Mimi & RGB still battling over sex  

 

Mimi Leder has never let her sex stand in the way, just like the legendary Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes, 

Anne Marie Scanlon   

 

The Sunday Independent

17 February 2019

 

 

Mimi Leder is that very rare thing – a female film director.  Even rarer a female film director who regularly directs Hollywood films.  At first glance Leder, quite disconcertingly, looks like Roseanne Barr, but that is where all similarities end.  While Barr is now notorious for shooting her mouth off Leder is reserved and chooses her words carefully.  She’s rather formidable, not unlike the subject of her latest film, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

 

On the Basis of Sex stars Felicity Jones as RGB, as she is sometimes known, an iconic figure in the USA where she currently, at age 85, sits on the Supreme Court.  However Irish readers may not be as familiar with Ginsburg’s life, work and role in the feminist movement as their American counterparts. On the Basis of Sex documents two pivotal moments in Ginsburg’s life and career – in essence it is almost two films.  The movie begins with the young Ruth entering the male dominated world of Harvard Law School in 1956 – out of 500 students only 9 are female; it was only six years since they had started accepting women.  The Dean (Law & Order’s Sam Waterston) invites all nine to a meal and then makes them individually justify why they are deserving of a place having usurped a man to get it.

 

The early part of the film is fascinating as Ginsburg is not only faced institutional sexism but when her husband Martin (Armie Hammer) is struck with testicular cancer she manages not just to nurse him, care for their baby and keep on top of her classwork – but she takes on his student work as well.  (If this was a work of fiction audiences would no doubt scoff at any woman (or man) being capable of juggling so much, but as the cliché goes, truth invariably is stranger than fiction.) Despite graduating top of her class Ginsburg found it difficult to find work (her husband was inundated with offers) and she, instead, went to Rutgers to teach law.  Leder tells me that she admires RGB “tremendously as a woman who changed things, who made our country a better place.”  Leder is referring to the latter part of the film and the landmark Moritz case that changed US Law so that nobody could be discriminated against on the basis of their sex.  Ironically, considering the huge implications the ruling had on the lives of women, Ginsburg was acting on behalf of a man who faced sex discrimination by the inland revenue.  (Again, truth trumps fiction in oddness.)

 

Felicity Jones is marvellous as the powerhouse who keeps striving to improve the lot of women, whilst keeping the character’s humanity up front.  I see parallels between Leder and her fellow New Yorker Ginsburg and wonder if this had any influence on her decision to direct the film.  “I felt a lot of commonalities with her in very different generations – we both paved the way for women to come,” the director replies.  “We are both Jewish women, we are both mothers and we both have had very long marriages which thematically ties into this film because it’s very much about how love prevails and the love story aspect was super important.” 

 

In terms of women’s rights Leder says that she can see a direct line from the Moritz case to the recent #MeToo movement.  I wonder if #MeToo has made a lasting impact on Hollywood or if now that the initial fuss has calmed whether things will return to ‘normal’. Leder thinks not.  “#MeToo is in its infancy.  I think there’s so much more to come and I don’t think it’s ever going back to the way it was… but we’re never going back to the times when people rolled their eyes and let things slide and everybody told themselves stories so that they could get by,” she says.

 

I ask Leder how she would sell her movie to Irish audiences, who mostly would not have heard of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and suddenly the friendly reserve disappears and is replaced by genuine warmth and enthusiasm.  “I just visited Ireland,” she says.  “I love it.  The Irish people are beyond lovely, beyond sweet and funny. My husband wants to move to Ireland.”  It turns out that Leder was in Ireland in May 2018 during the Repeal Referendum.  “It was an exciting place to be,” she tells me, “and it was the right result – for women to choose what is happening to their bodies.  It was a great time and it was so interesting talking to Irish people about it.  This is what Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been fighting for – equal rights for women, her entire life.”

 

So is that how she would frame the movie for an Irish audience? “It’s the story of an American woman who changed the world for the better, who was and still is a truth seeker, a woman who changed archaic laws for both women and men, who made the world a more truthful place.  I think Irish people will definitely relate to this film as their country is evolving by the day.”  

 

Now that we’re pals I ask Leder what the secret to a long happy relationship is – she and husband Gary Werntz have been married for decades.  “It’s respect,” she says firmly, “listening and love.  I think listening is a big thing.  When you’re in a long term relationship sometimes you stop listening. And being kind is big and obviously honesty is key to all good relationships.”  When I ask where she met her husband she replies instantly “I picked him up in a bar.”, then leaves it a beat before roaring laughing and telling me they met in a restaurant and “it was love at first sight.  I was 30-ish, (she’s now in her late 60s) we fell in love and had a beautiful daughter and here we are.”

 

Despite the strides made by women since Ginsburg entered Harvard Law School in 1956, many areas, including the film industry, are still heavily male dominated.  I wonder what advice Leder would give to a young woman wanting to become a film director.  “It’s much easier to make your own film these days than when I was coming up,” she replies and goes on to say that women should be “passionate, believe in yourself, have perseverance, tell your story and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t tell your story and don’t let anyone tell your story for you.  Stand up.  Have no fear.”

 

On the Basis of Sex will be in cinemas nationwide from 22^nd February.

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/mimi-and-rbg-still-battling-over-sex-37820960.html

Dragon Director fires the imagination  

 

Dean DeBlois, the creator of the How To Train Your Dragon films has been making movie magic for decades writes, 

Anne Marie Scanlon   

 

The Sunday Independent

17th February 2019

 

Say the name Dean DeBlois and maybe the resident film buff will instantly know who you are talking about.  Conversely, mention How to Train Your Dragon and everyone will know the (now) trilogy of animated films based on the books by Cressida Cowell as they’ve become an ingrained part of childhood since the first film appeared in 2010.  Dean DeBlois is the man behind the phenomenon

How to Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World, written, directed and produced by DeBlois is the concluding chapter in the saga of unheroic hero Hiccup and his dragon Toothless.  Be warned – there may be blubbing (guilty) as one of the themes in the film is the contradiction at the heart of parenthood – which is essentially you pour all of your love into your children with the express purpose of making them leave you. 

I asked DeBlois how he felt saying goodbye to the Berk universe, where the films are set, which is essentially his 'baby'.  “It’s cathartic, it’s bittersweet," the filmmaker replies, "because the team that made these films - all 300 of us, have been working alongside one another for a decade of our lives.  And now we head off in different directions, and so it’s goodbye to on another as much as it’s good bye to the word of Berk.

“There was an active ambition to tap into something that was universal thematically in each of the instalments," DeBlois elaborates.  " The first film (How to Train Your Dragon (2010)) was about the desire to assimilate and the eventual discovery that by being yourself you can change the world around you rather than the opposite. 

The second film (How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)) is a crossroads everyone has to face - which is the abandonment of the freedom of childhood, and to take on the more serious consequences of adulthood often without knowing who you are yet.

This third film is about a very universal rite of passage which is gaining that wisdom to let go, despite wanting to cling, despite your love of those you’ve nurtured and protected knowing they need to spread their wings and follow their own destiny.  What does that do to you, how do you define yourself in the wake of that?”

Now that all sounds very serious but as anyone who has ever taken an excited child to a How to Train Your Dragon film will tell you, they’re very funny and age is no barrier to enjoying the antics of Hiccup and his band of merry eejits. 

DeBlois is a big burly bearded man, not unlike his own creation Stoic the Vast, Hiccup’s father (voiced by Gerard Butler) but without the plaits and Viking helmet.  Originally from Canada he learned to draw by copying pictures from comic books in a nearby shop – his family were not well off and there was no money for him to buy them. 

The director’s very first job was with Sullivan Bluth Studios in Dublin which he joined in 1990.  “I had no Irish connections,” he tells me.  “I moved to Dublin without knowing anyone but I made friends that I still have to this day.”  I’m not surprised, DeBlois is easy company and likes to laugh.  He is very enthusiastic about his four years in Ireland.  “It was a wonderful experience.  It was my first time living alone, outside of my country, I loved it.  I’d never been in a place with so much history.  It was an adventurous time.” 

DeBlois and I are around the same and as he chats about going straight to the pub after work, heading to the West for the weekend or catching the ferry to Holyhead (I tell him that qualifies him for honorary Irish citizenship and he roars laughing) it all sounds very familiar.

We also share the experience of thinking that those days weren’t all that long ago, when in fact, we’ve both worked with adults who have been born since.  “I’ve been working for 30 years in the animation industry which is crazy as time has just blurred by and then I meet people who say “I grew up with your movies.””

 

 

I ask him how it feels to know that he via his creations, including Lilo & Stitch and Mulan, that he has been an integral part of creating memories for generations of children.  “It’s a bizarre revelation,” he admits “and it only occurred to me last year.  People were contacting me through social media who were finishing high school and wanted to get into animation programs saying “your work has been an inspiration to me since I was a little kid.” Growing up, George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg and Ridley Scott were my heroes.  They continue to be my heroes and when I compare myself against them I feel inadequate, but, with people being inspired by my films I realised I’m part of the cycle. It’s flattering and nice to know that future storytellers have been inspired by work I’ve been a part of.”

When I say that he’s also been the source of many happy memories for children he looks bashful and says hesitantly “that’s also a nice side effect”

The Hidden World is voiced by an all-star cast including America Ferrera (Astrid), Cate Blanchett (Valka), Kit Harrington (Eret, son of Eret), Kristen Wiig (Ruffnut) and F. Murray Abraham who plays Grimmel, the baddie determined to exterminate the dragons.  I wonder if he ever gets star struck?

“The only one time was Cate Blanchett,” he tells me.  “I’ve admired her as an actor since seeing Elizabeth (1998), she was so good.  And, after living in Ireland, (I think) she is the only non-Irish actor who has nailed the accent with Veronica Guerin (2003).  She’s a powerhouse of acting.” 

DeBlois wrote the character of Valka with Blanchett in mind but never thinking he would be able to sign her up.  “I met her at the Oscars in 2011 and told her I’d written a part for her in How to Train Your Dragon 2. Her boys were fans so she heard me out and said “well, I’m not doing anything so send me the script”.  To me that was an amazing moment and it all happened in the space of a minute.  As glamorous as she is, she’s very down to earth and a real passionate artist at her core.”

As we say our goodbyes DeBlois tells me that as soon as he’s finished publicising The Hidden World he’s heading to Dublin for four days, to catch up with his friends and to visit a couple of the pubs he used to hang out in.  It will be nice to have him back, even if it is only for a few days.

 

How to Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World is in cinemas nationwide.

 

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/dragon-director-fires-the-imagination-37774658.html

 

 

Woman on the Verge of Laughing

 

Renowned actress Eileen Walsh is not known for her funny bones, but that is about to change writes 

Anne Marie Scanlon   

 

 

The Sunday Independent

07 October 2018

 

Eileen Walsh is best known for her hard hitting roles in film and television including, most recently, the mother of a dying child in The Children Act, The Magdalene Sisters (2002), and Eden for which she won the Tribeca Film Festival Best Actress Award in 2008 and, of course, the play that launched her career aged just 17, in 1996, Disco Pigs.

 

Walsh is really pretty in real life and I tell her she looks like Sofie Gråbøl, the actor who played Sarah Lund in The Killing, she laughs and says “Oh my God, I’d love that!”   Walsh's name isn't the first that springs to mind when discussing comedy but that's about to change with the new TV show Women on the Verge, co-created by Sharon Horgan.

 

Two things have led to this new lighter Walsh.  “I feel more empowered now. I say no to auditions,” she tells me. “I don’t (necessarily) want to see another show about a kid being raped and murdered. When you have kids you don’t want to put more of that out in the world.”

 

The second thing that changed was meeting Sharon Horgan who gave her a part in her highly successful show Catastrophe “I love her. I LOVE her,” Walsh says laughing.  When I remark that without Horgan there would be few decent roles for women on TV. Walsh responds that it’s not just actors who benefit from Horgan, her partner Clelia Mountford and their company Mermen. “They’re also bringing people forward to write and in every area. Meanwhile when Sharon is not producing she’s acting and she has two girls,” she remarks.

 

Walsh herself has two girls (Tippy (12) and Ethel (9)) with husband Stuart who she met when Disco Pigs was on an international two-year tour. “We met at the Edinburgh Festival. My hair was incredibly short and needed a cut and Stuart was the barber. We all met our partners on that show Enda (Walsh, (no relation) who wrote Disco Pigs) met Jo (Ellison, Fashion Editor, Financial Times) who was working in the box office. Pat (Kiernan the director) met his missus and Cillian Murphy met his wife.”

 

Women on the Verge is a show about three single 30-something women whose lives are spinning beyond their control.  Walsh plays Alison – the ‘baby hungry’ one. (The other two leads are Nina Sosanya (Marcella, W1A) who plays Katie and Kerry Condon (Three Billboards, Better Call Saul) whose character Laura is busy ruining her career in journalism by sleeping with her boss.) Alison, Walsh explains “is 38, her body clock is going and she thinks she needs to have a baby. She’s going to settle. She gets back with her ex and says “Let’s have a baby,” he’s barely taken his coat off,” she says, her Cork accent becoming stronger. “He’s delighted because he’s mad about her. But he’s had a colourful time while they were broken up and that emerges during the series.”

 

Speaking of breakups Walsh tells me her departure from Disco Pigs, the ground-breaking play that catapulted Walsh, co-star Cillian Murphy and writer Enda Walsh to stardom two decades ago, was a “bad breakup”. “The film (2001) was cast before I even knew it.  I bumped into somebody on the street who said they’d just (auditioned) and I didn’t even know they were casting.  My heart was broken.” It's obvious that almost twenty years this still hurts.  “It is what it is,” Walsh says pragmatically, “it’s a heartbreak to take something that felt like my baby and not bring it to fruition.” She goes on to say that it was “a hard lesson very early on that you have no power as an actor,” and adds that she got “a lovely agent” soon after who reminded her that “it’s the long game, let it go.”

 

Despite the heartbreak Walsh remains friends with Enda Walsh, Murphy and Kiernan, “even through that horrible moment, when it all broke up… we belong together… I still see Cillian loads and Enda.  I’ve gone back and worked with Pat – we have a shorthand that can’t be taken away.” Besides, the actor says that “People still come up to me and talk to me about the play. Still! And you can’t buy that.” 

 

Walsh also admits that two decades ago she did sometimes “get a bit envious of other people’s careers,” but qualifies, “that’s not healthy.” The idea of envying other people and their lives ties in neatly with one of the main themes of Women on the Verge – comparing your life with someone else’s and coming up short. “We often look at other people and think they’re more sorted than us,” Walsh laughs.  I wonder where Walsh the actor and Alison the character connect. “She’s funny and engaging and warm. She has a good heart, she means well, but she’s just desperate.  And I think,” Walsh bursts out laughing, “I can be all those things.”

 

Walsh’s accent becomes more pronounced when talking about her family. The actor is the youngest of five.  Her parents had no connection with acting or the theatre yet her eldest sister Catherine is also a successful actor. Walsh tells me that her late father, a labourer, “who earned his money the hard way” thought acting was “the greatest of craic, He’d always ask “what are you earning? Jays, that’s money for old rope!””

 

Walsh’s father died unexpectedly three years ago. “He was as strong as a horse,” she says explaining the shock and recalls she was rehearsing a play in Newcastle when she got what she calls “the best preparatory message” from her sister Mary.  Walsh recollects putting down her grocery shopping and calling her sister back “She just said, “He’s gone smallie, he’s gone.” The actor's ability to convey simple honest pain is such that I choke up. Still for over an hour Walsh made me cry laughing so I’ll be keeping the tissues handy for Women on the Verge.

 

Women on the Verge starts on RTE 2, Thursday 11 October at 10.30pm

 

https://www.independent.ie/life/woman-on-the-verge-of-laughing-37389090.html

Hello Christopher Robin

 

Ewan McGregor channels his own magical childhood on screen with help from Pooh, Piglet and Tigger, writes 

Anne Marie Scanlon   

 

The Sunday Independent

12 August 2018

 

Meeting Ewan McGregor is always a pleasure. Despite his A-List status he’s reliably warm, funny, entertaining and enthusiastic.  And hip. Achingly hip.  If you are even in any doubt about what the most on-trend thing in menswear is check out the Scottish star’s latest outfit. 

 

The last time the actor and I met he was clean-shaven in scarves and skinny jeans. This time, to talk about his new film Christopher Robin, he’s got a neat beard, a beautifully tailored grey jacket and a pair of cropped trousers that would make any normal man in his middle years (he’s 47) look, at best, vaguely ridiculous and, at worst, like Charlie Chaplin.   Needless to say McGregor looks like a GQ cover personified.

 

In the movie McGregor plays the title role of Christopher Robin, the son of the writer AA Milne and the inspiration behind the Winnie the Pooh books. The film is most definitely not an autobiography of the real man who grew up very conflicted about his alter ego and the fame that came with it.  This is the fictional character all grown up with a wife name (Hayley Atwell) and a daughter Madeline (name) all of his own.  The film is set in the post-War period and Christopher Robin is a workaholic who isn’t giving his wife and daughter the attention they need.  His childhood friends from the Hundred Acre Wood – Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger et al intervene to remind him of the things that matter most.

 

We’ve all seen versions of that plot endlessly recycled by Hollywood but I doubt we will ever see it done so charmingly. The film is a perfect mixture of smart script and slapstick, schmaltz and sentiment. I’ll be completely honest, I loved every thing about Christopher Robin from the fabulous cameos to the interiors (especially the lampshades) but most of all I was blown away by the familiar characters given life.  Christopher Robin’s toys are so real that not suspending disbelief isn’t an option. “Some of the shots of Winnie the Pooh made me think of my little dog Sid,” McGregor tells me.  He goes on to say that the relationship Christopher Robin and the famous bear also reminds him of growing up with his Beagle Juno.   “She was like my Winnie the Pooh so when I went to the woods I would take her with me or we would knock about together and I spent a lot of my time with her.”

 

I ask him what breed his current dog Sid is and he eagerly tells me “I did that DNA thing on him.  He’s like this big,” he continues indicating with his hands that Sid is a largish small dog, “he’s not tiny (but the results) came back he that he was 75% Chihuahua and 25% Poodle mix,” he laughs.  “I thought “that’s not right,” he does look a little bit like a Chihuahua but he’s too big. How would a Chihuahua…” he trails off. It turns out that his co-star Hayley Atwell also had her dog’s DNA tested.  I’d never heard of ‘Doggy DNA’ before and ask McGregor if this is a ‘thing’ adding that I recently had my son’s DNA done. 

 

“You did one on your son?” McGregor says slightly surprised and then adds laughing “Just to check…” When I explain that it was for the purposes of finding out his ethnic heritage the actor becomes even more animated.   “I’ve done that too, mine was SO plain.” I tell him that I also got my mother’s DNA tested at the same time as my son and they both have similarly dull DNA too.   “I don’t think it’s right,” McGregor replies and tells me that a great great Grandfather left Scotland to work as an engineer on the Chilean railway lines, married and settled there. “Their son came back to Scotland but in the DNA there’s no mention of any South American strand at all!” 

 

The return of the prodigal Chilean son was good news for the actor.  When he tells me about his childhood growing up in the Perth and Kinross district of Scotland it sounds idyllic and was in his own words “fun, brilliant and magical”.  Both McGregor’s parents were teachers; he has one older brother who became a pilot in the RAF (the pair have made three documentaries together about the role of aviation in the second world war). “I had a brilliant childhood,” McGregor says. “I had a similar childhood to Christopher Robin in that I spent a lot of time in the woods.  Crieff, where I come from, is a small town built on a hill and above the town is this big woodland me and my friends just spent all of our time up there. I was born in ’71 and it was a very safe town so we had independence as kids from a very young age.  As soon as I could ride a bike I was on my bike and off.  I’d get my bike in the morning, go and get my best friend and we’d go up into the woods and we’d cycle home at night when it got dark. I couldn’t tell you what we were doing (all day), we were just playing – inventing stuff, we had catapults, we built dens, we just played and it was just amazing.  We had the freedom to do that.  My kids (he has four daughters aged 7 to 22) have never had that.  The idea of letting your kids go off on their own and come home when it’s dark is unheard of now but that was the way it was then.”

 

The odd time he was indoors McGregor played Gin Rummy with his great-Grandmother, “for money,” he says shocked.  Good preparation for his role in this film as there’s a running joke about Gin Rummy but, McGregor confesses that he “looked up the rules recently and she played a very ‘Granny’ version of it.” 

 

The last time I met McGregor he was still married to Eve Mavrakis, mother of his four daughters aged 7 to 22. Theirs was one of those unions that defied Hollywood and both fans and non-fans alike were shocked when the couple split up after twenty-two years of marriage.  Allegedly McGregor had fallen for the charms of fellow actor Mary Elizabeth Winstead.  I have been warned, repeatedly, by a phalanx of PR people, not to ask the actor about his personal life but to stick to the film. Christopher Robin struggles with his work/life balance, is such a thing even possible in the acting profession?  Can a successful actor ‘do it all’?

“You can’t! That’s a fallacy,” McGregor replies promptly.  Then he smiles an adds, “ You can. Of course you can.  It’s an internal thing, it’s about being connected even when you’re not there.”

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/ewan-mcgregor-reveals-he-drew-on-his-own-magical-childhood-for-christopher-robin-37204107.html

By George! MacKay's No Secret Sharer

 

 From Lost Boy to leading man George MacKay possesses maturity beyond his years and the qualities to be a star, writes 

Anne Marie Scanlon   

 

The Sunday Independent

                                                                                    08 July 2018

 

George MacKay shakes my hand and says “we’ve met before.” I tell him we haven’t and he replies “Really? But you look so familiar to me.” I say that he also looks very familiar and the poor man looks confused for a minute.  I can tell he’s thinking that of course I recognise him as I’ve just watched The Secret of Marrowbone in which he stars.  But that’s not what I meant. 

 

In the movie MacKay plays Jack Marrowbone, the eldest of four siblings who have to conceal their mother’s death to avoid being separated.  When MacKay appeared on screen I was struck  with a feeling of ‘knowing’ him.  It wasn’t spooky or supernatural (like the film itself) it was just there.  I suggest to MacKay that we knew each other in a previous life and he laughs. 

 

At 26 MacKay is typical of the new breed of up and coming actors – madly talented, good-looking and far too sorted for one so young – the drama is firmly kept on-screen. He’s good company, laughs easily and gives thoughtful honest answers to my questions. (Of course this might all be down to our past life connection.)

 

I ask the screen star about being ‘talent spotted’ aged ten. “More like I was looking a bit lost,” he jokes “it was a search for Lost Boys for Peter Pan (2003)” “I’d never auditioned before so I wasn’t really thinking about work or acting or any of that. But I liked doing the school plays, I liked drama. My Mum told me “you’ve been invited to go along for an audition, don’t get your hopes up at all, because they’re doing this with loads of boys.  If you want to, you’ll have a fun day."" The fun day turned into eight months on location in Australia.

 

MacKay worked steadily throughout his teens in film and television, yet despite an already successful career, he was turned down by both RADA and LAMDA (the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art).  Again with this odd feeling of familiarity I am outraged on his behalf. MacKay meanwhile is far more accepting (and mature) than I am.  “Genuinely I think they’re really hard to get in to,” he explains.  “It’s the audition you give on the day and I didn’t give a strong enough audition and that’s that,” he says equably. 

 

“Oh come on, honestly?” I demand. 

 

He admits to disappointment at the time but says “I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that I truly wanted to go.  I’m not saying that in hindsight but I thought either way the process would teach me something… and it was a kick up the bum (it) spurred me on to actively learn more on set.” 

 

Whatever our odd connection it’s certainly not enough to get MacKay to spill the beans on his relationship with Saoirse Ronan which began when they starred opposite each other in How I Live Now in 2013.  Various publications have described him as Ronan’s ‘first boyfriend’ but he’s never spoken publicly about their (long over) romance.   The star quickly changes the subject to his next project, Ned Kelly (which also stars Russell Crowe) which he’s about to begin filming.  MacKay plays the infamous Aussie outlaw whose own father came from Co. Tipperary.  Almost familiar ground for the young man whose Granny is from Cork and emigrated to  Australia where his Dad was born.  He tells me he’s recently visited Tipperary as part of his research into the part. 

 

Marrowbone is a horror/thriller and has some pretty scary moments.  Not only does Jack have to keep his mother’s death a secret but the house where he and his three younger siblings are holed up is all creaks and shadows.  If that wasn’t enough their ill mother took her family there, from England, to protect them from their father, whose crimes are eventually revealed. 

 

I wonder what scares George?   There’s a long pause before he replies “Genuinely scared… I think I’m not around things that frighten me that much. The seriousness of the emotion of fear…. I get nervous about a bunch of stuff, even just talking about (the film)... I think genuine fear is pretty powerful." He goes on to say he tries not to give any space to things that scare him. "I think it’s quite a natural response to (avoid what causes genuine fear) as much as possible. So what scares me is probably the stuff I can’t control.  I’m trying to be as honest as possible," he continues, "I could sit here and say (he puts on a 'luvvy' voice) “well certain projects scare me”" and makes me roar laughing, "but actual genuine fear that the characters go through, I think that’s pretty rare and it takes something bigger, outside of yourself, to actually experience that.”

 

Marrowbone is set in the United States but it was filmed in Spain and MacKay cannot say enough good things about the location - Asturias which certainly looks stunning on film. "It’s a beautiful part of the world, very untapped, the food is an amazing, the Spanish culture was great and I think genuinely the Spanish culture, and that passionate familial vibe, really played into how we made the film."

 

I wonder if there are similarities between himself and Jack Marrowbone?  “I’m an elder brother.  I want to care and do right. There’s probably a slightly controlling element. I’m quite careful about where I put myself and I think Jack is very conscious about protecting himself and those he loves”

 

Despite the duty to family, fighting off the ghosts of the past and living in what may be a haunted house Jack also has a romantic storyline as he falls in love with Allie (Anya Taylor-Joy).  Would MacKay embrace being a romantic leading man? “Yeah, why not,” he says “it’s all about the story. You serve the story, Marrowbone is a good story with a strong message and I’m lucky to be a part of it.”

 

The actor goes on to explain that how the audience sees him is out of his control. “Your job is to be done in the doing but how it’s taken by other people, you can’t really control.  You can assume you’re playing this type of role and it will be taken like that and there is some level of accuracy (but) it’s not too healthy to have your mind on the end result. It’s got to be about the end result of the story rather than how people receive (it). So much of it is out of your hands. I’d be wary of claiming any credit for any reaction that comes afterwards.” 

 

My goodness, so young, so serious, so sensible.  I ask if he had any fun making the film.  He tells me that the entire cast and crew would wind down on a Friday evening with a massive water fight in the sea. I’m mighty glad to hear it too. 

The Secret of Marrowbone is in cinemas nationwide.

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/from-lost-boy-to-leading-man-george-mackay-on-transition-from-child-actor-to-adult-star-37088756.html

Sam Claflin is cast Adrift in paradise

 

 The actor battled both homesickness and seasickness to portray the man behind the real-life story, writes 

Anne Marie Scanlon   

 

The Sunday Independent

24 June 2018

 

I meet Sam Claflin in a ridiculously swanky two storey suite in one of London’s fancier hotels. “Welcome to my humble abode,” the actor greets me grinning. 

 

Claflin lives in London, but not here; the extravagant surroundings are strictly for business purposes, and, although we’re meeting to talk about his new film Adrift we spend a few minutes taking in the bling and wondering who, exactly, might want a Baby Grand in their lodgings.

 

At 31 Claflin appears to have it all, a stellar career having worked consistently since he left Drama School, a happy family life with Laura Haddock his wife of 5 years and their two small children. He is ridiculously handsome in person despite having a "rough night" with his five-month-old teething daughter. 

 

While Claflin certainly doesn’t look out of place in the pricey surroundings, as befits someone who starred in three Hunger Games movies and A Pirates of the Caribbean episode, he still thinks of himself as an ordinary boy from Norwich who went to a “rough’ school” - "it wasn’t a Wednesday if someone didn’t turn up drunk." 

 

Growing up in Norfolk Claflin “didn’t know that acting was a profession. It was never on my list of dream jobs.”   Yet for all of his international success in the acting industry Claflin, the third of four boys, is still very proud of his home town. "It’s a beautiful city… and I love going home to visit my Mum and Dad," but, he confesses, that from as early as he can remember he wanted to live in London. And to play football. A teacher steered him towards acting and after leaving school he managed to get a place at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). 

 

Adrift is based on a true story by American Tami Oldham played by Shailene Woodley, (Big Little Lies, Divergent).  Claflin plays Tami’s English fiancé Richard Sharp. The movie unfolds as a dual narrative with one strand following the beginnings of the couple’s relationship and the lead up to them sailing a luxury yacht, the Hazana, from Tahiti to California.  The film is set in 1983 and the young couple’s voyage is interrupted by Hurricane Raymond.

 

The second narrative follows the events after the Hurricane.

Adrift is essentially a two-hander and both actors put in strong performances.  Much of the filming took place in the middle of the Pacific Ocean near Fiji which looks stunning on film. “We’d all meet about 5 am and watch the sunrise, shoot for 12 hours, the sun would set and then we’d all go back (to land). It was pretty amazing,” Claflin reveals. 

 

The actor had to learn how to sail in order to play Richard and tells me he enjoyed it immensely.  However, on the the first day of filming at sea Claflin experienced severe seasickness.  “I was so badly sick that first day that it really panicked me thinking “oh shit, is this going to be me every day”?”. 

 

Claflin wasn't the only one. "The whole unit when we set out that first day was so happy. Everyone was “oh I can’t believe this is a day at work – we’re on a yacht in Fiji" and then everyone was so sick.” I was able to throw up and keep going but a lot of the crew, especially the crew below the decks, they were sick for ten hours."

 

However hideous that sounds it wasn’t the worst thing Claflin experienced on the three-month shoot “The toughest challenge I had to overcome on Adrift was (being separated from his wife and child).  We didn’t know that was going to be the case when I agreed to do the job. Originally my wife and my little boy were due to come out to Fiji but as my wife was pregnant with our second and because of Zika Virus (which was rare in Fiji but not unknown) we just didn’t want to take risks."

 

"We tried to FaceTime," he continues, "and I’d break down regularly.  Once when someone said to my son “Daddy’s here” he ran to the door (looking for me),” Claflin adds whilst getting visibly upset at the memory.

 

Has Claflin ever experienced anything in his own life similar to being on a 44-foot yacht in the middle of a hurricane? He says not but tells me about a car accident he had in LA a few years ago.  “No one was hurt,” he states immediately and downplays what sounds like a frankly petrifying experience. 

 

“I did the full 360. I can remember everything being in slow motion and I remember my car coming into oncoming traffic and then hitting a power box and that going alight. Despite everything happening really quickly, everything happened really slowly,” he goes on.  “I’m sure people who have been in accidents know (that feeling). My life didn’t flash in front of my eyes, I was OK, the other driver was OK.”   Claflin tells me that he initially tried calling 999 for the police and laughingly says “I don’t understand why emergency services have to be different in different countries,” but then adds quietly, “It was terrifying, that’s the closest I’ve ever been to fearing for my life.”

 

I wonder if he shares his character’s thirst for adventure and thrill-seeking?  “No,” he replies immediately, “I’m a father of two, I’m the one who says “no you can’t do that, no we shouldn’t be doing this”.”  The star goes on to clarify that he’s open to ‘adventure’ in his career but “at the same time, because of the wild unpredictable nature of what I do, I have to not be so adventurous in the rest of my life.  That’s the harsh reality of being a father and an actor, it’s quite a difficult thing to juggle.  I find it difficult enough to keep my kids in a routine when my life is all over the place.  It’s great that my wife is very understanding as she’s in the industry and she has those days too. We’re blessed that we have two beautiful kids and we have the life we have because we work for it.”

 

I read somewhere that he wanted to be a ‘Cool Dad’? He guffaws, “There’s no such thing as a Cool Dad.  I bought a pair of sandals yesterday and my wife said “Seriously! Seriously?” He then goes on to try to convince me of the practicality of sandals over flip-flops.

 

The movie star is also a big fan of our capital city. “I love Dublin, genuinely,” he says, recalling the six weeks he spent in Ireland filming Love Rosie (2014) based on the Cecelia Ahearn novel. He adds that he’s visiting soon for a “Stag Do” before quickly adding that “but it’s not the strippers sort! The Dads and Uncles are coming, it’s not all about getting absolutely bladdered.” He goes on to tell me that he rarely drinks beer anymore “it makes me bloated,” he says roaring laughing at himself.  “I’m getting old!” 

 

With two young children under the age of three and a relentless schedule of filming around the world I'm not surprised he feels old at times, but aging he certainly aint. Despite the sandals.

 

Adrift opens in cinemas nationwide on 29th June.

 

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/sam-claflin-reveals-how-he-battled-homesickness-and-seasickness-for-latest-film-adrift-37039507.html

Billy Gets to Grips with Craic & Chemistry

 

 From upstaging Cinderella to starring in On Chesil Beach actor Billy Howle is no longer 'up and coming' writes 

Anne Marie Scanlon   

 

The Sunday Independent

 20 May 2018

 

On paper Billy Howle, who co-stars with Saoirse Ronan in On Chesil Beach, the big screen adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel, could come across as a ‘luvvie’ who takes himself far too seriously but in the flesh he’s a very engaging young man.  Howle is well aware of how he can sometimes be perceived and tells me that Saoirse Ronan, who he has previously worked with, in the film adaptation of The Seagull, had “pulled me up on that, she put me through the ringer sometimes and it was just good craic.  And,” he adds, “she taught me the word ‘craic’.”

 

I read that he’d called Ronan “very Irish” and ask him what he meant by that.  I must have had my intimidating face on as Howle looked a bit nervous and hesitant about answering. “Well she’s funny, very funny, has a very dry sense of humour which I enjoy.”  In several interviews Howle has said that he and Ronan share a special chemistry.  When I ask him to explain what he means he replies “I don’t particularly like that word (chemistry) – it’s to do with presenting your co-worker (another actor) with a gift and saying ‘there you go, unwrap that,’ and then hopefully they give you something in return and if they do I call that good chemistry.” 

 

See, this is the kind of statement that sounds pure luvvie on paper but Howle is chatty and quick to laugh.  It’s a blazing hot day and we’re both suffering badly from hay fever.  He tells he wishes we were doing the interview outside of the pub across the road.  Just then a waiter brings a fancy drink in a tall glass with lots of ice and Howle laughs “it’s just iced coffee, it looks like an espresso martini or something. I’m not getting hammered!”

 

In On Chesil Beach he plays Edward, a very bright young man, who falls in love with Florence (Ronan) equally smart and an extremely talented musician.  The film begins with the couple on their wedding day in the early 60s, about to consummate their relationship, a series of flashbacks tells both their individual stories and that of their relationship.  The pair come from very different backgrounds – Edward lives in a cluttered home in Henley on Thames were his father Leonard (Adrian Scarborough) is a teacher and his mother (Anne Marie Duff) is severely mentally ill after a terrible accident. Florence, by contrast, comes from a rich and pristine household. Her mother Marjorie (Emily Watson) is a raging snob who thinks a school teacher’s son beneath her daughter.  Father Geoffrey (Samuel West) is a terrible human being.

 

Ronan was cast first and Howle endured a long delay between his initial audition and the call-back which took place in New York where Ronan was appearing in The Crucible on Broadway. “I paid for the flight to New York myself,” he tells me, “that’s how much I wanted the job. To be honest it paid off!” he concludes laughing.  The flight over was full of familiar faces – actors he recognised “because we’re always auditioning for the same things.” One actor, who he refuses to name, was reading the original novel, “I thought that was quite funny.”

 

On Chesil Beach is a wonderful film and beautifully shot. The climactic scenes take place on the beach itself which is a long thin rocky strip of land between two bodies of water in Dorset. “It’s one of those strange natural phenomena,” the actor tells me, “It really is one of those terribly beautiful places.”

 

Howle has appeared in several ‘period’ pieces including the TV adaptation of  Agatha Christie's The Witness for the Prosecution.  I ask him what he thinks about audience's apparently insatibale appetite for period drama “I think people are fascinated by nostalgia. I think stories are to do with the political landscape of the time and the reason why people become interested in stories from the past is that they find it comforting.”

 

On Chesil Beach is not comforting nostalgia, it’s a bleak look at how respectability stifled people and how women’s sexuality was reduced to ‘wifely duty’. It is a fascinating study of how two people fail to communicate either physically or verbally.  The film is heart-breaking, not least because the audience can see that the two main characters love each other but are victims of the repressed times they live in and their own personal history.

 

Howle realised he wanted to be an actor at the age of eight while playing Cinderella’s dog in pantomime at the Oxford Playhouse. He has me in stitches as he tells me about the performance that made him realise that he had “power” whilst on stage. “My job was to console Cinderella dressed in this ludicrous dog outfit with a big papier mache bone, instead I was stood at the side of the stage… got distracted and was mucking around with bone while Cinderella was sobbing her heart out. The audience started roaring with laughter,” Howle tells me.  “Realising I had that level of power, I was fascinated, I could change the story just by making a small adjustment to my performance, inverted commas,” he laughs and goes on to elaborate, “I don’t think my thought processes at that time were quite that sophisticated but that’s when I caught the (acting) bug.”

 

The Howle family moved from Oxford to Scarborough when the actor was ten and he tells me that the film locations around the Cotswolds and Oxford included many places that he hasn’t been since. “There was one day we drove past the house I’d lived in as a child and I ask the driver to stop to I could see it. That was quite amazing.” I’d recently returned from a tour of my childhood homes and we chat for a while about how the places associated with childhood exert a life exert a lifelong influence on adults. “That’s actually part of my process when I approach a script,” Howle tells me.  “When I approach a character my first port of call is geography.  The first thing I think about is not just the places themselves but even the size of the house they grew up in, how big was the garden? Was the garden a happy place were people were welcomed?” 

 

Howle has shared the screen with many of the  luminaries of the industry but says he doesn’t get star struck. “You earn your stripes but there’s only so long you can be ‘up and coming’” he tells me, “I think it would get in the way if I was star struck.” See, that sounds a bit arsey on paper but the reality is very different.

 

On Chesil Beach is in cinemas nationwide.

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/billy-howle-gets-to-grips-with-craic-and-chemistry-in-on-chesil-beach-with-saoirse-ronan-36922394.html

De Knight's Tale in a Monster World

 

Steven S De Knight built his career around cult TV shows. Now he's taking his vision to the big screen writes Anne Marie Scanlon   

 

The Sunday Independent

 

18 March 2018

 

       “I love all movies it doesn’t matter what the genre is as long as it’s a great story and great characters,” Steven S. DeKnight, tells me when we meet in London to discuss his directorial debut Pacific Rim Uprising which stars John Boyega. 

 

The movie itself, a follow up to Pacific Rim (2013), is testament to  De Knight's statement.

In bald terms both films are about giant robots, Jaegers, designed to fight Kaiju, giant monsters from the deep. (Don't worry if you haven't seen the first one as viewers are quickly and succinctly brought up to speed) 

 

It’s a genre that could all too easily become spectacle and indeed there are plenty of Godzilla moments, but the film is great entertainment even if ‘Monster’ films generally leave you cold.

 

“Coming from television, for me, character and story are so important,” de Knight elaborates, “You can have the most spectacular visual effects ever created but, if you don’t have characters that are fun and engaging and have an emotional connection, then none of the other stuff really matters.”

 

Despite working steadily and successfully as a writer and director in television (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Spartacus) since the early 90s, DeKnight still exudes gratitude and enthusiasm about his career.  His own story too is like a traditional Hollywood tale – the ‘overnight success’ after years of painstaking persistence in the face of rejection after rejection.

 

De Knight comes from the small town of Millville, New Jersey, which developed around a glass factory where both his parents worked.  “It was so small we didn’t even have a movie theatre.  I had to ride my bicycle a half hour to the next town to see movies. The area I grew up in, even as a kid, it wasn’t quite where I wanted to be.  I felt like Luke Skywalker – if there’s a bright part in the Galaxy I’m the furthest away from it," he laughs, "and I just I found so much comfort and inspiration in movies, comic books and TV shows.”

 

The young De Knight was fascinated by the technical aspects of film-making but in Southern New Jersey there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for him to learn more. In high school he began acting and “fell in love with it,”.  Deciding he wanted to pursue a career in acting De Knight got a place in the University of California in Santa Cruz.   

 

His parents, the director tells me, were extremely supportive of him but could not afford to send him to college and the prospective actor had to work and take out loans to pay his own way.  When he graduated De Knight decided to change course “I felt like I was a good actor but I wasn’t a great actor and I didn’t feel like I would ever be a truly great actor and,” he adds “I’m not 6' 5" and I’m not ruggedly handsome.” 

 

De Knight is a good looking man, even if he won’t say so himself.  But then I’m biased as we found ourselves agreeing on so much – especially that NYPD Blue was one of the best television shows ever televised. 

 

When his degree was finished De Knight did a graduate Playwright program and then a further year learning screenwriting with the intention of writing feature films for a living.   “I thought maybe six months to a year and then I’ll be writing features.  I could not get arrested! It took me almost seven years before I got a break.  Every day I would go to work and every night I would write, churning out one script after another that nobody wanted to read." 

 

Finally, he got a job writing for the MTV teen sex comedy Undressed. While there he wrote a spec script based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer one of his two favourite TV shows. “Imagine how different my career might have been if I’d picked NYPD Blue,” he laughs. The script led to a meeting with Joss Whedon the creator of Buffy and Angel who asked him to write an episode of the show.

 

“The heavens parted,” he says looking happy and excited still.  While his episode was being made Whedon asked him to join Buffy full time. “I’ll never forget it. I practically burst into tears I was so happy. It was like a dream come true, like winning the lottery and for me it was really the start of my career.  I wouldn’t be sitting here right now without (Whedon's) belief in me and giving me the opportunities he gave me.  He gave me my first chance to direct on Angel, an amazing learning process.”

 

Despite his extremely successful TV career De Knight still felt anxious about directing his first feature film telling me he was a ‘huge fan’ of Pacific Rim which was directed by Guillermo del Toro, one of his idols.  “I’ve seen all his films, seen the DVDs, watched the special commentaries, I’ve all the books about the making of his movies… so (stepping into his shoes) was incredibly daunting.  Not only was it my first feature but a huge, huge complicated franchise movie.”

 

Idris Elba starred in the first film as Striker Pentecost and the plot of Pacific Rim Uprising centres around his son Jake. “Trying to cast the son of Idris Elba – who is so magnificent…,” was no easy task.  When John Boyega was suggested de Knight was sceptical. “I love him but I thought because he’s in Star Wars he wouldn’t be interested in doing another huge franchise.” 

 

One thing that stands out in this movie is the amount of women in the cast.  Is that deliberate I ask.   “Absolutely. I’m from the Joss Whedon camp, I cut my teeth on Buffy and I’ve always loved strong female characters.   I love writing for women... I think the old days of purely male dominated action movie is fading. And rightly so."

 

Pacific Rim Uprising is in cinemas from 23rd March.

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/deknights-tale-in-a-monster-world-36713262.html

Angelic Asa's journey to stardom

 

Aged just 20, Asa Butterfield is already as seasoned pro and in new word drama Journey's End it shows,

writes Anne Marie Scanlon           

 

The Sunday Independent

4 February 2018

 

There was a time when the words words “child star” were synonymous with the word “rehab.” When I say this to Asa Butterfield the 20-year-old star of Journey’s End he chuckles.  Butterfield, in his own words, has been acting more than half his life, having started working at nine. To date, he is probably best known for his role in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) but his current film, Journey's End will change that.

 

To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever met a more composed and relaxed twenty-year-old. At one point during our meeting to chat about his role as the teenage Second Lieutenant Raleigh, he lay across the sofa he was sitting on, before swiftly returning to the sitting position – a hint of a blush on his face.

 

When I ask him if he thinks children in film are treated better these days (given the way they were often treated in the past it’s no wonder so many of them ended up with addiction issues) he replies “I only know of my experience growing up as an actor living in London - which I think is very very different to being an actor growing up in LA.  I think the ‘Showbiz Razzmatazz’ that goes on in LA is damaging, especially to young people. There’s lots of pressure, and trying to imitate or replicate people who aren’t necessarily the best role models.” 

 

The young actor goes on to tell me that he stayed in the same school throughout his career, right up to A-Levels and he never experienced any backlash from other pupils.  "I was quite lucky because I know it does happen – jealousy is a real thing but I knew a lot of my friends before it all took off and it didn’t really affect how I behaved or how people behaved around me.” 

 

It probably helped that when he was a child Butterfield wasn’t desperate to get into acting. At seven he joined the Young Actors’ Theatre in Islington because his older brother was a member.  “Even when I started doing auditions I wasn’t that bothered. It was fun but there were other things I was more interested in.  I wanted to dig up dinosaurs.  Digging up dinosaurs was it for a long time,” he says laughing.   

