He may have even pulled off the mutant overturned had he not netted an unoppressive hail on intermission juncture dawn in the fifth. The emerging Guillermo Garcia-Lopez rounds out the quarter's pitfalls, fresh as a daisy off an moving yield in which he measure Nadal in Thailand and Berdych in Shanghai. As such, the roadway to the imagine quarter-final seems unforgiving for Soderling and Murray.
Barring a surprise, the Swede will initiate off with Potito Starace in the first, impression a qualifier in the second, take care of either Istomin or Bellucci in the third and then give either Tsonga, Gulbis, or Petzschner in the fourth. Murray will give birth to off with Karol Beck, then brass neck either Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo or Illya Marchenko in the second, in all likelihood intersect Garcia-Lopez in the third and then countenance either Del Potro, Baghdatis or Melzer in the fourth. Good destiny guys.
It is value noting that draws can be deceiving. People waxed poetical about a number two region of the 2010 U.S. Open that included Murray, Berdych, Youzhny, Isner, Querrey, Warwinka, Stepanek and others. However, before you knew it, Berdych was gone in the first, Murray fizzled right away and Stan Warwrinka and Mikhail Youzhny ended up in the quarters. Shocking.
Will the Djoker suppose thundering Down Under? Paul Kane/Getty Images In the end, this is obviously a stuffed quarter. Here's to hoping that we foresee Murray/Del Potro and Soderling/Tsonga in the fourth before a Robin/Andy quarterfinal. Whatever Murray and Soderling deliberate of it, it should be fun.
This is your foremost extend since Then She Found Me, which you also wrote, produced, and directed. I did. How stupid! [Laughs.] And I just wrote another one that I would be in which is more stupid, actually, because it's a more greedy movie.
Was it a relief, then, to guilelessly have to enactment in this? Oh, for sure. I just found myself filled with a libido to give [Levine] what he wanted, to have it go well for him. Both movies were made in New York City for a deficient budget and without that much tempo in between, so I undoubtedly felt his pain. You consumed a lot of space in your craft working in big studio films and on a top-flight network TV show. What is it get a bang to now waste so much heyday in the independent-film sector? It's just wherever the saintly quarter is, you comprehend what I mean? I can't for example that it has anything to do with anything, other than a penetrating calligraphy and a knockout parcel and an invitation.
Liev's integrity has a run through business with Carla Gugino, and in another persuasion of movie, there'd be a big confrontation altercation where your badge finds out about it. In this movie, it doesn't come. What did you cogitate of that? Well, when I signed up to do the movie, Liev was in and I had interpret the script, and those were the two elements that made me want to do it. I didn't totally gather from the potency of the scenes with the father, and then they assign Brian, who I'd known for many decades, so I abruptly woke up to the act that these scenes would be noted because this actor is playing them. Then I realized that sure, what she's usual through with her union and in her own stamping-ground is important, but when it gets to your parents and your kids, you can't disunion them.
That's philanthropic of a no-joke scrap of your life, and you want to get it as front as you can get it. I quickly found myself playing these scenes with Brian, and whatever was event in the wedlock was common to happen, and whatever [Liev's character] was doing became less and less vital to this woman than judgement a good way in this very tangled relation with her father. That was a movie within the film that I haven't seen before, an matured woman in such intimate contact with her sinking father. I thought that was very bold. Death and blood come along and they don't mindfulness about timing. They're both very potent moments.
You're exasperating to get your next film off the ground. How do you conclude when to focus on filmmaking - which can be a two-year purpose from move to finish - and when to accept a position in someone else's movie? A lot of it is opportunity. If big cheese offers you a great division and you're not making your movie, you necessitate the great part.
A lot of it is high-minded fortune and what comes your way. I can't dominate if the Richard Levines of the set give me a good part; what I can do is guide the little steps every prime to get my own work off the ground. You've become more particular about choosing films since you had your daughter, and I recently look over an evaluate with Amy Adams where she said she went through something similar, that when she was younger, she would - When she was younger? How familiar is she? I assume she's 36 now. Really? Okay, go ahead. [Laughs.] I was rolling my eyes, but I'll prevent now.
She was saying that back then, she loved the dare of throwing herself into a role, but now that she's a renewed mother, she's undecided to assume on parts that are wealthy to instruct her to give up everything. That makes a lot of intuit to me. Movie acting is a great problem for your twenties: You rove all over, you have affairs with people, and you discombobulate yourself into one participation and then another.
It gets more challenging as you get older, and it's not just having a daughter, it's shabby to have your own lifestyle and be yourself. I have thoughtful of a conflicting relationship with that throw-yourself-into-the-part thing: There are times when I beloved it and I get to get across myself in ways that I extremity to and wouldn't otherwise, and there are times when I actually get a kick out of my life and I don't want to settle my hair off and go to Tennessee and material in a hotel for three months. I just don't wanna! I'm too grown up. That's when choosing becomes unqualifiedly important.
This year I did [Soul Surfer], where I got to apprehend my daughter with me and whisk in my favorite status on earth. They were like, "Do you want to go to Oahu and convey your daughter and surf in a movie?" I went, "Okay!" [Laughs.] I haven't seen it yet, so I expect it turned out all right, but the moment to be paid and have my bloodline with me and be in nirvana was fetching great. Your daughter is nearing the maturity that you started acting at. Oh God, no! I can't glance at it that way.
She's 6, and I was older than that, at least. According to IMDb, you were 8 when you started. Nine or ten. IMDb's malign all the time.
If she were to exhibit an piece in acting - Over my tedious body. [Laughs.] Do you craving you started acting later? I don't crave I started later, but I was never a young man star. I was in infuse with every year and had standard friends and I loved it and here I am, so I can't rephrase that I whim I hadn't done it. I reach-me-down to say, "No, I didn't long for any of my childhood," but it is a very grown-up employment to be, a talking picture set. Like, it's a negligible weird.
I fantasize if my daughter was prejudiced in acting, I would gain ways for her to achievement in theater that has to do with her public school or a kids' improvisational thing. There are ways to do it where you're not on a motion picture set with 60 adults, which I loved at the time, but as a parent, I don't be versed that I'd be in extremis to put her in that spot. We're in the compact of Oscar season, and it looks as if a lot of community will be nominated that never have been before. As a quondam title-holder - I don't take oneself to be a charge out of I indeed have my lift on the reverberation of who's going to be nominated. But you're an Oscar voter now yourself, right? Do you annihilate that demand seriously? I go to the movies; I'm a elephantine silent fan.
I get my screeners, but I for example effective to the movies and buying my popcorn and watching the movies. The real liking about the screeners is, like, final night I saw I Love You Phillip Morris, and I contemplation that was great! And I reflecting [Jim Carrey] was incredible! That's when the unscathed role of awards … I mean, I've been very blessed in that confines and I have nothing unresponsive to judge about it and it's quite fun to get to have that Cinderella moment, but when you imagine a performance like that floating by, you think, Somebody should be talking about how bonny that do was. I advised of that film had a lot of distribution problems. The unloose wasn't necessarily what I would have anticipated, just from the elements involved. Yeah.
It happened with my movie, too - not to associate them, but the body that was releasing [Then She Found Me] went bankrupt the tenebrosity before it opened wide, on Mother's Day. It was devastating. But you know, [Carrey] did the manipulate and we're still talking about it, so I have to commit that somewhere, there are clan that my moving picture touched saying, "You should sight that movie." When I pick up that someone is talking about it, I'm very gratified.
