Dame Eileen Atkins joins Colin Firth in new Woody Allen film ALBERTINA LLOYD (INDEPENDENT)

Dame Eileen Atkins has joined Colin Firth in the cast of Woody Allen's new film.

The writer and director has already begun filming on his latest project, a comedy which also stars Emma Stone, on location in the South of France.

Veteran British actress Dame Eileen, star of Cold Mountain and Cranford, has joined the cast along with Oscar nominees Marcia Gay Harden and Jacki Weaver, according to Variety.

As with all Woody Allen productions the title and subject matter is being kept under wraps. It is Allen's second time filming in France and his eighth film set in Europe.

READ MORE: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/dame-eileen-atkins-joins-colin-firth-in-new-woody-allen-film-8685618.html

Tom Hiddleston set to star in `Capa` (ZEE NEWS india)

Los Angeles, Apr 19 (PTI) Actor Tom Hiddleston is set to play famed war photographer Robert Capa in Paul Andrew Williams` biopic, `Capa`.

The 32-year-old actor said he is looking forward to portraying the heroic figure, reported OK magazine.

"I look at Capa`s life and see it in heroic terms. A Hungarian kicked out of Hungary for writing against Fascism, he moved to Germany where he was kicked out for being Jewish, then he moved to France and from there began a life-long commitment to make a stand against forces of fascism," Hiddleston said.

READ MORE: http://zeenews.india.com/entertainment/movies/tom-hiddleston-set-to-star-in-capa_132450.htm

Tom Hiddleston interview video - opening of Book of Mormon play in London

RED CARPET NEWS

James Bond - Daniel Craig And Judi Dench Are The U.k.'S Favourite Actors (CONTACT MUSIC)

James Bond stars Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench have been voted Britain's favourite film stars in a new poll.

Craig, who this year (12) enjoyed his third outing as the British superspy in Skyfall, garnered 26 per cent of the vote, winning him the title of the U.K's favourite male actor.

His co-star Dench, who has played Bond's boss M for the past seven films, was named favourite female after picking up 27 per cent of the vote.

READ MORE: http://www.contactmusic.com/news/daniel-craig-and-judi-dench-are-the-u-k-s-favourite-actors_3412601

Martin Clunes: 'Doc Martin' star Martin Clunes on the making of the British series April 12, 2012 | 11:19 am (LA TIMES)

"Doc Martin," the globally popular British series about an antisocial big-city surgeon working as a general practitioner among boundary-disrespecting neighbors in a Cornwall fishing village, has just begun its fifth season.

Over the last couple of years it has become a staple feature of American public broadcasting -- the second episode of the new season premieres locally tonight on KCET -- and has been widely available online, offered free to subscribers of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus. Acorn Media, which has released the previous four seasons on DVD, will add the fifth in June. (I earlier wrote about the series here.)

Martin Clunes (whose "William and Mary," an earlier series in which he plays a cuddly undertaker, has also become a PBS favorite) stars as Martin Ellingham, the eponymous doctor. Caroline Catz is Louisa, the teacher he inarticulately loves, nearly marries and, at the close of Season 4, has a child with. This year also sees the arrival of the great Eileen Atkins ("Cold Comfort Farm," "Cranford" and a co-creator of "Upstairs Downstairs") as Martin's Aunt Ruth, a psychiatrist who shares his dry, logical, suffer-no-fool-gladly temperament.

I spoke with Clunes recently, by phone to his home in England. He is clearly a different man from the one he currently plays on television. You should imagine hearty laughter coloring his responses below.

Your character is unusual, in that it's a variation on a different Cornwall-based doctor named Martin you played in the film "Saving Grace" and two subsequent TV movies. Can you talk about how you got from there to here?

Martin Clunes: It was quite simple and sort of market-led. Sky, which is Fox I guess over here, had some money in "Saving Grace," and Elizabeth Murdoch, Rupert's daughter, set up a thing called Sky Pictures, which was terrific because it meant the industry was very buoyant and lots of people were making films [for television]. And we got picked up -- they did some research and thought that the character of the doctor in "Saving Grace" had legs, and so they asked us if we'd make some films based on him. And then they folded while we were making them.