 

Today he’s wearing thick black Joe 90-style spectacles and has his hair in a quiff – classic Geek Chic.  But behind the glasses he still looks impossibly young.  When I tell him that while I was watching Journey’s End I had the urge to put my fist through the screen he looks slightly alarmed before I explain that I wanted to reach in and pull his youthful character Raleigh out. 

 

“He’s a child, he’s too young to be out there,” I say and Butterfield nods his agreement. Out there is the dirty trenches of Aisne over four days in World War I.  Raleigh is a young man of 18, just out of Public School, who thinks war will be a jolly adventure.  His uncle is a General and he uses his pull to get posted to the battalion of his older school chum, and idol, Captain Stanhope (Sam Clafin), who is also in love with Raleigh’s sister.

 

The film is based on the play of the same name written by R.C. Sheriff about his own experiences as an officer in what was then The Great War.  When the play debuted in 1929, events were still fresh. Conversely, Butterfield tells me he knew little about the conflict before he got the role.  The actor was shocked by the conditions, which the director Saul Dibb replicated on set, and the fact that some of the soldiers were indeed little more than children.

 

“Some of the people going in would be 14 or 15 years old and they’d lie about their age," he says.  "They thought they were going off to serve their country (like) my character in the film.”

 

He goes on to tell me about the set, “It was pretty real, quite an extensive network of trenches. We ended up knowing our way around – as you would. It was full of mud, in the middle of November, it was rainy. It was grey, (and) literally the mud in the trenches stank.”

The plot of Journey's End focuses on the experiences of the Officers in their claustrophobic dugout within the trench network.

 

Butterfield and Clafin are joined by Paul Bettany – heart-breaking as Capt. Osborn and Stephen Graham as Second Lieutenant Trotter, a man determined to be jovial in the face of so much fear and misery. 

 

Stanhope is having a breakdown and is reliant on alcohol to dull reality. His personality and his rage dominate the tiny space the officers occupy.  The exuberant Raleigh doesn’t understand why his old friend is not happy to see him.

 

Clafin is superb at expressing all of the complications Raleigh’s arrival bring without having to utter a word.  Trotter takes Raleigh under his wing (despite them being the same rank) and shows him how to be an officer.  The young man’s child-like delight at seeing the weapons and being allowed let off a flare are heart-rending.

 

All of the cast are excellent and Butterfield is full of praise for his co-stars, “I really adored working with and learning from (them) – just being in a very close knit creative team. This was the first film I’ve done where I really felt a sort of maturity, the cohesiveness between all of these men, I really felt a part of that.  I really valued that. We got close, formed those bonds, I think you really see that in the film.”

 

The officers, with the exception of Hibbert (Tom Sturridge), are all trying to do their best for the men under their command despite knowing that the odds are no longer in their favour. 

 

The commitment of the officers and the naiveté of Raleigh are in sharp contrast to the cynicism of the generals, who put men’s lives at risk in order not to delay their (fancy) dinners and are willing to sacrifice men for strategies that they know won’t work.

Butterfield has been nominated for more awards than some actors twice his age but he hasn’t allowed it to go to his head.  I very much doubt we are going to be reading about the young man's high-jinx antics in the tabloids any time soon. 

 

“I’m quite content with what I’ve got.  I’d be perfectly happy doing independent films and enjoying the more relaxed lifestyle. Going to all the big parties and showing your face in places, that’s not really why I’m an actor. I love acting.” 

 

Butterfield already has an impressive CV and given his obvious talent, and despite his best efforts to remain low-key, his will soon be a very well known name.

 

Journey's End is in cinemas nationwide now.

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/angelic-asas-journey-to-stardom-36561710.html

Park takes Bronze to come up with movie Gold

 

Oscar-winning animator Nick Park features the Bronze Age in Early Man and finds plenty to laugh at,  writes Anne Marie Scanlon           

 

                                                    

The Sunday Independent

21 January 2018

 

“What if Cave Men were to put down their clubs and play football?” This was the question that inspired Nick Park’s latest endeavour Early Man.  I met the diminutive director, writer and all round creative genius, at the Aardman Animation Studios in Bristol while they were finishing production on the film.   Park and his team gave me a glimpse of the intense creative process that lies behind ‘stop-motion’ animation and let me tell you, it’s a process that requires saint-levels of patience to complete. 

 

For the uninitiated ‘stop-motion’ animation is where puppets are manipulated frame-by-frame to create the illusion of movement.  The process is meticulous, time-consuming and expensive.  On the day I visited Aardman Studio there were 34 active sets, each filming specific scenes for Early Man.  Park’s metier is ‘Claymation’ (where the figures are made of ‘clay’ – plasticine (or what we called ‘mala’ when I was in primary school.)   

 

I’ve been a massive fan of Park’s ‘Claymation’ work since the 1990 ‘Creature Comforts’ advert campaign for Heat Electric (Google it, it more than stands the test of time), through the various Wallace & Gromit films and Shaun the Sheep outings. (In fact, my home houses several incarnations of Shaun and at least one Gromit.)

 

Park is almost sixty, (although he looks significantly younger) and tells me his desire to make films and create characters goes back to his childhood.  “It’s what I always dreamed of as a kid. I’d seen a documentary about Disney on the TV, and how it all started with this mouse drawing. ‘That’s what I want to do, I want to create characters that people know,’ I started making films at 12, it’s all I’ve ever done really since.”

 

Early Man centres around the Stone Age Tribe who come into contact with the ‘modern world’ - the Bronze Age and attempt to beat them at their own game which in this instance is football.  The three main protagonists of this new Aardman world are Dug, a young Cave Man, his sidekick/pet Hognob (a wild boar) and Goona, a young woman fighting the innate sexism of her own ‘tribe’ the Bronze Age people. 

 

Park knows that Dug and Hognob will inevitably draw Wallace and Gromit comparisons.  “We tried consciously to avoid being Wallace and Gromit again, but there are overlaps of course, you see Hognob reacting a bit like Gromit because it’s in my genes,” the director says laughing.  Park himself does the voiceover work on Hognob, “I just go into a Scooby Doo” he explains before making a series of high pitched sounds.  “I love Hognob,” he continues laughing, “he’s comedy gold.  Every time you see him it will be funny.  Hopefully!”

The director goes on to say that he does think “the relationship (between Dug and Hognob) is different” from that of their predecessors Wallace and Gromit.  “Dug is obviously a lot younger and he’s not an ‘ideas guy’ like Wallace and I think Hognob is more of a pet than Gromit.”

 

The rest of the voiceovers are provided by a fairly starry array of performers with Eddie Redmayne as Dug, Tom Hiddleston as Lord Nooth, the Bronze Age Baddie and Maisie Williams as Goona.  The rest of the cast includes the highly distinctive voices of Richard Ayoade, Johnny Vegas, Mark Williams, Rob Brydon and Miriam Margolyes.

 

The final characters as they arrive on screen are very much a marriage of Park’s original ideas and the voices provided by the actors.  “We need the voices before we can animate,” Park says.  “We let the actor’s performance influence what we do – they act out everything – for timing, the gestures etc.”  Park uses Tom Hiddleston as an example.  “The way he pronounces words we manipulated Nooth’s mouth accordingly.  It would (look) different if the voice was done by a different actor.”

 

Park confides that he enjoys the casting process of his films.  “It’s very exciting.  I look out for people all the time on radio, TV, films… in terms of what would be a fit.”  Although Park has met Tom Hiddleston before it was the actor’s performance on The Graham Norton Show that grabbed his attention.  “I was after an actor who could do a good accent and he was doing impressions of Robert de Nero and others.  I thought, “he’d be worth a look,” and he was great.  He’s very clever.  He does a fantastic Donald Trump and Boris Johnston.”

 

The Tribe all speak with distinctive Northern English accents – like Wallace & Gromit, while the Bronze Age baddies all have heavily accented French or Italian accents.  Despite the film being five years in the making does Park worry that Early Man will be seen as pro-Brexit statement. “We’ve tried to steer round this,” Park admits.  “I don’t want to be flying the flag for the sort of nationalism that’s anti-European.”  (Park’s wife is from Monaghan and the couple spend a lot of time in Ireland.)

 

Surprisingly, given the theme of the movie, the director says he is not a football fan.  “Being a non-football fan I can have a more objective view as an outsider… we made sure that the story works for non-football fans.  I don’t support any team but I did do a lot of research over the past five years.”  Park wants to reassure all other non-football fans that Early Man is “a comedy caper with plenty of slapstick.”

 

As Early Man is set in prehistoric times comparisons to the cartoon The Flintstones are inevitable.  “I grew up with The Flintstones,” Park says, “and wondered if Early Man is a British Flintstones…”  On balance he thinks not.  Visual gags and puns have long been a part of Park’s work and Early Man is no different.  I was particularly taken with the Zebra Crossing in the Bronze Age town and the Carbon Dating Agency. 

 

As ‘stop-motion’ animation is such a long process there is generally a great deal of anticipation surrounding each new Aardman Animation film and I wonder if the hype puts extra pressure on to the director.  “If you think about it too much there is pressure,” he responds, “and I guess I am sort of aware of it, (because) obviously it’s important that it’s successful. But really, we just focus on the creative – that’s it’s what we want to make and it’s funny and hopefully it will fly out there and go down well.”

 

Having done ‘Claymation’ for almost half a century I wonder if Park is ever tempted to try a different kind of animation. “I’m interested,” he admits “and we are using digital effects in Early Man, things that you can’t do with clay, but I feel like I’m a clay man myself.  For me a lot of the humour and charm comes out of it (clay) and it sets us apart from everything else that is out there.  It’s not just a matter of choosing technique; I feel like a lot of the humanity and the nuance of the character animation comes form the technique of handling it and being in touch with it in every frame.”

 

 

Early Man opened in cinemas nationwide on 26^th January. 

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/park-takes-bronze-and-hopes-hes-come-up-with-movie-gold-36508969.html

Molly Bloom. Top of her Game Again

 

The real Molly Bloom is so much more than the 'Poker Princess' who ran the Hollywood card game,  writes Anne Marie Scanlon           

 

                                                    

The Sunday Independent

17 December 2017

 

“Kindness is my favourite word,” Molly Bloom tells me.  Judging from her story as portrayed in Molly’s Game (based on her memoir of the same name) it seems as if she hasn’t experienced a lot of it to date. 

 

Molly Bloom is her real name, (there's a very funny scene in the movie when Molly (Jessica Chastain) explains to Chris O’Dowd’s drunken Irish American character that she is not Irish, he’s confusing her with the character from Ulysses). 

 

While the 'game' (poker) is pervasive throughout the film that's not what it's about - it's really Molly's story.   Bloom, the eldest of three over-achieving siblings, pushed hard by their father (Kevin Costner), was destined for great things – the Olympics and Harvard Law School, when a fluke accident on the ski slopes derailed all her plans.  

 

The young woman decided to defer Harvard for a year, moved to LA, and took a job with a hot shot Hollywood type.  He runs a weekly poker game (always all male) that includes famous actors, Hollywood insiders, the powerful and the very rich - the 'buy-in' is $10,000.

Bloom tells me that she never had any interest in poker or gambling “I was interested in playing the room.  I was interested in how they functioned and how I could build a business out of it." 

 

Bloom did everything right, consulted a lawyer, paid her taxes and was making millions. Then of course, in the Hollywood tradition, it all went very bad.  Molly found herself on the wrong side of both the Mob and the FBI.

 

Leaving aside that the plot is true and everything the audience sees actually happened, Molly’s Game is a fantastic film in it’s own right.  Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay and makes his directorial debut.  The cast is first rate with Idris Elba as Charlie Jaffey, Molly’s lawyer, Michael Cera as the Machiavellian Player X and Jessica Chastain being pretty much flawless as Molly, who she portrays as driven, steely, and reserved sometimes to the point of coldness. 

 

The real life Bloom is somewhat different; she’s measured in her speech, she pauses a lot, searching for the best answer, but she’s unflinchingly honest about herself and exudes a vulnerability that her movie alter-ego only touches on at times.  Despite the film revealing her drug and alcohol addiction, her difficult relationship with her father and her crossing the line into illegality Bloom tells me that she ignored Sorkin’s advice to see the film privately before coming to the premier in Toronto. 

 

“I’m sitting in this theatre with 2000 people going ‘what the hell was I thinking? This was such a terrible idea'.  I couldn’t breathe, I was so emotional and tense but, halfway into the opening scene, I just relaxed and I’m watching this movie, like I’m watching any movie.  I’m so entertained, it’s taking me outside of myself despite all the massive personal baggage I’m bringing.  I think that’s a huge testament to the film. It blew me away. Jessica nailed it, she’s extraordinary."

 

Bloom is now sober for the second time. She tells me that being indicted by the US Federal Government derailed her first recovery.   Movie Molly doesn’t appear to have any social or romantic life but Bloom tells me she did have boyfriends and went out but “really it was all about the game.” 

 

Was that an addiction? Bloom agrees it was.  Was it an addiction to power?  “Money, greed, power, yeah, all of those things,” she replies.  Isn't that the American Dream?  “It sure is and I feel lucky that I know the shortcomings of that. I know no matter how much money I made, no matter how much power I had there was an existential emptiness and it wasn’t really until I (embraced) the 12 Step Program (of AA) that I started finally filling that hole”.

 

Both film Molly and real life Bloom share an old-fashioned decency that you don’t come across much these days. Bloom was offered millions to name names and dish the dirt on those who attended her weekly poker game but she refused.  There were already some names in the public domain and those are referenced in the book.  Sorkin decided to use amalgam characters in the movie.  My advice – don’t google until you’ve seen the film as knowing the names of these people will only distract you and spoil the ending.  

 

The film is much like Bloom herself, funny, clever and quick-witted.   I bring up the laugh out loud scene where a Jersey goombah, straight out of The Sopranos, orders an Appletini in order to fit in at a chichi bar.  “Oh my god,” she laughs remembering, “that really happened.” When I reply "of course it did, you couldn’t make that up," she lets out a guffaw. 

 

What happened next wasn’t a bit funny. I ask Bloom who treated her worse – the FBI or the Mob and she replies ‘the Mob’ without a moment’s hesitation.  Bloom’s treatment at the hands of the FBI was heavy-handed and, to my mind, unfair.  She was indicted with 33 others including alleged Russian mafia figures for, amongst other things, money laundering. I wonder if the Federal Government were harder on her than her co-defendants because she’s a woman. Bloom replies that she can’t answer that because she doesn’t know how each of the others experienced the event.

 

We start chatting about women in Hollywood and #MeToo.  "The truth is, the year that I was a cocktail waitress and working for the game, there were some uncomfortable moments – nothing like these women that have come out bravely and discussed in detail, nothing like that, that’s a horror show,"  Bloom tells me before going on to add, "the way that I was perceived and treated changed dramatically.  When I was a cocktail waitress I got hit on and I was treated like an object a lot.  When I became the operator, manager and financier of this Game I didn’t get treated like that any more. I became the bank, I was someone who collected money from them, or paid them, or extended credit to them so it was a whole different dynamic." 

 

I remark that the total reversal in the way she was treated by powerful men, being respected, must have been extremely seductive in itself, never mind the money she made.  “I LOVED (it)," Bloom replies honestly, "I was sick of feeling powerless."  The indictment left Bloom with nothing, facing the ultimate loss of power - jail.  With Molly's Game, she has, once again, taken back control. 

 

 

Molly's Game is in cinemas from 1st January 2018.  Molly's Game was re-released in paperback this weekend.

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/molly-bloom-is-top-of-her-game-again-36412348.html

Miller's master of the Superheroes

 

The cast of Justice League are just as impressive in real life, writes Anne Marie Scanlon           

 

                                                    

The Sunday Independent

12 November 2017

 

What do Superheroes and buses have in common?  You wait all your life to meet one and then five come along together.  The latest DC film Justice League has a very starry line-up with Ben Affleck as Batman, Gal Gadot reprising her role of Wonder Woman, Ezra Miller as The Flash, Jason Momoa with a very new interpretation of Aquaman and newcomer Ray Fisher debuts Cyborg. 

 

Regular fans of the DC Universe will already know that poor Superman is dead. The world has been plunged into despair, and disarray. There’s a ‘reactionary’ terror group that wants to bomb civilisation back to the Middle Ages (but they’re all white English guys so any similarities to any terror groups living or dead is merely a coincidence), and public morale is at an all-time low. So far just like real life then. (There’s a nice nod to the passing of David Bowie at the start of the film where he and Superman share the front page of a newspaper with the headline ‘Did they go back to their own planets?’).  In Justice League the general malaise has left the world vulnerable to attack from a demonic entity which will bring about an era of darkness. (And no, he’s not in the White House.)

 

While bearded and bejumpered Ben Affleck bears little similarity to his dashing on-screen persona; Jason Momoa (Aquaman) looks and sounds pretty much the same as he does in the movie. Fans of Game of Thrones will know the actor as the (now sadly deceased) Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo. He’s rocking a Heavy Metal/Biker chic with long curly hair, non-Hipster beard, fitted trousers and a velvet waistcoat complete with fob chain. All the better to show off his muscles and his (rather tasteful) tats. His fingers are a riot of ornate heavy silver rings (skulls feature a lot).

 

As Momoa sits down beside me he removes his boots. “Are your feet hurting?” I ask him.  “No, I just want to get comfortable,” he replies in his distinctive deep gravelly voice. Momoa then proceeds to lie back on the banquette and raise one knee, rest his arm on it and throw his head back (like Michelangelo’s Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling). If this were anyone else, it would be risible but Momoa is cool enough to carry this pose off. Just. 

The actor comes across as a man who has never had a moment of self-doubt in his life but without being an ass about it. “Do you like swimming?” I ask Momoa. The actor has only just met me but he’s already got my number. “Yeah,” he replies looking at me quizzically. “All that time in the water, you might get a bit pruney?” I inquire. The newly-minted Superhero pauses briefly and then says “Eh no, I’m doing just swell!” before adding that he has “nice thick Hawaiian skin, that doesn’t get too pruney”. I’ll just leave that one there.

 

Fisher is an incredibly sweet, polite young man, a far cry from the moody angry Victor Stone, aka Cyborg. He tells me that Momoa’s children, then seven and eight (their mother is Cosby Show actress Lisa Bonet), were frequent visitors to the set. “They’d call us by our character names, and I said “My name’s Ray, I’m playing Cyborg”. Then Jason pulls me to one side and he says (Fisher goes into deep gravel-voice mode) “Man these kids still believe in Santa, you’re just Cyborg”.

 

We’re meeting in London after a week during which the news has been full of allegations of sexual harassment and sexually inappropriate actions in Westminster alongside the ongoing post-Weinstein and Spacey Hollywood stories. The lop-sidedness of Hollywood with regard to women in and on film though is not news (most Superheroes are male too). “There’s room for more stories that are female driven, definitely,” Gadot tells me, (the actress is even more impressive in real life than she is on screen). “In the world it’s 50/50 between sexes, there is not enough representation for women on film, it’s better on TV but still... I think that gradually we’re moving forward but in a very slow way.” Glacial, I volunteer, and Gadot agrees.

 

What about sexually inappropriate behaviour, has she experienced that in her career? “I would like to give you an honest answer,” she says seriously. “I never experienced any physical sexual harassment.” She goes on to give me an example of the ‘attitude’ she experiences. “Yesterday I had a conversation with a German journalist,” Gadot tells me. “I said you guys are doing great with a woman Prime Minister — Angela Merkel. And he said ‘yes, but she’s tough’. I said ‘what do you mean she’s tough?’” The journalist responded that Wonder Woman was tough but you could see her heart. (Ezra Miller, who is sitting beside the Israeli actress and I look at each other in disbelief.) Gadot informed the journalist about the difference between movies and real life. “She’s the Prime Minister! She has business to do. Then I asked him, the leader before Merkel, how was he? Did he show any emotion? He said ‘No’. And what about the one before him, did he show any emotion? He said ‘No’.”

 

The actress then gave the journalist a list of nine examples of how positive attributes ascribed to men are routinely portrayed negatively for women which she’d come across online. (She later reads out the list to me. It begins with ‘A man is forceful, a woman pushy’ and ends with ‘He’s a perfectionist, she’s a pain in the ass’).

 

“That’s what I experience,” she says matter of factly. “I think now — something has to change. It’s been like this forever, (where) its OK for people to use their power to manipulate someone to give them something against their will. And it’s not OK and I think it’s very important that people are coming out and speaking against it.”

Ezra Miller interjects with “Sexual predatory behaviour your wrath upon this world is over!” (He’s brilliant on screen and off. He absolutely steals Justice League and deserves a full interview by himself.) Gadot continues saying that when she wants to make a point “I try to be nice, so I’ll be listened to. This is wrong. It’s just wrong… I wish we could all join forces — the truth is there is nothing to fight. The truth is that people are the ones who create all the problems — there’s no aliens, there’s no monsters, it’s just about us learning to live together.” Then she adds, almost to herself, “I wish.” 

 

Justice League is in cinemas from 
November 17

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/millers-master-of-the-superheroes-36308667.html

In a Galaxy not so far, far away, an Irish Star was born. 

 

The Star Wars legend charms Anne Marie Scanlon           

 

                                                    

The Sunday Independent

 

05/11/2017

 

Even as a girl in single digits I had a ‘thing’ for ‘Bad Boys’.  Luke Skywalker, the young hero of Star Wars, was never going to do it for me.  He was too nice, too blond, too clean and far too much of a ‘goody-goody’. So I went to meet actor Mark Hamill safe in the knowledge that because he’d never been blu-tacked to my bedroom wall, I wouldn’t make a holy show of myself both personally and professionally. 

 

We’re meeting to talk about the latest Star Wars instalment, The Last Jedi, which of course, we’re not allowed talk about.  As you can imagine sometimes trying to have a conversation with someone about something you can’t actually speak about can be (as they young ones say) #awks.

 

Not this time.  As soon as I open my mouth and Hamill hears my accent he volunteers “all my relatives on my father’s side are from Ireland and my Mom’s from Sweden.” The veteran actor goes on to tell me that he’s doing a documentary on his ancestors for the Irish Tourist Board, to promote Ireland as a destination for Americans.  “God forbid you have a bunch of loudmouth Americans mucking up the place,” he laughs, “but it’s so beautiful, so unique and the people are unbelievably friendly.” 

 

Part of The Last Jedi was filmed in Dingle “I loved it.  I wish we could have just stayed and made the whole movie there.” One of seven children, Hamill’s father was in the US Navy and he’s no stranger to travel.  When he tells me that he attended nine different schools around the world in a period of twelve years I respond saying that such frequent moving is tantamount to child abuse. Hamill laughs, “When I was younger it was sort of like an adventure.  (As an) adolescent, when it was more important to have friends and be part of a group, that’s when it got to be a real nuisance.”  When he graduated from High School in Japan Hamill promised himself he would “never be in a profession where I would have to uproot my kids…” before laughing at the irony. 

 

While the constant travel didn’t give him the acting bug it helped him develop skills as an actor.  “You have to be a chameleon; you have to suss out what is acceptable.  You move from San Diego to the East Coast and they’re like “look at Surfer Joe over here” (said in an accent that wouldn’t be out of place in The Sopranos), you’re constantly trying to fit in.”

 

Coming from a conservative Catholic family Hamill had no contacts in the entertainment industry.  “I didn’t know anybody in show business and I didn’t know anybody who knew anybody in show business.”  As a young child “I saw Clarence Nash recording the voice of Donald Duck (on TV) and thought if it’s somebody’s job, to go to work and be Donald Duck, I want that job!”  Similarly, he discovered that films and TV shows had vast behind-the-scenes crews from watching Walt Disney’s television shows and thought “I could find something I could do.  If I wasn’t in the show I could be near the show and that was important to me.”

 

It’s forty years since the first Star Wars hit the cinema and propelled the relatively unknown actor to global fame.  In the past four decades the original trilogy of films have become a pop culture touchstone and even those who have not seen the original films are familiar with the characters – Princess Lea (with the iconic hair), Han Solo, light sabres, Darth Vader “Luke I am your father,” and of course “May the force be with you.”  How does Hamill feel about being the living embodiment of a cultural icon? 

“Wow it’s so much to take in,” the actor replies.  “I don’t carry it around with me on a day-to-day basis.” We’re meeting the day after the GQ Awards in London where Hamill was awarded ‘Icon of the Year’. In those situations, “you get so much attention, the photographers are all pointing the cameras your way, there’s all the hoopla and adoration, and then I’m back home and Mary-Lou (his wife of almost 40 years) is telling me to take out the trash, clean up after the dog and the backyard looks a mess!”  Hamill goes on to tell me that none of the cast expected the films to become such a huge part of the pop culture landscape.  He tells me that when the initial fuss started, while the first film was still showing in cinemas, he was taken aback and thought “in a few years something else will come along and there will come a time when people say ‘oh remember those films’ you know when they’d see them on the Late Show or something, but it never went away,” Hamill concludes still sounding quite surprised at the staying power of the Star Wars universe. 

 

When I ask him why he thinks the Star Wars films so thoroughly captured the public imagination and have remained in the collective conscious and unconscious for four decades he’s on surer ground.  “It’s really primal storytelling, it goes back to Grimm’s Fairy Tales, really harking back to a more innocent time when good and evil were so clearly defined, – here’s the bad guy, here’s the good guy.”

 

Hamill says he was “stunned” when he got the call about the new trilogy.  “We, (Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and he) were not meant to be in the third trilogy anyway.  They said if I didn’t want to return they wouldn’t recast but they’d write Luke out of the story.  That was a responsibility and part of me was just terrified to come back and, reunions are inherently disappointing.”  At the time Hamill was also convinced his former co-star Harrison Ford wouldn’t be on-board. “I said Harrison’s not going to come back – he’s too rich and too cranky and he’s too fed up with Star Wars – he gets sick of talking about.” Hamill goes on to say that when Ford was confirmed as returning to the character of Han Solo “I knew they were going to kill (Han). (Harrison) to be a martyr, he wanted to get killed off in the original, to be a hero’s hero.” 

 

When I say I was shocked by the manner of Han Solo’s on-screen death, Hamill replies “I was too!” He tells me he was saddened when he read the script as he knew it meant that Luke and Han would not be reunited.  I ask him if he got to work with Carrie Fisher (who died at the end of last year) as there is a trailer online that shows them together in a car park.  The poor man looks pained.  We’re not allowed to discuss the details of the film. “Well yes,” Hamill replies hesitantly “I certainly got to do photo shoots with her.”

 

“I know I’m not Luke, I’m not virtuous and heroic in the way he is.”  Maybe not, but if there is a nicer man in Hollywood I’ve yet to meet him.  I wonder if it’s too late to blu-tack his picture on my bedroom wall. 

 

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/in-a-galaxy-not-so-far-far-away-an-irish-start-was-born-36290535.html

The Queen of the Small Screen Goes Big 

 

From Tesco to the Tower, after two coronations actress Claire Foy has never lost her head, writes Anne Marie Scanlon           

 

                                                    

                                                        The Sunday Independent

                                                  22/10/2017

 

As someone who studied history to post-graduate level, reads history books for fun and gobbles up historical fiction, I was beside myself with excitement when I heard the BBC were dramatizing Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, the Man Booker Award winner 2009. 

 

Transferring beloved books onto both the big screen and the small is a notoriously tricky task but director Peter Kosminsky’s adaptation was a unanimous hit.  The casting was superb throughout - from the bit players to Mark Rylance as Cromwell and Damien Lewis as Henry VIII.  To my mind though, Claire Foy, who I had never heard of at the time, stole the show as a magnificent, complicated, wholly credible, Anne Boleyn.  Wolf Hall won many awards and although Foy was nominated for several she didn’t get one gong, when really she should have won ALL the awards.

 

In person Foy is nothing like Anne Boleyn (probably a good thing), she’s petite and bears a passing resemblance to Henry’s second ill-fated wife, but that’s it.  The actress tells me that she was as excited as I was when she heard that Wolf Hall was being made into a TV series (we both agree that Hilary Mantel is a “genius”.) 

 

Foy speaks rapidly and speeds up as she speaks.  “I was like oh my God, ohmyGod, ohmyGod, AMAZING!” when she heard, "but absolutely knowing that I wasn’t right for Anne. I never, ever saw myself as her, but (director Peter Kosminsky) gave me a shot.  Thank God, I loved it, I loved it!”

 

In the two years since Wolf Hall appeared on TV Foy has found global fame playing another Queen – the current incumbent of the throne, Elizabeth II (in the early years of her marriage to Prince Philip) in The Crown. 

 

Is she deliberately cornering the market in royalty?  Foy laughs, “I don’t know how it happened,” she admits, “it’s a bit embarrassing isn’t it, I mean oh God!  I’ve had two Coronations! How swish! I’m not Royal, or even upper or middle class so I don’t how that all happened.  It’s odd but I’m very grateful.”

 

It’s quite a shock to discover Foy is “not posh” in real life (she’s from Stockport originally rather than the Home Counties), as her latest role, Diana, in the film Breathe, is another 1950s young lady with a mouth full of plums.  “I had to take the edge of her accent actually,” Foy tells me, “because I’d just finished doing the first series of The Crown, and the characters are similar, they’re a similar generation – Keep Calm and Carry On!”

 

Breathe is based on the real life love story between Robin Cavendish and his wife Diana.  Robin (Andrew Garfield) contracted polio at the age of 28 while Diana was pregnant with their son Jonathan (one of the film’s producers). 

 

Robin was paralysed from the neck down and given mere months to live.  The Cavendish’s flew in the face of convention, Robin refused to stay in hospital, returned home and enjoyed his life.  The couple travelled extensively and with the help of an Oxford Professor friend (Hugh Bonneville) designed a chair to allow Cavendish and other ‘responauts', as they were known, to achieve a degree of independence. 

 

The Cavendish’s revolutionised the lives of many disabled people and also the public perception of disability.  While Robin Cavendish passed away in 1994, Diana was very much a part of the film-making process, which was “incredibly reassuring,” Foy says.  “I could just ask her “what did you think about that?”  But it’s also difficult for Diana, it’s very hard for her to look back on 35 years of her life and say exactly what she was feeling, or even want to tell me what she was feeling.”

 

Breathe is a ‘feel-good’ film and to some extent ignores or sugar-coats the day-to-day drudgery involved in caring for another human being who cannot move. I tell Foy that as I watched the film I thought I could never do what Diana did and then add “well perhaps if it was my child.”  Foy cracks a huge smile – “You see! Well it’s that form of love, it doesn’t necessarily mean with your partner, but when you feel that strongly about someone, and you love them, then you do, you find the energy and you find the time and you find the ability within yourself to do it.”

 

We meet the same week as the film’s premier and the media is full of stories about Foy retuning to work “too soon” after the birth of her daughter.  Foy tells me that she was misunderstood.  “I don’t think I went back (to work) too early, I think I put myself under too much pressure.  I wasn’t very nice to myself and I think a lot of mothers have that. All mothers struggle. End of.”

 

While Foy only has one child she is from a “massive Irish family. My granddad, one of 13, is from Dublin, my Nan, one of 11, from Naas, they met, hilariously, at a dance in West London. Classic!”  Foy’s grandparents lived in Edgeware for most of their lives before moving up North to be closer to their children and grandchildren. “The whole street in Edgeware was Irish,” Foy says, “it was like being in Ireland.” 

 

The actress herself is one of three and neither her brother nor sister are involved in the arts or entertainment.  As a little girl Foy had no notion of becoming an actress.  “I wanted to be a Ball Girl at Wimbledon and I wanted to work on a till.  I used to look at tills in the Argos catalogue,” she tells me laughing, “and when my brother had friends around I’d put on a tennis skirt and be like “I’ll get the ball.”  Then she adds “maybe because I fancied all of my brother’s friends!”

 

Foy realised both ambitions.  “I worked at Wimbledon doing security and I worked at Tesco’s for five years. When I got the job at Tesco’s I was like “this is it!”  Foy also had jobs in “the local box factory” and in a Call Centre, “now when people (call me) I can see why I got such short shrift all the time,” she says.

 

Foy’s next role is Lisbeth Salander in The Girl in the Spider's Web (based on the Stieg Larsson book).   Lisbeth is a far cry from Royals and posh girls “I’m excited and terrified,” Foy tells me.  Throughout our time together she’s been rubbing her shoulder and massaging her neck, “I’ve got to get myself physically fit. I can’t have a frozen shoulder as Elizabeth Salander, it would be a disaster!” 

 

The final word is drawn out in a terribly, terribly posh way – disaaaasss-ter.  Well after two Coronations, what else can one expect?

 

Breathe is in cinemas from 27th October.

 

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/the-queen-of-the-small-screen-goes-big-36247181.html

Boyz to Men: Keith and Brian hit the road 

 

Boyzone's Keith Duffy and Westlife's Brian McFadden relive their boyband days with the Boyzlife tour, writes Anne Marie Scanlon           

 

                                                    

                                                        The Sunday Independent

                                                      15/10/2017

 

Having been in the United States for the rise and heyday of Irish boy bands Boyzone and Westlife, my knowledge of the scene is limited to Laddz, the fictional group that appear in many of Marian Keyes novels. 

 

The real life lads, Brian McFadden (Westlife) and Keith Duffy (Boyzone) have never heard of their fictional counterparts.  But, Brian eagerly informs me, Westlife got a namecheck in Cecelia Ahern’s first book.  “That’s because of Nicky,” McFadden explains to Keith Duffy who rolls his eyes no doubt well aware that Ahern’s older sister is married to Westlife member Nicky Byrne.

 

We’re meeting to discuss their upcoming tour as Boyzlife, where they sing each others songs and tell stories.  After their Boyband heyday McFadden became infamous for his very public love life (he was married to singer Kerry Katona, engaged to singer Delta Goodram and married to model Vogue Williams).

 

Ireland is a very small country and I’d heard from more than one source that Brian, contrary to his public image, is really a “lovely guy.” I found it hard to credit that someone who regularly generates such bad press could be that nice, but within minutes of meeting him it all makes sense.  Brian is a lovely guy, and for someone who has been in the glare of the spotlight for almost two decades, he’s strangely guileless.  He’s very ordinary, down to earth and unguarded. 

 

When discussing the current state of pop music Brian declares “everything that has come out in the last ten years is pretty shit.  Everything apart from Ed Sheeran and Adele.”  Both men blame X-Factor – where their former manager Louis Walsh is one of the Judges.  

 

While Duffy looks like a celebrity – white teeth, trim, leather jacket and still devilishly handsome, McFadden, on the other hand, looks like a Dad you’d meet on the primary school run.  Although his two daughters are both in their teens, the singer is still quite baby-faced despite, as he says himself, having “more skin and less hair.”  

 

I ask him if he thinks the negative coverage of his romantic life impacted on his career – his first solo album Irish Son in 2004, was a critical and commercial success yet his subsequent career failed to live up to that early promise.  “Yes,” McFadden replies honestly, “it wasn’t by choice! My first solo single was the second biggest selling single in Europe in 2004 and it was all going well until the bad press… The only thing I can say is that I have a great divorce lawyer and it’s very comforting to know that my next one will be free,” he continues joking, “every third one is free!” 

 

So are you planning on marrying again? I ask him.  (McFadden is currently living in Rochdale with his girlfriend Danielle Parkinson).  Duffy saves him from the awkward question by intervening with “Sure he introduces his new girlfriend to everyone as “my future ex-wife.” "

 

Next year Boyzone will mark their 25th anniversary in showbiz.  McFadden will be joining the four remaining members of the original line-up (Stephen Gately passed away suddenly in 2009) for the anniversary tour.  It’s also a quarter of a century since their infamous debut appearance on The Late Late Show. (The video is still very popular on YouTube). “It’s great isn’t it,” McFadden volunteers laughing, (easy for him to say as he's not in it). “We show that on a big screen at our (Boyzlife) show – that’s where it all began."  “It was cringe worthy,” Duffy adds with good humour.

 

Trying to interview Duffy and McFadden together is like trying to nail jelly to a wall.  However, they're great company – the conversation is ceaseless, littered with stories and anecdotes, many at their own expense.  “The kids of today have no idea who we are,” Duffy tells me without any hint of resentment.  “It’s quite bizarre when you’ve lived with being well known, a familiar face, for a long time.” 

 

Duffy goes on to give me an example that has all three of us laughing. “We were flying out of Dublin airport a few weeks ago,” he says.  “Brian throws me a bottle of water and says “here, get me that Dad.” I say “No problem son.”” At this point one of the cast of reality show Geordie Shore approached Duffy and asked if he really was McFadden's father.  “I said, “yes, I had him young.” And she says, “you look great you do!”  I went over to Brian and his girlfriend and said “she actually believed I was his bleedin’ Dad.””

 

Later at the baggage carousel at arrivals, various people started asking for selfies and autographs.  The Geordie Shore cast member approached them again and announced “I know you’re not his Dad, you’re from Westlife and you’re from Boyzone.” The young reality ‘star’ was surprised that people weren't asking her for autographs and photos and had to enquire who the two men getting all the attention were.    “Then she googled us,” McFadden adds, crying laughing, “and she showed us her phone with the search results!”

 

McFadden tells me that the Boyzlife audiences are made up of 45% Boyzone fans, 45% Westlife fans and the remaining 10% are Coronation Street devotees who have come to see Duffy’s character Ciaran McCarthy in real life. (Duffy appeared on the long-running soap from 2002 -2005 and again from 2010-2011,  and tells me that he would be happy to return to the famous Cobbles if he ever has time.)  

 

“When you say Coronation Street they all go crazy,” McFadden explains, while Duffy tells me that Larry Mullen once said “I loved you in Corrie.” Both men are huge fans of U2 - Duffy especially. He still can’t quite believe that he knows his favourite band in real life.  When The Edge once said hello to him at a U2 gig he was in shock at one of his heroes knowing his name only to be told that the Edge’s daughters had posters of him plastered over their bedroom walls. 

 

“You don’t think Rock Stars live like (the rest of) us,” McFadden says.  He’s got his Vape going, they're both having a mid-afternoon vodka and about to do a TV interview – it sure looks like Rock’n’roll to me. 

 

Boyzlife are touring the UK in December. Tickets and information www.boyzlifetour.com www.boyzlifetour.com

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/the-kids-of-today-have-no-idea-who-we-are-keith-duffy-and-brian-mcfadden-hit-the-road-    

Snowman Star Melts Our Hearts

 

Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson star of The Snowman is no Snow Queen, writes Anne Marie Scanlon           

 

                                                    

                                                        The Sunday Independent

                                                        08/10/2017

 

Interviewing celebrities for a living isn’t exactly spending ten hours down a pit hacking away at the coal face.  There are times though, (and people), who make you think that perhaps a shift in the colliery would be preferable to trying to get them to to talk to you like a normal person.

Before I met Rebecca Ferguson (the Swedish actress, rather than The X Factor runner-up), I had some preconceived notions.  I expected Ferguson to be enviably slim.  She is.  I thought she would be ridiculously beautiful.  She is.  I was convinced, for no good reason, that she would behave in the detached way that some northern Europeans have.  I was hoping for, at best, a polite distance while imagining the worst case scenario of chilly distain. Boy when I’m wrong, I’m really wrong.

Rebecca Ferguson is not aloof; in fact, she’s the best of craic – a right good laugh.  She is fun and funny - despite her ‘Ice Queen’ good looks and a cut-glass accent that even Betty Windsor herself would find posh, she has no front. 

“My mother is English,” Ferguson tells me explaining the accent. We’re meeting in a fancy hotel in London’s Soho – one so hip they hide the toilets and never light the public areas with anything over 40 watts. When I attempt to get a glass of water Ferguson hops up and brings back two bottles, one still, one sparkling and a glass – all three items in the one hand, like a practised partier. 

The star, whose CV includes the BBC drama The White Queen, Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation and The Girl on the Train laments that we don’t have any vodka. 

Ferguson is wearing a simple black sweater, black wide-leg linen trousers and a fabulous eye-catching pair of gold platform sandals.  When I ask the designer’s name she replies “I’ll tell you!” before struggling to name the brand.  “Oh God, I’m really annoyed. I should know these things,” she says laughing, “so you can write “Rebecca knew exactly what it was.”” Giving up trying to recall she takes off her sandal and checks inside.  “Giuseppe Zanotti,” she reads slowly, squinting to see the name. “I should have known that,” she says putting her sandal back on, “because they make the most fantastically comfortable shoes for people with quite broad feet.”  She goes on to say that the gold sandals, beautiful as they are, are “work shoes”.  Ferguson lives in a fishing village in Sweden where there is little call for heels.

Various sources state that Ferguson began her career at the age of 13. “People say it,” she says, “but no.  I would say that’s a lie.  I was signed up to a modelling agency, couldn’t stand it, turned down every job, I took one job and that was that.  I didn’t like being photographed.  And I wasn’t a model.  I was in the ‘people’ section because I was too short, and probably too fat!” “Were you fat?” I blurt out, because the possibility seems as likely as the DUP campaigning for a 32-county Republic.  “Well, it’s modelling isn’t it,” Ferguson says dismissively, “I was a normal person.” 

Ferguson began her acting career at 15 and had her son Isaac, almost 11, in her early 20s. It turns out that Isaac is two days older than my own son and we both enter ‘Mammy’ mode discussing how tall our respective babies are. “They grow so fast,” Ferguson says with a mixture of pride and regret that mothers everywhere will recognise.   The star tells me that she tries “to normalise the job I do,” for her son’s sake.  “He comes to the set, I go off and leave him with the stunt guys and I come in and he’s hanging off a harness somewhere.  He loves it but I don’t think he would like to act.”

In her latest film, The Snowman, based on the book by Jo Nesbo, Ferguson stars opposite Michael Fassbender who plays Harry Hole. “I love him,” Ferguson declares. “He’s just the coolest guy ever.  He’s funny.  And he sings! He sings Irish folk songs.  He is wonderful and he is FUN to work with.  It’s nice to work with someone where you can just kick off your shoes and tell stories.”

Ferguson is also trying to pin down her own Irish roots. “God my family is big. My Grandfather (Ferguson) was Scottish and my Grandmother Northern Irish, her name was Martin.”

The Snowman has many themes including the influence both mothers and fathers, or the lack of them, can affect the adults’ children become.  Ferguson grew up in Sweden where her father is a lawyer.  She tells me that her parents “met through an interesting way,” but then refuses to tell me how, batting back the question with “how did your parents meet?” Ferguson’s parents never married.  “Marriage isn’t a big thing in Sweden I think we’re quite open to everyone’s ideas and visions which is quite lovely.”  I reply that they also have lovely furniture and Ferguson says “Well Denmark does! Sweden does too but I’m a fan of Danish design.  I’m renovating two houses and spending a lot of time in Denmark going “I can’t’ afford that, I can’t afford that, I can’t afford that,” as she mimes pointing at various items of imaginary furniture.  “How expensive is Denmark?” I wonder, considering the Giuseppe Zanotti shoe’s retail at just under £600 sterling.  “Very!” Ferguson replies laughing.  “But it’s very beautiful and its quality,” she continues drawing out the last word slowly.  When I remark that, unlike her character, she appears to have a healthy relationship with her parents she replies, “But I don’t know what a healthy relationship with parents is!  What’s interesting is when we get to a point where we are making our own decisions and when we cut the umbilical cord. Sometimes having a fantastic relationship (with a parent or parents) can be a bad thing.”  As a parent herself she says “I worry that I’m going to fuck it up for him somehow, we usually do don’t we?  I mean you always make mistakes.   I try to listen to him a lot.  I think we look at our backgrounds and I think – “what didn’t I like about myself and what can I change?””

Swedish actors like Stellan Skarsgard and his sons Alexander and Bill and her co-star’s girlfriend Alicia Vikander are huge in Hollywood at the moment.

Why are Swedish thespians so popular? “Because we’re just awesome,” Ferguson replies before laughing out loud. “Just because we are FANTASTIC!”

She’ll get no argument here.

The Snowman is in cinemas nationwide from October 13^th

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/snowman-star-melts-our-hearts-36205903.html

He's back! And this time in 3D.

 

Self-effacing actor Robert Patrick is ready to scare a brand new legion of Terminator fans as the iconic T-1000, writes            

 

                                                              Anne Marie Scanlon

                                                              The Sunday Independent

                                                              20/08/2017

 

I’m old enough to have seen Terminator 2: Judgement Day in the cinema when it first came out.  Old enough in fact to have been on a date at the time.  I can’t for the life of me remember who the chap was but the film has been one of my favourites ever since and a large part of that is down to Robert Patrick – better known to fans as the T-1000.

 

The T-1000 is a Terminator in the guise of an LA cop and he is almost impossible to kill – shoot him and the wounds heel instantly, incinerate him and he reverts to liquid and reforms, freeze him and… you get the idea.  It is this, along with his relentlessness, that makes the T-1000 one of the scariest screen villains in history. 

