James McAvoy Chooses X-Men Over Julian Assange By Fraser McAlpine | Posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2012 (BBC AMERICA)

So you know we’ve been running a few blog posts about Benedict Cumberbatch and his current bid to take over all the jobs in the world of TV, audio and movies by 2014? One of the projects that he’s reported to be involved in is Bill Condon’s retelling of the recent dramatic events in the life of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks who currently resides in the Ecuarorian embassy in London, fighting extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault.

Benedict is due to play Julian, with James McAvoy taking the role of the German writer and activist Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the author of the book Inside Wikileaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website, on which the film is partially based.

READ MORE: http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2012/11/james-mcavoy-chooses-x-men-over-julian-assange/

Kenneth Branagh talks about Wallander

Swedish cop Kurt Wallander returns with a fragile new hope, the same old demons, and a murder investigation that takes him far from home...and to the very heart of it. Kenneth Branagh stars in Wallander, Series III, An Event in Autumn, Sunday, Sept. 9, 2012, at 9pm ET/CT on MASTERPIECE Mystery!

 

Watch Wallander 3: Kenneth Branagh on the Intensity of Wallander on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2274907323?elq=7114a720a55849f9b1ee34104d4c1685&elqCampaignId=409

Sir Ken's Swede success: Despite being the star of hit TV detective series Wallander, just-knighted Kenneth Branagh insists he's still plain Ken By RICHARD BARBER PUBLISHED: 18:00 EST, 28 June 2012 | UPDATED: 16:31 EST, 29 June 2012 (MAIL ON LINE)

You have to wonder what the dour Swedish TV detective Kurt Wallander would make of it all. A knighthood for Kenneth Branagh?

The very thought of the honour, which was announced earlier this month, is enough to bring on one of Wallander’s deep, brooding pauses.

He’d settle back in his iconic leather chair and stare into the Baltic sunset while the machinery of his mind – as trusty and as plodding as his Volvo – cranked into action and analysed every possible permutation of response.


Branagh, 51, who has played Wallander for four years, thinks he knows precisely what his alter ego’s reaction would be. His face lights up in a distinctly un-Wallanderish smile. ‘Of course, the Swedes have a royal family of their own,’ he says, ‘but Kurt’s pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool republican, so I don’t think he’d have any truck with titles.’


The reaction of the author of the best-selling Wallander stories, the avowedly left-wing Henning Mankell, is much the same as his creation’s would be, says Branagh. ‘But he’s got a terrific sense of humour so he’s been very funny about it, which is exactly what I’d have expected. He’s been ribbing me about it ever since the news came out. Fair game, as far as I’m concerned.’

Mankell, 64, chooses his words as carefully as Wallander would. ‘The Swedish people are very happy for him,’ he says diplomatically. ‘Their view seems to be, “You may beat us at soccer but we’re partly responsible for Branagh’s knighthood.” He’s very well liked and they approve of the way he plays Wallander.’





Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2166409/Sir-Kens-Swede-success-Despite-star-hit-TV-detective-series-Wallander-just-knighted-Kenneth-Branagh-insists-hes-plain-Ken.html#ixzz1zEjcH2ny

Kenneth Branagh: wallowing in Wallander Vicky Frost guardian.co.uk, (GUARDIAN)

Bruised and brooding … Branagh on the Wallander set. Photograph: Laurence Cendrowicz/Left Bank

Kenneth Branagh used to find playing Wallander so grim, he went to flower shows to cheer himself up. Vicky Frost joins the newly knighted actor in Sweden to talk about the latest series – and his plans to write a drama about his Belfast childhood during the Troubles

You don't often see Kurt Wallander smiling. Frowning, yes; considering something deeply, yes; worrying away at a problem, yes – but not smiling, let alone grinning. Yet, as I watch the Swedish detective climb out of his Volvo and carry in his shopping, he is looking positively contented. Kenneth Branagh, playing the Swede, is delighted I have arrived on set in time to witness such a moment. "It's very rare!" he says after the scene has been shot. "I had to write the smile on my script so I would remember it."

The low farmhouse behind us is still being warmed by the lazy Swedish sun. This is Wallander's new home: inside are boxes full of his possessions, the detective's now-iconic leather chair, and his father's identical landscape paintings. Outside, the road stretches down to the sea, past four silhouetted trees bent almost double in the Baltic winds that whip across the landscape and cut through clothing.

Branagh is working on An Event in Autumn, based on a short story by Henning Mankell and the first of a trio of new Wallander mysteries about to air on the BBC. Wallander's fresh start in the countryside falls apart when the body of a young woman is found buried at the back of his garden. Then the remains of another young woman are washed up on the shore. Branagh and his wife are big fans of The Killing, and he recounts filming a scene at Copenhagen airport with one of its stars, Søren Malling (Lund's sidekick, Jan, from the first series). "People's faces when they saw us!" he says.