We sort of knew somebody at ITV, which is an independent broadcast channel over here, and said, "Are you interested in picking up this franchise, 'cause we're kind of set up." We'd made these two films ["Doc Martin" (2001) and "Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie" (2003)]. The tone of it, the kind of dope-smoking aspect, didn't appeal to them, and they didn't think it would suit their audience. But they said they didn't mind me being a doctor in that place. So we had the license to take it apart and create something from the ground up. We didn't want to do the "Doc Hollywood" thing of "smart town city doctor being amazed and bemused by his quirky neighbors"; we kind of wanted to turn that on its head, and that was a small community united in horror by this vile GP.



Read More of the Interview:  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2012/04/martin-clunes-talks-doc-martin.html

The Many Faces of Dame Judi Dench, BBC Two (The Arts Desk)

By Lockerz

A mildly diverting run-through of the acclaimed actress's varied career

by Veronica LeeSaturday, 31 December 2011

Judi Dench's career has been filled with diverse roles

It's interesting to consider at what point in someone's career does he or she become a national treasure - as Alan Bennett once so scathingly remarked, “If you live to be 90 in England and can still eat a boiled egg they think you deserve the Nobel prize” - but there can surely be no debate about whether Dame Judi Dench deserves her status.


Geoffrey Palmer said of his co-star for several years on the BBC sitcom As Time Goes By, “She's everything that everyone says about her” - and what they had to say about her in Charlie Stuart's The Many Faces of Dame Judi Dench was overwhelmingly nice; she's a joy to work with, a stellar presence on screen and stage, and a jolly presence in the rehearsal room.


The film was an enjoyable, if undemanding run-through of Dame Judi's career and, although billed as a documentary, there was little by way of personal biography. For the record, she was born into a Quaker family in York in 1934 and made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company and hasn't stopped working since. Palmer was among a long list of talking heads who included Michael Parkinson, Ronald Pickup and Simon Callow, and a smattering of critics, but she was noticeably absent from the programme, and the clips perforce were mostly of her television work and some recent films.


Much was made of her wide range of credits as one might expect from an actress with an extensive and varied CV. Palmer, an old friend who made some drily mocking contributions, explained, “She just likes working, so if someone offers her a job, she takes it. She’s crazy."


She has always, we learnt, moved with ease between stage, television and film, and - unusually for an acclaimed serious actor of her generation – has done as much popular entertainment as she has highbrow work, in a career dripping with awards, including an Oscar. Her longevity means that each generation discovers her for themselves; for many, she's the definitive Lady Macbeth (in Trevor Nunn's 1976 RSC production), or Sally Bowles (in the first London production of Cabaret in 1968), or Queen Victoria (in John Madden's film Mrs Brown, pictured right).


To a huge number of TV viewers she will be known as the kindhearted Miss Matty in Cranford (pictured below), and to filmgoers for a heartbreaking study of the novelist Iris Murdoch descending into the hell of dementia in Iris (2001), or as the positively evil Barbara Covett tormenting fellow teacher Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal (2006). For me her definitive role was Titania played as Gloriana in Peter Hall's magnificent production of A Midsummer's Night's Dream in 2010. It was, simply, awesome.


Despite being made in DBE in 1988, Dame Judi's fame was confined to these shores until a trio of roles in films released in three years – M in Goldeneye (1995), Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown (1997) and Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998) – gave her worldwide stardom. As her Goldeneye co-star Samantha Bond remarked, Dame Judi become an overnight success in her sixties in the United States and some American journalists, unfamiliar with her extensive CV, innocently asked what she had been doing before M. Dame Judi had been offered Broadway roles when she was younger, but decided to stay put in Britain to look after her beloved husband, the late Michael Williams (her co-star in the BBC sitcom A Fine Romance) and their daughter Finty Williams, herself now an actress.