 

In person Robert Patrick is, thankfully, nothing like his on-screen lookalike being warm, friendly and extremely generous towards other actors.  We're meeting to chat about the coming re-release of the iconic film remastered in 3D.  The actor is keen to stress he was only one of several people playing the T-1000 (which can morph into any shape it wants).  “I’m a very small part of the performance of the T-1000, the T-1000 had a lot of different elements, I just happen to be the face they go back to," Patrick says modestly.  "There’s a lot of people helping me play that part," he continues stressing that the other actors also deserve credit.  As far as fans are concerned however,  Patrick IS the T-1000.

 

Although it’s 27 years since he starred in the film that changed his life (he was living in his car at the start of the shoot and married his girlfriend half way through – they now have a son and daughter), Patrick still looks very like his younger self.  If he wasn’t so nice it would be very unnerving. 

 

On hearing my accent he’s quick to tell me about his Irish connections. “My family fled Scotland to get away from the Campbells, we went to Ireland and we changed our name to Patrick and we ended up in Jamestown, America.  My family has been living there since the 1600s – that’s all I know.”  That’s all!  I’m pretty impressed that he can go so far back. 

 

On his finger Patrick wears a skull ring.  He tells me his wife bought it for him because she thought it looked a bit like the Terminator.  Before he was cast in the second film Patrick was already a fan of Schwarzenegger's Terminator.  "You’re going to think I’m making this up but it’s the God’s honest truth,” he says smiling. “I was in Ohio working in a weightlifting gym and the guy I was rooming with was the manager of the place. I told him I was going to Hollywood to get into acting and I said “you should come with me man, you could be the next Terminator,” because he was a bodybuilder…. Brad Squires was his name."

 

Patrick admits that when he got the part he was rather intimidated “it was a daunting overwhelming feeling, I’m going to be the Terminator, Jesus Christ how did this happen?”  The actor goes on to say that he was initially star struck by Arnold Schwarzenegger. “He’d already been a huge impact on my life, I’d read a book about bodybuilding that he had written … it’s intriguing to think back on that now, even to this day, I’ve done scenes with Clint Eastwood and guys like that who are iconic, who have had a big impact on my life and you have to (say) ‘keep it together man, you’re just an actor and he’s just an actor,' and you can’t let that overwhelm the situation. but yes working with Mr Schwarzenegger was very very unique experience, very rewarding and he was a very generous actor, congratulatory and was able to give you a compliment and approval when you did good.” 

 

He could be talking about himself as he has nothing but nice things to say about actors he worked with including Joaquin Phoenix (he played his father in Walk the Line) and Christopher Meloni who he co-starred with in an episode of Law & Order SVU.  "I certainly enjoyed working with Chris Maloney, there’s nobody more dedicated to acting than Chris … he’s just a magnificent actor."  (Incidentally Law & Order fans should keep an eye out for S Epatha Merkerson, aka Lt Van Buren, in T2). 

 

Although I’ve seen T2 many times since it was initially released I'd forgotten just how much it belongs on the big screen.  The 3D effects are pretty good but to be honest – it’s gilding the lily; the film stands up on it’s own.  Fans will relish seeing it on the big screen and a whole new audience has a massive treat in store.  Patrick agrees with me.  “It stands up and it stands the test of time and I think it’s almost the perfect movie – it’s a really amazing execution from all the tools Jim (Cameron, the director)  had at the time to pull it off.”  

 

He’s right, apart from a few anachronisms (the old-school computer games in the arcade, people smoking - even in hospital) the film hasn’t dated.  Linda Hamilton is very modern with her ‘Madonna Arms’ (and this was before Madonna had ‘Madonna Arms’) and attitude, she’s a fighter who doesn’t wait around to be rescued. Those new to the film will recognise many of the catch phrases that have become an ingrained part of modern culture – “come with me if you want to live”, “Hasta la vista baby” and, of course, “I’ll be back.”

There are moments of terrific comedy and director Cameron (who later won the Oscar for Titanic) neatly inverts the ‘good guy’ ‘bad guy’ tropes.  Patrick, as clean cut cop, riding around LA in a police car with ‘To protect and serve’ written on the side is the face people trust.  It’s a testament to the story and the execution that even after all this time Terminator 2 still has the power to shock and in many ways is more relevant to the world today than it was when it was first released.  Ancient as I am I was also shocked when, after seeing the film, I overheard two 20-something American girls trying to figure out what the “room with all the molten lava” was and “like, duh, you wouldn’t have a room like that.”  It’s called a foundry.  Duh.

 

Although Patrick has never stopped working since he made T2 Judgement Day he still has a great fondness for the film “It’s neat to think you are part of film history,” he says, “I mean I’m a very small part,” he adds depreciatingly.  I beg to differ.  I ask him if little kids run away from him in the Mall.  “No. Little kids don’t really know me,” he replies equably.  I have a feeling that might be about to change. 

 

Get tickets for 29th August Judgement Day T2:3D event on WWW.TERMINATOR2-3D.CO.UK. In cinemas nationwide from 1st September

A Very Modern Rom-Com

 

Emily V Gordon, co-writer of The Big Sick, turns her own illness into a laughing matter, writes Anne Marie Scanlon

 

The Sunday Independent

                                                                           

 

                                                                30/07/2017

 

 

The Jewish Mother and the Irish Mammy are well-known stereotypes – they’re basically the same person, guilt-tripping and nagging their grown children.  Now, thanks to The Big Sick, they’re become part of an unholy trinity along with the Muslim Pakistani Mum.  The MPM in The Big Sick is a version of star Kumail Nanjiani’s own mother as he also co-wrote the film with his wife Emily V Gordon. 

 

The plot based on their own experiences and how early in their relationship Emily became seriously ill and spent over a week in a medically induced coma.

In real life Gordon is a lot cooler than her on-screen version played by Zoe Kazan. “That’s a lovely thing to say,” she tells me, “I think Emily in the movie is pretty cool too.”  The real Emily is far more polished than the on-screen one, with a short fringe, glasses and a vintage-style dress.   

 

The Big Sick is set in Chicago where the couple first met at one of Nanjiani's   stand-up gigs.  Despite much of the plot being true to life Gordon is keen to stress that the characters we see on screen are exactly that, characters and that the on-screen parents (both hers and Kumail's) bear little relationship to their real-life namesakes.  “My father never cheated on my mother,” Emily laughs. “I’m contractually obliged to say that in every interview.  What kind of monster would I be if (her father had been unfaithful) and I was like “Hey Dad, remember when you cheated?”.  When I say there are plenty of people who would have no compunction about doing that she looks genuinely horrified. 

 

 

Despite The Big Sick tackling racism, Islamophobia, serious illness and inter-racial relationships, all rather weighty topics, it is a very funny, feel-good Rom-com.  In the movie Kumail and Emily have broken up when she gets sick.  He keeps vigil by her bed and advocates on her behalf.  He also meets her parents Beth, a wonderful Holly Hunter and Terry, Ray Romano at his awkward best.  Hunter is brilliant as the mother who is grudgingly grateful to Kumail but at the same time loathes him because he broke her daughter’s heart.  The way the relationship between Kumail and Emily’s parents is both touching and funny and culminates in my favourite scene in the movie where Beth takes down a racist heckler at one of Kumail’s stand-up gigs. 

 

 

Even though their history and relationship has been fictionalised I wonder how strange Gordon found watching her husband re-enacting their story with another woman.  “Maybe a little weird,” she admits, “but actually it was surprisingly normal.  We’d spent so long writing it that I kept drumming into my head “this isn’t me; this is a character”." She goes on to say that she can’t act which is why she didn’t play herself as her husband has.  The only time Gordon felt odd about the project was at the auditions for the part of Emily.  “I was a little, “what have I done?  I’ve made a huge mistake” because there were gorgeous women flirting with my husband.”  Gordon goes on to tell me that Nanjiani asked that she wasn’t on set during the "make out scenes", however due to a schedule change she was present for one of them.  “I thought, “that looks awful,” it’s awkward, it doesn’t look sexy, it’s kind of gross and that really weirdly helped, because it does not look fun.” 

 

 

While the scenes of Kumail’s family dinners, where his mother introduces him to a succession of Pakistani Muslim women who just ‘happen to be passing’ reminded me a lot of Woody Allen’s films (in a good way) the fact that both men started out as stand-ups is where all similarity stops.  Kumail is a handsome and confident man who has no problems with the opposite sex.  In the movie he tells a lot of lies and I tell Gordon that at times I thought on-screen Kumail was a total jerk.  “It’s interesting,” she says, “some people think Emily is the jerk.”  When I say I hope that what we see isn’t the real Kumail she replies without a hint of acrimony “It’s shades of the real him, he was trying to avoid getting into trouble.  He was one of those guys, his words weren’t matching his actions.  He would say “I don’t want a relationship” and then (behave like) an amazing boyfriend.  Most guys will tell you wonderful things and then treat you like shit.  He was telling me shitty things and then treating me like a wonderful boyfriend.”  Gordon admits she was confused but “I learned early just go with the actions.” 

 

 

While The Big Sick works successfully as a rom-com it actively subverts the usual Rom-com clichés.  When Emily awakens from her coma she doesn’t swoon into Kumail’s waiting arms, because as far as she is concerned he is still the man who broke her heart.  It’s a scene very much based in reality.  “Everyone was so excited and happy when I woke up,” Gordon remembers, “I was so miserable, scared and angry.  They couldn’t get it, “why aren’t you smiling?” I was catching up!”  In Rom-coms the climax often involves a character giving a heartfelt speech, spilling their emotional guts, usually in a public setting and The Big Sick is no different.  At an important gig, instead of doing his usual material, Kumail talks about his girlfriend being in a coma and the worry that she might die.   In a traditional Rom-com the heart of the booker from the prestigious comedy festival would melt. I won't spoil the reveal here.  

 

 

Judd Apatow, the Godfather of the modern Rom-com commissioned and directed the film.  He also made the couple do several rewrites.  I wonder if working with her husband on such a personal project became problematic.  “We weren’t hovering over each other’s laptops,” Gordon laughs.  “I probably would have murdered him if we’d done that.”  Gordon also did some rewrites while on set.  “I know a lot of writers aren’t welcome on movie sets, so I’m grateful,” she tells me before adding “I wasn’t weighing in with “well that wasn’t how my hair looked,”” she says in a bratty voice.  “I would never – people would have murdered me.” Three months after coming out of her coma the real life couple got married.  Her in-laws, she tells me “are very much at peace,” with having a non-Muslim, non-Pakistani daughter in law. “It’s been ten years,” she explains. “But they came around quite quickly because they love their son. We all realised that we were a family, so let’s just dig in and be a family and we have and it’s been really lovely.”

 

The Big Sick is in cinemas nationwide.

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/a-very-modern-romcom-the-big-sick-35977543.html

Dunkirk stars show plenty of spirit

 

A new World War II epic tells a gripping story with Harry Styles and Cillian Murphy joining a stellar cast, says Anne Marie Scanlon

 

                                                               The Sunday Independent

                                                                           

                                                                23/07/2017  

 

 

“Are you inviting me out on a date Harry Styles?” are not words I thought I would ever say.  I was meeting the One Direction member to discuss his role in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, in which the 23-year-old makes his acting debut. 

 

Styles is one of a number of actors making their film debut in the movie about this pivotal moment in British history.  The cast also contains quite a notable trio of Irish actors - Kenneth Brannagh, Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan, who has gone on to have a spectacular career since being the notorious ‘cat killer’ in Love/Hate. 

 

Before I meet Harry Styles I sit down with Cillian Murphy to discuss his role in the epic film.  I’ve been told by various other (non-Irish) journalists that they find Murphy “difficult”.  This is our second meeting and I wonder if the upfront, honest and charming man I met before has undergone some sort of mysterious personality change.  He hasn’t.  One thing I can tell you about Murphy is that he doesn’t like stupid questions.  To my mind this makes him human rather than ‘difficult’. 

 

In Dunkirk the story is told from three perspectives – there is the story of the boys (and I do mean boys) on the beach, surrounded by the enemy and trying to evacuate.  There were approximately 330,000 on the beach, with nowhere to hide, while German fighter pilots picked them off.   The film starts out with soldier Tommy (a fantastic performance from Fionn Whitehead) arriving at the beach.  In the air two RAF men (one Tom Hardy) try to pick off German rivals.  The third strand is the story that most people know - the ‘Little Boats’, manned by civilians, who pitched in to help evacuate the beach and gave the world the phrase ‘Dunkirk Spirit’. 

 

That narrative follows the Moonstone boat which is navigated by Mr Dawson (Mark Rylance), his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney (Irish grandparents)) and his pal George (Barry Keoghan). En route the trio come across a wreck with one survivor, the nameless ‘Shivering Soldier’ played by Cillian Murphy.  

 

Murphy’s character is typical of all of the other characters in that the audience are given no backstory.  There are no ‘war’ film clichés in Dunkirk, no ‘girl back home’, no foxhole confessions and no cut ins of Generals strategizing and providing exposition.  The script is extremely sparse but this lack of dialogue works extremely well. 

 

Murphy agrees, “it’s pure cinema,” he says.  “The film we have now came from silent film and if you can sustain a film for two hours without any dialogue that’s pure cinema.  The script (for Dunkirk) is quite slim, so a lot of it is silent and that to me is pure cinema.”  When I say that by the end of the film despite not knowing anything about the characters or their background I cared immensely about their individual fates.  “That’s quite an achievement,” Murphy agrees. 

 

A lot has been made of the conditions in which the film was made and how physically uncomfortable it was for the actors at times (wearing soaking wet woollen British Army uniforms on a choppy sea).  “Journalists always want you to say,” (Murphy puts on a very actorly voice) “Oh it’s so difficult and so hard,”.  He laughs before continuing “It was fine – you know real people died, we’re just actors who got a bit wet. It’s not going down a mine, or being a fireman, a doctor or a surgeon, you’re just dressing up and getting a bit damp.”

 

Of his fellow men in the boat Murphy is lavish in his praise.  “Barry is a really brilliant talent,” he says.  “He’s just one of those young fellas that has it.  He just has it; you don’t get many of those.” When I ask him if he enjoyed working with Mark Rylance he says “oh listen, I’m just a huge fan of his and I have been for many many years.  Not just as an actor which we all know – but as a person.  He’s got a wonderful energy, he’s lovely to be around.”

 

And then it was time to meet Harry Styles who has managed to successfully do something which so many other musicians, including Mick Jagger to whom he is often compared, have failed miserably at – which is to be taken seriously as an actor.  Rumour has it that Christopher Nolan had no idea who Styles was when he cast him.  I ask him if this is true.  “I auditioned,” he tells me. Yes, but did the acclaimed director know about the Harry Styles phenomenon? “I don’t think (Christopher Nolan) is always necessarily up to date,” he replies tactfully. “I don’t think he’s a big magazine guy,” he adds laughing.

 

That’s the thing I liked most about Harry Styles – he laughs a lot.  No wonder he’s currently one of the coolest people on the planet. Not only is the 23-year-old young and handsome, with the confidence and charisma of a man twice his age (well, he’s been dealing with frenzied fans for 7 years now) but he’s fun and funny and not afraid to be the butt of the joke. 

 

We’re joined by Tom Glynn-Carney and when I ask if they did any partying whilst making the film Styles says “we formed a large conga line in the town (with the large number of extras).  We had a whale of a time, still in battle gear.”

 

Styles speaks intelligently about his character and the film in general being full of praise for Christopher Nolan but he’s at his best when he’s kidding around. He tells me that the room in his hotel in Holland (where they filmed Dunkirk) was “so weird.”  “Yeah,” says Glynn-Carney, “it was full of weird lady pictures.” Of course I immediately ask what sort of ‘lady pictures?”  Styles turns to Glynn-Carney and says “Oh thanks for that one.  WHAT SORT OF LADY PICTURES?”  We’re all laughing by now.  I ask Glynn-Carney if the pictures came with the room or with Harry?  “He brought them with him,” Glynn-Carney deadpans.

 

I wonder if Styles has given any thought to future roles.  “This film I was very excited about.  I loved it so much and fell very honoured to be a part of it.”  Then he adds, “Maybe Legally Blond 3, I’ll be Reese’s assistant.”  I ask him if he can do Elle’s signature move. “Bend and snap? Yeah right!” he replies beaming.

 

It’s at this point that Styles starts badgering me to go see the play Glynn-Carney is appearing in.  He keeps poking me in the arm and saying “You should see it, it’s on down the road.” “You should see it, incredibly good reviews.” That's when I ask him if he’s asking me out. However horrified he might be (I’m old enough to be his mother) he hides it well.  Oh yes, Harry Styles can really act. 

 

Dunkirk is in cinemas nationwide.

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/dunkirk-stars-show-plenty-of-spirit-35955472.html

It’s full scream ahead with fright night

 

With his second film about to open, self-taught director Trey Edward Shults shows himself to be a true storyteller, says Anne Marie Scanlon

 

                                                               The Sunday Independent

                                                                           

                                                                25/06/2017  

 

  

Trey Edward Shults is an unusual young man for many reasons.  The 28-year-old Texan is the first American I have ever met who didn’t claim some connection to Ireland.  He’s never even tasted a pint of Guinness.  “I had an Irish Car Bomb and it made me throw up,” he offers apologetically. 

 

Far more amazing is that Shults has just written and directed his second feature film It Comes at Night, a work so accomplished and flawless it belies the director’s age and experience. 

 

Ostensibly this is a horror film, a category I’d take issue with.  There are no hoards of Zombies or chain-saw brandishing serial killers and yet the tension never eases up – I was quite literally on the edge of my seat the entire time.  If you like your summer blockbuster old school – a mindless escape into the air conditioning of the cinema, then It Comes at Night is not the film for you as it prompts more questions than it ever answers. 

 

The story centres mainly around Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr) a seventeen-year-old boy living in the woods with his parents.  At the very start of the film Travis has to help his father Paul (Joel Egerton) kill Bud, his grandfather, and immolate his remains.   As Bud has succumbed to an airborne illness, Travis and Paul wear breathing masks as they go about their grim task. 

 

We never find out what the illness is, or how widespread the outbreak, only that it is fatal and that Travis has absolutely no chance of living a normal life.  He can’t go out with his friends or have a girlfriend – he is quite literally stuck with his parents.  Despite the size of the house the claustrophobia is almost overwhelming. 

 

Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and Paul are a mixed-race couple and I ask Shults if this was deliberate.  He tells me that it wasn’t in his original script – it occurred organically as he was casting the movie “to me it’s not a movie about race, it’s not commenting on that at all.  I am just so happy and blessed that that worked out and Kelvin is the only kid who could have played Travis. The whole cast are great, they’re such good people and so talented.”  The only time skin matters in this movie is when it's covered with bubonic-looking boils, at which point colour is irrelevant.

 

Like his first feature film Krisha “which we made for $30,000 at my Mom’s house and stars my family”, much of It Comes at Night is semi-autobiographical.  The house is modelled closely on the home of Shult's late Grandfather Bud who he was very close to. Shult's had a complex relationship with his father “I hadn’t seen him in ten years (they were reunited just before his father died).  He suffered with addiction, alcohol and drugs but for a huge chunk of my life he was good.”

 

His first film Krisha was based on “my cousin who came home for a holiday, Christmas, in the movie it’s not Christmas.  She came home for a reunion and we thought she was sober (clean of alcohol and drugs) and she relapsed and then two months later she passed away.  She overdosed. She was in her 30s, it was terrible.  So much of stuff with my Dad and addiction with my family came out into the movie.” 

 

Given Shults relative youth and the fact that It Comes at Night is such a well made film it’s quite surprising to hear that the director did not go down what is now the usual route into filmmaking via university.  Instead he is self-taught.

 

“I was little kid and someone gave me a camcorder at a family reunion and I turned it into a little movie.  My family watched it, they were my first audience, and they loved it and I got the bug.  I’ve been watching and obsessed with movies my entire life.

Naturally he wanted to study film but “my parents wanted me to get a realistic degree and a realistic job so I was in school (university) for business but I lucked out and got on this Terence Mallick movie when I was 19.  I decided to drop out of school and did my own film school – I obsessed over movies, I did my own short films… I almost self-sabotaged my life until I had nothing left but filmmaking – I had nothing else to go to.  Fortunately, now we’re here.”

 

Most tellingly perhaps Shults tells me “I’m fascinated by human nature in all aspects.”  It Comes at Night is a thorough study of human beings and how they react to each other.  Travis parent’s still treat him as a child (despite his involvement in his Grandfather’s demise).  Whatever the domestic situation was before Bud got sick now it’s very traditional with Paul very much the ‘head’ of the household. When the family combine resources with a young couple with a small son the situation becomes more complicated.  The tensions between the three men are many and complex. The Father/Son dynamic plays out in several different ways.  (Shults calls his Stepfather ‘Dad’ and says he has two fathers.) Meanwhile, Travis has a ringside seat witnessing a healthy relationship knowing that he may never have one himself.

 

Shults tells me that regret is also a major theme of the film.  He starts talking about his Grandfather Bud, “there’s regret around his death,” he says.  “I remember the night, my Mom asked me if I wanted to say good night and I said no, I was tired. I went to sleep and in the morning he had passed… I didn’t even think about that till now,” he reveals, “there’s a lot of stuff buried in this movie.”

 

Every single member of the cast of six is note perfect. “I love the cast,” Shults says.  I always wanted Joel (Edgerton) but he’s a busy guy.  It started with him, I lucked out because his schedule opened and he took me seriously and …. from there it lead to everyone else.”

 

I wonder given the dystopian nature of his vision if Shults is a pessimist, does he think they world will destroy itself? “I love people and I believe in people but I’m also… I do see us destroying ourselves.  That’s my biggest fear, one of my biggest fears, I worry.  When I was writing this … (I started) thinking about if society fell apart in some way – whether it’s a disease or economic collapse and society stops functioning the way it is, how quickly we would fall apart.”

 

I admit to him that if society went pear shape I’d be one of the first to die or be killed as I can barely cope – even with the benefits of electricity and flushing toilets – without I’d have no chance.  “Exactly,” he laughs, “it’s hard enough as is, so true!”

 

It Comes at Night in cinemas from 7th July.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/its-full-scream-ahead-with-fright-night-35859657.html

Pirates on Parade

 

With Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and Javier Bardem, the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean can do no wrong writes Anne Marie Scanlon

 

 The Sunday Independent

                                                                           

                                                                21/05/2017    

 

One of my many grumbles is the way the word ‘star’ is overused.   Say what you like about Johnny Depp (and let’s face it, everyone has, more than once) he is a star, a proper old-school actor with talent and charisma levels above and beyond those of a normal human being. 

 

When I say I’m not a Depp fan, I mean it in the sense that I never had posters of him on my walls or am obsessive in knowing about his private life.  On the other hand, I think he’s a hugely talented actor and I absolutely love Captain Jack Sparrow, his character in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Then again, who doesn’t love Captain Jack?

 

So when given a chance to see Johnny in real life I wasn’t going to turn it down.  (I wouldn’t have been let turn it down as my ten-year-old son absolutely idolizes the actor and is a massive fan of the Pirates franchise.  So on a filthy Sunday afternoon I found myself and several hundered other people, including my son and mother, drenched, freezing and waiting for Johnny. 

 

Johnny doesn’t really do interviews but he was joining the rest of the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge at the European Premier in Disneyland Paris. 

Earlier that day I’d met with the wonderful Geoffrey Rush who has played baddie Barbossa since the very first Pirates film in 2003 and Javier Bardem, the titular Salazar, a villain so entrenched in ‘getting’ Captain Jack that even the notorious Barbossa is on the back foot. 

 

Geoffrey Rush is also an old-school star in that he doesn’t act like a witness in a trial – answering what is asked and then shutting his clob.  He talks, he tells stories, he entertains, he’s a wonderful raconteur and I could happily listen to him for hours. 

 

One of the secrets to his success, he confided, was that in all his roles, on stage and screen, he just played the same character.  This is of course utter nonsense, Rush is famous for his ability to inhabit characters both real life (among them Lionel Logue in The Kings Speech 2010 and, and Daviid Helfgott in Shine for which he won the best actor Oscar in 1996) and fantastical like Barbossa.

 

When the actor speaks about Barbossa who he’s now played for the fifth time in fourteen years he slips between calling him ‘he’ and ‘I’.  As he describes Barbossa’s development in that time Rush says he is full of “terrible vanity, shocking Narcissism, he was the original guy spat out of the mouth of hell, the self-deluding villain in the first film and (eventually) he worked for the King.  I loved having the court wig, the hint of make up and the beauty spot,” Rush says animatedly, “still the same teeth,” he adds with an eye roll.  “Now he’s a corporate pirate, the wealth is vulgar.”  I reply saying, “so he’s over the top, vulgar, narcissistic, despotic, likes gold… did you base him on anybody recently?”  Rush throws his head back laughing, “there are parallels I think,” he responds diplomatically. 

 

In Salazar's Revenge the audiences get a glimpse of a different Barbossa. When I tell him I was genuinely touched he tells me that he wept when he saw the whole thing on film.  (I can’t go into more detail as it would ruin part of the fun of the movie to know certain things in advance). 

 

I ask Rush what he thinks the secret of the ongoing success of the Pirates franchise is and he replies that people just love pirates, and Captain Jack Sparrow in particular.  “It’s a very attractive clown/hero character, like Chaplin’s Tramp.”  The actor goes on to say, his tongue very firmly in his cheek, “there’s a young female demographic who are curiously attracted to Captain Barbossa.”  While Rush himself might laugh at this possibility, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

 

I was a bit worried about meeting Javier Bardem – Salazar is a very bad man and Bardem is very convincing in the role, however, we bonded instantly over timekeeping.  We’re both of the same opinion about lack of punctuality “I can forgive five minutes,” Bardem says in his distinctive Southern Spanish accent. “But,” he adds in a much sterner tone, “I don’t forgive ten.  I think it’s a lack of respect – the one who does it (is late) thinks everybody’s time is less important than their own.  I mean, come on!”

 

Bardem’s wife, Penelope Cruz, was in the last Pirates movie On Stranger Tides (2011).  The actor doesn’t like talking about his private life and his family but I wonder if she gave him any advice.  “We did talk about how it’s difficult not to become a spectator when you’re working with Johnny,” he replies, “because Johnny becomes Jack Sparrow in front of your eyes – he’s an iconic character.”  He was similarly starstruck when he played Bond villain Raoul Silva in Skyfall (2012) “Daniel Craig and Judy Dench, they become Bond and M in front of you and you are “Shit! Wow!” because you’ve seen all the movies and then it’s “oh fuck, I have to say my lines.”"

 

I tell Bardem that I read an interview where he said he didn’t have any male role models growing up  “That’s not true." the actor replies. "That’s what they wrote.  Of course I had male role models – my brother who is six years older than me.  My rugby trainers were, friends were.“ I ask him if he had based Salazar on any particular any particular men.  "Oh! Wow!” the actor replies somewhat taken aback and then goes on to say that for him Salazar was a “wounded bull, in the arena, dying, wanting to kill the bullfighter.” 

 

Part of Salazar’s make up, which took three hours to apply every morning and used real glue, is a black viscous substance that comes out of his mouth when he speaks.  I ask him what exactly it was.  “It’s called Monkey Poo,” he replies.  I make a disgusted ‘eugh’ sound. “Eugh, yeah,” Badim laughs.  “It tasted like chocolate they said.  Nah!” (he shakes his head) “And I ate a lot of it.”

 

Well if it’s any consolation to him it was worth it.  Salazar’s Revenge got the thumbs up from all three generations of my family (and God knows, pleasing all of us at the same time is some ask.) And this is despite the rank Irish characters – they’re hideous but hilarious. 

 

Back in Disneyland Paris after an hour of heavy rain and just before Johnny Depp is due to appear the skies clear and the sun comes out.  Yep, Johnny Depp is that much of a star, even the sun shines just for him.  

 

Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge opens nationwide on Thursday

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/pirates-on-parade-35734797.html

Lock, Stock and two Smoking Arrows

 

King Arthur is not the film Guy Ritchie hoped to make and Jude Law steals the show writes Anne Marie Scanlon

 

 

                                                               The Sunday Independent

                                                               14/05/2017

 

I hadn’t expected to like Jude Law. He’s a remarkably talented actor, his good looks are beyond ridiculous but unfortunately,  he's almost as well known for his rackety love life as his job.   Given his reputation I figured Law would either be arrogant or greasily charming in the manner of a Leslie Phillips Carry On character.

 

In person Jude Law looks exactly like Jude Law, no better and no worse.  (Although how it would be possible for him to look better is beyond me.  And quite frankly, beyond science.)  Far from arrogant he's down to earth, friendly and exceedingly charming, (without any hint of grease).

 

His co-star in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Charlie Hunnam, is a breath-taking sight on screen and in this movie has a body that screams of punishing hours in the gym. Unfortunately, the torso shots are as good as it gets for the actor as Hunnam, unlike Law, is a complete charisma vacuum. 

 

I figured, that in real life, Humman must be magnetic – why else would Guy Ritchie (we’ll get to him in a minute) have cast him as the titular character is what is set to become a franchise of films?

 

Unlike Law, Hunnam is better looking in real life but far more slight than he appears in cinemascope and at the risk of objectifying him, unfortunately has his shirt on.  After a few minutes in his company I can see why Ritchie, (and indeed Sam Taylor-Johnston who initially picked him for 50 Shades of Grey) cast him.  The actor, who shot to fame in the TV series Queer As Folk, exudes an air of menace and danger – perfect material for Christian Grey or King Arthur as reimagined as a Guy Ritchie geezer, ducking and diving, in old London town (so old that it’s actually Londinium).

 

I’ve come across more than one A-list actor who appeared to be sitting on top of a volcanic rage – naming no names, but on each occasion the star tempered the threat with kindness and humour.   I’m not getting that here. 

 

And so to Guy.  Guy Ritchie is almost exactly as I imagined Guy Ritchie would be.  He’s not as handsome, as tall or as posh as his newspaper cuttings would imply.  He appears quite normal – there’s a bit of a geezer to him but he’s also polite, funny at times, and someone who likes to get things done.  As soon as he walks into the room he asks me if I’m cold as the AC is up high.  Worse, for him, is that it’s too noisy.  So he has to ‘sort it’ before we can talk and within seconds the room is silent, if chilly.   

 

King Arthur is an odd film.  At times, usually when centring on ‘Arfur’ the boy who grew up in a brothel and is now a Boss, running his manor in old Londinium Town, it is Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Arrows – there’s a heist-style scene, an improbable sheepskin coat that is uber-Hipster and the Ritchie signature quick cut-ins, rewinds and multiple retellings. 

 

That would be fine but the style keeps changing.  The film starts out like Game of Thrones, and gosh, yes, there’s Aidan Gillen with a funny nickname (instead of Little Finger he’s Goosefat Bill) and towards the end it goes all Harry Potter with a giant serpent.  In between we get gorgeous set pieces that seem to reference pre-Raphaelite paintings (although Ritchie says this is not deliberate, “I care about the look… but to use certain terms to express what that look is, I would struggle to do so.”)  And splattered throughout there are scenes that are pure Video Game aesthetic. 

 

Ritchie himself admits in so many words that this was not he movie he set out to make.    “I have a sort of idea and the idea at the beginning of this film, which I did not succeed in at all, was “solemn” I wanted to make a solemn film,” he says laughing.  “Somewhere along the way it didn’t become solemn,” he continues, his voice still rising with laughter, “it became something else. The films in this genre,  that work, are solemn. So that was my objective.” 

 

The hotch potch style is jarring (although I’m sure teenage boys will dig it) and the only person who appears to know what they’re doing on screen is Jude Law as Arthur’s evil uncle Vortegan who has usurped the throne.  And therein lies another problem, because Law is so watchable and believable I ended up rooting for him, which is a bit like going to see Harry Potter and cheering for Voldemort.  Law tells me that “it’s great fun” playing a bad guy, “of course the villain doesn’t think he’s a villain necessarily,” he adds.  I ask him how he would cope with unlimited power.  He pauses, “that’s a big question isn’t it?” before adding, “Hopefully with a lot more diplomacy, open-mindedness and embrace collaboration and humanity than Donald, em,  Vortigan,” he finishes laughing. 

 

Law has nothing but praise for Ritchie who he worked with before on the two Sherlock Holmes films (he was Watson, Robert Downey Jr the eponymous detective). At the start of King Arthur Vortegan is twenty years younger so I ask Law how it felt looking at his doctored image.  Does he regret the passing of his youth? “I was quite pleased that I could play myself twenty years ago (laughs) that they didn’t bring in some other guy.  I was the first person believe me (he squints up his eyes) to go “what have they done, what have they done?””

 

Law has embraced the aging process, “I’m very happy in my skin right now.  It’s funny you know, my son is 20 so I’m very aware of what the 20s are, the kind of blind, staggering, "what’s going on, what to I have to do?"  My memory of my 20s is "am I in the right place? Or is the better place over there?" It was full of excitement and frenzy and possibilities but there was an awful lot of insecurities and an awful lot of uncertainty as well and I think we all know as you get older… slowly either you can’t be bothered,” he laughs, “or you feel more comfortable in your skin.  So I’m far happier.  Happy is not the right word, I’m content now. "

 

As we chat I comment that he was born to play Bosie in the 1997 film Wilde. “I don’t know if I take that as a compliment, he was HORRIBLE,” Law replies.  When I reassure him it is, he laughs and adds, “I got to kiss Stephen Fry, that was one of the most romantic moments of my acting career."  Jude Law, ever the gentleman.

 

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword in cinemas 19th May

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-reviews/king-arthur-review-lock-stock-n-two-smoking-arrows-35709253.html

George and the Promised Land

 

From Northern Ireland to Rwanda, writer and director Terry George is no stranger to conflict

 

The Sunday Independent

 

23/04/2017

 

You better write nice things about me,” says Terry George, “or I’ll tell that you tried to steal my computer.” 

 

In all honesty, I did try to take the 2012 Oscar Winner's computer but it was all his own fault.  I was so caught up in what the director was saying to me that I inadvertently picked up his laptop, which is exactly the same make as my own, and it was only when I tried to stuff it into my handbag I realised what I was doing. 

 

George needn’t have worried; I’ve always had a weakness for Belfast men – it’s not just the accent but the cheeky charm they deploy which other men just wouldn’t get away with.  When I tell George that I think we met in New York in the early 90s, he immediately comes back with “You must have been all of ten then.” See?

 

We’re meeting to talk about The Promise starring Christian Bale, Oscar Isaac (totally unrecognisable from his role in Ex Machina) and Charlotte le Bon, which George has directed.  The film is a love story, a love triangle, that occurs alongside the outbreak of the First World War and the Ottoman Empire’s purge of the Armenian Community. 

 

The Armenian Genocide, as it has become known, (in fact George tells me the word ‘genocide’ was coined in 1946 specifically to describe events in Armenia) in which 2 million are reported to have perished is not as well known as subsequent global atrocities.  To date Turkey refuses to admit that the event ever occurred.

 

Having already been aware of the Armenian Genocide before seeing the film I was quite shocked at how angered I was at the behaviour of the Turks who are the undisputed bad guys.  I wonder if George worried that he’d be accused of Islamophobia for his portrayal of the Turkish?

 

“No,” George replies promptly.  “You present the historical event as it happened … The persecution of the Armenians, the Greeks and the Syrians was definitely based on the fact that they were Christians and there was an attempt to purify the Ottoman Empire.  But,” he continues, “the refugee situation that we portray is almost identically happening today with the Syrians and the Iraqis who are fleeing in the exact same area.”  The filmmaker stresses that The Promise is denouncing the Ottoman Empire which is a completely different thing from Islamophobia. 

 

George goes on to say, “having learned from In the Name of the Father, Some Mother’s Son and Hotel Rwanda – how those films were attacked for their veracity, I was extremely careful to do the historical research… I’d learned that you better have your facts straight on the story.”

 

Long before The Promise went on general release the controversy had already begun. “We screened it twice in Toronto (Film Festival) with a total audience of 3,000,” George tells me.  "By by the end of that week we had 86,000 reviews on IMDb, 55,000 were one out of ten and the other 30,000 were ten out of ten,”

 

At the start of The Promise we see the characters enjoying life in the relatively modern Constantinople, yet within weeks, the veneer of civilisation has gone, replaced by medieval barbarity.  I ask George if he thinks this could happen again. “It happened in Aleppo already,” he replies.  “One of the really sad things about the film is that the images we present – as we were filming in Spain, they were showing on TV, in the exact location that the story was set in, there were refugees fleeing across the desert, trapped up a mountain, drowning in the Mediterranean… The city of Aleppo, which was the biggest city in Syria, has just been flattened in the way that Dresden and Warsaw were.  So it happens.”

 

George himself is no stranger to conflict.  As a child, the screen writer and director, loved writing and wanted to do something related such as journalism.  “In Belfast that was the situation, the Catholics went towards the arts and Protestants went towards technology and the law and so forth because you couldn’t actually get a job in (those things) back then.  By the time I was 16 the Troubles had broke out and that kind of nullified any objective that you had." 

 

In 1975, at the age of 23, George was arrested for paramilitary activity and subsequently sentenced to six years in the notorious Long Kesh jail, (also known as the Maze Prison).  He was released in 1978 and three years later he and his family moved to the United States. In 1993 he made his debut as a screenwriter (and assistant director) with In the Name of the Father which was subsequently nominated for seven Oscars. 

 

I wonder if he is worried about being turfed out of his adoptive home under the Trump administration, as his residence is still dependent on a visa.  George laughs out loud, “I’m always worried about it… You know you get to a point where it’s like La De Dah… I’m blessed, I’m a film director, screen writer, working in Hollywood, living in the Hamptons with a house in Coney Island in Northern Ireland.  If they want to throw me out – go ahead,” he says.  But then becoming more serious he adds, “I’m more worried about the people who clean my house, the people in LA who work in the restaurants, the Irish who have been trapped.  When I went to the States there was an amnesty, a big chunk of the Irish were legalised, there’s a group now who are trapped and I don’t know if they’re going to get any solution from this crowd.”

 

The director is similarly dismayed by Brexit and the implications it has for the people of Northern Ireland.  “I think it’s a disaster,” he says passionately, “given that (the EU was) the underpinning of the peace process.”  We meet shortly after the death of Martin McGuinness, who was a key player in the Peace Process and George has no time for the people who linger on McGuinness’s early years.  “For him and Adams to persuade the hard core of the IRA to buy in to the Peace Process, and then for McGuinness to get Paisley and Robinson on board and create a relatively stable government…  just look around the world and ask who else could have achieved that?” 

 

George also doesn’t have time for people who perpetuate the story that Christian Bale is a diva.  “Christian Bale is the loveliest actor that I have worked with, by far,” he declares.  “Well, not by far,” he corrects himself, “I mean Helen Mirren, Don Cheadle but Christian Bale...  if you talk to anyone who has worked with him – he’s the best.”  They probably say the same about Terry George.

 

The Promise is in cinemas nationwide from 28th April.

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/george-and-the-promised-land-35643623.html

Movie veterans display plenty of style

 

Hollywood superstars Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman surely have a picture in their respective attics, writes Anne Marie Scanlon

 

                                                 The Sunday Independent

 

                                                                                                  10/04/2017

 

Screen legends, it turns out, are a bit like buses.  You wait all your life to meet one and then two come along at the same time. 

 

Morgan Freeman walks into the room without preamble and sits down and I have to remind myself that I'm a professional and not blubber "You're Morgan Freeman!" like the besotted fan I really am.

 

I say hello and tell him I’m delighted to meet him.  “We didn’t meet,” he tells me.  “I think you’d remember me,” I say chancing my arm.  “I hope so,” he replies in that distinctive voice.  Morgan Freeman – I’d be happy to watch a film that was just him reading names out of the phone book.  At 79 he’s still got it.  And then some. 

 

Michael Caine comes in and joins him.  I find it hard to believe he's 84 and no, he doesn't look like he's had 'work' done.  These behemoths of the silver screen are here to talk to me about Going in Style, their latest movie.  It's a heist movie where the collective age of the three lead actors (Alan Arkin is the third) is 246. 

 

Directed by Scrubs star Zach Braff Going in Style is a comedy about three elderly men, who having worked together and lived opposite each other (in the recently gentrified Williamsburg, New York) for over forty years suddenly find themselves broke.  The company they worked for is moving to Asia and the pension fund has been dissolved. 

 

Joe (Caine) has just witnessed the local bank, the one that has played fast and loose with his mortgage, get robbed.  He decides that bank robbery is the only way that he and his two friends can have a decent retirement.  At first Willie (Freeman) and Al (Arkin) think he's joking but as Joe explains - even if the worst happens and they're caught, they'll get free board and better healthcare. 

 

Caine and Freeman have worked together several times before.  I ask them, jokingly, if there was any rivalry, clashes of ego or measuring of respective trailers.  “Any Baby Jane moments?” I ask knowing that they're old enough to actually get the reference.    “No,” says Michael Caine emphatically.  “That’s why we’re legends.  You can’t be like that if you are a legend.”  “Grown ups don’t act that way,” Freeman says.  "We’re not lacking in anything,” Caine continues, “I can’t think of a single thing one’s got that the other one hasn’t got.”  “Well, I’ve got something you haven’t got,” Freeman teases.  "What have you got?” Caine asks in the voice that made him famous.  “I’ve got great grandchildren,” Freeman replies with more than a touch of pride in his voice. 

 

Caine goes on to say "we’ve known each other for years, we like each other."  It certainly appears that way.

 

I ask both icons if they feel a pressure to be this person that the public perceive them to be.  “I do,” Freeman says immediately.  “I can’t walk down the street, that to me is pressure.” “I wear a baseball cap and no one knows who I am,” Caine says.  “I’m sorry I lost that ability,” Freeman says sadly.   Caine remarks that everyone has a camera now and I ask both of them if they find ‘Selfies’ intrusive. “Yes, very intrusive,” Freeman answers immediately and raises his voice to stress how much.  “People start taking pictures of themselves with you... Get out of my face, who are you?”  “What I hate,” Caine chips in, “is signing photographs that I know are going to be sold.  I signed a photograph once... the guy couldn’t read my signature and said “what’s your name?”".  Caine, Freeman and I all laugh heartily at this. 

 

The pair seem not too dissimilar to their characters in the film - men who are comfortable with each other and themselves.  Caine says he identified with Joe because “I’m from a very working class background, from a very poor family.  What I found fascinating was to put this story (of globalisation, factories closing, pension funds dissolving) in the middle of a comedy." 

 

The film is full of extremely funny scenes, my own favourites including the trios' escape from their practice run at shoplifting and the subsequent dressing down they get from the store manager.  There’s also a hilarious scene where the three eat TV dinners while watching the American reality TV show The Bachelorette, and shouting at the telly.

 

“Everybody jumps on to that scene,” Freeman says in surprise.  Were either of them

familiar with the show before? “No,” they say simultaneously.  “I like the girl, I like the dress,” Caine adds with a glint in his eye. 

 

Caine spends his down time at his house in the country with his grandchildren.  He’s a keen gardener and cook.  Freeman spends his leisure hours playing golf and works out religiously.  “And I have a relatively young, younger than me, awfully gorgeous lady I get to spend time with and that’s very invigorating," he says in a way only Morgan Freeman could get away with. 

 

Despite their great ages neither star thinks about death.  “It’s not important,” Caine says.  Freeman wholeheartedly agrees.  Neither actor has any desire to retire either.   "Retire?" Freeman questions, "Gee Whizz, that’s about the furthest thing from my mind.  When the phone doesn’t ring for me as an actor, I’m going to sell myself as a producer or director. From a wheelchair if I have to." 

 

"I’m only ever going to be an actor,” Caine says laconically, “I like to go home early.  Directors have to stay late.  I never became an actor to make money or become famous,” Caine continues.  “I just wanted to be the best actor I could be. To this day, I do the next movie and say "can I do a better performance than the last one?" that’s all.  But I do have a bit of money now,” he finishes laughing.  

 

When  I say that a film with three elderly leads (not to mention the wonderful cameos from scene-stealing Christopher Lloyd and Ann Margaret) seems a rather odd move from an industry that is constantly being accused of sexism and ageism Freeman is quick to set me straight.  “Hollywood itself is not sexist or ageist... it’s Greenish.  If it makes money…"   Freeman goes on to say that there's a vast audience for the film in the Baby Boomers who are underrepresented on screen.  Fair enough, but for anyone who thinks Going in Style is some Hollywood version of Last of the Summer Wine it isn't.  It is a genuinely funny film that happens to be about old people.    

 

I ask the pair if there was a 'one that got away' role?  “There’s quite a few roles that I wished I had gotten," Freeman says. "that’s always going to be because there are always other actors like Sam Jackson and Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks…”  “Tom Hanks?” Caine quizzes. “Oh yeah,” Freeman continues, “I wanted to do Da Vinci Code I called Ron Howard and I told him I was interested."   “Tom Hanks does the best impression of me,” says the much imitated Caine.  I ask him if he’s ever seen The Trip where Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon vie with each other to do the best Caine impression.  He has.  He likes it.  I'm not surprised, for a legend he's very down to earth. 