Branagh believes it is the different pacing that attracts British audiences to Scandinavian drama, "the experience of it being as much about images as about words, where part of what you're offering is the opportunity to watch other people thinking and feeling. With Sarah Lund, we spend a lot of time watching her in repose, working it out. The mood of the story, the time of day – in her case, night-time – has a weird, magnetic compulsion."


READ MORE:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/jun/17/kenneth-branagh-wallander?newsfeed=true

Kenneth Branagh would like to make another Wallander

Kenneth Branagh has said he'd like to make another Wallander - but it's all up to the viewers.

The actor, who has just been Oscar-nominated for his role in My Week With Marilyn, has proved a hit as the maverick Swedish detective in the BBC One drama, which is set to return for a third series.

He admitted that he'd love to do a fourth series, but added that the character had been away for a while, so he could "assume nothing".

"The audience will decide!," he said.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jomQR-nf1jusNlx9Sq8hDIg2aNuQ?docId=N0151641327588511011A

Daniel Craig: "Dragon Tattoo" film paints Sweden in darkest shades- A - Z ANIMALS

December 14, 2011 By Reuters 

By Daniel Dickson


STOCKHOLM | Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:36am EST

(Reuters) – Violence, a sexually abused heroine and the forbidding wintry landscape of director David Fincher’s new “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” film may alter any pre-conceived notions of Sweden as a socialist paradise.

Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard, who plays the corporate executive of a family firm with a terrible secret, said that although the film explores a very fictional dark side of society its portrayal of feminine strength was particularly Swedish.

“Such a strong female hero as we have in this film and such a soft male hero as we have in this film, I think that is typical Swedish,” he told reporters when he hit the red carpet for the Stockholm premiere of the Hollywood version of Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s best-selling thriller.

Sweden is known for its cradle-to-grave welfare system and IKEA department stores. The film and books paint another picture, more in tune with its bleak and cold winters and a dark side found in a number of Swedish crime novels that have taken the publishing world by storm in the last decade.
Skarsgard said foreigners in general did not know much about the small Scandinavian country and hoped that Sweden would not be too associated with the crime wave genre that has put Swedish Noir at the top of the modern world’s literary map.

“I hope they don’t think that the way Sweden is portrayed in those books and films is the way Sweden is, because it is still a very peaceful and lovely and very nice country to live in,” he said.

The film received solid early reviews [ID:nN1E7BC0JM] and critics especially praised Rooney Mara’s appearance as the fearless sexual abuse survivor and punkish computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. Mara said it was essential that much of the film was made in Sweden.

“Some people questioned why we came to Sweden to make the film and why we did not just make our American version in America but I don’t think you can really tell the story without telling it in Sweden. I think it is a very Swedish story, I think all the characters are very Swedish,” she said.
“HUGE STORY-TELLING TRADITION”

In the story, Salander teams up with journalist Mikael Blomkvist in search of a killer. Blomkvist is played by British actor Daniel Craig, best known for the role of James Bond.

“What it tells about Sweden for me is that there is a huge story-telling tradition here and it is a sort of dark tale, something that we can all relate to in Northern Europe. They have worldwide mass appeal it seems,” Craig said.

“Dragon Tattoo” is the first of the late Larsson’s best-selling Millennium trilogy of books, which has sold more than 60 million copies in 48 countries worldwide.

Helena Lindblad, a film critic at the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, said the huge success of the books and the films had opened the world market for other Scandinavian authors and actors, for example Noomi Rapace who played Salander in the Swedish adaption of the trilogy for the screen.
“This success of Stieg Larsson’s is definitely the icebreaker. It is quite unreal and has opened doors for Swedish Crime or Swedish Noir or whatever you want to call it and that it has become a term associated with these films and books,” Lindblad, who attended the Swedish premiere late on Tuesday, said.

Lindblad said she really liked the film. And though remakes in general were “not particularly exciting” cinematically, director Fincher, whose credits include “Seven” and “Fight Club,” added qualities, not the least visually.

She also said the interaction between the main characters was stronger in the Hollywood adaption than in the Swedish original. She said Fincher captured Sweden in an excellent way.

Salvador Munoz, a fan who was celebrity spotting at the premiere, said that Fincher could add “more of Stieg Larsson-darkness” to the film. He said Evil was Fincher’s signature.

“It is man’s other side, the dark side of people. He portrays it so well,” Munoz said.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” opens in the United States on December 20.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)
http://news.doddleme.com/news-room/dragon-tattoo-film-paints-sweden-in-darkest-shades/