Mail online

Heat Wave: Michelle Williams is hot stuff as Marilyn

By Baz Bamigboye

Last updated at 11:56 PM on 29th September 2011


How marvellously appropriate that Simon Curtis’s movie My Week With Marilyn has a pre-opening credit sequence with Michelle Williams portraying Marilyn Monroe singing Heat Wave.

She’s wearing a slinky gold lamé gown that shifts as her hips swing. ‘We’re having a heat wave,’ she sings softly. ‘A tropical heat wave, the temperature’s rising, it isn’t surprising . . . ’

The Irving Berlin number, which Monroe sang in the movie There’s No Business Like Show Business, goes on to mention something about her anatomy making the mercury jump to 93.

Temperature is rising: Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in a scene from My Week With Marilyn

Wiggling a come-hither finger at a couple of male dancers, the scene captures Monroe’s heat and allure perfectly. The crazy thing is that, for a couple of seconds, your mouth drops open because you think it might be out-takes of the real Norma Jean.

But it’s all Michelle Williams: the voice, the hair, the pout, the sashay are all part of her sensational interpretation.
When I saw the actress on set last November she told me she wanted to bring to the screen ‘a kind of sensitivity that those who loved her [Monroe] would spend the rest of their lives trying to describe’ - and that’s just what she’s done.

The film’s title alludes to the friendship that developed between Monroe and Colin Clark, an Eton-educated toff hired as an assistant to Laurence Olivier during the making of The Prince And The Showgirl at Pinewood Studios - where My Week was also shot - in the late Fifties.

That wiggle: The slinky gold lame dress shifts as her hips swing

For a short while, Monroe was able to be herself around Clark, and the pair went off on a jolly jaunt, skinny-dipping and visiting Windsor Castle.

It was a brief respite from the private pain Monroe tried to mask.
All that and more comes through in Williams’s portrait.

She not only gives us Monroe, the world-renowned star, but also switches between two other roles: Elsie Marina (the character she plays in The Prince And The Showgirl) and the lost girl who is Norma Jean.

Eddie Redmayne, as Clark, is the glue that holds things together, but the movie is also about the clash of cultures that arises between Williams’s Monroe and Kenneth Branagh’s Olivier.

It’s electrifying watching these two titans (Williams and Branagh are bound to get Oscar nominations) who speak the same language but are unable to communicate.

Monroe envies Olivier’s stature as an actor; he wants some of her stardust to rub off on him (though it would be nice if she was punctual on set, while she was at it).

Branagh’s performance is often hilarious as he spits and splutters over his leading lady’s behaviour. But there’s also something poignant, as the film hints at the insecurities that bedevil even the most confident and successful of people.

Clark’s diaries, upon which Adrian Hodges has based his screenplay, note that soon after Olivier shot The Prince And The Showgirl he was sent John Osborne’s The Entertainer, which not only redefined his career, but British theatre.

Titans: Sir Laurence Olivier and actress Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Prince And The Showgirl. Kenneth Branagh plays Olivier in the new film

Another strand running through Curtis’s gorgeous movie (produced by David Parfitt, Harvey Weinstein and BBC Films) concerns ageing and celebrity.

There’s a heartbreaking moment when Julia Ormond, as Vivien Leigh, remarks she’s 43 and no one, including her husband Olivier, will love her for much longer.

It’s interesting to note that today some of our biggest female movie stars are well into their 40s, if not older - though many still feel the need to hide or deny that.

And then there’s Judi Dench, in a class all by her beautiful self, refusing to get caught up in such nonsense. She portrays Sybil Thorndike, a grand dame then as Judi is now, offering sympathy to the blonde bombshell who couldn’t fathom our quaint ways.

The movie has its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 9 and opens here on November 25.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in the UK: Kate Winslet is settling her children at school in Britain

Winslet back on home turf

Kate Winslet has been settling her two children in at their new school as she prepares to make her life once more in England.

The Oscar-winning actress has kept her loft apartment in downtown Manhattan but she has no plans, at least for now, to work in America until next summer.

As this column revealed, Kate (pictured) wants be with the children in England while estranged husband Sam Mendes shoots the next James Bond movie.

Kate is soon to appear on screen in the thriller Contagion, playing an investigator of outbreaks of dangerous diseases. It’s a sit-up-and-take-notice movie that opens here on October 21.