 

Before we began to chat I told Freeman that I had been instructed by my 10-year-old son that morning to tell the veteran actor that he was one of his icons. As I was leaving he calls after me, "Say hi to your son from me." Legend.

 

Going in Style is in cinemas nationwide.

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/movie-veterans-display-plenty-of-style-35604626.html

Gory RAW will get under your skin

 

Writer and director Julia Ducournau delivers a coming of age tale with a difference.

 

The Sunday Independent

 

02/04/2017

 

RAW is a film about cannibalism that gives a new meaning to the term ‘nail biting’ (you’ll see) but Julia Ducournau’s controversial feature is about a lot more than a young lassie who gets a taste for human flesh. 

 

Justine (Garance Marillier) is a swotty and naïve 16-year-old wunderkind starting at the same veterinary collage previously attended by both her parents and currently by her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf).  She has been raised as a strict vegetarian – a point emphasised by an early scene when her mother goes ballistic in a restaurant where Justine has to spit out a bit of sausage that was in her mash. 

 

Older sister Alexia is far more worldly wise and insists Justine takes part in an initiation ceremony where she has to consume a raw rabbit liver.  Justine starts craving meat and ultimately human flesh.  The scene where she gives into the craving is simultaneously one of the funniest and most disgusting things I've ever seen on a movie screen.  While there are plenty of squeamish and horrific moments in the film there’s also a strong vein of humour and plenty of laugh out loud moments.

 

There are some parallels between writer and director Ducournau and her heroine, both Docournau’s parents were doctors and she has an older sister.  But while Justine is a socially awkward teen Ducournau is a witty, engaging and forthcoming woman in her early 30s. The director did harbour notions of following her parents into medicine but they put her off.  Similarly, they weren’t impressed when she told them she wanted to be a Criminal Profiler.  ""How many serial killers do we have in France?"" she recalls them saying.   "“Julia,"" she continues laughing, ""it’s like one every ten years. How are you going to make money from that?"" 

 

Before I saw RAW I’d heard about cinemas in the States distributing ‘Barf Bags’ to audience members and stories of people passing out from shock at the Toronto Film Festival.   I was more than a bit worried as I don’t have a strong stomach but while there is plenty of gore, RAW is an intelligent, funny film and very provocative film. 

 

While I didn’t pass out or throw up, my appetite for protein was entirely gone when I left the cinema.  When I mention this to Docournau and add that for two days I couldn’t eat meat she’s taken aback.  “Seriously?” she questions in surprise, “That’s crazy… when I read things like this on Twitter and stuff like that I always think people exaggerate a bit.” 

The cannibalism was not the thing that disturbed me the most about RAW. All ‘rookies’ are subjected to a week of brutal and disturbing ‘hazing’ which I found extremely upsetting.  

 

Ducournau, who is tall, blond, beautiful (and no doubt would berate me for mentioning that fact, but we’ll get to that later) and exudes ‘cool’ throws her head back and her hands in the air. “Yes, you see!"  Does that reflect student life in France I ask horrified?   “Hazing still exists in France,” the director tells me, “but its illegal... The hazing (portrayed in the film) is a mix of a lot of things, some really really bad things happen. Once in a while you get this case where someone almost died. It’s (also), stories that people have told me directly, videos, a lot of videos that I’ve watched..., so many videos of hazing on YouTube,” she adds sadly. “(It’s) all over the world, different kind of schools….  In real life it’s way more brutal than in my movie. In the first draft I had written the hazing as (much) stronger than (the final version) ... (but) the hazing was so strong that the cannibalism kind of fell flat.  So I had to rewrite it, tone it down so the movie had a real progression towards cannibalism.”

 

Part of the hazing includes persistent and institutional misogyny, which made me deeply uncomfortable.  Can this really be the reality of third-level education in modern France? “For me we’re not even talking about schools (universities) now,” Docournau replies, “for me society is like that, you know this is how we (women) are treated every day.  This constant comments on the bodies of women and the way they dress or don’t dress for me it’s harassment.”  This is why I say she wouldn’t thank me for commenting on her looks.  Docournau continues by telling me that she thinks the way women are treated has regressed instead of progressed.   “today, you have kids driven to suicide by rape or being filmed.”  Just days before we met Docournau has discovered the term ‘Revenge Porn’ and is outraged.  “It’s so common it has a name!” She says in exasperation, “It’s driving me insane." She goes on to remark that it is usually the woman and never the man who is 'shamed' "even when he was the one with his dick out."

 

Docournau’s take on ‘Revenge Porn’ is quite refreshing “it’s so important for me to have a female director to portray sexuality and say to these kids ‘it’s ok to want to climax, it is absolutely ok and it’s in everybody, our bodies are desiring bodies and it’s the same for everyone and even if you’re seen, worse case scenario, if you’re shown doing this it’s OK, you are allowed and you don’t have to be apologetic, you don’t have to be sorry about that, you don’t have to be shamed.  This is the thing about the shaming, it’s like we are in the Middle Ages!”

 

Docournau questions where all the shame comes from "all these stupid rules that (apply). Says who? These rules make no sense” Equally the 'rules' about body shape baffle her and this gets a nod in RAW with a couple of casual references to eating disorders. 

 

I question whether cannibalism could be classed as an eating disorder, albeit an extreme one, Docournau laughs, "you can say that cannibalism is a definitely form of eating disorder.  For me it’s about how the female body today is restrained – all the rules that you have to do even if they are super unhealthy in order to fit.”

 

I’ve interviewed few directors as lively and exciting as Julie Docournau and I have to admit to having a huge girl crush on her.  But I’m still worried about her diet, so just to check I ask her what’s the most disgusting thing she’s ever eaten.  “I can’t eat tripes (sic),” she replies promptly, “and I’m never going to eat Haggis.” And then she makes that face that people do when presented with something hard to swallow.  And as far as Docournau is concerned, the unpalatable isn’t just confined to food. 

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/gory-raw-will-get-under-your-skin-35583546.html

Anya Taylor-Joy in Split

 

From model to social misfit, Anya Taylor-Joy is an accomplished actor and she’s still only 20.

 

The Sunday Independent

 

22/01/2017

 

I’m going to marry an Irishman,” 9-year-old Anya Taylor-Joy announced to her father as they viewed the film Titanic.  It was the steerage passengers dancing below decks that did it for her.  “Those are my people,” she remembers telling her Dad.  “My soul mate is waiting for me in Ireland, I know it.”

 

It’s somewhat humbling to realise that the conversation the 20-year-old star of Split is recalling happened just over a decade ago as she already has an impressive acting CV.

In person, wearing a tight-fitting red Altuzarra dress and black Armani heels with an ankle strap, Taylor-Joy, who has just made six films back to back, is an odd mix.  The actress sounds far older than her years – she confesses to being a ‘bad Millennial’ preferring pen and paper to computers, yet she looks far younger than twenty, an impression that is compounded by the huge scab on her right knee. 

 

While Taylor-Joy has Argentine, Spanish, English and Scottish ancestry through both her parents her 9-year-old self was on to something when she thought her fate lay in Ireland as it was two Irish men who got her into acting.  Taylor-Joy, the youngest of six children, says she always wanted to act (none of her siblings are involved in the entertainment industry.)

 

At 16, she was 'discovered' by a modelling scout and signed to prestigious agency Storm the very next day.  While reading a book of Seamus Heaney poems on a shoot Taylor-Joy drew the attention of Irish actor Allan Leech (who played Branson the chauffeur in Downton Abbey). 

 

Leech asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and when she revealed her acting ambitions he asked her to recite some of the Heaney poems. 

 

“He took my name and number and said “Expect a call.”" the actress recalls.  "His agent is now my agent.  She told me he was quite persistent about it saying “Have you called her yet, you need to call this girl.” It’s unbelievable because he had no reason to do that.  He gave me my first shot in life, he opened up all of this."

 

The next time I saw him was on stage at the London Film Festival whilst he was presenting us for the award for The Witch.  When I saw him I said “you did this, you did this for me, thank you.”  He’s lovely.”

 

The actor also has high praise for her Split co-star, James McAvoy.  “He’s amazing.  He’s brilliant,” she says.  “He’s so good.  Take aside the fact that he is the nicest man," she says giving each word massive emphasis.  "He’s so nice and kind and really really funny.  Wickedly funny.  On a movie like this it’s important that you get along with your co-stars.  He’s just so unbelievably talented.  This performance to me is a moment in cinematic history.  He’s Ah-mazing…  He kills it in this movie.” 

 

Now this might sound like typical Hollywood plámás, but having seen the film I can tell you that Taylor-Joy is not exaggerating.  James McAvoy always turns in wonderful performances but in Split he is quite simply astonishing as he plays nine different characters.

 

Kevin, McAvoy’s nominal character, suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) – (what used to be called a ‘Split Personality’ and is sometimes referred to as a ‘multiple personality’). 

 

Although there is no use of make-up or prosthetics between character shifts in some of the ‘alters’ McAvoy is physically unrecognisable as himself.  Taylor-Joy plays Casey one of three teenage girls, kidnapped by Dennis, one of Kevin’s ‘alters’, and held captive in a basement. 

 

Kevin has 23 different personalities but two particular alters, Obsessive-Compulsive control freak Dennis and Miss Patricia, who are normally suppressed because of their odd beliefs have taken over control. 

 

While the former is scary and intimidating – he is the one who chillingly and methodically abducts the three girls from a car park in broad day light, Miss Patricia is one of the creepiest characters ever to appear on screen.  She is controlled, softly-spoken and calm as long as you do what she says. 

 

Taylor-Joy agrees with me wholeheartedly.  “She’s the one who creeps me out the most.  I think it’s because she’s unfortunately a woman stuck in a man’s body and she fetishes the girls a little bit, because they’ve got something she can’t have.” 

 

Split is proper edge-of-the-seat thrilling but also thought-provoking and at times, extremely funny.  While McAvoy is a powerhouse of versatility, Taylor-Joy’s Casey is quiet, understated and extremely convincing.  

 

As Split is an M. Night Shyamalen film it doesn’t follow the usual DID/Split Personality narrative.  The writer’s thesis is voiced by Kevin’s psychiatrist Dr Fletcher – wonderfully played by Betty Buckley, when she presents to a conference.  As DID usually results from childhood trauma (we are mercifully spared the details of what happened to Kevin, the gist is more than enough) Dr Fletcher believes that DID is a form of evolution.  Her contention is that the power of belief the alters have in themselves manifests physically – for example one of Kevin’s alters has diabetes and has to take insulin shots but none of the others do.

 

Dennis and Miss Patricia believe in ‘The Beast’, who is best described as an anti-Super Hero (being human but with superhuman strength and abilities).  The three kidnapped girls are offerings for ‘The Beast’, who we are warned repeatedly “is coming.” 

 

Taylor-Joy’s character Casey, unlike the other two girls, is an outsider, a loner, a misfit.  Taylor-Joy tells me there are some crossovers between them.  “I never fit in with people my own age,” she admits. “I never fit in at school. Then all of a sudden, the first time I ever felt I belonged somewhere was on the set of The Witch.” 

 

Taylor-Joy goes on to say there are plenty of differences between her and her latest character.  “She’s incredibly patient, I have no patience whatsoever.  She’s far more quiet than I am, I’m pretty loud and chatty”.

 

She is indeed very chatty, and great company, quick to laugh and not afraid to swear when it's warranted.  Unfortunately, she's not chatty enough to confirm that she has been cast in the X-Men franchise. 

 

The actress filmed her second movie, Morgan in Belfast and did meet her soul mate.  But it’s not a romantic relationship. “She’s my best friend,” Taylor-Joy tells me and the pair share a flat when the star isn’t away on location.  So is there a romantic interest in her life?  “Well, I am twenty!” she replies giving me a cheeky smile. 

 

 

Split is currently in cinemas nationwide.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/finding-a-hunky-irish-hubby-would-give-me-tremendous-joy-35384954.html

A Monster of a Tearjerker

 

Spanish director JA Bayona has delivered an instant classic with A Monster Calls, but have the tissues ready.

 

 

The Sunday Independent

 

11/12/2016

 

I think I inadvertently insulted Juan Antonio “JA” Bayona the diminutive Spanish director of A Monster Calls.  “Did you enjoy it?” he asks eagerly and, rather clumsily I say “enjoy isn’t the word I’d use.” 

 

Let me try to explain.  A Monster Calls, based on the book of the same name by Patrick Ness (based on an idea by the late Siobhan Dowd), is an instant classic.  It is a beautiful film, powerful and thought provoking.  But it is indescribably sad.  By the end of the press screening I was biting hard on one of my fingers because I wasn’t just crying, I was sobbing and I didn’t want the other journalists to hear me.  (I needn’t have worried, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.)  “Enjoy” just doesn’t seem the appropriate word. 

 

 

Apart from leaving me emotionally devastated the movie also succeeded in freaking me out as there were far too many parallels with my own life.  Conor O’Malley is a sensitive young boy of 12 “a boy too old to be a kid and too young to be a man,” who is bullied at school.  He is the only child of single mother Felicity as his father lives in America.  His blond Granny (Sigourney Weaver) has a job, a car, and a house full of antiques.  There are some differences - my little boy is 9, and my Mum is a far more affectionate Granny than Sigourney and, crucially, I’m not dying of cancer as Felicity is.   Also we don’t live beside a graveyard with a giant, ancient Elm which comes to life and tells stories with the voice of Liam Neeson.

 

 

In a film that features acting heavyweights like Liam Neeson and Sigourney Weaver any actor would struggle to shine but newcomer Lewis MacDougall  (Conor) gives an effortlessly outstanding performance.  Bayona previously directed The Impossible (2012) which starred Ewan McGregor and was the true story of a family caught up in the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.  The three boys in that cast Tom Holland (now Spiderman) Samuel Joslin and Oaklee Pendergast also put in wonderful performances.  I wonder if Bayona has a special affinity for directing children. 

 

“I think it’s a question of how much energy you put in in the work,” he tells me.  “For kids you feel less overwhelmed than when you work with a star.  You start to play with them and do a lot of improvisations and try things that you would never dare to do with the adults.  You learn so much from them and then you start to try things with the adults.  I learn a lot when I work with kids and I love to work with kids because they are open to everything it’s a very interesting process.” 

 

He goes on to make the very salient point that, “kids normally feel the same way (as adults), for them the emotion is the same.”  Kids are people too – it seems so blindingly obvious yet is often forgotten by us grown ups.  “The original idea for this film was to help kids deal with bullying and complicated emotions that they can not process.  The intention is to help kids process complicated emotions and ideas in... an accessible way.” 

 

A Monster Calls will certainly facilitate opening up several dialogues between parents and children about life, death, bullying, violence and the fact that real life is not like a story. 

The film is mainly live action but when the ‘Monster’ tells stories to Conor the stories are portrayed by beautiful water colour animation.  The three stories are atypical of Fairy Tales in that there is no clear cut moral, the “happily ever after” sometimes comes at a price (as Conor’s Dad observes at one point the most people can hope for is “messily ever after”,) that there isn’t always a “bad guy” and sometimes there is no “good guy”, that people can be good and bad at the same time and that sometimes, as the Monster tells Liam, “sometimes witches merit saving – quite often, you’d be surprised.”  

 

The beauty of the film is that  it’s not preachy or didactic.  It is completely heart-breaking though and given  the effect it had had on a bunch of hardened film journalists; what effect would it have on a child?  “There was a father who came to me and he had cancer," Bayona tells me.  "He wanted to see the film and then to show it to his son.  I told my sister who is a phycologist and I said “I don’t know with his father sick with cancer how good is the idea of the kid watching the film?” And my sister told me “Listen, there is nothing in the film that the kid doesn’t think about every single day.””  

 

The director goes on to say “We are so overprotective of kids.  And kids, they know about loneliness, about sadness, about rage about self-blame – they have that every day in their lives.  (This is) a film that tells them “it’s only a thought,” don’t worry about it as it’s only a thought.” 

 

When it came to casting the role of Conor Bayona says, “we knew how important it was to get the right kid. We did massive auditions; we saw hundreds of kids.   (Lewis) was so special and so different from the other ones.  I remember we were using very emotional scenes – testing the range of the acting (skills of the children) and he didn’t cry, he was reluctant to cry, he was more about rage and I thought that was more interesting.  There was something so unique with Lewis that I knew from the very beginning he was very special.”

 

I ask him why he cast Sigourney Weaver as the Grandmother rather than a native English actor.  “When I’m looking for an actor I like (someone) who can bring a lot of themselves with them and I think when you think of Sigourney Weaver you think of her persona as one of strength – all the big roles that she has played you will find a lot of strength.  And I thought we have to play with both – she’s the grandmother for Conor but also the mother for Felicity.”

 

Strangely since seeing the film my thoughts are never far from it.  It is definitely a wonderful film and one that should be seen.  But I still can’t say that I ‘enjoyed’ it.

 

A Monster Calls will be in cinemas nationwide from 1st January 2017.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/a-monster-of-a-tearjerker-35282403.html

 

Big The Musical

 

 

The Sunday Independent

 

                                                                        04/12/2016

 

Last year, flicking through the television channels, I came across Big, the 1988 film starring Tom Hanks.  I had very fond memories of the film – the eejitry of Tom Hanks as a young boy with the body of a grown man, the famous ‘piano scene’ in FAO Schwartz, the weird Zoltar machine which granted 12-year-old Josh’ Baskin's wish to be ‘big ‘and the absurdities of the adult world when experienced first hand by a child. 

 

I couldn’t wait to share the experience with my then 8-year-old son. So we settled down to watch a film in which a twelve-year-old boy, albeit in the body of a grown man, engages in intimate relations with a woman in her 30s.

 

The child had some very awkward questions that I wasn’t capable of answering.  The only query I could answer without pause was “did everyone smoke in the 1980s?”  (For younger readers the answer is yes, they did.)

 

Truly the 1980s really were “different times”.  Apart from the ‘Operation Yewtree’ elements of the original story, the character of Susan, played by Elizabeth Perkins was just awful – a ‘career woman’ who is neurotic, needy and has slept her way to the top. 

 

To say the experience left me deeply uncomfortable would be an understatement.  On top of that I was extremely annoyed – another happy childhood memory ruined by hindsight.

 

Given all of the above I didn’t take my son to see Big the Musical which turns out to be another wrong move on my part.   Big the Musical is Big as I remember it – fun and exuberant, a story about how as we become adults not only do we lose our innocence but the ability to have and be fun.

 

I sat behind a young girl who was about 8 years old and there was absolutely nothing on the stage that was in any way inappropriate for her to see.  When Josh crosses the line from boy to man, as it were, it's subtly handled by him singing 'Coffee Black."

 

Anyone who has seen the original film, even those of us who are jaundiced by the passing of time, cannot imagine anyone apart from Tom Hanks as Josh Baskin.  Despite the rest of the film not aging well Hank’s performance is a timeless classic, that simply cannot be surpassed.

 

Well, actually it can as Jay McGuiness nails the part.  The chemistry between Josh and his best pal Billy (Richard Murphy) was wholly believable and a joy to watch.  McGuiness brings energy, enthusiasm, vulnerability and sheer fun to the role.

Diana Vickers takes the (sometimes thankless) role of Susan and makes it her own.  When she and McGuiness are on the stage together it’s a thing of beauty. 

 

Susan is still a little bit on the neurotic and needy side (but thankfully not in the same league as in the film) and Vickers manages to make those traits charming.  This Susan is a far more rounded and believable character and a lot of that is down to Vickers.

 

The leads are backed up by musical theatre veterans Jessica Martin and Gary Wilmot as Mrs Baskin (Josh’s mother) and George Macmillan, the toy manufacturer.  Gary Wilmot is always great but Martin was especially wonderful in this production.  Her very last, wordless, scene was so powerful it had me in tears. 

 

I had a similar reaction to Martin’s performance of Stop, Time, when Mrs Baskin sings about how quickly children grow up and how fleeting childhood is. 

 

On the other hand, the dinner party scene with Susan’s friends made me laugh for a variety of reasons, one of them being the dodgy 80s clothing.  And speaking of dodgy clothing Josh still wears the iconic white 'Tails' to the company Christmas party. 

 

Directed by Morgan Young, both the adult and juvenile cast are marvellous, bringing energy and conviction to every scene.  The switches between ‘adult’ Josh and ‘young’ Josh are seamless – even when you know the tricks and are looking to spot them! 

 

The lighting and set design are spectacular and the famous ‘piano scene’ is both an eye-catching technical feat and, to my mind, better than the original in the film.  The Zoltar machine is as creepy and scary as anything you ever want to see on stage. 

 

Having been in New York in 1987 I especially liked Josh’s arrival at the Port Authority in New York – trust me, it was that dingy and dilapidated. 

 

I watched the show sitting beside two adults with disabilities.  They cheered every time a new person arrived on stage – so rather a lot.  To be honest this got on my nerves and yes, the irony was totally lost on me. 

 

However Big the Musical soon worked its magic on me, my grumpiness dissipated and I was delighted to see people enjoy themselves so much.  My only regret is that I didn’t take my son. 

 

 

 

BIG The Musical from 7th December 2016 - 7th January 2017.

Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Grand Canal Square, Docklands, Dublin 2

Prices start at €15  ( family discounts with family tickets and half price child tickets through Ticketmaster)  Ticketmaster dedicated line 0818 719 377.

 

For more information see

www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie

New Tricks from these Disney Golden Oldies

 

Can two aging white Americans do justice to a Polynesian folk tale? Yes, the certainly can writes

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

                                                                         

                                                                          The Sunday Independent

                                                                          27/11/2016

 

 

 

Meeting Ron Clements and John Musker, the directors of Disney’s latest animated spectacular Moana, the story of a young Polynesian girl making a literal and figurative voyage of discovery, is like spending time with an old married couple. 

 

The pair share similar backgrounds being from the mid-West, brought up Catholic and doing time as alter boys.   At one point both wanted to be priests.  Now in their early sixties they've been partners on such  well known Disney films as Aladdin, The Princess and the Frog and The Little Mermaid. 

 

Despite their similarities it becomes very obvious very quickly that they have different personalities.  Musker is the joker and the talker rattling off statements and questions in rapid fire succession while Clements sits beside him waiting patiently to get a word in.  He occasionally shakes his head or gives a mini eye roll. 

 

It takes a while before I can even ask about the film as Musker is more interested in finding out where I’m from.  “I’m Irish,” he tells me proudly.  “My Grandparents came in the early part of the last century, through Ellis Island but settled in Chicago.  They were from the same town, Westport Co. Mayo but they didn’t meet till they got to Chicago.”  Clements is sitting waiting patiently to talk about Moana.  “He hates the Irish,” Musker quips.  “No.  No, I like the Irish,” Clements replies in his measured tones and then adds.  “I had red hair before (he gestures to his white beard) but as far as I know I don’t have any Irish family.” 

 

Musker carries on telling me about a trip to Ireland with his children when he saw “the little tumbledown stone foundation of (my Grandmother's) farmhouse is still there.  We got to go to the church were she was baptised.” 

 

To be honest I always sort of dread meeting film directors as, unlike actors, they're generally an unknown quantity.  I could happily spend all day with these guys – they’re like an older, greyer, Ant and Dec, fun and funny. 

 

Isn't co-directing a bit of an oxymoron?  "Yes," Musker replies immediately, "and I'm Oxy making him...."  Clements says nothing.  “Are you like a married couple?” I ask. “Yes, unfortunately,” Musker replies.  “I’ve been married to my wife for thirty-seven years now and I’ve been married to him for thirty years.  That’s kind of scary.” Musker goes on to say that there are several directing teams at Disney “but nobody has our longevity.”  “Its not uncommon in animation to have directing teams but sometimes they’re put together against their will,” Clements says. “This marriage was self inflicted,” Musker interrupts. 

 

The pair then have an amicable disagreement about when their union actually started but finally agree that it became official with The Little Mermaid, “I asked John if he wanted to collaborate on it,” Clements says.  “So he proposed to me!” Musker adds grinning while Clements gives me a long suffering look.  

 

Musker, like his mother, is one of eight siblings while Clements is an only child.  He did not know his father growing up and his mother, possibly out of necessity, took him along to see films that were not what we would now deem ‘age appropriate’.  “I saw Cleopatra and The Misfits,” he recalls, “I didn’t know quite what to make of that.  My mother loved Clark Gable and Gone with the Wind was her favourite movie of all time. She took me to that too.”

 

Cartoons and Disney films also played a huge role in the directors’ respective childhoods.  After seeing Pinocchio at the age of 9 Clements decided he wanted to become an animator. “It was like a huge profound experience seeing that movie.  I was obsessed and I wanted to find out as much as I could about animation and how it was done.  From that time, I aspired to work at Disney.” 

 

Musker also wanted to become an animator but he had an ever-changing list of possible professions on his bedroom door.  Apart from priest and animator at other times he wanted to be a submarine captain and a detective.  

 

With Moana the directors made a decision to be as accurate as possible with the culture of the South Seas and went to great lengths to ensure that everything that ended up on screen was not a Hollywood reinterpretation.  Before they began the project they embarked on a fact finding mission.  “About five years ago we went to the islands of Fiji, Samoa and Tahiti,” Clements says.  “We met people all over the islands, we talked to linguists, anthropologists, archaeologists and also fishermen, elders and chiefs.  The people were so nice, so warm and helpful.”  Musker jumps in adding “we had an obligation to them, we wanted to do right by them, we thought of them as collaborators and not consultants".  Clements continues “one of the elders in Tahiti said “for years we’ve been swallowed by your culture, one time can you be swallowed by our culture?”"  Eventually the team of advisors and collaborators  became known as the Oceanic Trust.  The Trust continued to work with Disney throughout the making of the film. 

 

One of the more obvious changes that came about as the result of the constant collaboration was to the character of Maui, a demi God.  Originally the animators intended Maui to be bald but were told, as Musker explains, “he’s got to have long hair, that’s part of his 'manna'.  Manna is your spirit, or your power, your chi and long hair was a part of him.”  As a result, Maui now has a spectacular head of hair, worthy of a shampoo advert, which prompts one of the funniest lines in the film. 

 

In tradition Maui is covered in tattoos that tell of his various deeds.  In the film one tattoo develops into a ‘Mini Maui’ functioning as his conscience.  Moana herself looks extremely like 16-year-old newcomer Auli'i Cravalho who voices the part.  The film is quite beautiful and there are some great set pieces particularly with a giant jewel-encrusted crab. 

 

Like all good Disney films there are animal sidekicks cute pig Pua and HeiHei the Rooster.  Unlike many Disney animal sidekicks, they do not speak.  Just as well in the case of HeiHei who is undoubtedly the thickest animal (animated or live) to appear on a screen.  “That’s me,” Musker tells me happily, “he’s the pig!”  Clements shrugs and rolls his eyes. 

 

Moana opens nationwide on 2nd December.

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/new-tricks-from-these-disney-golden-oldies-35245465.html

Mum’s wish list gets new lease of life

 

The sad story of a woman leaving 100 things for her family to do after she died is now a powerful film.

 

 

 

The Sunday Independent

                                                                          20/11/2016

 

 

 

In many ways St John “Singe” Greene has lead a charmed life.  At 19 he met and fell in love with his future wife Kate, who was then 14.  The couple spent ten years together travelling the globe and having adventures before getting married and settling down with their two sons in their home county of Somerset. 

 

Skip forward another ten years and Singe “an unknown, from a little tiny town in North Somerset,” as he describes himself is the best-selling author of Mum’s List which came out in 2012.  The film adaptation starring Rafe Spall and Emilia Fox is about to open in cinemas. 

 

Singe, as he prefers to be called, is still trying to take it all in.  “I was rubbish at English in school,” the author tells me.  “I was told I should stick to maths and now I have a book that’s been translated into 22 different languages!”  Singe laughs before continuing, “Mum’s List is a phenomenon that took everyone by surprise.”

 

Both the book and the film detail the time in Singe’s life when his luck ran out.  When his eldest son Reef (so named because he was conceived in Tenerife) was 18 months old he was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer and given only a 6% chance of surviving.  His wife Kate was so shocked when hearing this awful news that she gave birth to their second son Finn seven weeks early. 

 

For a few weeks after Finn's birth the couple had two babies in two different hospitals at either side of Bristol city.  (There's a scene in the film where Singe talks about his eldest son's cancer and for those of us lucky enough to have no experience of paediatric cancer it's shocking.) 

 

Singe is a lively and funny story teller but when he recalls watching the New Year fireworks from the stairwell of Reef’s hospital, he becomes audibly sad.  The couple’s second son Finn had been released from hospital and the four of them were in the stairwell welcoming in the New Year.  “Kate and I looked at each other,” Singe tells me, “and said if only we could swap places.  We didn’t realise someone was listening.”  In less than a year Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

 

While Reef beat the odds and survived Kate was not so lucky and she died in 2010.  When Kate realised that she wasn’t going to be around for her small sons she compiled a list of 100 things for the family to do so that she could continue to be a part of their lives after she had gone.  The list was published as part as Kate’s obituary in the local paper and from there Singe was contacted to ask if he would think about turning their story into a book. 

 

Initially Singe was driven by the fact that his boys were so young (5 and 6) when their mother died.  “Kate was an amazing woman, an amazing partner and an amazing Mum and they wouldn’t remember that,” he tells me.  “That was really sad and also, my history with Kate was a lot older than theirs and if anything happened to me then they’d have lost all of that as well.” 

 

Working with writer Rachel Murphy Mum's List  took a year to write.  Singe was happy that he had done what he’d set out to achieve.  “I thought,” he tells me in his distinctive West Country accent, "that’s really cool.  The boys will have a book to remind them of their Mum.” 

 

What happened next took both Singe and Murphy by surprise.  There was so much interest in the book that it was eventually sold to Penguin after a hotly contested auction.    As Singe tells me how the book rapidly climbed the best-seller list you can hear the incredulity in his voice.  “It went to number one,” he tells me before adding, “when I say that, even now, I have a giggle, I can’t believe it.”

 

During our conversation the writer uses the word “surreal” a lot.  Seeing his life on screen was “surreal”, going to New York to give a talk to a room of 400 people and get a standing ovation “surreal”, having Rafe Spall (“I mean he’s Rafe Spall) call him at home on a Sunday afternoon is “surreal.”  He literally cannot get over the fact that Jamie Dornan (“the 50 Shades guy!”) is tweeting about the film and has said he’s going to buy the book. 

 

Both Spall and Fox give extraordinary performances as the couple.  This isn’t just a weepie it’s a full two packet of tissues tsunami of tears.  I blubbed from the start and didn’t stop (and honestly I don’t blub easily) and tell Singe that I can’t imagine how he felt watching this very painful part of his life on screen in front of him.  He tells me that he did cry seeing the film for the first time but praises both leads for their interpretation of him and his late wife.  Then he goes on to tell me about meeting Emilia Fox in his local to give her information about Kate.  “It was an emotional chat,” he tells me.  “One of my mates was at the bar and I’m sitting with Emilia and one minute we’re bawling, then we’re laughing, we’re trying to eat but can’t.  After a couple of hours, she gives me a big hug and disappears out the door.  My mate comes over from the bar and says “you breaking up with her?””  We both roar laughing. 

 

One of the items on Kate’s list was that Singe should find love again and the final scene in the film shows him setting out on a date.  So, has he?  “I’m completely in love again,” he tells me happily.  His girlfriend, Lindsay, actually went to see the film with him.  I remark that surely it must be intimidating for her watching what is essentially a love letter to his late wife.  “She is so supportive of everything,” he replies.  “I am very lucky in love.  I’ve always punched way above my weight,” he continues laughing.  “Lindsay knows how much I love Kate but I’ve moved on because I had to.” 

 

Anyone who grew up in the 1980s will enjoy the flashbacks to Singe and Kate’s courtship.  They met at a roller disco where he was the supervisor.  He laughingly tells me that at that time in his life he was a “nightmare”.  “I had a big leather jacket, a big motorbike and a big attitude.” I suspect he was also extremely charming because he certainly is now. 

 

“I’ve always been Mr. Positive,” he tells me before adding “it got worse before it got better.  The book helped.” 

 

His two boys have yet to see the film.  “They’re the most grounded kids ever,” Singe says, “but we don’t need to rush everything.” As our conversation ends he’s still marvelling over how his wife’s list became a bestseller and a film.  What would she think, I ask?  “She might be a bit embarrassed,” he confesses, “but she’d be so proud."

 

 

Mum's List is in cinemas from 25th November.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/mums-wish-list-gets-a-new-lease-of-life-35227371.html

The Magical World of Eddie Redmayne

 

From real life characters to the fantastic world of JK Rowling, Eddie Redmayne gets it right      every time.

 

                                                                          The Sunday Independent

                                                                          13/11/2016

 

 

Aww, Bless,” is, to my mind, the most patronising, condescending thing a person can say.  And yet the entire time I spend with Eddie Redmayne, it’s right there on the tip of my tongue and it is a struggle to keep it from passing my lips. 

 

Rationally I know I am sitting with a 34-year-old man, an actor of such accomplishment that he’s he swept up an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Screen Actors Guild Award for best actor for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.  The following year he was again nominated for all of the above for his role as role as transgender pioneer Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl.  He’s also won a Tony Award.  

 

I know all of this.  But my brain keeps telling me that I’m with a very exuberant teenage boy – the type any mother would be proud to call her son. It’s not that Redmayne is especially youthful looking and he certainly doesn’t have that supernatural ‘glow’ that only access to the very best healthcare and cosmetics can bring.  (There are actually some, gasp, lines on his face). 

 

Unlike his old classmate Prince William, he also has a fine head of hair.  Yes, Redmayne is posh – very posh, he went to Eton followed by Cambridge and, as such, has found himself frequently lumped in with other alumni (such as Tom Hiddleston, Damien Lewis and Dominic West) in the on-going UK debate that only the privileged can afford to go into the arts.

 

Despite his ‘pedigree’ in person the actor’s poshness seems to be contained to his good manners.  He’s not stodgy though, he exudes energy and exuberance – it’s these qualities coupled with the jumper he’s wearing that give him the aura of a teenager.  Small wonder then that he is the latest ‘Boy Wizard’ to hit cinema screens as Newt Scamander in JK Rowling’s Fabulous Beasts and Where to Find Them. 

 

During our time together Redmayne frequently talks about his wife, PR executive Hannah Bagshawe, who he obviously adores.  (The couple married in 2014 and their daughter Iris was born earlier this year.) It’s this that’s triggering my inner “Aww Bless”.  Every time Redmayne says the words “my wife” I have to suppress the urge to pat him on the arm and say “God bless your imagination.”

 

As we speak it becomes clear that Redmayne does possess a wonderful imagination.  While telling me about the rather unique audition process for what is sure to be one of the biggest blockbusters of the year it becomes apparent that the star can spin a good yarn himself.  Redmayne has my rapt attention as he unfolds his tale of several meetings with director David Yates (Tarzan and the last four Harry Potter films).

 

“I didn’t know anything about it, it was all super-cryptic and David invited me to a club in Soho, he was sitting by a fire and he started telling me this story.”  I’m picturing him in a Smoking Jacket I say, “Practically,” he replies before continuing, “and every few months, because JK Rowling hadn’t finished the script yet, I’d go back for another instalment.” 

While he may not have the cut-glass accent of many of his school and university contemporaries he does have the self-depreciating air of a true English man.

 

“I have this little case,” he tells me.  “It’s my work case.  I take it to set and the first time I met David, it’s the most embarrassing thing, I’d come straight from work and I’d brought this little case and half way through he says “and Newt has this case…”.  There was an embarrassing time when I was starting out as an actor, that lots of us would get dressed up for the audition to basically look like the guy,” he says with an embarrassed laugh.  “You’d put a weird Napoleon outfit for the Napoleon part…so when David said about the case I felt really embarrassed and said “I promise I didn’t know this; I didn’t come with the case deliberately””

 

I’m similarly entranced when the actor tells me about how he proposed to his wife.   “In the middle of nowhere, in the hills outside of Florence.  About two minutes after I proposed to my wife, and you’re having that moment of absolute excitement, and then round the corner come two tourists.”  (He puts on a typical Valley Girl accent) “OhmyGod, can I have a selfie?””  Most people would be quite within their rights to tell strangers to butt out at such a moment but I get the impression this was never an option with Redmayne and tellingly he adds, “There is a selfie out there somewhere of literally seconds after we got engaged.” 

 

While Fantastic Beasts is set in New York in the 1920s the plot has been shrouded in secrecy.  Advance trailers show Irish actor Colin Farrell in a role that has “baddie” written all over it.  Given the imagery, it looks as if there is some sort of wizarding parallel being drawn between Colin Farrell’s character and the rise of Fascist leaders in the interwar period in Europe.  Redmayne won’t be drawn further than saying. “I think everyone knows that JK Rowling is incredibly politically engaged and is, I think, a formidable artist and what great artists do is reflect what is going on in the world.  There are many themes in the film, about segregation about repression and that are absolutely woven into the piece and the danger of those things.” 

 

By contrast Redmayne can’t say enough nice things about Farrell “It was wonderful (working with him.)   I’ve always admired Colin and he has a great reputation of being an incredibly kind man and he was.”  Redmayne goes on to tell me about going to Comic Con (a massive convention for fans of movies, fantasy, science fiction and comics).  “We went to Comic Con to present this film, it’s totally insane and crazy.  I had to go on in front of thousands of people and … I’m not built for that, I don’t know how to do that, and I was really nervous. Before I went on, Colin gave me a pep talk.  He’s a very generous man.”

 

Despite Colin Farrell’s intervention the convention wasn’t without hiccups.  “I handed out 5000 wands (Newt’s wand) but then when I got back on stage I was supposed to do a spell and realised I’d handed out my own wand as well.  I had to run off stage and ask to borrow a wand.  I did the spell and... this girl was waiting to take back her wand.  I thought, wait a minute, everybody in that room has a Newt wand except me.”  The truth is, Eddie Redmayne doesn’t really need a wand to weave magic.   

 

Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find them opens nationwide 18 November

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/magical-world-of-eddie-red    

Strange, But Cumberbatch is no Luvvie

 

Benedict Cumberbatch is talented and successful but mostly he’s a jolly decent chap.

 

 

 

                                                                          The Sunday Independent

                                                                          30/10/2016

 

 

"If a man is considered guilty for what goes on in his mind then give me the electric chair for all my future crimes.”  

 

These lyrics from Electric Chair, a song from the 1989 Batman soundtrack, came back to haunt me after meeting Benedict Cumberbatch.  It turns out that the A-list actor and I share, not just a love of the Batman movie, but we both played the Prince soundtrack until our respective cassette tapes broke.

 

I had gone to meet Cumberbatch to chat about his new movie, Doctor Strange, with very firm notions about the actor.   I had him pegged as the ‘Luvvies Luvvie’, the emperor of the current group of posh privileged 30-something male thesps. He’s been on every list imaginable – sexiest, best dressed, the ‘100 makers of the 21st century’ and ‘100 most influential people in the world’.   I was expecting a diva and as a result I really do deserve a metaphorical electric chair.

 

God knows if Cumberbatch had acted the diva he’d have been well within his rights as we meet at the end of a very long day.  The actor is running almost an hour over-schedule – he’s exhausted and hungry. There are a queue of people waiting to bring him to his next engagement – a driver, PRs, security, hair and make up, and plenty other impatient looking people.  The only person who seems pleased to see me is Cumberbatch himself. 

Far from having notions about himself he apologises profusely for keeping me waiting.  A person from the film company is looking at snacks the hotel has provided and telling him they’re all healthy. 

 

“Try the fridge,” he says while offering to pour my water for me, “the chocolate will be in the fridge.”  A certain well known triangular confection is produced and I almost have the hand off the poor man when he offers me a piece. 

 

 

On closer inspection Cumberbatche's  ‘Luvvie’ credentials are surprisingly lacking.  While he is the son of two actors (Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham) his family is not an acting dynasty.  He did go to public school – Harrow, but was on a scholarship which he followed up with a Drama degree in the distinctly unstarry University of Manchester.  After graduation Cumberbatch went to LAMDA (the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) not the more famous RADA.

 

 

Cumberbatch recently announced that he and his wife Sophie Hunter are expecting their second child.  We start talking about parenting and how it changes people, making them simultaneously more fearful and fearless. "I want to be around for as long as possible to see my son have his children," he confesses.  "There’s a fearlessness of self in wanting to be around and there’s a great fear for him in wanting to protect him so its definitely both.  It’s not about you anymore it’s about them.” “It makes you hyper aware,” I reply.  “Which is a very good thing,” Cumberbatch states. 

 

I’m not so sure, I tell him, as I feel like I’m constantly being bombarded with possible threats to my son’s wellbeing.  “But if you see ways of lessening those threats in incremental steps then that’s a good thing.  It means you’re doing something positive and there’s a positive outcome for your child.  Children are great inspirations for that.  And,” he adds, “they’re great fun.”

 

 

There’s quite a lot of the actor himself in the character of Doctor Strange.  When the movie begins Strange is a top neurosurgeon who is constantly challenging himself to do better.  He won’t waste his skills on just anybody – he’s arrogant and totally ego-driven.  When a terrible accident leaves him unable to use his hands properly he becomes obsessed with finding a ‘cure’.  His quest takes him to Tibet where he meets the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) who schools him in spirituality and teaches him the secrets of the ‘multiverse’. 

 

 

If this sounds like typical Hollywood hokum trust me, it isn’t.  Doctor Strange is that very unique thing – a blockbuster film that is entertaining, funny, incredibly well acted, visually spectacular and, thanks to a great script, credible.  While Doctor Strange is given plenty of depth by both the script and Cumberbatch’s wonderful performance so too is the villain Kaecilius, superbly played by Mads Mikkelsen – so much so that at one point he almost succeeds in winning over both the audience and Doctor Strange himself. 

 

 

The film star tells me that he doesn’t subscribe to any particular spiritual belief  “Is there an afterlife? Do I believe in reincarnation?  I don’t know but I do believe there are ways of living a better life."  He does however have a solid spiritual practice.  “I meditate.  I practice mindfulness and I think that’s a great thing.”  In the film Doctor Strange and other ‘Masters’ have the ability to, quite literally, shape the world around them and Cumberbatch believes that everyone can do this (obviously not to the extent of making buildings in Manhattan fold in upon themselves.)  “I believe that you can, with a lot of effort, and mindfulness and the practice of meditation, that you can use your mind to shape and reshape your reality, however slightly, you can affect things for the positive…  It’s not self-serving, you come out a more empathetic, patient, considerate and chilled-out person.”

 

 

As if he knows the horrible thoughts I was thinking before I met him Cumberbatch adds. “I’m sure someone might be reading this going “yeah right love, good luck with your second child, finding the time” but (meditation) can be when you are doing that child’s nappy and if it’s all going, quite literally, to shit,” he laughs, “it’s just finding those times in the day.  We can’t all go away for meditation retreats for a week or whatever and spend a lot of money doing that.  It’s something that’s free and I think its great.”

 

 

People come in and start tapping watches and Cumberbatch seems genuinely upset that I haven’t had enough time with him.  “When are you filing this?” he asks “We could have a call later…” This is the first time a movie star has offered to call me later. A few minutes later, he passes me in the hotel corridor, being bustled along by all the impatient people.  He throws his head over his shoulder and says “Goodbye Anne Marie, thank you so much for coming.”  Cumberbatch is a genuinely nice man and I’m a judgemental cow. I really do deserve that electric chair. 

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/strange-but-cumberbatch-is-no-luvvie-35170633.html

It’s More Than a Numbers Game for Ben Affleck

 

 

When he's tense he's really tense but when Ben Affleck warms up he really is the most charismatic person in the room writes Anne Marie Scanlon

 

                                                                          The Sunday Independent

                                                                          23/10/2016

 

Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick make a very odd couple.  Affleck is tall, well built and, frankly, a fine figure of a man, while Kendrick is tiny and fragile-looking.  I meet the unlikely pair the morning after their new film The Accountant premiered in London. 

 

While Kendrick looks well rested Affleck looks like he could have done with another hour or two in the scratcher.  He also seems a bit tense and more than a bit intense. 

The A-list actor’s career has often been overshadowed by his domestic life.  After he and best friend Matt Damon shot to fame with Good Will Hunting in 1997, which they co-wrote and co-starred in (and which won them both a Golden Globe and Oscar for the screenplay) he dated Gwyneth Paltrow until 2000.  In 2002 he became part of super couple ‘Bennifer’ with singer Jennifer Lopez but they broke up after 18 months and a last-minute cancellation of their nuptials. 

 

 

While Damon became entrenched in the public consciousness as a serious actor Affleck started to be seen as, at best, the ‘frivolous one’ and at worst, a joke.  In 2005 he married actress Jennifer Garner, settled down, had three children, resurrected his acting career and gained critical acclaim as a director.  

 

 

Last year the couple announced, the day after their tenth wedding anniversary, that they intended to divorce. All three women have spoken warmly of Affleck and in a recent interview with Vanity Fair magazine Garner called him the “love of her life.”.  The actress also said “he’s the most brilliant person in any room, the most charismatic, the most generous.” 