Much of Dame Judi's popularity, I suspect, comes from the fact that lots of TV viewers know her as a notorious corpser from her appearances on bloopers shows down the years - “We did have the odd retake...” attested Palmer - while director Sally Potter talked about the “weeping levels of hilarity” during the making of her film Rage (2009), when a young man had to be drafted in to tutor the dame in the art of smoking a spliff.


Others may quibble with Dame Judi's recently elected status in a trade newspaper as the greatest stage actress of all time – surely an impossible thing to judge, and one that I suspect she herself would bat off as silly – but as this programme showed, she is head and shoulders above her peers in the breadth of her roles. She's done everything from Shakespeare to Sondheim, sitcom to Z-Cars and Bond to Brecht. And even at an age where others might be retiring she is still taking on demanding and boundary-pushing work, such as her role in the experimental film Rage.


This was decent trot through an interesting and full career, and it was fun to see some footage of Dame Judi as a young actress. But ultimately her absence meant that the film lacked any meaningful analysis of her work.


Watch Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth in Trevor Nunn's 1976 RSC production of Macbeth:

http://www.theartsdesk.com/tv/many-faces-dame-judi-dench-bbc-two 

Oscar Preview/Cinematographer Focus: Ben Smithard, BSC - My Week With Marilyn

SHOOT

Ben Smithard Type: News Category: News Options: SHOOT provides a taste of what's in store on two fronts in next week's Directors Issue; My Week With Marilyn generates Academy Awards buzz LOS ANGELES, October 14, 2011, Robert Goldrich --- Among the feature stories in next week's Directors Issue will be a focus on Cinematographers & Cameras as well as the first installment of our Road to Oscar series. In a sense, our interview with Ben Smithard, BSC, covers both those bases. Smithard is one of three DPs being profiled in the Cinematographers & Cameras feature--and he happens to have shot My Week With Marilyn, the Simon Curtis-directed film which is generating a fair share of early Oscar buzz.      Here are some insights from Smithard into the movie, his working relationship with Curtis, shooting with film and digital cameras, and his commercialmaking career. Ben Smithard, BSC My Week With Marilyn takes us behind the scenes of a week shooting The Prince and the Showgirl, a 1957 movie directed by Laurence Olivier and starring him and Marilyn Monroe in the title roles. Colin Clark, who's in the employ of Olivier, chronicles the week, and is portrayed by Eddie Redmayne in My Week With Marilyn--with Michelle Williams as Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Olivier. The supporting cast includes Judi Dench as actress Sybil Thorndike, Julia Ormond as Olivier's wife, Vivian Leigh, and Dougray Scott as Monroe's husband at the time, playwright Arthur Miller.      Director Simon Curtis and cinematographer Ben Smithard, BSC, bring a track record of noteworthy collaborations to My Week With Marilyn, starting with the BBC miniseries Cranford (nominated for six BAFTA Awards) and then Return To Cranford (nominated for a 2010 Best Cinematography Emmy). Both Cranford projects were directed by Curtis and Steve Hudson. My Week With Marilyn was shot over a span of just seven weeks. "Every single second on that film set was precious with time being so tight," said Smithard. "We had to make the most out of every moment."      That proposition was made more feasible thanks in part to the already well honed working relationship between Smithard and Curtis based on their prior collaborations. "There are times Simon doesn't have to say anything to me," related Smithard. "I know where he wants me to be. He understands what I'm doing and why. I know what he wants, how he works. It also helps that I like him as a person. He's a decent man, a real humanitarian, a great people person and a great actors' director. It's easier to spend a lot of time--particularly in a tight schedule when you're under pressure--with someone you like and respect. We were doing post together a year later and recently shot a couple extra bits with Michelle [Williams] for the film."      Also better enabling Smithard to handle a relatively short shoot for an ambitious feature was the fact that "my prep work was two weeks longer than the whole shoot. To have time to plan and prepare is invaluable--as is knowing most of the crew, the first assistant director and of course my rapport with Simon. With preparation, you sometimes better know where you might have to compromise a bit to accommodate the shooting schedule. You might have to sacrifice a little bit of this or that, a bit of lighting, to make sure you get out the best story possible. Ultimately the story is everything. You try to simplify things. Sometimes you can make things too complex so I always ask myself, 'Will what I'm considering help the story?' If the answer is 'no,' you can move on to something else that will advance the story. In preparation, I try to explore the story as much as possible."      