The next of her films to open is Roman Polanski’s domestic comedy Carnage, in which Kate shows she has a knack for comic timing. Carnage is opening the New York Film Festival — usually a sign it might get some Oscar action — although Kate has a long-term engagement elsewhere and won’t be able to attend.

But she won’t shoot a new movie till June, when she and Josh Brolin star in Jason Reitman’s tense hostage love story Labor Day, which she will make in the States.

It more than suits Kate to come back to Britain. Her children’s fathers — James Threapleton and Mendes — are here; her parents and siblings are here; she has signed the children, Mia and Joe, up for a good school; plus she has some very close friends who reside in London, the Home Counties and the West Country.

Kate will be visiting the Bond set when it’s suitable for the children. There, they will bump into Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris (who, as I revealed, is playing Miss Moneypenny) and Judi Dench.
Mendes has also offered walk-on parts to a number of actors he has worked with in the theatre over the years.

Even though they will only be in one or two scenes, they need to find four to five weeks to shoot their cameos, so the names are still being sorted out.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Ball's looking sharp

Michael Ball¿s killer new look: Imelda Staunton plays Mrs Lovett and Michael Ball the murderous Sweeney Todd

My first thoughts when Sweeney Todd started at the Chichester Festival Theatre on Wednesday were: ‘Drat, why isn’t Michael Ball on tonight? And who the hell is this bloke taking his place?’

Even though I have covered Ball’s entire career, since he played in the original Les Miserables and Phantom Of The Opera, I didn’t recognise the slick-haired, bearded bloke with the cold eyes who walked on to the stage.

What a transformation by Ball (for it was he!).

This Sweeney Todd, about the demon barber of Fleet Street and his friendship with Nellie Lovett (a superb Imelda Staunton), is still in previews.

But it’s clear this is a world-class production, featuring two world-class performances. Ball and Staunton find the darkness in their roles, and a little humour.

Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the musical, is suffering from a bad back and so can’t see Sweeney for a week and a half.

His view, and that of the critics, will determine whether it transfers to the West End in the spring.

In my view, it would be a crime if it doesn’t. My only quibble is that the sight lines are a pain. I was sitting in J54 - a good stalls seat - but I had to lean into the aisle to see what was going on at times.

Oh well, that probably means I’ll get my throat cut by those ruthless folk at Chichester!

Denzel signs up Kelly Reilly

Kelly Reilly is heading to Atlanta, Georgia, to work on a new movie with Denzel Washington, and she’s not just the candyfloss on the big screen: the token girlfriend, fiancée, wife or - worst of all - best friend.

Kelly (right) has played all of the above, and is happy to have done so. She’s a working actress.

Weighty: Kelly Reilly has a living, breathing role in her new movie

But on paper the part she has in Flight is better than most. For starters, it’s the kind of role that’s weighty enough to go to a Hollywood ‘name’. But Washington and director Robert Zemeckis were insistent on finding a proper actress as opposed to this month’s looker who can’t act for wine gums.

Even when Kelly is cast as the girlfriend, as she is in the Sherlock Holmes movies (she marries Jude Law’s Dr Watson in the forthcoming one), she gives the part class.

In Flight, she told me, Denzel plays an airline pilot who lands a crippled plane safely - though it’s later suggested he might have been on drugs or booze.

‘He’s a national hero one minute; the next he’s sorting out his addictions. He meets a woman who just survives a heroin overdose and tries to save her,’ says Kelly, who plays the addict, a former photographer.

It’s a meaty role and she worked hard to make it her own.

‘Unless you’re on the front page of glossy magazines, it’s very hard to compete, especially in America,’ she told me. ‘It’s a living, breathing role. She’s a real person, and there just aren’t many of them around.’

Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sim have been married for 66 years, but next year they celebrate the 70th anniversary of the date they first met . . . while studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art during the 1942-43 term.

Michael Attenborough, who runs the Almeida Theatre, said his parents still live in Richmond, Surrey, but rarely leave home and are cared for around the clock by medical staff.

I used to work on one of the local papers and can recall seeing them on a daily basis at one function or another.

Ms Colman really cuts the mustard

Survivor: Olivia Colman plays a battered wife in Tyrannosaur

Olivia Colman plays a survivor in the movie Tyrannosaur. That is, she survives being beaten black and blue behind the doors of the posh house she shares with a husband who tortures her mentally and physically.