 

 

I’m not seeing it.  In The Accountant Affleck plays Christian Wolff, an accountant whose abilities are described as “nothing short of supernatural.”.  Chris owes much of his success with numbers to the fact that he has Asperger’s Syndrome.  I wonder briefly if Affleck has stayed in character while doing interviews for the film.  And then I make him laugh.  And then he starts to relax.  And then I begin to see what Garner, J-Lo and Gwynnie were talking about.

 

 

The Accountant, despite what the name implies, is an action thriller.  Chris is no ordinary CPA (Certified Public Accountant), while he does ordinary folks year end returns he also has a number of high-profile, high risk clients in the criminal underworld.  There’s a lot of guns, a lot of shooting and quite a lot of blood.  I enjoyed it immensely. 

 

 

While Affleck is no stranger to action roles including Batman (“which is supercool, I mean who doesn’t want to be Batman?”)  he explained to me that the role of Chris Wolff needed a lot of research and training.  “That was the most challenging part for me,” Affleck says.  “I never trained in any martial arts or anything like that so it was all very new. I had to do a lot of training with military guys, a police SWAT team, a guy from Mossad, I just wanted to look like I knew what I was doing (with weapons) rather than “Ow, I pinched my thumb!” he says laughing, “which I was in danger of doing.” 

 

 

Affleck and director Gavin O’Connor (whose late father came from Mayo and was a cop in New York City) took a lot of time researching and speaking to people on the spectrum.  For Affleck “getting it right” was especially important.  Portraying someone with Asperger’s Syndrome also presented the actor with a new set of challenges.  “(I wanted) to bring the research to bear in such a way that it would feel realistic and also, on a personal level, that the people who I’d worked with (researching the autistic spectrum) were happy, the people who had taken time to tell me stories and let me in to their life and expose me to how they really felt about the difficult parts of life as well as the joyous ones.  I wanted them to be glad that they co-operated with me.”

 

 

Kendrick (Pitch Perfect, Into The Woods), unlike her onscreen character Dana, is easy to chat to and quite obviously very good at making people feel comfortable.  When I admire her Charlotte Olympia Perspex clutch bag she offers, quite conspiratorially, “I don’t own it, it all goes back.”  The actress makes the point that social awkwardness is by no means confined to people on the spectrum. “Dana is neurotic and get’s in her own way... She has just as much trouble connecting (as Chris).”

 

 

Both performers have a lot of Irish connections.  Affleck tells me about his mother’s relations.  “For some reason they all immigrated to New Jersey,” he says in a tone of comical bewilderment.  “So on the one hand they’re really cool because they’re Irish but on the other hand they’re really boring because they’re from New Jersey!  I don’t know what drew them to Trenton?"  (I'm very familiar with Trenton and can't offer much of a defence for the place.)  

 

 

“I’m Irish as well,” Kendrick says.  “My real name is supposed to be Anna McGinn Connolly, real hard-core Irish, but both families changed their names to get work."  The actress then goes on to tell me about her first visit to Dublin when she was 18.    "My brother and I were sitting in an Irish pub and old Irish beardy man with a flat cap asked us all our history and basically told us we were descended from the heroes that died at Kilmainham Gaol! I was like “Is this guy just set up here to give tourists the most incredible Irish experience?” Affleck laughs “Yeah, then the next people get on the ride…”

 

 

There is a very strong possibility that The Accountant will have a sequel. “This is not something I went into going “this is going to be a franchise!”" Affleck states.   It’s hardly surprising that audiences have flocked to see the movie in the States as original material is fairly thin on the ground these days to the extent that many critics have declared Hollywood ‘dead’ due to the lack of new material.  “Are you asking if we saved cinema?” Kendrick interrupts.  “Yes!” she continues laughing.  “That’s my headline,” I respond.  Affleck gives me a nod and a smile.  “Originality is hard to come by,” Kendrick continues in a slightly more serious manner, “and when you come by it you get very excited and can’t wait to get on board.”  “I was excited by the fact that it was different and new,” Affleck says. “I wasn’t out to prove anything, I just wanted to be in a good movie.”

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/its-more-than-a-numbers-game-for-ben-affleck-35155129.html

Disney’s New King of Queens

 

From MI5 spy to Martin Luther King Jr. David Oyelowo doesn’t just act, he also inhabits his characters.

 

The Sunday Independent

16/10/2016

 

 

 

David Oyelowo is no Denzel Washington.  Denzel, although a very fine actor is always, instantly recognisable as Denzel.  Oyelowo has the gift, that very few actors possess, of being a chameleon and thus able to physically disappear inside the characters he plays. 

 

In person I don’t recognise Oyelowo as Robert Katende from Disney’s new film Queen of Katwe.  Robert is a man old before his time burdened by responsibility – he has a wife and child and despite having a first rate university degree can only find part time work with a Christian sports outreach ministry.  By contrast Oyelowo looks far younger than his forty years.  When he tells me that his eldest child (of four) is fifteen that day it’s a struggle to believe it. 

 

Oyelowo, who was born in Britain to Nigerian parents has been working steadily since he left drama school in 1998.  To date he is probably best known for playing Martin Luther King Jr in Selma (2014)  and Danny Hunter in the BBC hit show Spooks.

 

In recent years Oyelowo has become a focal point for the diversity debate, something he readily admits he’s getting “really tired of taking about.”  Very recently he gave a speech to the British Film Institute (BFI) Black Star Symposium where he said that his favourite actors including Daniel Day Lewis and Michael Fassbender “get to talk about their movie, what its like working with a certain director, funny anecdotes on set… But with me at some point I get “David we need to talk about diversity.””

 

Don’t be so sure, I tell Oyelowo, I’d definitely want to talk to Fassbender about stereotypes and discrimination.  During the 1970s, 80s and 90s almost the only Irish characters on screen were priests and terrorists, now British television is full of Irish characters whose ethnicity is incidental to the plot rather than intrinsic to it. 

When things have changed so radically for Irish people on screen why is it different for black people? 

 

“Well there’s a culture question and then there’s a race question.  For me I am a Brit,” Oyelowo responds in his very posh cut glass accent, “I am of African descent, I am black and all of those things are still very much on the fringes of what is acceptably, from a filmmaker and televisual point of view, British.  At least Michael had his whiteness going for him.” 

 

Oyelowo does concede that things have changed for the better, “I think that in the same way that huge inroads have been made around the representation of Irish people in film and television, we are making inroads - but for me, it’s not fast enough." 

 

Queen of Katwe, based on the true story of Phiona Mutesi (Madina Nalwanga) is about an illiterate 10-year-old girl from the impoverished slum of Katwe in Kampala, Uganda, who is introduced to the game of chess by ‘Coach’ Robert Katende. 

 

Phiona shows a natural aptitude for the game and with the support and help of Robert she begins winning tournaments and starts to experience life outside the slum.  Phiona’s mother Harriet is played by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o. 

 

To be fair to director Mira Nair there are no 'poor but happy' clichés in Queen of Katwe.  The unrelenting poverty of the slums isn't downplayed.  Phiona lives with her widowed mother, older sister and two younger brothers.  The entire family works, selling maize, to pay for the one-room shack they all live in.  

 

A huge part of the buzz surrounding Queen of Katwe is that it is an ‘all-black’ film.  “Its completely organic to the story,” Oyelowo explains.  “We are watching a community that’s entirely black.  We never point it out when we watch a movie that’s all white people - especially if that’s what it was in that community, or what happened historically, that’s just life. 

 

But with a film like this it feels anomalous, rare, exotic, something to be pointed out… I don’t watch this and go “Wow! That’s an African story about Africans and I’m like them.”  In the same way that I don’t watch a film with Michael Fassbender in and say “oh there’s a film with Irish people in, being white and doing Irishly things.”" 

 

You can understand Oyelowo's frustration especially when he adds. “Until there are more Queen of Katwes we are still going to be talking about how rare it is and that’s what exoticises these films.  That shouldn’t be the case when you think of how big that continent is.” 

 

Not only is the film based on a true story but a very recent one.  The real Robert Katende was employed on set to ensure that the filmmakers got their chess game correct.  Oyelowo says that he did find the prospect of playing Robert in front of the real Robert quite daunting.

“It was intimidating as a thought,” Oyelowo explains. “I’m of Nigerian descent, he’s Ugandan, this Hollywood actor coming in… I just didn’t know what that would be for him, whether his attitude would be a challenge for me, but actually it was the opposite.  It was incredibly useful to have him there, for the accent, the way he moves, the way he interacts with the kids, which he did while we were shooting because some of the kids he taught chess were in the film as well.  So my research was right there for me.”

 

The actor and the real Robert also share a very strong faith as both are committed Christians.  “The thing that I really identified with him, and I like to think is the case with me, is that he is a doer, not a talker.  I don’t beat anyone over the head with my faith, with my Christianity or what Jesus represents in my life.  I like to think that it manifests in a way that is edifying in terms of the work I do, the father I am, the husband I am, the friend I try to be.  And if that is truly the case then that to me can only be a force for good.”

 

I wonder if its hard to be a committed Christian in LA where the actor and his wife of 18 years, Jessica, have lived for the last decade.  "I have found my faith to be nothing but a positive thing for both me and those around me.  Its something I enjoy celebrating and no one has seemed to find it a reason to make them feel uncomfortable.”

 

I ask him if he will move his family back to the UK if Trump wins the election.  He laughs out loud and says “I have my ‘get out of jail’ card, I still have my British passport.  November will be an interesting month.” 

 

Queen of Katwe in cinemas from 21st October.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/disneys-new-king-of-queen-35131506.html

Sharon Horgan Does Divorce

 

Girls on the pull, unplanned pregnancy – it was only a matter of time before Sharon Horgan tackled divorce.  

 

The Sunday Independent

09/10/2016

 

 

When the former Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker, decided it was time to return to series TV, for the first time since the end of mega-hit Sex and the City, she called Sharon Horgan. 

 

It's hard to believe that its only a decade since Horgan's breakout Pulling which established her as an actor, comic and writer.  In that decade Horgan has gone from struggling wannabe to a force to be reckoned within the entertainment industry.

 

Horgan is lying on a green velvet couch.  She has a severe headache.  I’ve given her some super-strong tablets but she still appears to be suffering.  I’m worried that the tape recorder won’t pick up her voice as she’s speaking quite softly. 

 

In person Sharon Horgan looks exactly like Sharon Horgan.  That might sound like stating the obvious, but it’s rare.  Faces that we know well from film and TV always look different in real life.  Not Horgan – she looks like herself, but she doesn’t sound like herself.  I certainly wasn’t expecting somebody so reserved.  But she does have a bad headache.

 

 “I went to New York to meet her," she tells me about SJP.  "She’d read a couple of my scripts.  The story she was interested in making was about a long term relationship and the breakdown of a long term relationship.  We talked about those sort of themes and then I went off and had to come up with something.” 

 

 “What I was interested in," Horgan continues, "was the kind of dark industry that springs up around two people who are having the worst time of their lives but really it’s all about the dollar.  I didn’t know anything about divorce, and the reason why is people don’t really talk about it.  I don’t know why, whether its because there’s a kind of shame attached…Also,” she continues “if someone is having the worst time of their life you’re not going to ask them questions.  So unless you’ve been through it, most people don’t know and I thought it was something more people would like to know about.”

 

The result, Divorce, stars Sarah Jessica Parker as Frances a career woman married to Robert (Thomas Haden Church) and mother of two.  Watching the pilot and first episode I was struck by the total lack of common ground between the two characters.  Later in a phone call with Paul Simms the New York-based writer who collaborated with Horgan on some episodes, he reveals this was entirely deliberate.

 

As the story evolves, Simms tells me, the nature of the relationship will become clear.   “Eventually you see that when it worked between them, it worked really well.” 

Simms has been married “seven or eight years, it still feels like a brand new thing,” he says and then adds laughing, “I wish my wife was here to hear me say that!” 

 

He has never been divorced and argues that while the show centres on a divorce, and the process of divorce, that it’s really about relationships and conflicts in relationships. 

“We hate the people we love at times,” the former Girls writer tells me.  “Anyone who’s been in a relationship will see that.  Anger and difficulty go hand in hand with love.” 

 

Horgan who has previously mined her own life and experiences for material has never been divorced either.  The hit show Catastrophe was in part inspired by the fact that she had a surprise pregnancy just six months into her relationship with Jeremy Rainbird.  The couple have now been married ten years and have two daughters Sadhbh (12) and Amer (8). 

 

Without her own experience of  divorce to draw on I ask Horgan if friends will see themselves in some of the characters and situations.    She laughs before replying “Well there’s really only one friend who I sat down and asked for some detail from, so she knows."  After a short pause she adds, “I’ve used her life a few times.  The show I just made for the BBC, Motherland, one character is fully her, so she knows." 

 

Just like Catastrophe, Motherland struck a chord with many parents as the coalface of motherhood can often be difficult and unpleasant. How much do you hate the school run? I ask.  Horgan laughs.  “I don’t hate it.  I just get in and get out.”  (For those of you who don’t have school-age children, saying that you like to get in and get out is code for hating the school run.).

 

Having created and written much of Divorce I ask Horgan if she was ever tempted to write a role for herself.   “No, it’s a big old show. There’s ten parts and there was an awful lot to do (Horgan is also one of the Executive Producers).  It wasn’t about finding a way to shoehorn myself into the show, it was about making the best possible show.  And it was really nice to not have to sit in the make up chair for two hours every morning.  Its nice to just concentrate on the story and casting and make it the best show possible."

 

The Divorce cast is outstanding, especially Molly Shannon who plays Frances self-obsessed friend Diane.  It is Diane's disastrous fiftieth birthday party that  prompts Frances to end her marriage.  Horgan describes Molly Shannon as “wonderful” adding “I’ve admired and loved for years."

 

 Although Horgan was born in London her family moved back to Meath when she was four.  The writer is the second eldest of five children – she has two sisters and two brothers one of whom, Shane, played rugby for Ireland.

 

"I think if you come from a big family then you have to find a way to get the attention," she tells me.  So were you the funny one? “All my family are funny.  They all make me laugh anyway.” 

 

Horgan is by now sitting up on the green velvet sofa announcing that she thinks the super-strong headache tablets are working.  Hoping that as a result she’s feeling kindly towards me I ask her a question that I know will annoy her, about the under-representation of women in comedy.  “I feel like the more people talk about the women in comedy question, the more people are going to feel it’s a thing, and it’s not really.  Certainly in the stand-up scene they are still under-represented but, to me, it feels like it’s not an issue (in television).   I don’t think it will stop being an issue until people stop asking about ‘women in comedy’."  It certainly isn't an issue for Horgan because right now she is THE woman in comedy.

 

Divorce, Tuesday 11th Oct Sky Atlantic 10:10pm

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/sharon-horgan-does-divorce-35112864.html

Haley Bennett: Girl on a Juggernaut

 

At her third audition Haley Bennet landed her first film role aged 18.  A decade later, as she stars in The Girl on the Train, she is about to join the A-List.

 

The Sunday Independent

02/10/2016

 

 

 

Overnight success is one of Hollywood’s greatest myths and one we, the public, gobble up.  We love the idea that a person can suddenly be plucked from anonymity and pitch up on the red carpet surrounded by the great and the good.  Well, the very famous at any rate. 

 

In reality the ‘overnight success’ is usually the result of years, sometimes decades, of hard work and persistence. Haley Bennett, Megan in The Girl on the Train, the much anticipated film version of Paula Hawkins bestseller, is, about to have her moment of 'overnight success.'  The Girl on the Train follows quickly on the heels of the remake of The Magnificent Seven (starring Denzel Washington) and the actor has a few more high profile films complete and ready for distribution.

 

Bennett has been making movies for a decade since she moved to  Hollywood as an 18-year-old, straight out of high school.  The star grew up in a small town in Ohio and, despite having no connections with the entertainment industry always wanted to act. “For as long as I remember I wanted to act more than anything.  I have really no idea why,” she continues.  “The world that I come from… being an artist isn’t really an option.”

 

Bennett, in person, is a surprise.  I meet her the day after The Girl on the Train has premiered in London – an occasion when Bennett stole the show in a beautiful Valentino dress.  “Oh I’ve never felt worse,” she confesses. 

 

The actress has the flu – not that you could tell from the pictures taken at the premier but up close, even with make-up freshly applied she looks wretched.  She’s wrapped in a black silk dressing gown and when she curls up beside me on the couch, croaky and shivery, I feel the urge to find a blanket, a teddy, and tuck her in. 

 

On screen, as Megan, Bennett is quite obviously a grown woman, beautiful in a non-traditional way and with her bleached blond hair, a bit hard-faced.

Haley on the other hand, with flowing red hair, freckles and hazel eyes, looks like an Irish teenager.  Although one of her grandmothers was half Irish and half Scottish Bennett hasn’t yet visited the country.  “I’ve never been to Ireland but I’m DYING to go, but I think if I go, I’ll never leave.”

 

Despite feeling so miserable Bennett is remarkably good humoured.  When I say that Megan is a complicated character she quips, “is that what you call it?  Really?” 

Suffice to say, there isn't really a polite way to describe Megan.  Whatever you care to call her though, she's a juicy role for any actress.  I say to Bennett that she must have been thrilled when she landed the role.  “I was delighted and also terrified.  I knew that playing her…, I knew that I would have to expose parts of myself, literally and figuratively, that I was afraid of exposing in a lot of ways.  It’s very raw and stripped down,” she takes another sip of water and adds.  “Yeah I think she’s a character that makes me uncomfortable and will probably make other people uncomfortable.” 

 

When I ask Bennett if there are any similarities between her and Megan she’s pretty horrified and answers “No.”  I remark that is probably a good thing and she replies laughing “Are you kidding… for sure,” before adding, “I don’t like to play characters that are close to myself.  I like to explore characters that are very different from who I am.” 

 

Although it’s taken ten years for Bennett to become an international star hers was, in many ways, an overnight success story.  When at 18 she decided to leave Ohio for Hollywood it was on condition that she was accompanied by her mother. 

 

Once Bennett arrived in Tinseltown things moved quickly and she was soon cast as Cora Coleman in Music and Lyrics starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore.  “Music and Lyrics was my third audition,” Bennett tells me.  “It was my first film… my first anything.”  When I ask her if she was star struck on that first job she replies, “Of course.” 

 

These days Bennett takes working with big names in her stride which is hardly surprising given some of the A-listers she's worked with in recent years.   The Magnificent Seven cast includes Denzel Washington who she worked with before on The Equaliser as well as Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio.  (She recently finished making Weightless – the ensemble cast is like a who’s who of modern Hollywood and includes Michael Fassbender, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Val Kilmer and Benicio del Toro.) 

 

Having filmed The Magnificent Seven and The Girl on the Train back to back I imagine the atmosphere on the respective sets was quite different.  In The Magnificent Seven she is pretty much the only girl, whereas the latter film has three female characters driving the story.  “The irony of it was that I wanted to do Girl on the Train because I wanted to work with women and actually didn’t end up working with many women.  Most of my scenes were with men.  Which was disappointing.”

 

When I remark that she is quite outspoken about Feminism, Bennett replies “am I?” sounding genuinely puzzled rather than snippy. “I wasn’t aware of that.”  I remind her of a couple of things she's said and ask if she would call herself a  feminist? “I think that women should definitely empower themselves, I think its important for the world.  I don’t know what I would describe myself as but women should definitely empower themselves and are capable of anything.”

 

Seeing Bennett on a red carpet (flu-ridden or not) brings to mind the golden age of Hollywood opulence and style. It's fitting as her influences and icons hark back to a more glamourous era in movie-making.  "I love Julie Andrews, I love The Sound of Music, Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck…” 

 

When I ask her if she is prepared for the massive change that is about to happen - going from working actor to international film star she replies "I’m convinced that my life will remain exactly the same.  Everyone says “are you prepared? Are you prepared?” and I don’t know what I’m supposed to prepare myself for."  Scrutiny, I supply.  “Well nobody looks forward to scrutiny,” she laughs “I’m not looking forward to that."

 

The Girl on the Train opens nationwide on 3rd October.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/haley-bennett-girl-on-a-juggernaut-35093481.html

Falling In with Gillian and Jamie

 

As the acclaimed Belfast-based serial-killer drama The Fall returns to TV, the show’s stars Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan talk to Anne Marie Scanlon

 

The Sunday Independent 18/09/2016

 

 

Imagine you are working in a charity shop when in comes Paul Spector the serial killer made famous by the TV show The Fall (a character who has also been dubbed ‘The Belfast Strangler’) and donates a box of books about murder, serial-killers and the pathology of men who slaughter women? 

 

Well just such a thing happened recently when actor Jamie Dornan, who returns as serial-killer Spector, in the third season of The Fall had a wee clear out at home and decided to get rid of a big pile of books he'd read as research for the character. 

I ask Dornan how the person in the shop reacted and he replies laughing “I hid them away under other books.” (Mind you the person in the shop might just as easily have been shocked at seeing Christian Grey, the sado-masochist hero of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey rolling up at the 'donation station'.) 

 

Dornan is, in many ways, like Spector – good looking, soft Belfast accent and a father of two.  That’s pretty much where the similarities end.  Many actors playing “baddies” search for their good points or things they can sympathise with in order to inhabit the role.  I ask Dornan if he likes Spector.  He takes his time in answering.  “No," he says eventually.  "I don’t like what he stands for and I don’t like him per se, but I find him fascinating and there’s a huge allure about him that got me early on and I think that’s important.  But I don’t like him, God no,” he adds almost shuddering.  

 

I wonder if there are any parallels with the other role that’s made Dornan a household name – Christian Grey.  This time there is no hesitation.  “No,” Dornan replies emphatically.  “No?” I prod further.  “I don’t think they’re anything alike,” Dornan insists but adds “I do understand why people think they’re alike.  I think it would be wrong as an actor to find too many parallels.” 

 

Dornan goes on to tell me that the aspect of Spector’s character he found most disturbing was the proximity of his crimes to his children.  “I didn’t even have kids (when they made the first series) and I found it very disturbing that he would be tucking his kids into bed and then going and murdering an innocent woman.” 

 

Since making the first series of the hit show the 34-year-old actor has married English actress Amelia Warner and the couple now have two daughters, one just under three and a baby.  Dornan says he would find the first series “harder to watch now - especially having little girls.”

 

Since the first series of The Fall was screened in 2011 the show has often been accused of misogyny and, oddly in my opinion, that Dornan was too good looking to play a depraved serial killer.  “Who said that?” Dornan demands jokingly and like a typical Irishman tries to downplay any complements about his appearance. 

 

Frankly the notion that someone is too attractive to play a killer is rather absurd. As Dornan himself points out - one of the reason’s the show resonated with audiences was it terrified people, "that someone like Spector can live amongst (them), he can be your neighbour, your bereavement councillor (Spector’s profession) and as hard as it is to accept, that is the reality.  A lot of these guys who have committed multiple murders have seamlessly fitted into society and people very close to them, wives, girlfriends, best friends have had no idea.”

 

Dornan’s co-star Gillian Anderson who plays steely detective Stella Gibson is quick to refute claims that the show is anti-woman.  “Yes, we are showing violence against women,” Anderson tells me, “but acts like (these) against women do take place in real life.  Worse things against women occur in every city and every country in the world.  Showing it is not support of that."   

 

"The episodes," Anderson continues, "also show the impact that this malignant human has on everybody’s lives – it’s so horrendous and atrocious, he affects everything.  I don’t think (The Fall) romanticises his acts in any way, shape or form.” 

 

Whatever the viewers’ opinion on misogyny or the lack of it on screen The Fall has produced one of the greatest Feminist icons of our times in Anderson’s Stella who is strong, driven and wholly unapologetic.  When I tell Anderson that Stella is my role model and who I want to be when I grow up, she eagerly replies, “Me too, me too!” 

 

Ironically, like that other iconic female cop, Sarah Lund from The Killing Stella’s wardrobe is almost as much feted as her take-no-prisoners character.  While Sarah Lund had jumper sales go through the roof, Stella's trademark silky blouses are much lusted-after by the fashion conscious.  “When I try and put her blouses on in my own life,” Anderson confesses, “they don’t look right.  I’m telling you, it’s weird, I can’t pull it off.” 

The star who became a household name in the massive 90s TV show The X Files goes on to describe herself as a “wimp.”  So, is there any crossover between you and Stella I ask.  “Maybe,” she replies smiling enigmatically. 

 

From the beginning The Fall has been brutal and horrifying but the violence isn’t contained to Spector acting out his dark fantasies, it also encompasses domestic abuse and sectarian rivalries.  Part of the impact of the show is that not only does it show the new glossy post-Good Friday Agreement Belfast but acknowledges the divisions that are still so close to the surface.  Anderson agrees.  “That adds to the amazing tension,” she says. “I don’t think the show would have worked so well if it had been shot (anywhere else) in the UK.”  The star goes on to say that she loves Northern Ireland.  “It’s beautiful, the food is delicious and get’s better every time.”

 

Fans of the series will know that Season 2 ended on a cliff hanger with both Spector and DS Anderson (Colin Morgan) collapsing, injured after being fired on by Jimmy Tyler (Brian Milligan) who has a personal grudge against Spector.  Tellingly Gibson rushes to cradle Spector in her arms and not the young policeman she had just slept with. 

 

Anderson defends Stella’s actions as “empathy for the victims,” going on to explain that if Spector died the victims would lack closure which would be “completely devastating.” 

“And,” she adds in a more Stella-like tone and waving her hand dismissively, “Anderson’s shot in the arm.  Please!”

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/television/tv-news/falling-in-love-with-gillian-anderson-and-jamie-dornan-in-the-fall-35055088.html

Travis Knight’s String Theory of Life

 

After two decades animation Travis Knight's          directorial debut, Kubo and the Two Strings is a story  to delight old and young.

 

The Sunday Independent 11/09/2016

 

Growing up with a business and philanthropic Titan for a father can’t have always been easy but Travis Knight, the director of Kubo and the Two Strings, whose father Phil Knight founded the super-brand Nike, makes it sound like an idyll.  “We lived out in the country in the middle of nowhere.  I spent a lot of time alone when I was a kid, I climbed trees, hopped creek beds, read, watched movies, I’d make stories, make films.  I always loved that solitary experience of making things.  There’s a solitary aspect to animating… It’s ultimately the animator and the puppet coaxing a performance out it it." 

 

Knight’s first creative endeavour was rapping under the name Chilly Tee, a career that was cut short by the fact that Knight didn’t like being on stage.  “I hated it,” he says of performing.  His real interest lay in “creating… I think the act of creating music, of writing and composing of doing things that way, where you are actually making something, I love that.”

 

Despite the brief foray into the music industry the animator has always had a profound love of film and remembers fondly seeing Star Wars at the age of 3 which “left a life-long impact on me.”   Both of Knight’s parents were avid movie-goers and they would “just drag me along,” he says laughing.  “My parents were pretty liberal and exposed me to pretty much every (genre).  I loved it, there was something about going to the cinema, being in a darkened room with strangers, watching this flickering image on screen, being transported to another world... there was something that was magical about it.”

 

He's not kidding when he says there was nothing off limits as his parents took him to see The Exorcist when he was 5.  “It traumatised me, it absolutely traumatised me,” Knight tells me, laughing at my horrified expression.  When I ask him if he would let his own children, a son of fifteen, a daughter of fourteen and a boy of three watch The Exorcist he answers smiling “No!  No way!”

 

Knight tells me that he’s always loved animation, before making the observation that most kids do, but ‘stop-motion’ animation in particular has always held a  fascination.  Like any person born in the pre-internet, pre-media & film degree age he figured out for himself how it worked. 

 

Kubo and the Two Strings is Knight’s directorial debut.  He began his career in animation two decades ago and in the intervening years he’s worked as “a production assistant, a scheduler, a co-ordinator, an animator working in both stop-motion and CG, I’ve developed films, I’ve been a producer, I run a company, so there’s a lot of different things I’ve done in the medium (of animation) but being a director is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was ridiculously hard.  As the director you are the nexus of every single artistic, creative and technical decision on the movie.”  I can’t even begin to imagine the level of patience a person needs but Knight does not strike me as the temperamental type. 

 

The film centres on Kubo, a young Japanese boy with only one eye, who can magically make origami figures move.  Like all good “big epic fantasy stories,” it involves a quest.  Knight’s particular love of this genre comes from his mother who read Lord of the Rings when she was pregnant with him. “That’s why I gravitated so much towards Kubo and the Two Strings," Knight says, "it was an opportunity to tell a story that was evoking those same kind of fantasies that I loved growing up.”

 

There are some very adult themes at the heart of the movie– grief, loss, the parent-child bond, the father-son bond (or lack thereof).  I ask Knight how much of the film was informed by his own experiences – having such a hugely important father and later losing his older brother Matthew quite suddenly 14 years ago.  “In some ways the film is a highly stylised and heightened version of my own life.  I think that through the prism of fantasy,” he continues, “where things are stylised and removed from reality we can explore meaningful issues, things that resonate with our lives and take a little bit of the sting out of it.  Sometimes these heavy issues can be difficult to explain to children but to dramatize it in a stylised way it can make more sense.  That’s what stories did for me when I was a kid; they allowed me to understand things that maybe my parents couldn’t explain.  That’s what we’ve tried to do in this film. 

 

A fundamental and unfortunate part of being alive is," Knight continues, "to suffer loss and to suffer grief… With this film, which is fundamentally about family, I started to think about losing my own brother and how it felt so cosmically unfair… I wish I’d had an opportunity to have one final conversation with him.” 

 

Ultimately though, the director tells me, one of the messages of Kubo and the Two Strings is that “even if we don’t have the people we love with us, we carry them with us.”

 

Kubo and the Two Strings is in cinemas now.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/travis-knights-string-theory-of-life-35036228.html

How the West Was Lost Long Ago.

 

 

An elegiac, yet hilarious, look at a dying way of life in Texas, David Mackenzie's Hell or High Water is a new classic writes Anne Marie Scanlon

 

                                                                           The Sunday Independent 04/09/2016

 

Once upon a time the bad guys wore black hats, the good guys white and ‘Injuns’ were the enemy.  But that was a long time ago and a lot has changed. 

 

The scope of that change is neatly encapsulated in one particular scene in Hell or High Water.  Newly minted bank robbers, middle aged brothers, Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) pull up to a gas station in rural Texas.

 

When Toby goes inside to pay a cowboy emerges and has a muttered conversation with his white horse as, what can only be described as a ‘venomously green’ car, with two wannabe gangstas, arrives in the forecourt. 

 

For a minute, before the cowboy rides off, everything you need to know about modern life in rural Texas is framed, like a triptych, in one scene. It sounds grim and the reality is grim but thanks to a brilliant script by Taylor Sheridan (Sicario) and the flawless direction of David Mackenzie (winner of countless awards) this is a movie that makes you laugh when you know you should be weeping. 

 

When I meet Mackenzie it turns out that the horse and rider weren’t in the original script.  “I happened to see a horse, when we went scouting for locations, and a guy buying liquor and thought this has got to be in the movie.  I shot that scene in one take – it was a 'Western Tableau'. That’s what a director does,  take a great scene from the script and expands it.” 

 

Hell or High Water is so finely nuanced it’s hard to believe it wasn’t directed by a native son of the Lone Star State.  David Mackenzie, “a Navy brat,” settled in his parent’s home of Perthshire in Scotland at the age of 12 and now resides and works primarily in Glasgow.  “I have a love-hate relationship with Glasgow,” he tells, “due to the fucking weather!” Glasgow has a lot of soul to it," he continues "and LA sometimes struggles to find it’s soul,” he concludes tactfully.

 

When Mackenzie was growing up he had no connections to the entertainment industry and wanted to become a soldier.  “I tried to join the army when I was 18 but I failed because my hearing wasn’t good enough.  I’d been a rebel at school and I’d given my Dad quite a lot of grief and it was mainly to make amends to him, my heart wasn’t really in it.  I’d already discovered cinema.”  (The film is dedicated to both the director's parents who died within four months of each other last year.)  

 

On the surface Mackenzie’s 9th feature looks a lot like a Western but it isn't as  Mackenzie explains, “it’s got Western themes and to some extent it’s about the passing of the old West.”  It's also a heist film, a comedy, and a double ‘Buddy Movie’ (and as in all cop-related ‘Buddy Movies’, Texas Ranger Marcus (Jeff Bridges) is only weeks from retirement). 

 

Mackenzie does a good job of manipulating the viewer’s sympathies.  One minute we’re rooting for the newbie bank robbers, the next we’re right behind the Texas Rangers Marcus (Jeff Bridges gives one of the best performances of his career) and his Native American partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham.) 

 

The glory days of the wild west are a thing of the past.  As Toby and Tanner drive through the open plains, that are the very backbone of American mythology, the landscape is dotted with signs offering cheap loans and advertising closing down sales. The cowboy, who symbolised the American dream, of freedom and the open range, is now struggling to survive. 

 

With the sands shifting so often and no one wearing a black hat I ask Mackenzie “Who’s the baddy?”  “That’s a hard question to answer and that’s what this film is about – who’s good, who’s bad… I know who the baddie is but I want to let the audience decide.”

 

I wonder if Mackenzie is so in touch with the material and the landscape because there are parallels between Scots and Native Americans – both being displaced and outlawed.  The director laughs and agrees that both have suffered from “displacement” but goes on to say “I think there’s parallels between the Scots and the Texans,” (he makes the point that Scottish identity is not homogenous) “they’re self-reliant, tough, generous, protective of their own… those things are recognisable traits.” 

 

The casting of Hell or High Water is impeccable.  Mackenzie tells me that the film came together “organically” and that he couldn’t imagine any other actors in the roles.  Of star Jeff Bridges he says “he does it really beautifully.  He was great to work with, superb to work with, just such a creative guy, such a giving and fun guy.  And a great improviser, just playful and willing to go the distance.” 

 

He has high praise for all of the cast including those in “minor roles, and minor is the wrong word, the ones that aren’t’ in it for very long, I should choose my words better, are just superb.”  Its hard to single out any one performance but Margaret Bowman who plays an elderly waitress totally steals the scene she’s in.  “She’s 84,” Mackenzie tells me, “and did a brilliant job. Fantastic." 

 

As this is a film that revolves around a ‘cops and robbers’ plot there’s obviously violence but its never gratuitous or glamorised.   “I’m keen to try … to make the violence in this film feel as messy and un-choreographed and brutal and real as possible and not in any way balletic and glamorised.  I’m a bit uncomfortable with… modern American cartoon violence which is not right, and so it was a bit of a challenge in this film, dealing with all the guns and how to represent that in a way that makes it feel real.”

 

Another theme of the film is about family and the lengths people will go to for their kin. Mackenzie has a 12-year-old daughter and two sons aged 11 and 4. (“It’s a lot easier directing than bringing up a family,” he tells me.)  I ask him what lengths he would go to for his children. “That’s a very good question and you don’t know the answer until the lines get drawn... I often think about it.”

 

In the final showdown between two of the main protagonists both wear a white hat.  “And a black shirt,” Mackenzie adds.  “Perhaps it’s overly symbolic but they’re almost wearing the same costume.” A reminder perhaps that the 'good' guy can’t exist without the 'bad' guy and sometimes its hard to know the difference.                 

 

 

Hell or High Water is on general release from 9th September.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/how-the-west-was-lost-long-ago-35016982.html

Jason Bourne: From the Falls Road to Sin City director Paul Greengrass is equally at home with reality or blockbuster writes Anne Marie Scanlon

 

The Sunday Independent 31/07/2016

 

 

 

When I meet director Paul Greengrass to discuss his latest film Jason Bourne  he does a double take. “I know you don’t I?” he says reaching for my hand.  “We have met, right?” 

We hadn’t.  Greengrass and I live in the same area and I know him to see – with his long grey curls and round rimmed spectacles he’s a distinctive figure.  I hadn’t expected the compliment to be returned and was quite flattered, but then again, this is a man who pays attention to detail. 

 

At the screening of Jason Bourne, I was sitting in front of a very well known TV political pundit.  Before the film began he told his companion that, in his opinion, the Bourne films are “better than Bond.” 

I pass this nugget along to the director but Greengrass, who began his career in broadcast journalism, is too savvy to gloat.  “It’s very kind of him,” he replies talking about the TV pundit.  “Bond is fantastic; you can’t argue with a franchise that has been around for 50 years.” 

 

Jason Bourne, which stars Matt Damon as the eponymous hero, is the fifth Bourne film, Greengrass directed the second (The Bourne Supremacy) and the third (The Bourne Ultimatum).  With Jason Bourne he also also wrote the script. 

 

I have to agree with the famous political pundit, to my mind Bourne is better than Bond.  Perhaps one of the reasons for my preference is that although the Bond franchise now employs women in roles other than ‘girlfriend’ ‘dolly bird’ or ‘victim’ it sometimes feels a bit forced. 

 

Starting with Greengrass’s first Bourne film the franchise has featured women in strong, hitherto male roles. “I’m not noted for my films with women in bikinis,” Greengrass tells me.  “In fact I’ve never done one.”    Joan Allen who played the high ranking intelligence official Pam Landy in the last three Bourne movies is gone but Jason Bourne introduces Heather Lee, an ambitious intelligence operative, played by Alicia Vikander. 

 

The director and I agree that Vikander is a gifted actor, he calls her “brilliant.” But when I mention Vikander’s  stunning beauty he replies “she doesn’t feel glamourous (in this film) though does she?” And this is true.  Nothing, short of putting a bag over her head, could disguise Vikander’s beauty.  Yet Heather Lee is not a woman who trades on her looks, her wardrobe is functional and, brilliantly I think, at a stressful moment her hair, which is always pulled up in a banana clip, becomes ever so slightly frizzy. Greengrass didn’t initially write the part with Vikander in mind but she agreed to play the role early on.

 

Greengrass began his career in Granada Television with the ground breaking show World in Action.  Before joining Grenada, the director had no links with Ireland (“despite my mother coming from Liverpool,”).  Soon after joining Grenada Greengrass was sent to Northern Ireland to cover the hunger strikes. “I was very young and that had a really profound impact on me.  It set up a lifelong love of Ireland.  I travelled all round and kept going back.” 

 

During the course of his journalistic career Greengrass directed many television films but it was his 2002 film Bloody Sunday, starring James Nesbitt, that catapulted him into the consciousness of both film-goers and filmmakers. 

 

“I remember Bloody Sunday (the day) vividly,” he tells me.  “It was shocking but the conflict seemed remote.  Then at the end of the 70s, early 80s, I started going (to Northern Ireland) and suddenly it wasn’t so far away.  I had a good time, made friends and started to understand something of it. 

 

Bloody Sunday was made at a moment of high optimism – it was made as the conflict was ending, which was very inspiring. One of the results of conflict is you very quickly lose history, shared history and never more so than Bloody Sunday because wherever you were in the islands of Ireland and Britain and whichever tradition you came from in the North, whatever your political persuasions were, you would have different views on that event. 

 

I said at the outset, the mission of this film is, can we as a group take the known facts and make an account of that day, that seems to all of us from all of our different backgrounds, traditions, perspectives, that we can collectively look at and say "it must have been something a bit like that."

 

The first screening in Derry we had everyone from Sinn Fein to the Apprentice Boys, we had the Bishop of Derry, and it felt like it was fair and in being fair and truthful it sort of it released the toxic energy that it had."  Greengrass has grown quite intense while recalling Bloody Sunday after a brief pause he smiles and  adds, "that’s a high faluting way of putting it, but that was the hope, that was the mission.  I’m proud of it.” 

 

The climax of Jason Bourne occurs in Las Vegas, a far cry from Derry, and not a location usually associated with spies.   What drew Greengrass to Sin City?    “There’s places you think of for Cold War stories to take place like Vienna, the streets of Berlin right.  So I was asking myself “in 2016 where is the intelligence action?” You could argue that it’s Ankara or Kabul but not really because those are conflicts of today. 

 

Then I read about these conventions in Las Vegas, these giant technology conventions – it’s where the CIA go to recruit new cyber people, where Goldman Sachs go to recruit - finance is all algorhythms, and the great social media companies, which literally dominate the globe, they also recruit there.  And, the hacking underground, they go too.  So Las Vegas is really like the cafes of Vienna in 1952, in 2016 it’s where the action is, it all happens in these convention centres two or three times a year.” 

 

While Ireland gets its fair share of screen time in films according to Hollywood spies don’t visit the Emerald Isle.  In The Bourne Supremacy  there is is a blink and you miss it reference to Dublin. Isn’t it time, I ask Greengrass, for a big car chase through the streets of Dublin?  Or Belfast?  “Oh that would be fantastic,” he replies enthusiastically, “I’d like that.  That would be good.  Down the Liffey.  I have such happy memories of shooting in Dublin.”                                        

 

Jason Bourne is in cinemas nationwide from 27th July

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/jason-bourne-director-a-car-chase-along-the-liffey-in-dublin-would-be-fantastic-34923365.html    

Rebecca’s Expanding Hall of Fame

 

 

From Broadway to The BFG, Rebecca Hall’s career is proof that she is undoubtedly one of the most versatile and accomplished actors of her generation writers Anne Marie Scanlon

 

The Sunday Independent 24/07/2016

 

On paper Rebecca Hall is what the people of the North would call a ‘dose’.  She’s the daughter of Sir Peter Hall the renowned director and founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Daddy directed Hall in her first role aged 10 in The Camomile Lawn on TV and later in her professional stage debut in Mrs Warren's Profession. Not only did Hall go to Roedean but she was Head Girl. 

 

At Cambridge she shared a flat with Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) and palled around with Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston.  After a long term relationship with director Sam Mendes she is now, at 34, married to fellow thesp Morgan Spector.  I’m expecting a posh privileged princess. 

 

When I meet Hall to talk about her role in Steven Spielberg’s The BFG she’s wearing a shapeless black two piece that even the most devout nun would curl  her lip at.  Yet she looks fabulous. 

 

Hall is a gorgeous woman who could wear the proverbial bin bag and make it look good.  Mind you, after a few minutes in the star's presence you cease to notice what she’s wearing.  She’s posh certainly, with a cut glass accent, and some curiously old fashioned expressions such as “in truth” but she is warm, funny, engaging and great company.  I won’t lie, I wish she was my friend. 

 

None of this comes across in her role as Mary in The BFG  (based on the Roald Dahl book) which is “very small and very significant” - as Hall was told when approached to do it.  She tells me that she replied “It’s Steven Spielberg, I don’t care what the part is.” 

That's just as well really because while the role of Mary is very significant to the story it’s also thankless.

 

The film is essentially a two-hander between the BFG (Mark Rylance) and Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) who both give absolutely wonderful performances.  Hall’s character appears in the latter half of the story and is totally upstaged by Penelope Wilton’s Queen Elizabeth II. Even the ubiquitous royal corgis have more to to than poor 'Mary', as her role is the only 'straight' one in the film. 

 

Spielberg approached Hall without asking her to audition, “it was incredibly flattering,” she tells me.  “I was thrilled.”  It’s hardly surprising as over the past decade or so, Hall has more than proved her versatility in vastly different roles and genres in film, television and theatre. 

 

Few actors can say they've starred in a Woody Allen film (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) as well as a blockbuster (Ironman 3).  On TV she’s appeared in Parade's End (dubbed the upmarket Downton) and won a BAFTA award for her role in Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974 (which had a complicated and difficult script to say the least).  Her stage work is equally diverse and unsurprisingly contains quite a lot of Shakespeare. 

When I tell Hall that she defies categorisation and ask how she chooses her roles she starts laughing.  “It’s probably a little bit in the hope that journalists keep saying things like that,”

 

Hall goes on to say that she doesn’t have a “formula” for choosing work.  “I don’t know anymore. I don’t think there’s a failsafe formula as you constantly get the rug pulled from under you in this job. You can read the best script in the world, with the best part and by Day 7 of filming someone turns up with an entirely new draft and some exec that says actually this is now the film that we’re making.  It’s so unpredictable.”  

 

Having worked in the industry as a child herself I wonder if she had any words of wisdom to give to her young co-star.  “I didn’t say much about it because I thought it would be terribly condescending to be,” she puffs herself up and puts on a pompous voice “Oh well when I was…” before dissolving into laughter again.  “Ruby doesn’t really come across like a child, I think she might be older than me, in truth. She’s incredibly mature and incredibly wise and, it’s not affected in a way that sometimes you get with a child actor who’s a little bit jaded already at the age of eleven,” she continues.

 

Although Hall attended Cambridge she didn't complete her studies.  She tells me that she always wanted to act professionally but wasn't ambitious.  “I didn’t finish my degree -  not because I thought “I want to be a star and let the world know I’ve arrived" but I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, to be creative.”  She then goes on to say, “I didn’t think I’d get into Cambridge anyway … and then I did get in and my head was filled with all of these romantic notions that had been passed along by my father who went in 1940-something.  He went on a scholarship and had a director of studies who was like “yes the way to learn about life is to do Shakespeare” and he did.  He didn’t do a drop of work and he got a third, he just scraped his degree and no one ever told him off about it.  It was always a very romantic telling.   So I thought, great, I’ll be able to waft around doing artistic things all day…I was constantly getting told off for not doing the thing that I was there to do.” 