My Week With Marilyn was shot on 35mm film. "In the back and forth that goes on between film and digital," said Smithard, "one thing I know for a fact is that for a period film, like this one, shooting film gives you that period look. And ten years from now that will be even more so--you'll want that little bit of grain, texture, that film feel to convey an earlier period."      At the same time, Smithard--who's handled by agent Dattner Dispoto and Associates--is no stranger to digital. The last few years he has shot TV series with digital cameras. "Given the choice I would still shoot film," he affirmed. But in the case of the original Cranford miniseries, Smithard was a strong proponent of deploying the Genesis. "There were some budget issues and I didn't want to shoot Judy Dench, who was the main lead, on 16mm film. We couldn't afford to shoot 35mm. So we wound up going with the Genesis camera, which was a bit too expensive at first but Panavision helped to make the budget work."      Smithard says he loves the Genesis. Furthermore, at press time he was having a favorable experience with the RED Epic on a BBC TV series carrying a working title of Love Life and being directed by Dominic Savage.      Besides Curtis, Smithard enjoys working relationships with a number of directors, among the more notable being Tom Hooper who won the Oscar and DGA Award earlier this year for The King's Speech (which was shot by Danny Cohen, BSC). Smithard lensed the film The Damned United, directed by Hooper for Sony Pictures. And the DP has since reteamed with Hooper on his initial commercials for production house Smuggler, one for Captain Morgan, the other for Guinness. Smithard lensed the ad assignments for Hooper with ARRI's Alexa digital camera, with both jobs turning out well.      Commercials represent the foundation of Smithard's career in cinematography. "I had 300 to 400 commercials to my credit before I ever got near a movie," he recalled. "My experience on commercials made me a better, more versatile cinematographer. You have to be just by virtue of the variety of the work over an extended period of time--one week I'm on the Serengeti shooting wildebeests, the next week I'm doing a hair commercial with a beautiful model in studio, then I'm shooting food, action and so on. You learn your craft by doing commercials."      Smithard-lensed spots span such clients as the BBC, Yakult, Nike, Radio 5, Rolo, and the Daily Telegraph, among assorted others. While commercials have informed Smithard's diversification into TV and features, so too has this longer form fare enabled him to bring more back to commercials. "Once you've shot TV programs, for example, you have had to perfect your craft at working quickly and thinking on your feet. You learn all the time," said Smithard. "Spending so much time with actors on long form helps you learn to concentrate on performance, the various subtleties of performance. It can only help you in commercials and branded content."      Smithard's filmography also includes music videos, which he isn't all that active in anymore. But over a brief stretch, he shot clips for the likes of such performers as Moby, Alfie, Groove Armada, David Bowie, Rum DMC, Wise Guys, DJ Shadow, Gemma Hayes and New Order. Another key benefit of crossing over from one filmmaking discipline to another, continued Smithard, is the opportunity to collaborate with artisans you might not get to meet otherwise. "You learn from all these different artists and hopefully they learn from you."      In one instance, a commercial proved to be much more than a learning experience for Smithard--it was a life-enriching one. Some 10-plus years ago, he shot the first commercial directed by documentary filmmaker Joanna Bailey who now helms commercials via Bare Films, London. Their meeting sparked what turned into a romance and they are now married with kids. Over the years, he has had occasion to shoot other commercials directed by Bailey and she has helped make him a better cinematographer. Smithard explained, "She has a documentary background and needed to work with DPs who understand observational photography. I had to learn that, to observe people, capture them and do justice to who they are. That was one of the biggest single attributes I've ever learned from anyone in the business."      As for what's on the horizon, Smithard is scheduled to begin shooting in January 2012 a two-part BBC series, Shakespeare's Henry IV, directed by Richard Eyre whose credits include the acclaimed feature film Notes On A Scandal.