Olivia, director Paddy Considine, leading man Peter Mullan and I hooked up at the Sundance Film Festival, and I wrote about Olivia’s powerful performance as Hannah. I called her character a battered wife, but I realise that, after seeing the film again, the description is not quite right.

‘The usual labels are simplistic,’ Olivia agreed.

‘She’s a survivor, because she has to survive to the next day, and the next week,’ said the actress who, until now, has been best known for comedy roles in Peep Show and Rev (she’s just completed a second series).

Her portrait of Hannah, one of the year’s best performances, has already changed the trajectory of her career.

After Tyrannosaur screened at Sundance, she quickly won a part in the film Hyde Park On Hudson to play Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), opposite Samuel West as her husband the King, and Bill Murray and Olivia Williams as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

The movie, directed by Roger Michell, is about a visit the royal couple made to Roosevelt’s family estate in upstate New York in an effort to boost the war effort.

The picture wasn’t shot in the U.S., though. Producers had a set built in an Oxfordshire wood.

Before that, Olivia played Carol Thatcher in The Iron Lady, with Meryl Streep portraying Lady Thatcher. Olivia did her research by watching Carol’s stint in I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here!.

‘If I’m ever stuck in the middle of nowhere, I’d want to be with her,’ Olivia said.

She did all her scenes with Ms Streep, but was so awestruck that she couldn’t address her as just Meryl. ‘Well, she’s Meryl Streep!’ she insisted.

In January - in between attending award shows, I’m sure - Olivia will go into rehearsals with director Howard Davies for Hay Fever, playing vampish Myra Arundel. Lindsay Duncan plays Judith with Jeremy Northam as David Bliss.

When she’s not reading scripts or rehearsing, Olivia can be seen riding her bike around South-East London and marshalling her two sons off to school. She joked that, if you can survive the school run, you can survive anything.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Attenborough was heading home from Naples today after taking a short trip to check out the region to prepare for his production of Eduardo De Filippo’s Filumena.

I remember seeing Joan Plowright starring in this when I was just a lad. Now the part of Filumena has gone to the Olivier award-winning actress Samantha Spiro (left). Filumena runs at the Almeida Theatre from March 15.

Earlier in the season, Shohreh Aghdashloo (right) will make her London debut in a new version of Lorca’s The House Of Bernarda Alba, set in Iran.

Watch out for...

Emily Head, who plays Carli in The Inbetweeners TV series and the phenomenally successful film.

She will be part of the ensemble cast of Coram Boy, which runs at the Bristol Old Vic from December 20. Based on Jamila Gavin’s novel about orphans and slave traders, the play — written by Helen Edmundson and directed by Melly Still — was a hit at the National.

Ms Head and The Inbetweeners, meanwhile, are about to broaden their horizons. When I was at the Toronto film festival, I watched the movie a second time, along with foreign buyers, and I was struck by how they got every joke — because most of the gags are visual they work in any language.

Vanessa Kirby, Katie McGrath and Emun Elliott, who will star in Labyrinth, a TV drama series based on Kate Mosse’s best-selling novel.

Ms Kirby (below right), who appeared in The Hour and also portrays Estella in a new TV version of Great Expectations, plays modern-day Dr Alice Turner who, while on a dig in France, discovers a tomb that sets her on a path that hurls her back to the 13th-century, where she uncovers the tale of Alais, a herbalist who buried a secret.

Alais is played by Ms McGrath (above left) who readers may recognise as Morgana in Merlin.

Elliott plays Will Franklin, one of the contemporary characters.

Shooting starts soon on locations in South Africa and France.

Imogen Stubbs, Anna Calder-Marshall, Anna Carteret and Roger Evans, who lead the world premiere of Tim Price’s play Salt, Root And Roe, which will be directed by Hamish Pirie as part of the Donmar Theatre’s second season of work with emerging directors, with performances at the Trafalgar Studios.

Salt, Root And Roe, a family drama about twins, runs at the Trafalgar from November 10.

Trevor Nunn, who will direct a new production of Kiss Me, Kate at the Chichester Festival Theatre next year, which will then more than likely move into the West End.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2043538/Heat-Wave-Michelle-Williams-hot-stuff-Marilyn.html#ixzz1ZOEOEvyQ