 

While some newspapers have referred to Hall as an “English Rose” her family is far more complex.  Her mother is the American opera singer Maria Ewing whose father was African American.  As he was light skinned he “passed” (a term that was used during segregation to denote an African American who lived as a white person).  “He was living in a time in America when it wasn’t fun to be black,” Hall explains and then adds, “it’s not fun to be black now actually.  I didn’t know him as he died when my mother was 16.  It wasn’t easy for them because they did get found out and my mother had a lot of prejudice and racist abuse as a result of being found out.”  The actress goes on to say that she’d love to do a DNA test to find out all about her cultural heritage as she thinks there are some Irish connections as well as Scots and Sioux.  

 

Whatever her antecedents Hall identifies primarily as a Londoner although these days she lives in Brooklyn Heights in New York with her husband.  Ex-flatmate Dan Stevens and his wife live down the road and Hall is Godmother to their daughter.

 

“I do love New York,” Hall says, “I’ve always felt at home there.”  When she’s not working “I try and live, you really can’t be an actor without filling the tank with some life, so I just try and live, whatever form that takes, I read, I stay active, I’m never not doing something.”

 

The BFG is in cinemas from 22nd July. 

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/theatre-arts/rebeccas-expanding-hall-of-fame-34905170.html

 

Alexander the Great

 

Alexander Skarsgard may play a 1,000-year-old vampire and king of the jungle but he's really quite lovely writes Anne Marie Scanlon

 

The Sunday Independent 04/07/2016

(A version of this interview also appeared in The Belfast Telegraph 9/07/2016)

 

 

It was just about the very last thing I expected.  Alexander Skarsgard blushing!  This is a man who doesn’t appear to have any problem getting his kit off and getting up close and personal on screen. 

Fans of True Blood, the TV series in which he played thousand-year-old vampire, Eric, were never denied a good look at the Skarsgard physique.  And what a physique it is. 

 

Depressingly, despite having an absolutely killer body to start with, Skarsgard still had to diet and exercise to perfect his Tarzan torso for his latest movie The Legend of Tarzan. 

 

Director David Yates, who directed the last four Harry Potter films as well as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, had told me earlier that finding a great actor with an equally good body was a big ask but Skarsgard was always his first choice. 

 

Skarsgard wanders in to our meeting unannounced, taking me quite by surprise.  There’s no fanfare, no team of PRs, just all blond six foot four of him looking like something dreamt up by the Swedish Tourist Board. 

 

The new Tarzan is the eldest son of actor Stellen and his first wife, My, a doctor.  Skarsgard began acting as a child and became quite well known in his native Sweden before quitting the business when he hit his teens.  “Thirteen is a rough age for any kid.  I was insecure, … So to be in the spotlight at the same time was very uncomfortable for me,” he explains.

 

After completing compulsory military service in Sweden Skarsgard and a pal moved to Leeds.  Why Leeds, of all places?  “We just wanted to go to England to have some fun… a lot of people in Sweden in their 20s go to London to work in a café, or sell shoes in Oxford Street, so we wanted to avoid that….  We wanted a real British experience so we just looked on a map and went “right, let’s go to Leeds”.  We had a blast, I loved it, great people.  I really enjoyed it.”

 

It was while he was in Leeds that Skarsgard decided to give acting another go.  “I remember it being fun as a kid and I thought well I’m 20 now, maybe it’ll be easier, maybe I can handle it differently and deal with it and maybe see (attention) as a good thing. That (attention) means that something that you were so invested in meant something to someone else, which is quite lovely isn’t it?” 

 

Skarsgard uses the expression “quite lovely” a lot.  That, and the fact that he blushes, are both at odds with his striking appearance and his ability to shed his clothing for the camera.  Then again, I think, like a lot of people, I’ve been mixing Skarsgard up with Eric Northman from True Blood.  Small wonder as it’s the role that made the actor famous and one he played for seven series over six years. 

 

In real life there’s absolutely no chance of Skarsgard lunging across the room and biting my neck, (more’s the pity), as he appears to be an ordinary guy – one who is quite sweet and quite funny.  (Although his isn’t a name the public immediately associate with comedy one of Skarsgard’s early roles was in Zoolander; he played Meekus, a dim model.)

 

Unsurprisingly the actor has been linked romantically with a host of gorgeous women, most recently British fashionista Alexa Chung who is allegedly his current girlfriend.  Unfortunately, he won’t be drawn into telling one way or the other. 

Like many emigrants Skarsgard still regards the country of his birth as 'home', although he has lived in the United States for over a decade.   He tells me that he doesn’t get back to Sweden as often as he’d like but when he does he stays with either his mother or his father.   “They both live on the same street in South Stockholm, they’re divorced but the best of friends.”

 

In Sweden Skarsgard gets to leave behind the trappings of fame, something “which is so lovely.  I still have my childhood friends that I grew up with in South Stockholm.  It’s now quite trendy and expensive, but growing up it was a working class neighbourhood. All my childhood friends are from working class families and none of them are in the movie business and it’s quite lovely… my best friend is a carpenter and another guy works at a retirement home and they know me since I was six so there’s no bullshit – they don’t take that.”

 

The Hollywood movie star doesn’t get any special treatment at home either as he is the eldest of eight (he has five siblings from his parent’s marriage and another two from his father’s second marriage) and three of his younger brothers are also actors. When I ask Skarsgard how he chooses his roles he says “Money.  Money!  It’s true.  Next question!” He laughs and then adds, “No.  It’s a combination of the script, the part, the director.” 

 

With Tarzan, Skarsgard had an added incentive, one that made the “misery diet” he undertook for the role worth it.  “I wanted to please my father,” he confesses.  “He’s a massive Tarzan fan.  He grew up watching Johnny Weissmuller in the 50s and 60s.  He would save his money and every Saturday he would go to the theatre in Sweden and watch Tarzan. He was more excited about this than I was when I got it.”  

 

The rigorous "Tarzan" diet and physical regime lasted for the length of the shoot, but the actor quite enjoyed the physical challenges.  “I had the pleasure of working with Wayne McGregor who is one of the greatest choreographers in the world.  He was with us every day on set.  Exploring the physicality of the character was so much fun.  It was more than just lifting weights and eating chicken breast, it was important that he was flexible and nimble and I was doing Pilates and yoga and mapping it out.” 

 

The diet, on the other hand, was more problematic.  A week before the shoot ended a lady in the costume department brought in a giant Banoffi Pie.  “I didn’t know what it was but everyone was enjoying it.  Sam Jackson was walking around with his cake and I was like “oh you motherfucker”, but when we wrapped the movie they had a cold beer and a massive Banoffi Pie waiting for me (as a surprise).  I started crying.”

 

Given his history with on screen nudity it appears he doesn’t mind being objectified.  It’s at this point he starts to blush.  To make matters worse, in my shock I say “You’re blushing!”  Of course that makes the poor chap take an all-over redner.  I apologise profusely and he’s incredibly gracious about it, which is really quite lovely. 

 

 

The Legend of Tarzan is in cinemas from 8th July.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/alexander-the-great-and-lovely-34850205.html

Maurice Clarke, Florentine Sole Man

 

 

Maurice Clarke has designed footwear for all the famous fashion houses - and now he's out on his own

 

The Sunday Independent 19/06/2016

 

 

Meeting Maurice Clarke I have the feeling of knowing him well. This soon makes complete sense as we are both ‘Serious Shoe Lovers’.  Our mutual 'Sole Love' predates Carrie Bradshaw and even Imelda Marcos. Soon we’re reminiscing about Salvatore Ferragamo: The Art of the Shoe, at the V&A in the late 1980s.   Eighteen months after seeing this exhibition Clarke was working for Ferragamo and “couldn’t believe it.” 

 

Although there is no set template of what a shoe designer should look like I think Clarke looks the part, being stylish in a tweed jacket, glasses and a great pair of brogues.  He has, he tells me, always been obsessed with footwear.  As a young child, one of four, growing up in Drogheda, Clarke would scrutinise the feet of the faithful as they queued up for communion at Sunday Mass. “I’d never heard the word ‘catwalk’ but that’s basically what the aisle of the church was.  Sunday morning was a big deal, you’d polish your shoes and get all jazzed up to go to Mass".  

 

Although the young Maurice was already obsessed by shoes “I didn’t realise you could actually make them for a living,” he says.  “In our house shoes were reheeled and resoled, they weren’t just thrown out.” 

 

After school Clarke got a place at NCAD (the National College of Art and Design in Dublin) where he specialised in fabric print and fashion design followed by   Cordwainers, in London, then the only school in the world where students could learn the craft of shoe-making. “The Shoe School was half shoes half saddles,” he tells me.  “It was the only place where you could learn to pad and cut,” Clarke says.  “People were stitching saddles,” he reminisces, “and other people would come in on day release from Borstal to make small leather goods.” 

 

While at Cordwainers (which is now part of the London College of Fashion) Clarke beat 450 other applicants to win the prestigious Royal Society for the Arts Bursary Award that allowed him to spend a year at Grenson of Northampton followed by a three-month pattern cutting placement at the world renowned Arsutoria in Milan.

 

Since his first job with Ferragamo Clarke has worked on the footwear and accessories lines of several of the better known designers (including Celine, Jimmy Choo, Chloe, Mulberry, Calvin Klein & Tods) over the past twenty-five years.  The designer's working life has been divided between Florence and London with long periods in New York.  “I feel so incredibly grateful to have found my talent and passion early in life,” he says.  “It has allowed me to travel the world and the thrill of helping a ready-to-wear designer bring a ‘total look’ to life by making the perfect pair of shoes is indescribable.”

 

Clarke has now launched his own line, The Merchant of Florence, named after his second home. The labels first release is, hardly surprisingly, a line of shoes.  Clarke has produced a pair of hand made ballet flats/slippers which come in four colours (Black, Midnight Blue, Cardinal Red and Fuchsia) in fabric made in Como.  There are four different designs (three Celtic, The Claddagh, the Celtic Brooch and the Celtic Tri-Spiral while the fourth is the Florentine Iris, the symbol of the city) in gold thread. All of the shoes are produced in Tuscany using techniques that date back to the Renaissance.   While the slippers appear delicate Clarke says “my shoes reflect my background – they’re meant to be around for a long time.  They’re not ‘fashion’ – they’re apart from fashion.” 

 

Clarke is somewhat disappointed at the way the fashion industry has evolved. “There used to be two fashion seasons a year and now it’s four. I wanted to do something that didn’t fit into that mould, something that wouldn’t be so transient and I think these slippers are timeless.”

 

They’re also a tribute to Clarke's Irish heritage of which he is extremely proud.  He sees the slippers as just the first step and would like to do a whole range of accessories using the same symbols. “Id love to use the Celtic symbols and help to promote Ireland and Irish fashion abroad”. 

 

The Merchant of Florence collection is available at the Só Collective, a contemporary Irish Lifestyle store hosted at the Kildare Village and at Corso Como 10, Milan from July.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/maurice-clarke-florentine-sole-man-34811020.html

Conjuring Up a Real Life Fright  - Patrick Wilson on his latest role.

 

 

 

70s-style scares, Elvis impersonations and demon Nuns, Patrick Wilson talks about his role as real life ghost hunter in The Conjuring 2  writes Anne Marie Scanlon

 

The Sunday Independent 12/06/2016

 

 

Patrick Wilson, star of The Conjuring 2, has no connections to Ireland.  “I wish I did,” he tells me before going on to say that his wife, actress and author Dagmara Dominczyk “loves Ireland and has a great fondness for the Irish accent.   “Don’t talk to Liam, or Colin Farrell please,”” the actor laughs while miming steering his wife away.

 

Although Wilson has never worked with Farrell he holds him in very high regard.  “He’s actually a great guy, a very very sweet guy.”

 

The Conjuring 2 is Wilson’s second outing as real life ghost hunter Ed Warren who along with his wife Lorraine investigated several thousand cases of alleged paranormal activity including the Perron haunting in Rhode Island (which formed the basis for The Conjuring), Amityville and the Enfield Haunting – which The Conjuring 2 is based on. 

 

The Enfield Haunting (so called because events took place in a council house in Enfield, London) was rather infamous at the time, 1977-79, and attracted a lot of media attention.  To this day paranormal investigators are still arguing about whether or not 11-year-old Janet Hodgson was ‘haunted’ by a poltergeist or if it was all a hoax. 

Having been a toddler in the US at the time it’s hardly surprising that Wilson wasn’t totally au fait with the case. “I’d seen a couple of the famous pictures, I didn’t do a ton of research – I like to know what I need to know otherwise it can be a little bit overwhelming.” 

 

The movie, and I’m not giving anything away here, comes down very firmly on the side of belief.  I wonder if Wilson has had any experience of the supernatural? “I believe there’s another force at play, its like religion it’s what you make of it.  If you are the type of person who is never going to see a ghost, then you are not going to see a ghost.”  His own experiences are mild; the actor tells me that the previous week he thought about an old friend who he hadn’t seen or spoken to in 15 years.  “Two different things brought her to mind,” he says.  “I hadn’t spoken to her in forever and the very next day she emails me.  That’s enough for me to go “OK, there’s ‘unexplained’ out there,” that’s how I ‘justify’ the paranormal world”. 

 

To be honest I was hoping for something a bit juicier.  After all, director James Wan didn’t let production begin until he’d had the soundstage in California, the cast and the crew blessed by a church-sanctioned exorcist Fr. Steven Sanchez. Wan felt compelled to take these precautions after The Conjuring was allegedly beset by strange occurrences.  

“James pushes the genre,” Wilson says of Wan who he also worked with on Insidious.  “All of those stereotypes you see in horror films, nine times out of ten we don’t use those.”  The Conjuring 2, apart from being set in the 1970s, which Wan captures in all it’s yellowy-brown awfulness, is very much a return to the decade’s classic horror style (The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror). 

 

Wilson agrees, “you don’t want to make just a scary film or just a gruesome film.  What sets The Conjuring series apart from other horror movies is, when you think about those classic movies, you don’t think of them necessarily as ‘horror’ movies.  The Shining is a great film.  You think of it as a great film but not necessarily as a ‘horror’ film.” 

The actor goes on to explain why Wan is so successful at scaring audiences.  "James likes to create a real world, with real characters, there’s a little romance in there… you care about these people."  

 

On the whole the real-life Lorraine was very pleased with Wilson’s portrayal of her late husband.  “It makes her smile,” he says.  “Above anything we’re (he and Vera Farmiga who plays Lorraine) treating them (the Warrens) with respect.  And I think that’s kind of all they wanted.  They didn’t want it to be goofy or silly.  We’ve got the same passion that they had.  And that’s our job.” Wilson likes the challenge of playing a real person but says that in many ways it’s easier.  “There are things to latch on to,” he tells me.  “It’s an easier way in.  How do I create this guy? Well, let’s start with the real guy and then we’ll go from there.”

 

The real life Hodgson sisters (now in their 50s) came to the filming and “Janet still wears it, she still lives with this,” Wilson says.  “She still can’t talk about it without getting very passionate and emotional.”  “This is someone’s life,” Wilson continues.  “We’re making a film, not a documentary.” But having seen the sisters reunited with the real life Lorraine, for the first time since the events described in the film, Wilson says “there is a real core to this story and I saw it there.  It’s real.”  (He is referring to the emotions and relationships.)

 

Wilson didn’t always want to act.  “My Dad is a TV anchor and I grew up watching him and being on TV was something that always seemed cool.  I didn’t really know what I wanted.  I thought ‘maybe a doctor… maybe a Sports Medicine doctor, because I like sports’” he pauses to laugh at his childish self before telling me that at age fifteen he decided that he was going to become an actor.  After high school Wilson studied drama at Carnegie Mellon University and after graduating was rarely out of work, appearing mostly in Broadway shows. 

 

Inspired by his leading man’s background James Wan added a scene where Ed is required to sing.   The Hodgson’s Dad has disappeared taking his Elvis records with him and Ed Warren, while not battling demons, makes himself useful by doing odd jobs around the house.  When he hears about the four children missing their father’s record collection he whips out his guitar and sings a number as Elvis. 

 

It sounds incredibly cheesy but within the narrative of the film it works.  “I only recorded it once,” Wilson says, “because we didn’t want it to be a case of suddenly Ed is this amazing singer.”  Wilson himself is a huge fan of “the King,” as is his wife.  “Elvis was her first crush,” he says, “It broke her heart when she found out he was dead!”  His Polish wife is Catholic which leads us to discuss the 'demon' a ridiculously terrifying Nun.  I warn Wilson that Irish audiences may be harder to frighten as we all had a nun like that at school.  He roars laughing and says, "Oh wait till I tell my wife that, she will certainly get that!"

 

 

The Conjuring 2 in cinemas nationwide from 13th June. 

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/conjuring-up-a-reallife-fright-patrick-wilson-on-his-latest-role-34789784.html

The Enduring Romance of Enda Walsh

 

Enda Walsh has created grotesque characters, and collaborated with Michael Fassbender and Bowie.  What next asks Anne Marie Scanlon.

 

 

The Sunday Independent 15/05/2016

 

The best thing that ever happened to us,” Enda Walsh cheerfully declares, the us being wife the very fabulous Jo Ellison Fashion Editor at The Financial Times and their 10-year-old daughter Ada. 

 

It could be many things.  Since Walsh burst into the public consciousness with his game-changing play Disco Pigs in 1996 he’s been given so many accolades and awards that I could fill the rest of this page listing them. Walsh’s repertoire has expanded in the past couple of years, he co-wrote the successful film Hunger (which catapulted Michael Fassbender to stardom), he has penned an opera, The Last Hotel with Donnacha Dennehy, adapted the film Once for the stage, which moved from Broadway to London’s West End picking up awards as it went (8 Tonys, 2 Oliviers and one Grammy, amongst others) and collaborated with David Bowie on Lazarus which opened on Broadway last December, not long before Bowie died.

 

Walsh tells me he had been working with the legend for about two months before he found out how ill he was.  However, the playwright didn’t find it hard to keep the news a secret because Bowie was so engaged with the work of the play, whilst also making his last album Blackstar, that it was easy to forget he wasn’t well.  “He was massively sweet,” Walsh tells me.  “He was such a messer, such a laugh, and really free.  He was a genuine artist and,” Walsh goes on, “he couldn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought of him... it was just about following the work.  He really was quite amazing.”

 

The strange thing is that Walsh could be describing himself.  To say that his work has polarised opinion during his twenty-year plus career would be something of an understatement.  Given the grotesque nature of some of his characters and the darkness that makes most of his work hard going I was expecting a ‘tortured artist’, someone troubled and perhaps troubling.  Instead Walsh is warm and chatty, equally at home discussing the school run (“I know who to avoid,” he laughs), his thoughts on modern theatre and the duality of the Irish character.  I ask him if he gets upset by the, sometimes, extreme bile that gets directed at him.  “I’ve had people come out in print saying ‘will someone stop fucking producing Enda Walsh, the world doesn’t need his plays’… and that’s upsetting, someone telling you you’re fucking shit.  It’s really really awful, but,” he continues, “it’s only awful for about an hour and then you go, ‘well they’re fucking wrong, they’re idiots!’  You have to do that.  I don’t care,” he says laughing.  “I really don’t care!”

 

On paper this sounds terribly arrogant but Walsh is one of the least arrogant people I’ve met.  He’s passionate about his work but he is not a “luvvie” and he’s strangely level-headed for a creative person.  The playwright's sense of perspective may well stem from his childhood – he is the second youngest of six children.  “They’re all fairly ‘full on’ individuals,” he says of his siblings, three boys and two girls.  “I was the quiet one.” Both of his parents were Dubliners and his mother, Maeve Kennedy, was an actress in the 1950s “she gave it up when she started popping kids out,” Walsh explains.  “It was the perfect upbringing for a playwright in many ways,” he tells me.  “I was lucky to be surrounded by very idiosyncratic driven people who all ended up working for themselves.”  Walsh’s father owned a furniture business which was afflicted by the fluctuations in the economy.  “We’re a big fucking noisy family,” he says in an ‘Oirish’ accent, “but underneath it was the struggle of keeping going… and you’re aware of what’s happening in the silence and the cracks.”

 

Walsh was born in the late 60s and I argue that this was the culture of most Irish families in the 1980s and 90s – operating in the post-Colonial atmosphere of ‘whatever you say, say nothing’.  Walsh agrees that while the Irish have a reputation internationally as being friendly and outgoing “we’re as reserved with the truth as the British are supposed to be.  When I bring work to America people are obsessed with why the fuck Irish people are good writers… The amount of times I’ve had discussions about our identity and who we are as people – being brought up with a second language, having huge secrets in our past that we allow to exist as we get on with life.  All that darkness that exists under there and it fucking explodes.”

 

We’re sitting in a corner of the opulent Langham Hotel just opposite the BBC HQ in London, where Walsh has lived for just over a decade.  The writer felt he was getting "too comfortable" in Ireland and he believes that's a dangerous place for a writer to be.  We’re huddled in a corner beside a massive window and every so often well-coiffed heads turn to stare at us as – not because of something Walsh has said, he speaks softly and doesn’t have a discernable Dublin accent (“12 years in Cork softened me”, he says) but because he says something that makes me howl laughing. 

 

It’s his time in Cork we’re here to talk about and, more specifically, his highly successful collaboration with Corcadorca Theatre Company which is now celebrating it’s 25th anniversary.  Walsh always wanted to write and I ask him if he’s ever considered novels.  “I’ve been approached to do that,” he says, “but I would really miss seeing the audience reaction.” We have a little giggle about him turning up in people’s living rooms and watching them intently as they turn the pages.  In secondary school Walsh’s teachers included writer Roddy Doyle and playwright Paul Mercier.  “They both introduced us to literature that wasn’t on the curriculum.  I can remember chatting about Bukowski with the lads in the yard when we were fifteen,” he says laughing, “so it was quite peculiar but they were both so amazing and just great teachers.”

 

As a schoolboy Walsh says he was “quite shy about many things.”  His mother suggested he get involved with the Dublin Youth Theatre and it was there he started writing and staging plays.  After finishing secondary school Walsh did a degree in Communications “it was a bad fit for me,” he confesses.  Working as a film editor the would-be writer travelled for a year living in London and France.  When he returned to Dublin he “realised there was no ‘in’ for me.  I wrote a tiny play for Dublin Youth Theatre, which I directed, which was really an appalling piece of work, I can’t even remember what it was called.” It can’t have been as bad as he says as the Dublin Theatre Festival saw it and commissioned him to write another.  “They gave me three grand,” he says, his voice rising at the memory, “that was a lot of money at the time.” He goes on to tell me he wrote a play that had “about 56 characters in it and they said “it’s completely unproducable.” When I observe that not all 20-year-old men starting out in a writing career would be aware of the logistics of mounting a play - more actors meaning more expense,  Walsh laughs.  “I knew all that, I just decided to write the fucking thing.” 

 

Walsh’s plays are distinctly non-traditional and when he moved to Cork he found his spiritual home with Corcadorca and Artistic Director Pat Kiernan who founded the theatre company in 1991.  “Pat was the real talent,” Walsh says, “I was just hanging out of his ass. He was the real innovator and has really influenced Irish theatre in the style of work he has done.  Pat was doing site-specific work before anyone was doing it in Ireland.  There’s a generation of artists now in Dublin and around the country who would have seen that work.  That shit is important otherwise we’re just filling seats for ‘a good play’...  Corcadorca was “fuck a good play” let’s express something and push the form, push theatre.”  Corcadorca are well known for their site-specific work which uses the city itself as a stage and include The Trial of Jesus on Patrick’s Hill and A Midsummer Nights Dream in Fitzgerald’s Park.  Corcadorca, and he, were, Walsh says, looking towards Europe for inspiration “as opposed to the generations of Irish theatre before us who were producing the standard proscenium arch plays set in a fucking cottage,” he says disparagingly.  “And if it wasn’t set in a cottage it was set in a bar.  In Corcadorca we were sour to all that shit. We were not interested in that stuff, we ere hugely influenced by the club scene – that was our music."

 

Transplanting himself to Cork also had an effect on Walsh’s expression and language.   “It gave me perspective about myself. Being outside of my own voice, having that distance, I was listening to a fucking language that wasn’t my own, it was a dialect that I really loved and I loved the second city mentality.” Walsh pretty much loves everything about Cork – the language, the people, the “strong arrogance” and even the shape of the city – “it’s shaped like a theatre.” His admiration of Kiernan is almost as strong “Pat is a true Corkman in that he adores that city and he has produced work all over the place, in every area of it and reached out to people – but it’s not community fucking theatre, he’s a real innovator, he’s pushing the form and throwing it about and bamboozling people.” 

 

Much of his own writing is about pushing form and the effect an environment has on characters, many of whom are outsiders.  He doesn’t appear to be a particularly angst-ridden individual, is he just hiding it well?  “I think a lot of writers are like that. If you examine yourself you feel sort of insular, and you live in your own head and you’re trying to work things out.”  Disco Pigs was the result of four years of experimentation and not only established Walsh as a writer to be reckoned with, but launched the respective careers of Eileen Walsh (Pure Mule, The Magdalene Sisters) and Cillian Murphy.  The show toured internationally for two years and roughly coincided with the runaway success of the film Trainspotting.  “People would say to us ‘Disco Pigs is the new Trainspotting,” Walsh tells me, “and we were like ‘no, we’re much more romantic than that.” More coiffed heads turn as I roar laughing.  “We were though, we were!” Walsh insists.  “We weren’t interested in bile or sex for the sake of it, it was a real romance… as much as I think about pushing the form and messing about and looking at stories anew, at the very very root if it, we were probably still Irish, we were still looking at the dark romance of stuff.”

 

Touring with Disco Pigs had contradictory effects on the writer and Corcadorca “we realised that our work was as good as some of the, as most of the, people we were meeting - as in the Schaubühne in Berlin, and we were going “Fuck yeah! We can do this! This is good!”” But, he goes on to say, “those two years travelling the world taught me that really, I don’t know fucking anything, I might have written something that some people like, but I really need to go away and figure (it) out.  It’s not until you’re about 5 – 8 plays in that you’re beginning to get a handle on how to do it, and what your voice is.” 

 

Having been a professional playwright for 24 years Walsh tells me that in many ways writing gets harder.  “I push myself.  I’m not interested in a well made play, it seems fucking lazy to me to lay it out in an A, B, C, D kind of way.  For me the form needs to be alive and to be a surprise otherwise it’s a completely dead medium.  I think it’s a fantastic sort of art form but by God there’s so much shite.  Visual art has travelled so far; I get jealous of that.  I get jealous of musicians, sometimes we’re still operating with a James Last sort of presentation (in theatre) and it doesn’t need to be like that.”  Then he adds mock seriously “no disrespect to all the James Last fans out there.”  (For information about James Last google or ask your Granny).  To celebrate Corcadorca@25 Walsh is currently working on a play which will be staged by the company this autumn.  So what was the best thing that ever happened to this multi-talented man and his family?  His Cockapoo, “Alvin, he’s just the business, he’s great.  I drop the kid to school, walk the dog, write, walk the dog again, write, cook the dinner."

 

Sacrifice at Easter, a new work by Pat McCabe will take place at Elizabeth Fort as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival.  www.corcadorca.com

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/the-enduring-romance-of-enda    

Ewan McGregor, Our Kind of Traitor

 

Ewan McGregor takes on the Russian Mafia in his new film, based on John le Carre’s Our Kind of Traitor. In real life he’s not averse to taking risks too, he tells our reporter, Anne Marie Scanlon

 

The Sunday Independent 01/05/2016

 

 

The last time I met Ewan McGregor he was wearing a full beard and a chunky jumper.  The beard did little to disguise his handsome features but it gave him an air of gravitas and maturity (aided no doubt by the fact that the facial hair was for a role and not a bewaxed Hipster statement.) 

 

This time the Scottish actor bounces into the room wearing black skinny jeans, a tight black sweater and a skinny black scarf, looking for all the world like a man in his 20s.  I’d love to know what his secret is as he is, in fact, 45. 

 

I doubt he’s had ‘work’ done as, trust me, I looked, and I couldn’t see any evidence. I’m left convinced he has a ‘picture in the attic’.  

 

McGregor is here to talk about his new film Our Kind of Traitor in which he plays Perry – a university professor who inadvertently becomes embroiled with the Russian mafia.  Central to the film is Perry’s relationship with Dima (the wonderful Stellan Skarsgård) a bagman for the Russian mob.  Dima, in an effort to save himself and his family from the new boss, switches sides and begs Perry for his help. 

 

Funnily enough it was not the relationship with Dima which initially attracted McGregor to the script.  “He’s damaged his marriage" McGregor tells me referring to his character.  "I thought it was a really fascinating place to start a movie from. The fact that (Perry) has hurt his wife and hurt himself by having an affair.  Usually a story would start with a perfect marriage that falls apart that either does or doesn’t get back together.  And that really appealed to me.” 

 

Perry’s wife Gail (the very beautiful Naomie Harris) is a successful barrister and it is after she leaves him alone in a Moroccan restaurant (they’re on a romantic holiday attempting to rekindle their marriage) that Perry meets Dima.  Stellan Skarsgård gives an outstanding performance being attractive (to the audience and Perry) whilst giving off a palpable air of menace.  Dima is in direct contrast to Perry who, at the start of the film, is a bit of an eejit. 

 

If the audience were in any doubt about Perry’s foolishness he proves it by agreeing to accompany the obviously dangerous Russian and his equally dangerous cronies to a party after just meeting them. 

 

You get the impression that in real life McGregor would have more sense.  He’s not a star who appears in the headlines for the 'wrong' reasons and has been married to Eve Mavrakis for 21 years.  The couple have four daughters and with McGregor's lithe figure and glowing good looks it's near impossible to believe the eldest is 20. 

 

Instead, I’m astonished to hear that McGregor did something similar to Perry.  The incident happened just over a decade ago when he was filming a motorcycle trip from London to New York with his good friend Charley Boorman.  “We were crossing the Ukraine (and) we got stopped by a policeman because we were going too fast,” the actor laughs. 

 

The policeman asked the pair in a mixture of mime and broken English where they were staying.   “We were heading towards a town that was just a dot on the map,” McGregor continues, “we didn’t’ know anything about it. We said we were looking for a hotel or camp site.”  The policeman started pinching his arms to indicate that the local hostelry was, quite literally, a fleapit. 

 

As instructed McGregor and Boorman followed their new acquaintance.  “He guided us back through this town, through very impoverished streets, tiny houses, mud – it was not a place with any wealth at all.” 

 

Finally, the small convoy arrived at a shop.  “Outside,” McGregor says laughing, “looked like the extras cast of Goodfellas, all these guys in leather jackets, like in a mob film. They parted and this guy walks through them.  He had a black moustache and his name was Igor; he pointed to his black BMW and the policeman waved goodbye to us.” 

McGregor and Boorman followed the BMW until it arrived at a big house with “big metal gates and there’s two guys outside wearing more leather jackets.  They swing the gates open, we drive in and they close the gates behind us.” 

 

I have to keep reminding myself that this isn’t the plot of one of the actor’s films and I’m waiting for the bit when he says that he and Boorman saw sense and gunned their bikes into the distance.  But no, as if to compound the ‘you couldn’t make it up’ factor the pair settled in for the night and their host, Igor, said in broken English “My house.  Your house,” which as any fan of Mob movies will know as “Me Casa. Su Casa.” (I can’t help but wonder what McGregor’s wife said when he told her this story.)  That evening their host threw a party in their honour.  A lot of men arrived wearing shoulder holsters with guns.  “One guy arrived in a three-piece pinstripe suit,” McGregor elaborates, “I’m not joking!”

 

McGregor was able to draw on this experience when it came to making Our Kind of Traitor which is based on a John LeCarre novel.  When Dima asks for his help in getting information to Britain Perry has no hesitation even though it means he’s putting his own life at risk. 

 

McGregor tells me that he would probably make the same choice as Perry.  He refers back to Igor.  “I definitely got the sense that (he) was a very dangerous man and I’m sure there would be many things in his life that I wouldn’t approve of, but (having met his wife and kids) if he’d come to me and said “my family will be killed unless you help me,” I would have helped.”

 

The actor shot to international fame two decades ago playing heroin addict Renton in Trainspotting (based on the novel by Irvine Welsh) and he is now getting ready to make Trainspotting 2. 

 

Isn’t he worried about damaging the legacy of the first film which is a cultural touchstone for so many? “The danger is if you make a poor sequel,” he agrees, “but I think… well you can never know 100%, but I think if there was any doubt once we saw John Hodge’s script… none of us were in any doubt that we were going to do it.” 

 

McGregor looks far too fit and healthy to be a convincing heroin addict, but no doubt, when the time comes he will look the part.  He always does.  

 

 

Our Kind of Traitor opens on 13th May.

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/ewan-mcgregor-reveals-he-drew-on-crazy-experience-with-charlie-boorman-for-role-in-new-thriller-34691919.html

A Super Cast of Civil War Heroes

 

The Cast of Captain America:Civil War tell Anne Marie Scanlon about unfortunate costumes, super powers and how their children react to them playing caped crusaders

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

 

17/04/2016 

 

Since Clueless I’ve harboured a fondness for Paul Rudd who played Josh (Jane Austen’s Mr Knightly) to Alicia Silverstone’s Cher (Emma) in the cult 1995 update of the classic novel.  

Last year Rudd appeared in the final episode of Series 3 of Moone Boy the TV series loosely based on actor Chris O’Dowd’s childhood growing up in Boyle.  “It was phenomenal,” (making Moone Boy), Rudd declares.  “I love Chris and I think it’s a great show.  As far as going to Ireland to shoot it, there’s just no better place.  I’ve always been very vocal of my love of Ireland.  I think it’s the best place on earth.  I’ve been all over, I haven’t really spent a lot of time in Northern Ireland, I’ve been to Belfast, but I’ve been everywhere all along the coast up to Donegal.  How to you pronounce Donegal?  It’s beautiful, it’s incredible I love it so much.”  So, that’s that, Rudd can’t climb any higher in my esteem. 

He’s here with Chris Evans (no, not the aging Brit who is taking over Top Gear, but the young American actor) to talk to me about the latest outing in the Marvel franchise – Captain America Civil War. 

There are so many superheroes and famous faces in the film that I’m only able to meet a handful of them and then, in pairs.  Rudd plays Ant Man and Evans is Captain America himself.  The pair are both sporting beards.  Is this fashion or for a film role?  “Laziness, I hate shaving,” Evans says while rummaging in the hotel mini bar.  “I usually have a beard when I’m not working,” he continues as he produces two packs of Pringles and pushes them towards me saying conspiratorially, “Don’t worry, they’ll charge Marvel.”

So how do they, as actors, approach playing these characters?  Rudd replies that “I always feel when working on something to take a step out of it and say what would happen in real life?  Even on something as fantastical as this, what would the reaction be of each person and how would they deal with the situation.” 

Rudd’s character, as his name implies, can shrink at will to the size of an ant.  So what, in real life, would he do with such a power?

There’s a long pause.  Rudd smiles.  “I’ve been asked this question before and you think I’d have an answer on deck, so….” He takes his time thinking and then says “maybe I’d want to sneak into the rooms that are not open to the public with world leaders to see what’s going on.  But then… Oh God! Do I really want to know?” Evans is shaking his head and the pair laugh at the idea. 

 I try a different approach. Ants are often used in a metaphorical way in stories, what if anything can we learn from the ant?

God help Rudd, he really tries to give me a half decent answer.  “You know, em, it seems like there’ve been a lot of Biblical stories that some times the smaller guy wins… boy… it’s easy to underestimate…sometimes strength is not embodied in, eh,…”

“Size,” I supply.

“Size!” he agrees.

“So size is not always important?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he laughs, “It’s not so much size that matters it’s more the motion…that’s from the bible isn’t it!”  His co-star is helpless with laughter.

Rudd goes on to say that one of the best things about being part of the Marvel universe is that “all the kids in my kid’s class know who I am. It’s only great.  It’s only positive. being able to hang with kids and talk to them about Marvel is the best! It’s so fun.  It’s really great.  I make videos for kids that are Ant Man fans, people will say my nephew is a fan is there any way you could wish him a happy Birthday. That’s the best part of the job, it makes you feel like there’s something really nice that comes out of it.”

Being in such a huge movie and being part of such a big franchise brings a lot of attention, how does he cope? 

“I have a very short tolerance when I hear people complain about the downside of celebrity.  It’s like "Oh God, shut up!"  I feel very very lucky, I really do.  One  that I’m a working actor – which is all I ever wanted to be,  and that I work on things that I really like with a lot of people that are really great.

Being able to hang with kids and talk to them about Marvel is the best! It’s so fun.  It’s really great. That’s the best part of the job, it makes you feel like there’s something really nice that comes out of it.”

These sentiments are echoed by Paul Bettany who plays Vision, a purple entity who can walk through walls.  This isn’t the first time I’ve met Bettany who always looks incredibly stylish.  This time he’s wearing a linen jacket over a white and blue striped t-shirt with 1950s style tinted glasses. 

I ask Bettany about his costume which took 2 ½ hours to get into every day. “It is so claustrophobic,” he replies and then rapidly adds, “I hate hearing actors fucking complain by the way, I’m handsomely paid for this so don’t mishear me.” 

Bettany goes goes on to tell me that the purple balaclava was essentially glued to his head and made hearing hard, sometimes impossible, but he concentrated on not freaking out by “focusing on the thousands of actors who would kill to be in (my) position” and thus, his discomfort actually worked well on his portrayal of the character. 

“I see him (Vision), this rather serene human being on the screen who I look at and go “Why the fuck amn’t I more like that?  I’m full of anxiety and nervous energy.”

Like Rudd, Bettany's children are fans of Marvel and I ask who their favourite characters are.

 “Fuck you!” Bettany replies.  His co-star Emily Van Camp looks shocked and embarrassed, but I know this is Bettany's shtick; the actor continues “There’s an assumption in that question that it might be something other than Vision!”  He waits for a moment before adding “but yeah, you’re right.  My son is into Vision. 

My daughter was a huge Vision fan.  When she first saw me (in full costume) I was really anxious she was going to flip out but she just ran up and gave me a cuddle.  At the end of the day when I took it all off she was (starts shouting) “I want purple Daddy!” It was her first meltdown, she turned into this monster I’d never seen before and it was, frankly, humiliating.  And then she became Iron Man obsessed," he sighs in that world weary way that only Bettany can.

 

 

http://www.independent.ie/style/celebrity/people-are-talking-kontemplating-kris-34672107.html

Kingsley’s the Big Cat’s Whiskers

 

Ben Kingsley gives a commanding performance as the voice of ‘Colonel’ Bagheera in The Jungle Book

 

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

 

17/04/2016 

 

 

Most people under forty might struggle to tell you who W.C. Fields was but they’ve probably heard his famous adage “Never work with children or animals.”  Actor and director Jon Favreau has tackled both in The Jungle Book, a new take on the Disney animated classic from 1967. 

On seeing The Jungle Book it’s hard to believe that the only ‘real’ person in the movie is Neel Sethi, who plays Mowgli, the ‘Man Cub’ raised by wolves.  All of the other characters and even the luscious jungle itself are the product of movie-making magic.

Apart from Sethi, who was ten when he shot the film, the cast list reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of the acting world.  Sir Ben Kingsley provides the voice of Bagheera, the sleek black panther who originally rescued the infant Mowgli while Baloo the bear is brought to life by Bill Murray who is utterly hilarious. 

The villain of the piece, Shere Khan the Bengal Tiger, is played by a very threatening Idris Elba and erstwhile King of the Swingers, Louis, is as dark and menacing as only the voice of Christopher Walken could make him.  (The famous song, sung by Louis Prima in the 1967 cartoon is reworked from a jolly ditty to a rather foreboding tune, and trust me, the monkeys make those flying fellas from The Wizard of Oz seem totally benign by comparison.)

"You have to have a dark side,” Sir Ben Kingsley says about the new version of the old tale.  “You have to have that balance.  Otherwise what is the child triumphing over?  What is he achieving?  You’ve got to put those blocks in the path of the young hero for him to push through.”

Sir Ben gets a hard time in the British press – they love to hate him and bait him.  I was expecting Christopher Biggins with a bad attitude.  Instead I meet a small unassuming man in a  stylish brown leather jacket. 

When I compliment the famous actor on his attire he says a polite “Thank you” before adding that this is the first time he’s worn it.  Where is the diva?  Where is the pompous thespian?  This man is perfectly pleasant. We’re meeting in Browns Hotel in London’s Mayfair where author Rudyard Kipling liked to stay and apparently wrote part The Jungle Book. 

Kingsley was a member of the Wolf Cubs when he was a boy and, as befits a knight of the realm seems quite taken with the whole idea of Empire.  Bagheera, he tells me, is to his mind “Colonel Bagheera, a British officer, and like any great commander (he) teaches his recruits to fend for themselves in battle but also to come home safely.  I love the military, I have huge respect for them.”   As the on-screen action is narrated by Bagheera, Kingsley says that he took it upon himself to be “voice of Kipling because the narrator is Kipling.”

Kingsley goes on to say that his performance was further influenced by the fact that Kipling lost his only son in the First World War “the boy was 18 years old,” he adds sadly. 

Kingsley missed the original cinema release of The Jungle Book in 1967 because he was with the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) doing eight shows a week.  “Sometimes we would preform a matinee of one play and another in the evening,” he tells me.  He spent twelve years “on and off” with the RSC. 

The renowned actor then tells me that he has a bust of Shakespeare and “I chat to him.  I thank him.  He is the greatest voice the English language will ever have and it’s beautiful that he can still have audiences on the edge of their seat,” he says quite literally moving to the very edge of his chair, “400 years after his death.  It’s beautiful.” 

This is the kind of thing the British press love to mock Kingsley for, but all I can see is a man who really likes his job.  He goes on to tell me that Hamlet has been his favourite role, “that’s the mountain.  I think I played him at exactly the right time in my own life, which is always good.  You’re not quite sure whether Hamlet is playing you or you are playing Hamlet.  It’s such an intense performance and such an intense experience that there are times when one comes off stage and one can’t believe that you’ve just had two and a half hours on stage in that character.  Something else takes over, a very thrilling experience…. It’s ephemeral, it disappears but at the time it’s very visceral and life-enhancing.”

So how does he rate the new kids on the block?  Has he seen Benedict Cumberbatch doing the Danish Prince? To be fair to Kingsley he does not dissemble.  “I must be quite frank; I find it very difficult to watch other versions of it.  I’m sure they’re all marvellous, highly personal and beautiful but because I had such a wonderful experience with that role I find it quite difficult.”

I can’t help but thinking “fair enough”.  Most actors don’t want to watch other people interpreting the roles that they’ve done.  At least Kingsley is honest about it and there is absolutely nothing grudging in his praise for director Favreau and young Neel Sethi. 

“On screen (Sethi) has the most wonderful rapport with those animals, as if he truly can reach out and stroke them…absolutely beautiful performance… beautifully judged…which when the time comes for him to be judged, by those who are in charge of judging...” he gives a slight laugh, and instead of finishing the sentence remarks that there is no ‘category’ for Sethi’s performance.  (Sethi’s story is almost as mythic as Mowglis.  The 10-year-old had no interest in performing and had never been to an audition but went to the open call on the advice of his Indian Dance teacher.)

All of the voice work in The Jungle Book was done before the ‘animation’ was completed and Kingsley tells me that he was “delighted and thrilled” by the end product.  The film has some intense and hair-raising moments, especially when watched in 3-D and the actor says “he loves the popcorn flying!” 

Kingsley also lent his famous voice to the animated movie Box Trolls and says he finds the work “very freeing as an actor,” and would like to do another animated movie soon.  He harks back to his days at the RSC (which he never abbreviates but always calls it by it’s full name) and says he was lucky enough to share the stage “in small parts, mostly, with giants – vocally.”  He may be small in stature and much mocked in his own country but Sir Ben is also a giant. The Jungle Book, in  cinemas nationwide from April 15th.

 

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/kingsleys-the-big-cats-whiskers-34631287.html

Billy the kid will dance his way into your heart.

 

Whether you love musical theatre, or utterly loathe it, Billy Elliot is a must see.

 

 

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

17/04/2016 

 

Billy Elliot the Musical is musical theatre for those who love musical theatre.  Director Stephen Daldry and choreographer Peter Darling have pulled out all the stops to create a spectacular.  At the same time this is also musical theatre for people who don’t like musical theatre, with story, dialogue and acting being as important as song and dance.

For anyone unfamiliar with the show, or the film released in 2000 on which it is based, Billy is a 12-year-old working class boy in the north of England.  His father and brother are both miners, as are most of the men in his town.  His mother is dead and his Granny is senile.  It’s the 1980s and lines are firmly drawn between sexes, classes and sexual orientations. 