Downton Abbey follows US Tradition of Loving British Dramas

September 2011 Last updated at 12:57 ET

Emmys revisited: Downton Abbey follows US tradition

BBC NEWS

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It seems Americans love nothing better than an English accent and a period setting, as Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellowes is all too aware.

Accepting his Emmy award for writing the show, Fellowes thanked the US film industry for "kick-starting" his career by awarding him a screenwriting Oscar in 2002 for Gosford Park, set in the 1930s.

But Fellowes - whose Downton Abbey was broadcast on the PBS network in the US - is not the first British programme-maker to benefit from the American love affair with costume pieces.

Here is a snapshot from the past four decades.

Upstairs Downstairs (1971-1975)

Co-creator Jean Marsh (r) appeared in the ITV original and the BBC's update, pictured here

ITV's drama about a London family and their servants, created by actresses Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins, was a huge global hit and was reportedly seen by an audience of more than a billion.

It garnered a slew of Emmy nominations and won seven, including outstanding drama series in 1974, 1975, and 1977, as well as best actress for Marsh in 1975 for her performance as parlour maid Rose.

Marsh was nominated in this year's Emmys for reprising the role in a three-part 2010 BBC update.

There was also a supporting actor Emmy in 1976 for Gordon Jackson - as Scottish butler Angus Hudson - while, in 1975, the show won the Golden Globe for best TV drama.

The five series of the drama covered the period from 1903 to 1936.

Brideshead Revisited (1981)

Anthony Andrews, right, won a Bafta and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Sebastian Flyte

This 11-part serial, based on Evelyn Waugh's novel of the same name, was a huge hit in the UK when it was broadcast on ITV between October and December 1981.

It tells the story of the friendship between middle-class Oxford undergraduate Charles Ryder, played by a young Jeremy Irons, and hedonistic aristocrat Sebastian Flyte, played by Anthony Andrews, and a cast that also featured Sir John Gielgud.

It won seven Baftas the following year, including best drama series and best actor for Andrews.

The show - repeated in the US on PBS - received 10 Emmy nominations in 1982 and a best supporting actor prize for Sir Laurence Olivier, who only appeared in two episodes as Lord Marchmain.

In 1983, it won a best mini-series prize and best actor, for Andrews at the Golden Globes.

A 2008 film adaptation starred Matthew Goode as Ryder and Ben Whishaw as Flyte.

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Colin Firth missed out on the Bafta for Pride and Prejudice in 1996

Andrew Davies' 1995 BBC One adaptation of Jane Austen's 1813 novel starred one Colin Firth as the dashing Mr Darcy, playing opposite Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth Bennet.

It earned Firth - whose Oscar-winning performance in last year's The King's Speech prove he is at home in tales of yesteryear - a Bafta nomination in 1996.

But on that occasion, Firth was eclipsed by Ehle, who won best actress.

In the same year, it also earned three Emmy nominations and won the award for costume design, but was ignored at the Golden Globes.

Austen's tale was made into a 2005 film by Joe Wright, starring Matthew Macfadyen as Mr Darcy and Keira Knightley as Bennet.

Cranford (2007 - 2009)

The BBC's five-part adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels had up to eight millions viewers in the UK regularly tuning in each week to witness the genteel lives of the town's female inhabitants. It later returned for a two-part Christmas special in 2009.

Dame Judi Dench, Lisa Dillon and Dame Eileen Atkins starred in the adaptation of Cranford

Featuring a stellar cast including Dame Judi Dench, Dame Eileen Atkins and Imelda Staunton, it earned a total of 15 Bafta nominations.

It came away with three Baftas in 2008 with a best actress win for Dame Eileen, and also best production design and sound, but failed to pick up anything for the Christmas special.

Across the pond, the series was nominated for eight Emmys in 2008 including acting nods for Dame Judi and Dame Eileen. But only the latter Dame won an award - along with Alison Elliot for outstanding hairstyling.

The Christmas special received another seven Emmy nominations in 2010 with a further nod for Dame Judi. It came away with another two awards, winning best cinematography and costumes in a mini-series, but missed the major acting prizes.

Although the drama was recognised at the Golden Globes with a total of four nominations, it was overlooked on the night.

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