Billy is sent to boxing class every week which he hates.  By accident he comes across the ‘girls’ ballet class and shows enough talent for teacher Mrs Wilkinson to start tutoring him for an audition for the English National School of Ballet.  Billy keeps his dancing life secret from his father and brother who are both traditional ‘hard men’.  When Billy’s father finds out he reacts violently because only ‘poofs’ do ballet.  Billy’s brother goes further and threatens Mrs Wilkinson “Ill smack you one you middle class cow.”

The music and dancing cover all sorts of genres.  The first half kicks off with the miners singing a traditional song of solidarity with their Union tapestry in the background as the prepare to strike the next day.  The end of act one is, by contrast, violent, with heavy-metal style music as Billy is enraged by not being allowing to dance.  The riot scene at the end of Act 1 is the perfect metaphor for Billy’s anger and frustration.  The barriers of class and prejudice that Billy can’t get past – he is physically pushed back, are represented by both miners and police riot shields.  This is theatre at it's most powerful. 

Act 2 kicks off with the miner’s Christmas celebration and anyone who has a Thatcher phobia should be warned to avert their eyes at this point – I won't give away what happens, but it's highly entertaining. Irish people who remember the 1980s will no doubt enjoy all the Thatcher-bashing.  (I know I did.) 

The atmosphere of the 1980s is conjured up with subtle costumes and constant cigarettes - Mrs Wilkinson puffs away while teaching her ballet class.  The sets are wonderful and though I have never been a fan of Mr Elton John the music is testament to his audacious talent.  There are few flaws in Billy Eliot but even with the amazing sets, costumes and fags it is the performers who must get most props, especially the kids who are just too ridiculously talented.  This is not one of those pieces were children shuffle on, the audience go ‘Awwww’ and they shuffle off again.  These kids work just as hard as the adult performers (who are working pretty damn hard).

Be warned, you will need to go with a good supply of tissues and wear waterproof mascara.  When Billy departs for his new life leaving his cross-dressing pal Michael behind in front of the Union tapestry it is truly heart-breaking.  Doubly so because we all know what happened to those tightknit communities after the 1980s.  There’s plenty of laughs to be had as well, more than plenty.  As I said, this is a show that will please everyone.  There is a great deal of swearing (a lot of it done by the kids) but please don’t let that put you off taking your children to see it.  It’s shocking yes but nothing worse than you’d hear on a bus in Dublin.  Or, for that matter, in most playgrounds throughout the country.  Putting together a show about a family, about social history, about public and private change, with half the cast under 12 along, with singing, dancing and some spectacular set pieces couldn’t have been easy, but it rolls along in a wonderfully organic way. Personally I want to gag when I hear the phrase ‘feel-good show’.  This isn’t feel good.  It’s feel fantastic.  Just go. 

Billy Eliot the Musical will be in Bord Gáis Energy Theatre from 26 July - 3 Sept. For tickets www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie

 

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/billy-the-kid-will-dance-his-way-into-your-heart-34631252.html

Unlikely route to Infinity and beyond for actor Dev Patel

 

At just 26, Dev Patel has already forged a stellar acting career for himself.  He tells Anne Marie Scanlon his views on religion and racism and reveals his love of the Irish.

 

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

 

 

10/04/2016 

 

Having seen him in the movies and in numerous photos I wasn’t prepared for just how handsome Dev Patel is.  In jeans and a plain shirt, the 6' 1" actor is unrecognisable as the strait-laced Ramanujan in his latest movie The Man Who Knew Infinity.  With tousled black curly hair and a short neatly trimmed beard Patel is gorgeous, like an Asian Aidan Turner.  Could this really be the man who’s looks photographer Mario Testino called into question?  To his face? 

 

I don’t even get to ask him about Testino’s comments, made to Patel about the fact that he was dating his co-star from Slumdog Millionaire, Freida Pinto -  the pair were a couple for six years before splitting just over a year ago.  Testino basically told the young actor he was punching well above his weight as his girlfriend was so “beautiful.”

 

But before I can open my mouth Patel starts telling me what great shoes I’m wearing.  For a mere 26 years he’s got the charm and chat of a much older gentleman.  “Let’s talk about you and not me,” he says at one point.  “I’m loving the style; you’ve got it rocking girl.” I get the impression that he would have said this whatever I was wearing. Afterall, he’s been in the spotlight for almost a decade and knows how to handle journalists.  But, I have the feeling that he’s basically nice.  A son any mother would be proud of.

 

In The Man Who Knew Infinity Patel plays real life mathematician Srinavasa Ramanujan, an impoverished Indian from Madras who earns admission to Cambridge university under the mentorship of Professor G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons). 

 

Ramanujan’s arrival coincides with the outbreak of the First World War the young Indian faces prejudice from his peers and the public alike.  I ask Patel if he has had similar experiences to Ramanujan, as the movie industry has been called racist in recent times.  Before Patel has a chance to answer I say isn’t it racist to ask him about the subject?  Does he get asked the same question at every single interview?  “Yeah I do, but it’s a valid question,” he says waving away my doubts.  “The England and the climate that he (Ramanujan) came to is incredibly different to the London that I know.  This is a beautiful multi-cultural boiling pot that allowed me to flourish and have a life. And my parents.  Did my mother face more racism than I did?  Of course.  It’s just the evolution of society.” 

 

It was Patel's mother Anita  who “dragged” him to an open casting call for the E4 teen drama Skins when he was 17, despite the fact he had an exam the next day.  The star says he always wanted to be an actor but “it feels like a very delusional distant dream.  To be pushed out of your comfort zone, as an annoying teen, takes a powerful woman! And that was my Mum. (She) was born into a Hindu family but went to a Christian school.  So we went to Mass and Mum will go and do a little prayer in the Hindu temple and then start doing Hail Marys.  She’s a complete walking contradiction.”

 

Patel hasn’t taken up his mother’s approach to religion but he does believe in a higher power.  “I believe that there’s baby miracles that happen that are responsible for where I am today.  I’m in a very privileged position and I don’t think it’s completely down to the talent I have, I think it’s something else.”

 

Patel landed the part of Anwar Kharral in Skins who he played for two series.  It was Danny Boyle's then 17-year-old daughter Caitlin who suggested Patel for the  role of Jamel Malik in his movie Slumdog Millionaire which made him a star aged only 19.  

 

The actor goes on to tell me that his mother keeps Lourdes water in the family home.  I wonder silently if this has anything to do with the fact that most of her colleagues in the care home where she works are Irish. “They’re all up for a good laugh,” Patel explains.  “There’s a kind of similarity to the Indian culture, they’re larger than life but there’s a great camaraderie and a sense of family and community, it’s the same.”

 

Patel visited Ireland when he was 14 to take part in a martial arts tournament.  “I got my arse kicked in Dublin,” he says laughing.   “I went with our little martial arts squad, got a good whooping."  In reality he won a Bronze medal - he's certainly as self depreciating as any Irish person. He says he’d love to come back to Ireland “It was good fun.  God man, the Irish are up for a good time!”

 

The conversation veers to the #OscarSoWhite campaign.  “I understand where it’s coming from…(but) I don’t think people should be nominated just because of the colour of their skin.  That’s ... creating difference.”  As he continues speaking I notice that his accent starts to become noticeably more London with each word.  "I think talent is talent no matter what. Look, I don’t know man,” he says shaking his head.  His tone of voice hasn’t changed; he is not ranting but his accent has returned to it’s West London roots as he obviously feels passionate about the matter. “I worry about that term 'stereotyping',” he continues.  “We’re either ‘underrepresented’ or we’re ‘stereotyped’.  It’s really loosely thrown around.  I think embracing your culture is a beautiful thing. In terms of this whole talk of diversity it’s not so much about the awards and all that bullshit.  That’s not what matters, it’s about telling good stories.  That’s why I’ll go and do a film like The Man Who Knew Infinity where the budget is nothing.”

 

It is fairly obvious that Ramanujan would be well known and widely celebrated for his contribution to mathematics – his theorems are still being used to this day – if he were white.  Patel can’t stay serious for long.  His smile returns, and I again wonder what the hell Mario Testino was thinking? “I’d love to go back to Dublin,” he says again.  “I should go with my mother and her crew.”  

 

The Man Who Knew Infinity, Cert 12A, opens in Irish cinemas on Friday April 8th.

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/unlikely-route-to-infinity-and-beyond-for-actor-dev-patel-34611232.html

Midnight Mystery of a Special Child

 

Midnight Special director Jeff Nichols talks to Anne Marie Scanlon about his sci-fi thriller which touches on the terror of parenting

 

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

 

 

03/04/2016 

 

Some critics have called Midnight Special, the latest film from director Jeff Nichols, an homage to Stephen Spielberg. 

The movie is ostensibly about a young boy with special powers.  While there are superficial similarities to ET – an innocent (8-year-old Alton) being chased and demonised by a world that doesn’t understand, the film is far more than a Sci-fi flick.  It’s a thriller, a chase movie and, more than anything, a meditation on parenting and parental guilt. 

 

Nichols both wrote and directed Midnight Special which is his fourth film and has an impressive cast including Sam Shepard as cult leader Calvin Mayer, Kirsten Dunst as Alton’s mother Sarah, Oscar nominee Michael Shannon plays Roy, Alton’s father, Joel Edgerton is Lucas and Jaeden Lieberher delivers an extraordinary performance as Alton. 

Nichols packs a lot in.  Apart from Alton, the very special child, there’s a religious cult, The Ranch, and modern U.S. law enforcement with their access to almost supernatural technology. 

 

The film begins with two men, quite literally boarded up in a motel room with a young boy.  The TV is playing a news report about an 'Amber Alert' for the missing child.  The first sign of something being out of the ordinary is that, in 2016, there are no photographs of the missing 8-year-old. 

 

The early part of the film is hyper realistic, as Alton is bundled from motel room to car and the men attempt to cross state lines TVs in the background show news coverage of the search for the kidnapped child.

 

One particularly nice detail is the inclusion of snippets of Nancy Grace – an extremely well known ‘Crime Expert’ in the U.S., talking about the case as it unfolds.  Nichols tells me that Grace was an undemanding hire as she’d seen his movie Mud and was a fan.

“She was funny,” the director tells me on a flying visit from Texas where he now lives.  “She asked me “are these people innocent? People are always on to me about people being innocent.”  I said they did actually kidnap the boy but it turns out (Roy is) actually the boys father and she said “Ok I’m going to do it for you.""

 

"I do like misleading the audience but I don’t do it for the sake of it,” Nichols explains about the opening scenes which lead the audience in the direction of thinking Alton is with some heavy duty ‘bad’ men.  “If you go back and look at (those scenes),” Nichols continues, “in the full knowledge of who the characters are, they still work.  I’m very big on character behaviour.  I think characters need to behave the way they should behave, not the way I want them to. That’s really important to me”. 

 

Nichols was already preparing the groundwork for this film when his then 8-month old son suffered a febrile seizure (also known as febrile convulsions), which greatly influenced the subsequent script. 

 

Their child's health scare terrified the director and his wife.  “We thought he was dying and it shocked me out of this first year fatherhood haze that I’d been in,” Nichols says.  “I think for the first time since he was born I started to think about it seriously.  And it scared me.  In fact, it kind of paralysed me to a degree, in terms of, I realised that having a kid is like having a wound that opens up,” he says gesturing towards his side, “that just won’t heal, and at any point there, out in the world, if he gets hurt, I get hurt.  So you have to be prepared to walk around with this wound and I really started to ask questions like ‘how do I function, with this wound?’”

 

Nichols goes on to say that Roy and Sarah, the parents in Midnight Special, “were an allegory of the way I was feeling.  They had no control over their child – they have no idea where he’s going but they need desperately to understand it and understand it enough so … he can get what he needs.  And that’s kind of what we’re doing as parents, we are just trying, as quickly as we can, to figure out what they need.”

 

I tell Nicols that while I’ve often heard women discuss the ceaseless worry and never ending guilt that birth has thrust upon them it’s not a subject I’ve ever heard a father talk about.  “It’s funny," he replies, "because every male reporter I’ve talked to, who has kids, says ‘yeah I know what you’re talking about”.”  He pauses for a moment then says “I think there’s a reason why it takes a man and a woman to make a child.  I think there’s a reason why there’s a mother and a father because they process it differently.” 

One overwhelming theme of the film is a sense of ‘otherness’ of being different and outside.  Does the director feel like an outsider?  Nichols has a moment to think and then says “Maybe we all are?  But I didn’t feel that way growing up.   I had friends at high school, nobody put me in a trash can.” He gives a small laugh and then continues “I was raised in a kind of Ozzie and Harriet idyll,” he says referring to the all-American sitcom of the 50s and 60s.  “My Dad owned a furniture store, my Mom raised the three of us, I’m the eldest.  She put up with a lot, (having three sons)” he laughs, “she was lovely. I had a really nice upbringing.  I’ve always been kind of dreamy.  My mind wanders.  Even now, my wife will snap her fingers and say "be with us! You’re with us now.""

 

Nichols remembers wanting to be a Marine Biologist, despite living in the landlocked state of Arkansas.  “My Dad says I said I wanted to be a film director but I don’t remember that, I don’t remember having that clear a vision,” he says demonstrating the truth that parents and children often remember their shared past very differently.  He says he enjoyed writing stories from an early age and that when he was ready to go to university in the 90s "film school was kind of the 'the thing'. I’d never been on a film set; I didn’t know what it was but it sounded cool."  Despite this he says he graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts utterly determined to make films. 

 

Midnight Special has had a mixed response from critics.  Like Nancy Grace and current presidential hopeful Donald Trump (“Every day it gets crazier,” Nichols says sadly shaking his head.) it has polarised opinions. 

 

The problem many viewers and critics had with the film is that it doesn’t answer all the questions it poses; however, it does keep the tension high until the very end. 

Midnight Special is in cinemas nationwide from 8th April. 

 

 

http://www.independent.ie/life/midnight-mystery-of-a-special-child-34591    

Moving Words and Still Images from ‘Image Maker’ Gillian Hyland

 

From fashion stylist to award-winning photographer, ‘Image Maker’, Gillian Hyland, from Dublin, combines style, emotion and a depth of talent.

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

 

 

27/03/2016 

 

Fashion stylists don’t fare very well in popular culture.  At best they’re seen as a slight step up from fashion forward but intellectually impaired (fictional) fashion model Derek Zoolander. At worst they’re viewed as shallow, bitchy fashionistas like Emily Blunt’s character in The Devil Wears Prada.  And although, as even the biggest culture snob would have to concede, there is an art to styling, few would associate the profession with ‘Art’.  Until now.

 

Dubliner Gillian Hyland, a highly successful London stylist (not just clothes but set design) has been quietly moonlighting as an artist over the past few years. 

Gillian, who is from Glasnevin, quit a very successful career as a journalist and broadcaster in Ireland to move to the UK ten years ago when she was offered a job in advertising. 

 

Unfortunately, the job wasn’t as creative as Gillian had hoped.  “I was coming up with ideas, meeting clients but then it went to someone else to develop and I was stuck in an office.  I was used to doing shoots, running around TV stations, being engaged and around the place.  It wasn’t me, so I left.”  It was a brave move for someone new to London.   Instead of going back to Ireland with her tail between her legs Gillian, despite her fears, “I thought everyone in London would have amazing experience and books (portfolios of their work)", put herself out there as a stylist.   She has since built up a highly successful business.

 

To be honest I was terrified meeting Gillian; any sort of fashionista puts the fear of God in me.  I was expecting someone terrifyingly coordinated and perfectly made up.  Instead Gillian didn’t appear to be wearing any make-up and looks far younger than her 34 years.  Despite being very well turned out the 'Image Maker' is warm, friendly and funny. 

We are meeting to talk about the latest exhibition of Gillian's art work – 'Words in Sight' (poems and pictures), which is taking place at the renowned Other Art Fair in London.  This exhibition is significant because this is the first time that Gillian's poems and photographic images, the latter based upon the former, will be displayed together. 

 

Given the power of the images its hard to believe that Gillian only began creating them in 2013.  She had written the poems throughout her 20s but purely for herself.    “My parents had a very bad divorce,” she explains.  Gillian’s older sister, a teacher, also lives in London and when she moved from Ireland a decade ago their father “cut all ties” with both sisters. “A lot of the poems are related to my life. I wanted to capture the emotion, or the experience, in a short thing, I felt like I was trapping it.  It wrapped it up, and made it easier to move on from.”  Gillian wrote her poems on scraps of paper and it was a friend who suggested that she assemble them in one place.

 

“I put the poems together and I called them 'Words in Flight' because, for me, they were a release.  At that time, I didn’t really feel comfortable sharing the words but I thought about making (visual) stories out of them, because that’s what I do, and that’s where the ‘Words in Sight’ came from." 

 

The photographs, like the poems, emerged from a need to “do it for myself.” Producing the first pictures proved to be cathartic for Gillian.   “The first ones had a very strong impact on me emotionally, because they’re so personal.  It doesn’t affect me in the same way now but I think I did some of the harder ones first… I guess it’s a cleansing."

 

After seeing her images, a photographer suggested that Gillian try to exhibit in a gallery.  “I didn’t know how the art world works, but then again because I didn’t know I was very open to see what would happen; to put myself and the pictures out there,” Gillian says.

Gillian’s first exhibit was in 2014 and since then her images have been shown around the world including Russia, India, the United States, Italy, France and the UK. Similarly, her work has bagged countless international awards over the past two years including the prestigious Ward Thomas Photography Award 2015.  The awards are especially gratifying for Gillian “because I hadn’t studied photography I felt it gave me credibility and substantiated what I do.”

 

Gillian calls herself an ‘Image Maker’ because that encompasses art, photography and her commercial styling work.  “I felt that calling myself a photographer would be misleading as it’s not a true indication of what I’m trying to produce.

She released the 'Words in Sight' booklet last year which paired the pictures with the poems for the first time.  “The pictures had been out there but not the words that inspired them.”  Not uncoincidentally her father got into contact with her and the pair are having a tentative reconciliation.  “It was hard for my Dad I think, seeing some of the pictures and seeing some of the things.”  Some of the pictures, like No Goodbye, are very obviously about her father, who was seriously ill when he first made contact a few months ago but is now recovering. 

 

Gillian describes herself as lucky because she has her own business which allows her to pursue her art for it’s own sake rather than as a means of making money.  Putting together the images is a costly business, as  Gillian has to hire locations, source props, costumes and of course people.  She prefers to use actors rather than models because “if you give an actor an idea of what the scene is about they get really excited about the whole thing.   It becomes fun to photograph them because they give you something back and then the picture can become something very different (from my vision).  Working with actors it’s more of a process than me simply directing them.  I’m usually pretty clear on the composition (I storyboard all the pictures) but I like to give the actors a bit of scope."  

 

Despite all of the awards and critical acclaim Gillian says her images are “not made for the art world.  I don’t want to impress art critics; I’d prefer for people who see them to like them."

 

The Other Art Fair, 7th-10th April. www.theotherartfair.com.

 

Gillian will also be exhibiting her work at the Barbara Stanley Gallery which showcases contemporary Irish artists in London during the month of April.  www.irishartinlondon.com

 

www.gillianhyland.com/photography

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/theatre-arts/moving-words-and-still-images-from-image-maker-gillian-hyland-34572896.html

Staggering Staging of a Hitchcock Classic

 

This version of the 39 Steps is clever and innovative

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

 

20/03/2016 

 

The Thirty-Nine Steps began life as a novel of daring-do, written by John Buchan in 1915.  The story followed the adventures of Richard Hannay, a typical jolly nice English chap, as he became embroiled with a spy ring, was wrongly accused of murder and made it his mission to see traitors unmasked.  Unsurprisingly the tale has been filmed three times, originally in 1935, and it is that version, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, that the stage version is based upon. 

 

The film follows Hannay from London to the Highlands of Scotland and back again and is famous for a chase scene both in and on the legendery Flying Scotsman steam train.  How can a stage performance faithfully re-enact such a show-stopper?  Or accurately portray Hannay and Pamela’s flight across Scottish bogs and brooks?  That is the real genius of this production, it makes superb use of all the physical constraints presented by moving a story that is largely action-based and outdoors onto a stage. The result is a production that is clever, innovative but most of all fun. 

 

I won’t reveal how the Flying Scotsman scene plays out but it got one of the biggest laughs of the show. As did the famous Forth Bridge.  The original film has a vast cast of characters from London policemen to Scottish crofters to campaigning politicians.  The play has a cast of four.  Richard Hannay is played by Richard Ede, who certainly looks the part, and manages to make the pencil moustache look as attractive as it allegedly was in 1935. 

 

The remaining characters are divvied up between Olivia Greene who plays Annabella, Margaret and love interest Pamela.  Between them Rob Witcomb and Andrew Hodges as Man 1 and Man 2 get to play everyone else.  Man 1 Rob Witcomb drags up on a couple of occasions and makes a curiously attractive woman.  Three older gentlemen sitting behind me seemed very taken with the Professor’s Wife, although I preferred his kilt-wearing Scottish landlady.   All four actors do a great job but Witcomb and Hodges with their endless costume and character changes work particularly hard.  While the whole show is deliberately haphazard, with OTT performances, elements of farce and a hint of Am Dram director Maria Aitkin has kept everything tight. 

 

Few amateurs could perform the physical comedy that these actors undertake.  And equally, few athletes would be able to enact Annabella’s death – well they might but they wouldn’t have Greene’s marvellous comic timing which makes the scene hilarious.  (Yes, a death scene, it’s that kind of show.) 

 

Like the late Les Dawson playing piano badly it takes a lot of skill to look unskilled and these performers are so skilled you don’t realise how hard they are working.  At times there’s a Panto feel, with actors giving the audience knowing nods, and there's a feeling of collusion between cast and audience - we are all in on the joke and it is a pretty funny joke. 

 

Another joke we’re in on is the name dropping of famous Hitchcock films.  And, as Hitchcock was famous for making cameo appearances in his films, this show is no different.  Keep an eye peeled for that famous silhouette. And whatever happens, do not give in to the temptation to shout out questions for Mr Memory to answer. He's not really Mr Memory - it's pretend!

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/theatre-arts/staggering-staging-of-a-hitchcock-classic-34553501.html

A Dramatic Song Cycle of Love and Strife

 

Singer Jodie Prenger brings acting and comic talent to Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s ‘Tell Me on a Sunday’

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

 

20/03/2016 

 

 

Probably one of the reasons that Tell Me on a Sunday has always been such a well-loved and well-received show is because, unlike many musicals, there is no clunky exposition to move the plot along.  In this one-woman show, each song tells a story and cumulatively they tell Emma’s story.  As star Jodie Prenger says “Don Black is just so amazingly, gigantically talented at producing these lyrics.  It’s like reading a script, it’s all there.” 

 

The show revolves around Emma (Jodie Prenger), an ordinary English girl living in New York and her unrelenting search for love.  When it was first written in the 80s it was contemporary and, while some things remain the same (the monstrous size of New York sandwiches for example), society in general has changed so it’s more of a period piece now.

 

Prenger hits the ground running belting out the well-known Take That Look Off Your Face and after this rousing start the pace really doesn’t let up until the very end.

Carrying a one-woman show, especially one where the mood shifts dramatically from song to song (misery, elation, whimsy, sarcasm, yearning, delusion) isn’t an easy task for any actress or singer but Prenger carries it off and makes it look easy. Her singing more than does justice to both music and lyrics (Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black) but her acting ability is really what makes her so enjoyable to watch. 

 

After being cheated on Emma bounces back with new love interest Sheldon Bloom.  She’s determined to make the relationship work listing all the ways she’s going to change and adapt to be a “perfect little lady for you”.   She moves to Hollywood to live with Sheldon in his “pink palace” and Don Black’s lyrics are hysterical as he sends up the LA lifestyle where “they’ve eaten nothing fried since Elvis Presley died” in Capped Teeth and Caesar Salad.   Hollywood was apparently as shallow and faddy in the 80s as it is now.

Emma is clear sighted in her goals, she wants love, marriage and a Green Card and is determined a man will provide her with all three.  Unsurprisingly Emma’s romance with the Hollywood producer, who lives in a house called La Bohème, doesn’t work out. 

 

 

Back in New York Emma settles for a much younger man.  When that relationship fails she begins an affair with a married man – a direct juxtaposition to her situation at the start of the show.  Many of the previous themes are reprised here and in this instance Emma is prepared to do almost anything to be the “perfect little mistress for you.” 

The only problem with Tell Me on a Sunday is that despite Prenger’s comic, acting and singing talents and her ability to make the audience laugh one minute and cry the next, she is such a vital force that it’s hard to reconcile her to man-dependant Emma. 

 

However, as Tell Me on a Sunday was originally designed as a one-act song cycle, rather than a traditional musical, audiences will get to meet the real Prenger in the second half of the evening.  During this portion of the show Prenger will do a Q&A with the audience and perform musical numbers like fan favourite The Black Hills of Dakota from Calamity Jane and Unexpected Song, which was part of the original production of Tell Me on a Sunday.

 

Fans and non fans alike are in for a treat.  Prenger exudes good humour and can’t wait to get to Ireland.  “I love Dublin and my family are from Sligo.”  The singer is funny and entertaining and has no notions of herself.  Speaking about her character Emma she says she identifies with her struggles “God yeah, the men I’ve been through!” she laughs.  If you want more details you can ask her yourself when Tell Me on A Sunday plays at BGE Theatre 1-3 May inclusive. 

 

Tickets from €20 are available now through Ticketmaster. See www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie for more information.

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/theatre-arts/a-dramatic-song-cycle-of-love-and-strife-34553523.html

Experience: My Plane Was Hijacked

Mae O'Driscoll

 

The Guardian 20^th February 2016

        

        

I moved from my native Cork to New York when I was 18. Eleven years later, when I boarded TWA Flight 840 on 29 August 1969, I was a seasoned traveller who enjoyed flying.

 

The plane was headed for Tel Aviv, but my friend Cathy and I were going to Athens, the second last stop; two friends were joining the flight in Rome. Cathy and I were in first class with only two other passengers when we left Italy.

 

We had noticed the woman who was sat directly behind us while we were on the coach to the plane at Leonardo da Vinci airport. She was very striking, young and glamorous. The other passenger, a man, was in the aisle seat of the front row on the opposite side of the plane. Not long after we took off, the woman moved to the aisle seat just in front of me, and struck up a conversation with the man. We were quite impressed, and thought she seemed sophisticated, chatting up a man she didn’t know.

 

Then, as one of the stewardesses, as they were called then, was bringing the captain his lunch, the woman shoved her aside and rushed into the cockpit, rapidly followed by the man. I knew immediately that we’d been hijacked. Cathy couldn’t believe it.

 

The woman, who we later found out was Leila Khaled, announced that the plane had been taken on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and said that there was one among us who was responsible “for the killing of Palestinian men, women and children”. Cathy and I were moved to the back of the plane to seats near our friends. People were very shocked, but there was no panic. I imagine this was because the crew remained very professional, and most people hadn’t witnessed the hijack.

 

Everyone was looking around, wondering who the “one among us” was. It later emerged that the PFLP thought Yitzhak Rabin, then the Israeli ambassador to Washington, was on the flight. He wasn’t.

 

The flight was eerily quiet, just the background hum of the plane and at one point a small baby crying. After four hours or so, the cabin manager made an announcement, reassuring us that we had enough fuel. I hadn’t even thought about fuel, so that made me very anxious. The anxiety wasn’t alleviated by discovering that two small Israeli jets were flying on either side of our plane.

 

I was so scared that my knees were knocking, but I honestly didn’t think I was going to die. I figured that the hijackers would put their own self-preservation first and make sure we landed safely. Not everyone felt the same. Cathy was terrified and the woman in front of me said goodbye to her husband, “in case we die”.

 

Finally, the crew told us we were making an emergency landing in Damascus and could take one small bag with us. I thought that if I died, it didn’t matter what I took, but if not, I’d need my passport, traveller’s cheques and makeup.

 

The captain landed the plane smoothly and we were rapidly evacuated. The crew told us to run in the direction of the wind, but it was getting dark and there was no wind, only heat. Behind us, the hijackers threw grenades into the cockpit, destroying it and setting the plane alight.

 

The hijackers fired guns at the fuel tanks as we ran barefoot though a field of thorns. Amazingly, there wasn’t enough fuel left to detonate. The Syrian authorities sent buses to take us to the University of Damascus for interrogation. As I wasn’t American or Israeli, they weren’t too interested in me, and eventually I was reunited with Cathy and our friends.

 

The following day, the Syrians gave us shoes and took us to see the Palestinian refugee camps. I hadn’t much love for Khaled, but seeing where a whole generation had grown up homeless made me view things in a different light: those camps were a breeding ground for revolutionaries, and understandably so.

 

We finally got to Athens at 3am on Sunday morning, grateful to be alive and determined to make the most of our vacation. I still fly, but now insist on sitting near an emergency exit.

 

 

• As told to AM Scanlon

 

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/19/my-plane-was-hijacked-experience

Crashing Star Damien Molony a stealth hit on British Television

 

Actor Damien Molony has quietly invaded TV screens across the water.

 

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

 

21/02/2016 

 

THIS IS THE FULL UNABRIDGED INTERVIEW.  

 

Damien Molony is the most ‘unactorly’ of actors.  There is no bravado, grandiosity or showbiz anecdotery with this man, instead he is quiet, softly spoken, unassuming, thoughtful and genuinely pleased by praise. 

 

Molony is a good looking fella but not in an alarmingly handsome way, instead his looks have a chameleon quality that allow him to disappear into his characters.

 

His ordinariness is key to Anthony, the character he plays in Crashing, the comedy series on Channel 4.  Anthony is a nice guy, well-intentioned but a bit of a wimp and a bit of an eejit. 

 

Anthony is polar opposite of the aptly named Jack (DI Weston) in Suspects – the Channel 5, mostly improvised, cop drama which also stars Cold Feet veteran Faye Ripley.   Jack is a real lad - cocky, sure of himself and verging on swaggering.  He's very sexy.   Unlike Hal, Molony's debut character on TV, the uptight OCD vampire in cult hit Being Human. 

Crashing, written and also starring Phoebe Waller Bridge, is set mainly in a disused, rather dilapidated hospital, where a group of ‘guardians’ are living communally for cheap rent. (This isn't just a comedy set-up; London is full of otherwise vacant properties populated by 'guardians'.  Molony visited one in an office block on Piccadilly Circus a few years ago, and doesn't dismiss out of hand the idea of living in one himself.)

 

Chef Anthony and his uptight fiancé event-planner Kate are guardians in order to save money for their wedding and the deposit on their own home.  When Anthony’s old friend Lulu (Waller Bridge) arrives unannounced and decides to join the commune its quite obvious to everyone, especially poor Kate, that their relationship is not straightforward. “Phoebe always told me that Anthony was a coward,” Molony explains to me.  “That was very helpful for me.   From Anthony’s point of view – he has this perfectly pleasant very steady relationship; he’s got this very happy, nice, easy life for himself.  When Lulu comes in she’s obviously incredibly wild, carefree and fun, everything Kate’s not and they have this incredible past relationship where they are just so at ease with each other. Over the series you see him struggle more and more as he tries to put a lid on his feelings for Lulu because he knows that down that path danger lies”

 

When he got the part of Anthony in Crashing Molony didn’t have to go far to do his research as his brother is a chef in London.  “I rang him and asked him to send me pictures of burns and other bizarre scars he has!” he says laughing but adds “I also talked to him about what a chef does.  For example, do you wipe your hands on a tea towel that’s attached to your apron?   No, absolutely not! He had all these wonderful little titbits that were very subtle and very important in helping me develop my character.”

Molony always wanted to be an actor but growing up in the village of Johnston Bridge, Co Kildare he had no idea how to go about it.  His Dad is the local doctor and Molony makes the ordinary things of his childhood sound magical. “I grew up loving the showmanship of WWF Wresting, the humour of the Simpsons, the heroics of MacGyver,” he says.  "I was always in awe of… the ceremony of ordering popcorn and Maltesers and taking your seat at the cinema or the pantomime at the Gaiety.” 

 

After leaving school Molony went to Trinity College Dublin where he did a four-year degree in Business and Politics.  Instead of making a beeline to the college’s famous acting society Players, he avoided it.  “I always thought you might need an ‘in’ with Players.” When Molony did become involved it was by chance.  “A guy on my course was supposed to be doing a part in Two Gentlemen of Verona.  He came up to me one day and said “I’m terrified; I can’t do it.  Would you do it for me please?”  He offered me the part on a plate so I said yes.  After that I did a few more plays during my fourth year.” 

As he neared the end of his degree friends told him he should apply to drama schools in London.   “I though “Yeah, why not?””

 

The young would-be actor found a place at he Drama Centre London and graduated in 2011.  By the time he officially left Molony was already working professionally having been spotted by a casting director.  His first job was Tis a Pity She’s a Whore in the prestigious West Yorkshire Playhouse and while he was doing that he was asked to audition for the part of Hal in Being Human. 

 

Being Human was a huge cult hit on BBC 3 and had already run for three series in 2011 when Molony auditioned.  The first three series starred Aidan Turner and Hal, Molony’s character, was written as Turner’s “replacement”.

 

It was a daunting first job in TV yet Molony managed to win over even the most ardent Turner fans with his performance.  The pair have never worked together or even met but Molony is full of admiration for the Poldark star ands says “it was a real honour to take over from where he left off.” 

 

The revamped Being Human ran for another two series. Molony then played a Victorian policeman in Ripper Street before moving on to a modern cop in Suspects – which will return soon for a fifth series.  

 

Despite being kept so busy with his television career in the UK Molony continues to do a lot of theatre and filmed Irish TV drama Clean Break with Aidan McArdle.  (“He’s fantastic!”) which was his first TV job in Ireland. “I’m so grateful to Maureen Hughes the casting director for getting me over.  We had a huge amount of fun making it down in Wexford.  We had a lot of big nights out.”

 

Although Molony has worked solidly for the past five years and gone from success to success he’s still quite awestruck at how he makes his living.  “I still pinch myself when I’m on set or when the director calls Action or the curtain opens on stage.  I’ve got butterflies in my stomach even now talking about it.”

 

Crashing in on Channel 4 on Demand.

 

For the abridged interview as printed in The Sunday Independent http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/television/crashing-star-damien-molony-a-stealth-hit-on-british-tv-34469020.html

 

 

 

 

John Goodman:

A Great Actor and a

Good Man

 

 

John Goodman has a reputation for making life awkward for journalists but Anne Marie Scanlon discusses his latest film Trumbo with a true gentleman 

The Sunday Independent 31/01/2016

 

 

John Goodman has a reputation and quite frankly I’m scared even though I’ve been a fan since he first appeared as Dan Connor, the husband of Roseanne, in the TV sitcom of the same name.  I’d happily watch a two-hour film of Goodman reading names from a telephone directory - that distinctive voice alone would be worth it. 

 

But yet, I’m nervous because as The Guardian newspaper put it last year he’s “a famously tricky interviewee.”   I’m meeting Goodman to talk about his latest film, Trumbo, a biopic of real-life screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad) who was jailed and blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Goodman plays Frank King, a sleazy film producer who hires the blacklisted writer. 

 

The first thing Goodman says to me is where would I prefer to sit?  Then, where would I like him to sit.  He quickly follows up these enquires with others.  Would I like a drink of water?  Is it OK if he has one?  Am I warm enough?  Honestly, the last time anyone was this solicitous of my comfort I was visibly pregnant.  Where is the “tricky” actor who has reduced grown men to shivering wrecks? 

 

Mind you, l'm still worried. Maybe Goodman is a bit like King who comes across as an amiable schlub until you annoy him and find yourself surrounded by a trashed room and pinned to the wall by a baseball bat.  I have to check whether Goodman is packing and ask him if he has a baseball bat on his person.  “No,” he replies smiling, “but I have a Babe Ruth model Louisville slugger by my bed just in case somebody breaks in.” 

 

I ask him if like his on-screen character Frank, he’s ever had cause to use it.  “I’ve had call but I’ve never done it,” he replies deadpan and then goes on to say “I think everybody likes that scene (there were cheers from the audience when I saw the film) is because so many people want to do it.”

 

Despite having his trademark jowls covered by a beard and having lost a huge amount of weight Goodman is easily recognisable as the star of a variety of movies including The Artist, The Big Lebowski and Momuments Men.  He’s also leant his distinctive voice to a number of characters including the original Yellow M&M and Sully in Monsters Inc.

 

Now a youthful looking 63, Goodman was born in St Louis Missouri and got the acting bug in school.  “We had a gorgeous theatre teacher,” he tells me.  “I forgot my lines the only night we did (the play) and I started improvising.  I had a walk around the table a couple of times and when I finished I picked up (the lines) and sat down.  And she gave me a big hug,” Goodman smiles at the memory, “so I said there’s something in this.”

 

During his high school years Goodman carried on acting, not only because it came easily to him, but because he felt as if he didn’t fit in.  “I was really shy so I turned into a kind of class loudmouth trying to be funny.”  When Goodman went to university he realised that acting was something he would like to pursue.  He didn’t go on a Football Scholarship as has been widely reported.  “I don’t know where that comes from,” he tells me.  “(I wanted to) play but I had no talent and I was slow.”  Instead “I got into the theatre department, I reckoned there were more girls in theatre than there were playing football.”

 

In 1975 Goodman moved to New York city to pursue a career in acting and lived in the appropriately named Hell’s Kitchen, a less than salubrious neighbourhood.  The actor loved it.  “The city was broke, there was graffiti everywhere, garbage in the street, but the arts scene was thriving.”  Hell’s Kitchen was perfect for Goodman as it’s close to the Broadway Theatre district and the broke young actor was able to walk everywhere. His digs in an old-fashioned tenement building, with the bathtub in the kitchen and the toilet in the hallway, weren’t exactly safe.  “One morning (my girlfriend) found a hypodermic needle and some cooked bottle caps in (the toilet) - someone had been using it as a shooting gallery. I was frightened all the time but,” he adds smiling, “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

 

The actor finally moved to LA after getting cast in Roseanne.  He tells me he couldn’t have moved there before that as “I was very broke.  Once I had money I’d blow it on crap.”  Rosanne, the story of an ordinary working class couple and their three children was a revolutionary show in many ways.  It presented family life in a clear-eyed non-sentimental way (unlike it’s contemporary The Cosby Show).  Early on gay characters were integrated into plotlines which was radical in the days when Ellen, Rosie O’Donnell and even George Michael were still in the closet. 

 

I ask Goodman if Roseanne gets the credit it deserves for being such a groundbreaking show in so many ways.  “Oh I don’t know.  It’s not for me to say,” Goodman says quietly but then adds “I don’t think she (Roseanne Barr) gets the credit she deserves. She was a tower of strength…she could cut the crap out of a script faster than anybody I’ve ever met before or since.  She just knew what was funny, what was essential.  (The show) was a great ride.” 

 

Things are going well so far.  But I take a deep breath when I ask the actor about his much-publicised battle with alcoholism.  In other interviews it's often at this point he turns "tricky".  Instead he's more than happy to tell me about his journey to sobriety eight years ago.  Many people were surprised when paparazzi shots of Goodman in an alcohol treatment facility emerged in 2007 (the Paps were looking for Brittney Spears, he tells me).  Unlike many of his Hollywood contemporaries Goodman never publically had the reputation of being a big drinker or party animal. 

“I (thought) that I did,” he tells looking both sad and pained.  “I’d been caught drunk on set a couple of times during a couple of pictures - that was embarrassing as that was the one thing I swore I’d never do.  It became habitual.  In my mind I was turning into the town drunk and I pictured everybody talking about me.” 

 

Although sober for almost a decade the actor still looks troubled when recalling the moment, he knew “I was so bad I had to be hospitalised…. I was supposed to present at an awards show and I couldn’t answer the bell (his cue for the stage) as I was so drunk.  I’m proud that I’ve quit.”  Despite having 8 years of sobriety under his belt Goodman isn’t taking anything for granted and adds, “or trying to quit, day by day.  (I know) there’s going to be that hole there that wants to be filled with “fun” with quotation marks, but I can’t even touch it so it’s going to remain there - wanting something when it already has everything it needs.”  Then he admits that he started smoking again.  “I’m too old for that,” he says “but it’s always something (of an addictive nature)”

 

Despite what his Wikipedia entry says Goodman has no Irish relatives that he knows of but would like to visit Ireland and “maybe do the Joyce Walk on Bloomsday in Dublin.”  I tell him that we’re very proud of Joyce in Ireland and then a few seconds later we both say “now!” in unison and kill ourselves laughing. 

 

There is still no sign of the famously “tricky” actor as I get up to leave so I tell Goodman that I had been really looking forward to meeting him as I’m a huge fan.  “What an utter disappointment for you” he answers in all seriousness.  “Far from it,” I say indignantly and he hugs me.  A huge big bear hug from John Goodman - if that’s tricky I’ll take it. 

 

Trumbo opens in cinemas nationwide on 5th February.

 

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/john-goodman-a-great-actor-and-a-good-man-34407635.html

 

Cinema: Stallone's fighting Creed stands the test of time

 

Does the world need another 'Rocky' movie?  Hell yeah, says Anne Marie Scanlon after meeting Creed star Michael B Jordan

 

The Sunday Independent 17/01/2016

 

Another Rocky movie?  Creed, the 7th movie in the franchise, is not just the continuation of Rocky Balboa’s story, but an homage and tribute to the original.  Newcomer Michael B Jordan plays Adonis (Donnie) Creed the illegitimate son of Rocky’s one-time nemesis and then great friend Apollo Creed. 

 

The original film, 40 this year, was made long before 29-year-old Jordan was born, but the film’s iconography – those montage scenes of Rocky running through Philadelphia (and up the steps outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art) along with the triumphal music, is ingrained deeply into both popular culture and our collective psyche.  Who hasn’t at some point had their own private Rocky montage? 

 

Small wonder that one of Jordan’s favourite scenes in Creed is the montage close to the final fight which re-enacts Stallone’s famous (and much imitated and parodied) running montage through the streets of Philadelphia. 

 

Director Ryan Coogler manages to echo the original but give it a fresh modern twist.  “That one gives me goose bumps,” Jordan tells me.  “Running through the city... shadowboxing, doing donuts and smelling the rubber of the tyres.  That was a really really special moment.” 

 

Jordan, who is extraordinarily handsome and, apart from a one-off episode of Law & Order, had no prior experience boxing, made his acting debut in an episode of The Cosby Show.  (He mimes a boxer ducking a blow and says “oh man, woo,” when I mention it). 

There was no arduous audition for the role of Creed as writer and director Coogler offered him the part when they were working together on Fruitvale Station.  “It took 30 seconds,” the actor says.  By contrast he spent 18 months in preparation for the role.  “It was a full-blown year and a half of commitment, of changing my body and my mind and becoming a fighter.  But it was a task I was ready to take on.”

 

While Rocky Balboa takes a back seat and steps into the role of trainer in this episode of the story, Stallone, letting himself be old and vulnerable, turns in the performance of a lifetime.  The relationship he shares on screen with the younger man is sweet, charming and utterly convincing.  What was it like in reality?  “Stallone’s amazing.  Honestly,” Jordan enthuses.  “He’s very talented and I’m always thinking of myself as a student in the game (acting).  So just to be around him…I’m like tell me whatever you want and I’m going to soak it up.  He’s so giving as an actor… Sly is a great guy and we had a lot of fun working together.”

 

In all honesty Creed is not perfect.  Director Coogler could have used a sharper pair of scissors in the cutting room.  However the supporting cast which includes Phylicia Rashad, Scottish character actor Graham McTavish and real life fighter turned actor Tony Bellew are all worth watching and the final fight scene is well worth the wait. 

 

Liverpudlian Bellew is terrifying as Pretty Ricky Conlan, a vicious fighter who, literally, cannot wait to get into the ring before pounding his opponents.  “He’s a big Teddy Bear, man,” Jordan laughs.  “He’s a really nice guy.  Any time we messed up and actually hit each other he’d get out of character and ask if I was OK.  He didn’t want to hurt me in any way.”

 

The final knock-down drag out fight between Conlan and Creed is impressive and to my untrained eye highly convincing – it’s certainly not short on gore. 

Unsurprisingly it took eight days to film after which Jordan was placed on bed rest for three days, but the pain and exhaustion were worth it.  “I couldn’t ever imagine it being as good as it is,” he says happily.  “I get excited (seeing it) and it’s not just a vanity thing like ‘oh that’s my movie’.  I just get excited because the movie is really good and I enjoyed it.”

 

 

Creed opened in cinemas nationwide on 15th January.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Days are here again as

Ron Howard's Heart is in the Sea

 

The real life epic behind the classic Moby Dick has been made into a spectacular film by Ron Howard.

Anne Marie Scanlon meets the director and cast

 

The Sunday Independent 20/12/2015

 

 

Ron Howard's working life began at the age of five, two years later he was famous as Opie in the popular US TV series The Andy Griffith Show. In his teens, Howard became a household name throughout the world, as the ultimate nice guy Richie Cunningham in the popular 70s sitcom Happy Days.

 

Despite being an acclaimed and award-winning director for the past four decades, the shadow of Richie Cunningham has been hard to shake off. Meeting Howard in person it's easy to see why. At 61 Howard is spry and under his trademark baseball cap still looks like Richie. He is also as warm and engaging and as all round 'nice' as his on-screen character ever was.

 

Having just seen his new movie In the Heart of the Sea I am a little taken aback by Howard's admission that he's no great lover of the ocean. At the age of 7, while filming a guest slot on a show, where his job "was to get thrown off the boat by a wave" he had an experience that put him off open water for life. "I was really scared," Howard admits, "and I opened my eyes under there and it was really just that 'BLUE' you know. I got to the surface screaming 'Dad Dad'. Fortunately, my character had a Dad!" he adds laughing.

The ocean in his new film isn't exactly a friendly place. The film based on the book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick recounts the true events upon which Herman Melville based Moby Dick.

 

The film features an outstanding international ensemble cast - Aussie Chris Hemsworth, Corkman Cillian Murphy up-and-coming young English actor Tom Holland and American Benjamin Walker. "I'm the only American in this great American classic!" Walker laughs. "Everyone's like 'how's your accent so good'? Because it's my accent!"

 

Walker is quite unlike his character, the stuffy, snobby and repressed Captain George Pollard. Pollard is put in charge of the Essex much to the chagrin of Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) an experienced seaman and whaler who had been promised the captaincy. Joining the pair on the doomed voyage Cillian Murphy plays Matthew Joy an alcoholic determined not to drink and Tom Holland plays Tom Nickerson, a boy on his maiden whaling trip. (Brendan Gleeson plays the older Nickerson recounting the events to Ben Whishaw's Melville).

 

All of the cast are united in their praise of their director, "He's a lovely, warm individual," Cillian Murphy says. "We all wanted to do whatever Ron was asking of us, because we all love his films and we're mad about him as a person, he's terrifically genuine." Murphy goes on to say that "Ron wanted to do the film as authentically as possible."

 

Howard was so detailed in his approach to making In the Heart of the Sea that the cast were able to work on a full-size replica of the Essex ship and even the whale had a backstory. "We went to sailor school," Walker elaborates, "learned about the different parts of the ship. We went to Cornwall, Nantucket, we rode whale boats, we did knot tying … I did all this work and then as captain, I don't really do jack!"

Tom Holland adds "we were given a huge, huge stack of books (to read). The amount of research we were given was so helpful in that when we came on set we knew exactly what we were making and that's what makes the film so authentic".

 

The often spectacular 3D effects enhance the authenticity that Howard was after - there were times I actually felt a bit seasick. During the scene where the young Nickerson has to go inside the head of a dead whale I had to look away as it was so grim. "That was very lifelike and very real," Holland explains with a grimace. "It smelled real to me, it was pretty gross inside and there was very little acting required."

 

The 3D is such an integral part of the experience that I'm amazed when Howard reveals that he shot the film as a 2D movie. "I don't necessarily love the 3D experience all the time," the director says, "but I was impressed by what it did - not just for the action, but also for the immersive aspect to it." Walker adds that 3D can "give a movie the depth of a play, it can make you feel like you're in the conversation." Or on the ship where whalers are gutting and slicing a massive whale. Spectacular but not pleasant.

 

Growing up in Australia Chris Hemsworth has spent plenty of time "surfing and diving but never on boats, they just weren't my thing. Navigating my way around a ship and learning the lingo was a whole new thing - it was a bit like 'doctor speak' where the words mean absolutely nothing (to me). It's like learning another language but we did know a bunch of phrases so that in scenes when we were moving we could improvise."

 

Hemsworth previously worked on Rush, a biopic about race car driver James Hunt, with Ron Howard and it was he who took the script for In the Heart of the Sea to the director. "I was swept up in the scale of it and rarely do you read something that properly transports you to another place and it had that effect on me. I was looking for a drama and a more character-driven piece and this script had that."

In simple terms the script is the story of a long fruitless whale hunting expedition, a shipwreck and the subsequent fight for survival endured by the remaining sailors adrift in tiny boats.

 

However the story also contains many complex themes including the class system and ecology, all as relevant today as they were 200 years ago. Cillian Murphy cautions that those themes are there if the audience chooses to see them. "Films should not be prescriptive," he says, "no film should ever push. It's a big blockbuster movie but if you want to see it from the other perspective you can."

 

Much has been made of the severe diet Howard placed his actors on while filming so that they could accurately portray the starving sailors. "Of course, inevitably when you've got loads of men together it gets competitive," Murphy explains and goes on to say that despite the lack of food all the actors remained realistic about their experience.

 

"We had to remember that we were feeling a tiny, tiny, tiny version of what those guys felt," Murphy explains while Walker adds "I feel bad complaining about "oh I didn't get to eat a lot" - these were real people, it's the smallest fraction of what they experienced. It's like," he puts on a whiney voice, 'I had this great part in a Ron Howard movie and my fingers got pruney.' Uptown problems."

 

 

In the Heart of the Sea opens in cinemas nationwide on 26th December.

 

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Brand new stars for

brand new Star Wars

 

Just ahead of one of the most anticipated film releases of the year, Anne Marie Scanlon meets three new members of the Star Wars galaxy

 

The Sunday Independent 06/12/2015 

 

In 1977, the original Star Wars film propelled three 'unknown' actors to stratospheric fame overnight. Harrison Ford was a relatively ancient (in Hollywood years) 36 and legend has it that he was working as a set carpenter when Star Wars writer and director George Lucas saw his potential and cast him as the iconic Space Cowboy Han Solo. Ford, along with his original "unknown" co-stars Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia, the woman with the worst hairstyle in the history of cinema) makes a much-hyped return in the seventh episode in the series Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

 

This latest instalment in the franchise introduces three new characters: Finn, Rey and Captain Phasma. Like Lucas before him, director JJ Abrams wanted fresh faces in his first foray into the Star Wars universe. None of the new trio enjoyed a serendipitous Ford-like moment; instead, all went through a rigorous casting process that lasted seven long months.

 

When I meet the newbies, John Boyega (Finn), Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Gwendoline Christie (Captain Phasma), they are all bubbling over with excitement about appearing in the new film.

Christie, who plays the first female baddie in Star Wars history, is far from unknown and already has a cult following as Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones. However, the 37-year-old actress knows that appearing in Star Wars will thrust her into a level of fame and scrutiny beyond anything she has known before.

Because of the secrecy that surrounds Star Wars, I wasn't allowed to see the new film or to ask the actors any questions about the plot. I tried but they were all keeping their vows of silence. Christie did admit that "playing a villain in Star Wars was delicious".

 

Meeting the female Darth Vader in real life was not as intimidating as I expected. At 6ft 3ins, Christie, dressed very simply in a white shirt, is all smiles and giggles and admits to being easily intimidated and "really afflicted" by being star-struck.

 

Christie once turned down the chance to meet one of her idols, Tilda Swinton. "I just couldn't," she says breathlessly, as she was afraid of making a fool of herself.

 

With a cultural phenomenon like Star Wars, all decisions are open to criticism by hardcore fans and some found the idea of a black Stormtrooper (Finn) hard to take. Although "unknown", John Boyega, at 23 is already a seasoned professional, having worked steadily since 2011.

 

Boyega is both relaxed and exuberant but his response to the criticism of his being cast as Finn was a lesson in how to deal with trolls. He simply told them to "get over it".

He is unsure how many individual auditions he had during the seven months he was trying to win the part of Finn. "I can't tell you how many rounds there were, because they're probably judging me on things I didn't even know I was being judged on. 'Let's see how he puts on his jacket…'" he laughs.

 

Boyega got the life-changing news that he'd won the much-coveted role from JJ Abrams in person.

"I'm done, I'm finished, I'm tired, I'm just, 'Is it a yes or is it a no?' And it just so happened to be a yes. It was a lot to take in at that moment. I called my agent and I was in tears."

 

Newcomer Daisy Ridley, also 23, just exudes enthusiasm. Clutching a green juice and wearing a Philip Lim jacket, the young actor tells me she really wanted the part of Rey not just because it was Star Wars but because she had never done a film.

"And it was a film with people I'd seen in other films!" she elaborates. "And when I met Harrison I was like, 'Oh my God, Harrison Ford!'"

 

Ridley is more than aware of the fact that once The Force Awakens is released both Rey and she will become a role model for young women.

"I'm not a crazy 20-something. I would much prefer to stay in and watch Great British Bake Off than go out.

"I'm just a normal girl from London, I'm not really doing anything special (unlike) teenage activist Malala Yousafzai - she is really doing special things and I am not."

Later, when talking about the prevalence of fame worship in the world today, Ridley says: "There are people who are really making a difference in the world out there. For a person to look up to, I will direct anyone towards Malala."

 

Boyega is under no illusion about the way his life is about to change dramatically, going from relative anonymity to constant judgement and scrutiny.

 

"That's life," he replies stoically, adding "But I'm in Star Wars. That just dilutes everything. It's fun!"

 

Like her co-stars, Christie, now 37, has grown up with Star Wars and says of the original trio of stars: "They're legends, I hold them in such high regard."

 

Instead of being intimidated by the stature of the 'originals', Christie found them to be "lovely, normal, charming people (who) don't treat you any differently… working together on a film".

 

Daisy Ridley says: "(Harrison Ford) he's a normal guy. We had a conversation about normal things." When I ask her what, she replies "He likes planes," then she quickly adds: "Well, obviously that's not normal for me!"

 

All three actors use the word "surreal" about their experience as they're now immortalised as action figures and even postage stamps.

 

"The main thing is the film," Ridley states, "but it's nice those extra things come along with it. Crazy as they are. Being a stamp!"

 

Christie is particularly enamoured of the fact that her character has been made into a pet toy. "I love that idea," she says.

"I can't wait to get one of those. Everyone's going to get them as Christmas gifts. I love the chew toy!"

 

As Star Wars returns to the big screen and Harrison Ford returns to the role that made him famous, maybe the legend about his original casting will finally be put to rights.

He wasn't 'discovered' whilst hammering nails on set. The reality is a far better story. George Lucas employed Ford to read lines with actors auditioning for the role of Han Solo; Lucas soon realised that Ford was the perfect man for the role.

 

And the rest is Hollywood history.

 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens on December 17.

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Emily Blunt's masterclass in subtlety

Emily Blunt plays a conflicted FBI agent in her latest movie Sicario. She talks to us about morality and motherhood, and being a real-life wimp

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent

04/10/2015 

When I meet Emily Blunt in a posh hotel in London, the media storm about her 'un-American' comment is still lingering. Blunt only recently became a naturalised American citizen, and in the course of an interview with The Hollywood Reporter made a throwaway remark that after watching the Republican Presidential hopefuls debate, she wondered "What have I done?”

To be fair to Blunt, those running for the Republican nomination include Donald Trump, a man who seems determined to daily outdo himself with outrageous comments. However, the actress is quick to defend her adopted homeland when I put the subsequent controversy down to cultural differences (and the general inability of Americans to laugh at themselves).

"It's not a cultural thing," she says, "I think it was a small group of people who took offence and didn't see it as a joke, whereas the rest of the world did. We are in a world where opinions are polarised and you're always going to upset somebody but I certainly was astonished by the outrage - I really felt that it was an innocuous joke.”

Blunt looks, and sounds, at home in the posh London hotel. She's from an affluent suburb of the British capital, is the daughter of a QC, has a naturally plummy accent and is wearing the most gorgeous pale blue Christian Louboutin shoes.

For a brief and scary moment, I think I'm meeting Emily, the bitchy fashionista from The Devil Wears Prada - Blunt's breakout 2006 role for which she was nominated for both a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress.

When I tell her that The Devil Wears Prada (which also starred Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci, who has since married Blunt's sister Felicity) is one of my favourite films, and far superior to the book it was based on, she declares an emphatic "Thank God!" then adds, "It gets quoted to me every week so DON'T!" When she starts laughing I realise that Blunt appears to have little in common with her Prada character except sharing a name, looks and good taste in clothes.

Emily the actress is warm and funny and quite happy to swap stories about motherhood (her daughter Hazel was born in February 2014), and the US naturalisation swearing-in ceremony. Newly minted citizens must swear to "entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty”.  The pair of us spend several minutes laughing about what exactly defines a "potentate", before deciding that Queen Elizabeth and Michael D don't qualify.

Emily the actress is also a far cry from law-enforcement officer Kate Macer, the heroine of Blunt's latest film Sicario, which, as the audience are informed at the start of the movie, means 'hitman' in Mexico.  The film is an action-driven thriller directed by French Canadian Denis Villeneuve, and also stars Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin. The action starts straight away as Kate leads her FBI Kidnap Response Team into a seemingly innocuous house in a Phoenix, Arizona, suburb. There are no kidnap victims but scores of dead, semi-mummified bodies hidden behind the walls and under the floorboards.

Kate is nothing like the blow-dried, expertly made-up and designer-outfitted female FBI agents TV viewers are used to. While she is not untouched by being in a charnel house and the subsequent loss of 

two of her team in an explosion, she appears to take it all in her stride - for her it's just another day at the office.

Most noticeably, as a character, Kate is defined by her role as a law-enforcement officer, rather than by her sex. Apart from a subsequent throwaway line about needing a new bra, there is little in the script that relies on Kate's gender.

In preparation for the role, Blunt spoke to female FBI agents and found that for them, like Kate, sexism and discrimination was not an issue they faced. "When I asked them 'do you deal with sexism in your profession?' all of them said, 'It's not an issue for me', flat out, not an issue; 'Oh yeah, you just bite back and then they're fine, they're just a bunch of gorillas,' so I found that interesting, that sort of casual attitude towards it. I loved that reaction - that they are unaffected by the men around them.”

To say that the film is morally ambiguous is quite the understatement and it was this that, in part, drew Blunt to the role. "I read the script and I thought that it was quite representative of the world we're in now - that line between right and wrong becomes blurred and sometimes it's erased for people.

The film deals with these cycles of violence and the question of 'does the end justify the means'? But I don't think it offers an answer. The audience confront [the film] with their own moral compass and what they believe would be the right way to deal with such an impossible situation.”

The "impossible situation" that Kate, the special task force and the US government face, is the unwinnable 'war on drugs' and the growing strength of the powerful drug cartels.

Like everything else in the movie, Kate unravels in a very understated way. Blunt provides a masterclass in 'less is more' acting. But while she gives a 'quiet' performance, she is all the more powerful for that. And the film itself is full of tension and suspense. The sequence where a US convoy goes to the lawless Juarez region in Mexico, is proper edge-of-the-seat stuff.

Blunt confesses that in real life she wouldn't be up to doing Kate's job. "I'd be absolutely useless at it," she says. "I'm a bit of a wimp and I wouldn't have the courage. Having a child, you become very aware of your own mortality. I think that everything becomes more threatening, everything. Fear gets exaggerated for you and you do it to yourself, you let your mind go crazy worrying. At least I do! I've always been a worry wart [on behalf of] other people but now the other person is my heart.”

However, despite the constant anxiety that accompanies motherhood, Blunt is determined not to let it determine her relationship with her daughter. "I don't want to be one of those Helicopter Mums, I want to raise a daughter who's very independent and I want her to find something that she loves to do, just as I found something I want to do.”

'Sicario' (15) goes on general release nationwide on October 8.

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Men from U.N.C.L.E. bring heat to Cold War

We meet Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer who bring talent and glamour to Guy Ritchie's latest movie.

Anne Marie Scanlon

The Sunday Independent 10/08/2015 

Despite her alleged relationship with Kerryman Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander has yet to visit Ireland. "I've booked two Ryanair tickets that have not been used because I've been away working but I've really tried and I hope to get there soon.

Alicia is talking to me alongside her co-stars in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Armie Hammer, who plays Illya Kuryakin (nominated for several awards for his memorable performance as the Winklevoss Twins in The Social Network), lovely Aussie actress Elizabeth Debicki who plays arch-villain Victoria, and Henry Cavill who cinema goers know better as Superman Man of Steel.

Cavill plays Napoleon Solo, a role made famous on 1960s television by Robert Vaughn and created by Ian Fleming. In the original TV series the organisation U.N.C.L.E already existed, and sworn Cold War enemies KGB Kuryakin and CIA Solo were secretly working together. Guy Ritchie's film is the story of how the two meet and their first mission together.  Tom Cruise was originally meant to play Solo but after seeing the film it's hard to imagine anyone but Cavill doing it.

One thing you quickly find out about Cavill is that he doesn't like the expression 'Bromance' and seeing as he basically is Superman (the guy is built) I'm not going to argue the toss with him.

The English actor is charming, funny, and affable, but I get the sense that underneath the veneer he's a true 'Man of Steel'. As Debicki recalls, "I worked most of my scenes with Henry and he's an uber-professional, he comes to set and knows exactly what he's doing with the scene. I mean, the scene where he rips the tablecloth out (she's referring to the trick of removing a tablecloth while leaving the table settings intact), he actually did that! I mean who does that? Who learns to do that?" she asks laughing.

"I thought people were joking about that," Vikander says.

"He pulled it out once," Debicki continues, "and I thought it was an amazing fluke. They never used the [stunt] guy on call because Henry did it every time."

"I just learned magic," Cavill says casually, and then adds, "I'm the next Harry Potter!"

Armie Hammer turns to me and says "he's already got your nose," referring to a particularly American joke which makes me laugh out loud. (Would it be unprofessional of me to admit at this point that I'm completely smitten with all 6 foot 5 inches of Armie Hammer? It's not just that he looks like he's never been within five miles of a trans-fat, but he seems genuinely lovely.)

Both Hammer and Cavill are very specific about the relationship between their characters. There is no 'Bromance' Cavill explains. "It's like two boxers who hate each other and they're always fighting each other. It's never going to be 'Hey buddy, let's go out for a drink'."

The pivotal moment in the relationship between Solo and Kuryakin, and indeed in the story, comes when Solo saves Kuryakin's life. The scene, where Solo enjoys a snack, while henchmen on a boat use machine guns on Illya, who is trapped in the water, is typical of a Guy Ritchie film, being highly comic, full of irony, big on small details and underneath very serious.

"It's more than just a funny scene," Cavill explains, "there are funny moments but it's actually quite a powerful scene - there's a man about to die and another man watching him, who doesn't like him and thinks, I should probably do the right thing here as much as it pains me. If you ignore the humour it's really quite a serious moment."

You could say the same about the rest of the film. When we're in comic book violence-mode, Ritchie suddenly thrusts genuine images of torture into the audience's face, reminding us that the Nazis weren't really comedy villians at all.

All four actors are too young to remember the original 1960s television series, but each is equally enthusiastic about writer and director Guy Ritchie. "We knew what the story was, we knew what we were trying to make (and) the end product was so different," Debicki tells me, "it had been touched by the hand of Guy, he's got a unique way of storytelling. I enjoyed watching the film; I found it incredibly entertaining and funny."

Vikander agrees, "I really enjoyed watching it. Guy is very collaborative with his actors, but to see the final product. As an actor I felt extremely secure because it was always so obvious that Guy knew what film he wanted to make".

Cavill and Hammer both reiterate these sentiments. "What's special about Guy is the environment he creates on set, the collaboration, from the very beginning we were all putting our input into everything, and it just felt like we were creating something together," Cavill says. "As an actor that makes you trust your director, because you know you're all on the same page."

Ritchie's devotion to detail is obvious in the way the 1960s are so carefully rendered - the era is almost a character in itself. One of the reasons for this is Joanna Johnston's amazing costumes.

While Vikander's Gaby gets to wear some stunningly beautiful outfits as well as fun, Carnaby Street-style Mod gear, its Victoria's uber-glam, ultra-60s hair, make-up and clothes that steal the sartorial show. Her signature outfit is an optical black and white column dress which immediately reminded me of Cruella Deville. Debicki tells me I'm not the first person to make that connection but the reference was not a deliberate one.

"We have too few female villains," Vikander says, "so she's just the one people have in their heads."

All of the costumes were meticulously researched. "We took direct patterns from Vogue magazines and recreated a lot," Debicki explains. "They seem outrageous in a way. I don't think people were walking down the street looking like Victoria".

"Are you sure?" Vikander responds. "I was surprised a few times in Italy, I saw some amazing women with amazing outfits It's probably just you and I," she says, addressing her co-star, "who think 'five extra minutes to put some cream on, I'd rather sleep'. So I'm impressed seeing [people making an effort with hair, clothes and makeup.]"

Of course, when you look like Alicia Vikander you can well afford to take the extra five minutes in bed. Given the film is partly set in Rome in the 1960s, and Vikander gets to run down the Spanish Steps, comparisons to Audrey Hepburn become inevitable. Both are small, dark, and beautiful with distinctive voices and a background in ballet. Hepburn has long been a style icon and Alicia has just been made the new face and 'muse' of Louis Vuitton. Vikander looks both embarrassed and flattered by the comparison with Hepburn.

Although Vikander and Debicki are happy to talk about the costumes, they are both quick to emphasise that their characters are more than mere fashion plates. "Guy and Lionel [Wigram] wrote these great women," Vikander says. She adds that in spy films "women are often a sidekick or a lot of the focus is just about how beautiful they are and they're an accessory, but these are two sentient women."

I wouldn't call The Man from U.N.C.L.E a spy film; yes, the plot revolves around spying during the Cold War, but the film covers plenty of other genres too, comic caper, buddy movie, there's even a bit of romance, as well as Ritchie's signature action sequences. It's not one specific genre but, as Alicia Vikander, calls it a "wonderful cocktail."

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. opens nationwide August 14.

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Preview: Mockingbird's power to mesmerise

The Sunday Independent 12/04/2015

Few books evoke such deeply held sentiment as Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Lee's only novel to date (her much anticipated second book Go Set a Watchman is due out in July this year), To Kill A Mockingbird has never been out of print in the 55 years since it was first published in 1960 (despite Lee's publishers and editors thinking it would not sell particularly well) and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961.

The plot and characters of the book are based on Harper Lee's own childhood family and neighbours. The story is set in Maycomb, narrated by Scout and follows her adventures with her older brother Jem and their friend Dill (who is modelled on Lee's childhood friend Truman Capote).

The trio are obsessed with seeing their reclusive neighbour Boo Radley who never comes out of his rather rundown house. When a local black man, Tom Robinson, is accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell, the judge appoints Atticus Finch, Scout and Jem's father, to defend him. Finch, based on Lee's own father, is a man who both espouses and lives the values of tolerance, respect and empathy (he tells his children that to understand someone they must stand in their shoes).

Given the reverence in which the book is held it's hardly surprising that it took until 1990 before Christopher Sergel adapted To Kill A Mockingbird for the stage. The current production of that adaptation, directed by Timothy Sheader, began in 2013 at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre. Despite the show now being indoors, the impressive, yet simple, set gives it a breezy, outdoors feel. The innovative out-of-doors look is completed by a corrugated iron fence at the back and sides of the stage and a big, extremely realistic looking tree, (which was part of the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony).

Fans and devotees of the book will not be disappointed, as the stage production relies heavily upon the original text and incorporates it into the show at every available opportunity. As the show begins, the stage is empty and actors begin to emerge from the audience, each with a different edition of the book, reading aloud from the opening chapter. This narration continues throughout the show as the actors jump in and out of various roles, with the exception of Atticus, played with calm and dignity by Daniel Betts, and the three children - Scout, an impressive Jemima Barrett making her professional stage debut, Jem, an understated but powerful performance from Harry Bennet, and Dill, given all the oomph that a mini-Truman Capote could want by Leo Heller.

The four central performances are compelling, but when Zackary Momoh takes the stage as Tom Robinson during the courtroom scene in the second act he is quite simply mesmerising. In the segregated courtroom there is no room for the children so they go upstairs to the 'Negro' gallery. On account of his race, Robinson is considered guilty from the start. The only people who do not know they are attending a show trial are the three children. It is heart-breaking when Jem is so convinced that the jury will acquit Robinson, given the remarkable performance his father has given and the incontrovertible evidence he's established. When Atticus explains to his disillusioned son, "Courage is when you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what," it becomes obvious why this character has been so loved by generations of readers.

To Kill A Mockingbird is at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre from Monday, May 4, until Saturday, May 9. Tickets begin at €15.

Ticketmaster (0818) 719 377

www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie

Sunday Indo Living

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/theatre-arts/preview-mockingbirds-power-to-mesmerise-31133363.html

Mumpreneur, momager and mummylancer: Let's ditch these patronising names

 Freelance journalist Anne Marie Scanlon used to be

known as just that - until she had a child and became a

'mummylancer'. She explains why these awful terms have to go.

 The Telegraph 23/04/2015

The internet is a great distraction, especially when you work from home.

Take the other day. I was supposed to be writing a story - instead I logged on to a forum for freelance journalists to see if there was any gossip.

I logged off again pretty smartish when I was referred to, by another woman, as a ‘Mummylancer’ - a sweeping term she used to describe all female freelance writers, who happen to have children.

Mummylancer? Are you kidding me? Could you get any more patronising?

Yes, I am a mother and have been for the past eight years. But I was already a freelance journalist for seven years prior to that.

The only major change to my work that came as a result of giving birth was that I became a hell of a lot better at time management – because a screaming infant does not understand that you have to send just one more email.

I don’t sit down to work every day as ‘Mummy’ – and neither do the men in my profession (most professions really) see themselves as fathers first and foremost during working hours.

Bet you’ve never heard of a Dadlancer? No, me neither.

Then again, I’ve never heard of a ‘working dad,’ but we’re constantly hearing about ‘working mums’ (they are either the bane or saviour of civilisation, depending on what you’re reading).

As if there was such a thing as a ‘non-working mother’.

Of course Mummylancer is just the latest in a line of cutesy makey-uppy words with ‘Mum’ or ‘Mom’ stuck in front of them. My son signed with a talent agency last year and that makes me his ‘Momager’ apparently – “a manager who is also ones mother”.

(He has had only one part, so I’m not much cop as either a manager or a Momager. Thank God I only aspire to be his mother.)

We have the Kardashians to thank for ‘Momager’ (I promise I will stop saying it soon - it’s enough to give you the heaves) as Kim is managed by her mother Kris Jenner. That pretty much says it all really.

Almost as ubiquitous as the Kardashians is the word ‘Mumpreneur’ (Mompreneur if you’re American).

Mumpreneur is defined as: “a female business owner who is actively balancing the role of Mum and the role of entrepreneur”.

Oddly, there are no Dadpreneurs, Papreneurs or Paterpreneurs who are actively balancing the role of father with the role of entrepreneur. Of course there aren’t. Yes, even though it is 2015, and we live in an age of supposed equality, the role of carer still predominantly falls to the ‘Mummy’ whether she is ‘working’ or not.

Whenever I go away for work, someone inevitably asks me who is looking after my child. I know it’s meant kindly (generally) but I doubt it would ever come up if I was a man. It's a point that presenter Gabby Logan made last year, when she was off covering the World Cup - gasp - without her family.

The question is: do women really need special titles? Don't they only serve to distance us more from what's perceived as 'normal' for someone in work?

To my mind, when women call themselves Mumpreneurs, it sounds like they’re already presenting an excuse.

‘You can’t expect the same from me as you would a man because I’m balancing work with family life’.

What about childless woman? Are they going to become Barrenpreneurs? Single women – Spinsterpreneurs? The word Mumpreneur makes me think of some kindly lady in a pinny dishing up biscuits to an awaiting boardroom of men in suits - rather than a female Alan Sugar.

Ladies, why not just call yourself a ‘Lesserpreneur’ and have done with it? Or, here’s a really mad notion, why not simply call yourself an entrepreneur?

I’m not dissing women who are trying to run businesses and care for their families – good luck to them, really. I wish them every possible success as both ventures are full-time jobs. The very fact that so many women are able to do both, proves just how extraordinarily capable most of us are.

We’re being sold the ‘Mumpreneur’ pup on the grounds that it’s empowering to women. It isn’t. It’s the opposite of empowering.

Like all these cutesy terms, it does women everywhere a huge disservice, because it both trivialises and apologises.

Sure, my brand of feminism says that women have a right to choose - and if they want to give themselves adorable little monikers that single them out in the workplace who am I - as a mere Mummylancer - to stop them?

Unfortunately, endearing and toothless as these made-up titles seem, they are far from harmless. They are patronising and invite being patronised.

Come on ladies, let’s stop making excuses for ourselves and let’s stop making it easy for people to deny us equality, discriminate against us and - most important of all - let’s stop dividing ourselves against each other.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/11483610/Mumpreneur-momager-and-mummylancer-Women-have-had-enough.html#disqus_thread

Drop-crotch pants and uber-male posturing: Why I don't want my son to be a gangsta

A fashion style that originated in American prisons has swept the world and now influences young boys everywhere - much to their parents' discomfort

 

 

By Anne Marie Scanlon

The Daily Telegraph 07 Mar 2015

Recently, I took my seven-year-old son to a well-known high-street chain to buy him some sweatpants. The only type available were the 'drop-crotch' variety.

Apart from the fact that this 'style' doesn’t look good on anyone, the main issue I have is that this look originated from the prison system in America. Inmates routinely have their belts and laces removed to stop them doing harm to themselves, or other prisoners.

This style then became a badge of honour among gang members in the world outside and gradually seeped into the fashion industry via rap, hip hop and gangsta hip hop.

I lived in New York for more than a decade and gangsta style was ubiquitous among young men in my neighbourhood. Part of the reason I decided to raise my child in a small town in England was because I didn’t want him going to a school where every male pupil dressed like an extra in The Wire.

The recent arrest of notorious record mogul Marion “Suge” Knight, the living embodiment of 'thug life' - he founded Death Row records in 1991 - has been heralded as the symbolic end of gangsta rap. However, gangsta style, which had already evolved beyond the confines of gangsta rap and hip hop, is everywhere.

Gangsta is not dead. Gangsta is now mainstream.

The legacy of people such as Suge, who first brought hardcore rap to the world 20 years ago, is that young boys everywhere are swaggering around today with low-slung drop-crotch jeans, greeting each other with complicated fist bumps and using the slang of various American inner-cities.

“Safe brah, wassup, give me a holla,” just sounds wrong with an English accent. But unfortunately this is “fo' real”, because what was once marginal is now the norm.

And mainstream gangsta culture doesn’t stop at the clothes.

Dionne Taylor, a lecturer in criminology at Birmingham City University, recently remarked: “Popular culture, in particular hip hop/rap culture, is flooded with images of scantily clad women. But conversely there is an imbalance of male artists who are often fully clothed and making derogatory references to women.”

While we’ve all been worrying about the commodification, sexualisation and pornification of little girls, we’ve forgotten that boys are also being immersed in this culture.

The insidious effects of gangsta culture on boys are compounded by traditional expectations of masculinity. As psychotherapist Dr Aaron Balick, author of the children’s book Keep Your Cool: How to Deal with Life’s Worries, says: “Expectations of masculinity are highly codified for boys and adolescents, and these codes can deeply limit and restrict the freedom of expression, particularly for character traits that are deemed to be 'girly’ or 'gay’”.

Gangsta culture is nothing if not macho. Men are expected to be a 'playa' – a man who has several women on the go at one time. Women, like guns, designer clothing and bling jewellery, are mere accessories.

Take the recent video for the song Wiggle by Jason Derulo, which features Snoop Dogg (one of Death Row’s first artists and, tellingly, now a pop culture icon). All of the men are fully clothed, while the harem of women in the Playboy Mansion-style surroundings are in bikinis, or short shorts.

But it isn’t enough to be macho, the playa has to be hyper-masculine. Many of the gangsta-style lyrics are not just violent but glorify brutality as well as flinging around the “N” word with abandon. Twenty years ago, Suge and his protégés shocked society with their use of this in music; now these songs are background music, as is the “N” word, because it’s so common.

Women in gangstaland are routinely referred to as “bitches” and “hos”. Kendrick Lamar, who has been described as the new, softer incarnation of gangsta, had a recent hit with Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe, which sounds and looks like old-school business as usual.

Aside from the uber-masculine posturing, the ethos of gangsta culture can be summed up as “get rich or die tryin’”, the title of 50 Cent’s 2003 album.

The mythology is that a gangsta makes money in the easiest way he can – usually through guns, drugs and women in order to purchase more guns, drugs, women and jewellery. This is the sexist, shallow and materialistic message that boys as young as five (or younger, depending on how soon they can navigate the internet to video websites) are getting.

(If that isn’t enough negativity, there’s also a good dose of homophobia.)

Kathy McGuinness from Child Eyes, an organisation dedicated to protecting children from sexualisation and commercialism, says she worries about boys and feels they, like girls, are being “groomed” by popular culture.

In many ways gangsta has normalised porn, especially through music videos, which present women as dehumanised objects. As gangsta has morphed into pop culture, porn too has become mainstream.

There is no better example of this than Robin Thicke’s aptly named Blurred Lines, which is pure gangsta, even if Thicke is pretty, white and a crooner rather than a rapper. The song, with lyrics such as “you the hottest bitch in this place” (which is, by the way, a compliment), has been banned on university campuses across the UK and US for its apparent condoning of rape and sexual violence. One version of the video features a fully clothed Thicke surrounded by naked models.

Jon Brown, the NSPCC’s head of sexual abuse prevention, says the speed of cultural change has been immense in the past decade. With music videos, gaming and online porn: “it would be foolish to think popular culture wasn’t having an effect on young boys”.

Brown and McGuinness agree that parents need to educate their children to become more critical consumers. Brown suggests parents should engage children as young as five in an age appropriate discussion.

While five may seem very young, McGuinness points out that the retail industry is increasingly targeting younger children. You can, for example, purchase delightful drop-crotch sweats for a six-month-old baby if you so choose.

Handy when you need to accomodate a nappy, I suppose.

Old Suge may well be in the Big House, but the culture he helped to create is no longer just a part of pop culture – it’s available in a chain store near you.

IS YOUR SON BEING GANGSTERISED?

Is he wearing low-rise, drop-crotch jeans and trainers with no laces?

Has he disappeared inside vast XXXX-large T-shirts? (The alternative is the pure white “undershirt” — what we would call a vest and what is sometimes referred to as a “wifebeater”. Charming.)

Is he raiding his mother’s jewellery box in an attempt to 'bling up'?

Has he started wearing either a baseball cap or a 'do-rag'? (The do-rag is a piece of material, often nylon, which covers the head and the back of the neck. The do-rag makes sense in the hot south or west coast of the US. In Reading? Not so much.)

Is he using words such as “Blud” and “Brah”? (“Bro” is used by the Made In Chelsea boys so is no longer in any way subversive.)

Have his physical mannerisms changed? Does he do a lot of hand gestures and crossed arm movements?

Is he walking strangely? The gangsta walk is a mixture of strut, swagger and a desperate attempt to prevent the low-rise, drop-crotch trousers from falling around his ankles.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/11451628/American-gangsta-rap-culture-isnt-what-I-want-for-my-British-son.html#disqus_thread

Classic ballet en pointe

Moscow City Ballet is bringing two classic stories to Ireland.

Anne Marie Scanlon gets to see the wonderful Giselle

The Sunday Independent 19/01/2015

The story of Giselle is basically a fairy tale and, to my mind, not a very fair one. Set in the Rhineland in the Middle Ages, Giselle (Lilia Oryekhova) is a young peasant girl who is very beautiful and loved by all. The local nob, Duke Albrecht of Silesia (Talagat Kozhabaev) is about to marry his fiancee Bathilde so, in the tradition of fairy tale, decides to sow his wild oats by dressing as a peasant and having some japes.

Albrecht meets Giselle and they fall for each other. Meanwhile, Hilarion (Artem Minakov), a gamekeeper who is also in love with Giselle, has his doubts about Albrecht's intentions. Hilarion tries to convince Giselle that Albrecht is not who he seems, but she is in love and having none of it. When a party of nobles, including Bathilde, arrive in the village Albrecht hurries away for fear of his fiancee recognising him. Ironically Bathilde (just like her fiance) is very taken with Giselle and gives her a valuable necklace as a gift. Hilarion then finds Albrecht's sword and unmasks his duplicity. Giselle finding out that Albrecht is not only not who he says he is, but is already engaged to someone else loses her mind, goes quite mad with grief, and dies.

Principal Dancer Lilia Oryekhova gives a very convincing performance of a woman whose heart has not just been broken, but utterly smashed. It's powerful stuff. It's no surprise when Lilia, who began dancing at eight and turned professional at 16, tells me (through an interpreter) that this is her favourite scene in the whole production and that although "dance is my life" that she enjoys acting as well. She also admits that Giselle is one of her favourite roles.

The first act is a riot of colour provided by the elaborate clothes that the ladies of Bathilde's court wear, the idealised peasant dresses worn by Giselle and the other village girls and, most eye-catching, the vivid costume of Albrecht's much put upon manservant Wilfred. All of the costumes are designed by Elisaveta Dvorkina. The contrast between the first and second acts couldn't be more distinct and the costumes reflect this change.

The different tone is immediately set by the entrance made by Ekaterina Tokareva playing Myrtha the Queen of the Wilis which is stunning, beautiful and just a bit creepy. Giselle is summoned from her grave by the Wili, the ghosts of women dumped at the altar (so many of them!) and exacting their revenge by making mortal men dance until they die.

Poor Hilarion, who did nothing wrong, arrives at Giselle's grave to mourn her but is trapped by the Wili and made to dance to death. Albrecht then arrives and the Wili attempt the same thing, but, despite the fact that he lied to her, and was the main cause of her untimely death, Giselle still loves Albrecht and her love saves him from the Wili. As dawn breaks Albrecht lives, Giselle returns to her grave and he, presumably, returns to his castle, his comfortable life and his fancy fiancee. It all seems pretty unjust to me.

The second act, although fairly monochrome, is extremely dramatic and engrossing. The mainly black and white pallette is powerful, and so many ballerinas, all arrayed in their white 'wedding dresses', looking like 'proper' music box ballerinas, is quite spectacular.

Artistic director Ludmilla Nerubashenko has remained faithful to her late husband and founder of the MCB Victor Smirnov-Golovanov's choreography and production. This is old-school ballet but all the more enjoyable for that.

The set consists of a fairly standard backdrop but an elaborate construction would only detract from the artistry and technique of the dancers. The production is more than enhanced by the live performance of the original music by composer Adolphe Adam.

MCB will also be performing The Nutcracker in Dublin at The Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Grand Canal Square, Dublin 2 from 26-31 January. Tickets are currently on sale on 0818 719377. Group bookings 01 677 7770. www. bordgaisenergytheatreie

Sunday Independent

http://www.independent.ie/life/classic-ballet-en-pointe-30913311.html

Cinema:  Alicia Battles as Brittain in Testament of Youth

Swedish actress Alicia Vikander is the most English of ladies in the moving film version of Vera Brittain's famous memoir writes Anne Marie Scanlon.

The Sunday Independent 12/01/2015

 

Testament of Youth, the 1933 memoir by Vera Brittain, is held by many in the UK as a sacred tome. Brittain herself, who died in 1970, is revered by feminists, pacifists and many politicians (her daughter is the former Labour cabinet minister Shirley Williams, now Baroness Williams of Crosby, a life peer).

Born in 1893, Brittain grew up in a prosperous upper-middle-class home, and as she reached her 20s her main concern was in going to Oxford (despite the fact that women were not awarded degrees). The First World War transformed Vera and her world and by the time the Armistice was signed she had lost her only brother Teddy, her fiance Roland Leighton, and close friend Victor Richardson.

Director James Kent has successfully managed to tell Vera's 600-page story in two harrowing yet unmissable and mesmerising hours. The film Testament of Youth charts Vera's journey from cossetted only daughter, who has to have a chaperone to go on a train journey, to a young woman caring for brutally injured and dying soldiers close to the front in Etaples to becoming a pacifist in the post-war years - a brave move in a time when young women would present some non-serving men with white feathers to designate cowardice.

Despite Brittain being so very typically English, Kent cast 26-year-old Swedish actress Alicia Vikander as Vera. Until now, Vikander has been relatively unknown outside of her native Sweden, although she did appear in Anna Kerenina in 2012 alongside Keira Knightley.

In 2015, Vikander is set to become a major international star not only with the release of Testament of Youth but with the other seven films that she's appearing in this year. It's a staggering number of movies to come out in a twelve-month period, but they are the product of several years' solid work.

Vikander tells me that Christmas was the first two-week period she's had off in the past three years - she visited her parents, they have not been a couple since she was a baby but she remains extremely close to both of them.

That sort of schedule would floor the hardiest of people, but despite being tiny and petite, Vikander positively glows with energy. When she speaks, Vikander's voice fits perfectly with her waif-like looks, being very soft and, at times, dropping to almost a whisper.

It's hard to detect a trace of any accent, and apart from the occasional slightly odd turn of phrase (for example "making justice" rather than 'doing justice'), she sounds like a native English speaker. Despite this, Vikander tells me that she found Vera's voice a "big challenge", and she worked with a dialect coach to perfect Brittain's early 20th century Received Pronunciation. However, her biggest challenge in the film was portraying the change in Vera from being quite 'bratty' to being a mature and very courageous woman.

In the film's early scenes, there is more than a touch of Scarlett O'Hara about the young Vera. She leads a privileged life with her adored brother Teddy (Taron Egerton) and her (one imagines) rather indulgent parents (Dominic West and Emily Watson). "I wanted to dare to put (that brattishness) across, because in a film, being the lead you need the audience to fall in love, to feel for the main character … but you know, good people sometimes don't make the best decisions but you still need the audience to connect [with the character], and getting that balance was the hardest thing."

In an early scene, Vera slams down the lid of the piano her father has just bought her and stomps out of the room because, as she explains rather loudly, she doesn't want a piano, she wants to go to Oxford. Her father justifies not letting her go because he fears her becoming a 'Bluestocking' (an intellectual woman) and therefore failing to find a husband. (The irony being that approximately two million British women of Brittain's generation were unable to marry due to the death of so many young men during the war.) Vera yells back that she never wants to get married, and at that moment Roland, her future fiance, played by Kit Harrington (Jon Snow from Game of Thrones) appears. "He's the most humble, down-to-earth guy," she tells me. "He did a brilliant, brilliant job… we had a lot of fun." (Gossip fans, don't get too excited, Vikander is apparently dating Michael Fassbender, whom she's currently filming with). Vikander describes Testament as a coming-of-age story, which it is in part. It is also several love stories. The audience watch Vera and Roland fall in love and are reminded that even though 100 years have passed, the basic process, although it feels totally unique, is completely universal. There is also a love story between Vera and her brother who share a deep bond, and Dominic West does a spectacular job of managing to show how much the stoic, upright, Victorian father Thomas loves his son - his performance is all the more powerful for its very understatement.

It was Vera who convinced her father to allow Teddy to enlist. When researching the role, Vikander not only read the original memoir but also studied Vera's diaries and letters. "There's a whole chunk (in the diaries) about how she is embarrassed by her father, because he isn't man enough, for not understanding that he needs to let his son go to this war… Just imagine the guilt she carried through her life."

Vikander connected with Vera's character through her writing. "I found her extremely powerful, you know the strength and the will that she had. She fought for her education, fought for her rights as a woman, fought her way to survive the war and to find her own voice."

Vikander is a fairly powerful and determined woman herself. Having left home at 15 to join the ballet, she lived in a flat by herself, and confesses that initially she wasn't very good at doing laundry. Just before she turned 19, Vikander turned her attention to acting and enjoyed plenty of success in her native Sweden. She began making tapes of her work and sending them abroad "but I never heard anything back - not a "yes", not a "no", or anything."

Undaunted she contacted an agency in London and asked to audition in person. The agency declined but added that if she was ever in London she was welcome to meet their representatives for a coffee. That was enough of an invitation for Vikander. "I took my last money and jumped on Ryanair. I said, 'I'm here helping a friend who's a musician', which was a total lie!" She laughs. The agency called the next day telling her she could do a 20-minute audition.

"That was the audition that gave me my first big American audition and was kind of an opening door." Is she prepared for being suddenly thrust into the public eye after working steadily under the radar for the past three years? "I'm just happy that [the films] are finally going to get the audience that they should have," Vikander replies.

As cinema-goers will soon find out, Vikander likes to challenge herself by taking roles that "scare her" and stretch her. "I admire actresses that are versatile, that are able to be chameleons and are able to step into parts." She could be describing herself. Despite being extremely beautiful Vikander has the amazing ability to appear quite ordinary. As Vera she is both ordinary and extraordinary, and while she is surrounded by a cast of talented actors working at their very best she commands the screen. And will probably do so for some time to come.

'Testament of Youth' opens in cinemas nationwide on January 16.

Sunday Independent

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/movie-news/alicia-battles-as-brittain-in-testament-of-youth-30895905.html