SILVIA B
Showing posts with label The Pillars of the Earth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Pillars of the Earth. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Hayley Atwell: From Captain America to Jimi Hendrix
TELEGRAPH
By Chris Harvey
8:00AM BST 10 Aug 2013
Hayley Atwell’s beauty is the first thing you notice about her. She walks out of a rehearsal room near London Bridge into an outdoor café, and it almost makes me laugh. If there were a kit for making a film star, her dark flashing eyes and full lips would be included in the box. What’s more surprising is that she turns out to be so funny.
She’s recently returned from Comic-Con, the American convention that celebrates all things fantasy and sci-fi. She was there because in the Marvel Universe she is Peggy Carter, the wartime British agent girlfriend of Captain America himself, as seen in the 2011 blockbuster The First Avenger. It sounds like a strange experience.
“What is weird is walking down the streets seeing people dressed as superheroes but then picking their nose or running for the bus,” she says. “That’s really surreal. You’re like, 'I’m sure Wonder Woman doesn’t eat burgers slouched over a bench like that.’ It was very funny, but the level of commitment is quite humbling. There’s an innocence about them as a fan base, it’s not aggressive, but they really do love that world. I approach Peggy Carter as I would any character, then take all the make-up off and go home and be myself. But for the fans, those worlds live for longer within them.”
I ask if the films – some of the most lucrative franchises in contemporary Hollywood – pay as well as they’re said to, mentioning Robert Downey jnr’s reported $75 million earnings for The Avengers. “Really? Is that true?” Atwell gapes. “Well, he is also an executive producer. It completely varies according to your star power, how big your name is.”
But is it life-changing? “That’s a very personal question,” she says, adopting a clipped RP tone. “I think anything is life-changing money if you’re doing something you love and earn a living from it, because it takes you beyond doing a job just for survival.”
Next up is something for love. She’s rehearsing the dual role of Sylvia, the trapped, lonely wife of a repressed homosexual man in Fifties London, and the independent, supportive friend of an identically named gay man in the present, in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s play The Pride, which opens at Trafalgar Studios later this month, directed by Jamie Lloyd. It’s an interesting choice, not least because Atwell’s last stage outing was in Kaye Campbell’s The Faith Machine two years ago, also directed by Lloyd.
“I like working with them as people and it’s nice to do something that’s at least half modern,” she says. She’s referring to the way casting directors look at her voluptuous figure and see the perfect Forties heroine. “I suppose physically I suit that era. It’s wonderful to look like a period heroine, there’s something very beautiful and romantic about that. But I think there’s so much more going on behind my eyes and in my head than just looking a certain way.”
The play juxtaposes the way that changing attitudes affect the lives of people who are alike in spirit but living in different eras. The earlier Sylvia is “fragile and sensitive, and has suffered from an illness that nowadays we would call depression. I think Sylvia loves her husband deeply and his unhappiness causes her great unhappiness.
“I can relate to bouts of the blues or moments when self-destructive thoughts are a way of dealing with your surroundings. Some people, if they’re going through a difficult time they’ll lash out, and then you have people, like myself, who direct it inwards. I’m much more of an internal person than an external one, I think.”
Is there a temptation to put theatre to one side when your career is at its most bankable, I wonder, when you’re “hot”, as Atwell is now?
“Oh really?” She laughs. “'So hot right now’ – I feel like I’m in Zoolander. I think there’s a fear. The fear-based mentality would be to go, 'I’ve got to capitalise on this right now.’ I think it can be detrimental because the minute you’re hot or 'in’ the next step is to be not hot, or out. So you’re only just waiting for the time when you’re not considered cool. I think if I’m interested in my work, then life will forge its own path.”
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Hayley Atwell to star in second series of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror Details of the three very different new episodes have been released MATILDA BATTERSBY (INDEPENDENT)
Black Mirror the unusual satirical drama written by journalist-come-television writer Charlie Brooker will return to Channel 4 this year for a second series consisting of three dark episodes.
Restless actress Hayley Atwell will star in the first of the trio, each of which will once again have “a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality”, according to Brooker. In an interview in December he said: "Like the last series we've done three stories that are three different genres. We've also got all sorts of unpleasant things and also one of them is very sad.”
In Be Right Back Atwell appears as Martha alongside Domhnall Gleeson, her social media junkie boyfriend Ash. He is tragically killed just after the couple move to a remote cottage and Martha soon becomes aware of a creepy new social network that allows grieving relatives to communicate with the digital semblance of the deceased. Disgusted, but compelled by it, Martha, who discovers she is pregnant with Ash’s child, becomes embroiled in a murky world of online ‘ghosts’.
READ MORE: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/hayley-atwell-to-star-in-second-series-of-charlie-brookers-black-mirror-8461611.html
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Exclusive: First Poster for THE SWEENEY Starring Ray Winstone, Hayley Atwell, and Damian Lewis by Adam Chitwood (COLLIDER)
We’re happy to debut the first poster for the upcoming action thriller The Sweeney today. Directed by Nick Love (Outlaw) and co-written by John Hodge (Trainspotting), the film stars Ray Winstone as Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Ben Drew as his partner George Carter. The two are “old school crime fighters” who enforce the law in a modern underworld, and with a bank heist in progress and Regan’s old enemy making an appearance on the streets of London, the veteran cop will do whatever it takes to get the job done. The pic also stars Homeland’s Damian Lewis and Captain America’s Hayley Atwell. The Sweeney will be available in theaters and VOD on March 1st.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Hayley Atwell - Hayley Atwell recalls weight jibes (CONTACT MUSIC)
She said: ''I was Hayley 'Fatwell' at school. I was on only child, very quiet and very shy, I was surrounded in primary school by skinny girls in crop tops, when I had puppy fat. I wasn't cool.''
Hayley, 30, has since slimmed down and started turning heads with her dazzling looks, which have been likened to stars of the 30s and 40s.
Discussing the comparisons with old time movie stars, she said: ''Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the square jaw. Stars in the old days used to be more angular. I think my face works on screen because there's a lot of angles to it.''
Hayley also counts the pinnacle of her career so far as meeting Meryl Streep, who complimented her acting abilities.
She added in an interview with The Times newspaper: ''I was presenting at the BAFTAs, and she came up to me and said my performance in 'The Duchess' was 'Wonderfully imagined,' and I just went, 'Waaaaaaaahhhhh.' ''
READ MORE: http://www.contactmusic.com/news/hayley-atwell-recalls-weight-jibes_3424086
Thursday, November 22, 2012
We give thanks for the versatile, handsome, Matthew Macfadyen (great as the bad boy, wonderful as the good Prior)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2HSwVXgbRY
From The Way We Live Now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=PL21781570413A656E&v=lxeoqgr1vpQ#!
The Pillars of the Earth
Monday, November 19, 2012
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Matthew Macfadyen's appearance at Roma Fiction 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w298YNnXzI&feature=share
La ringrazio molto, Emilia Ravenna and Silvia Basile!!! Beautiful
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Matthew Macfadyen: Ripper Street (INSIDE MEDIA TRACK)
Jerome Flynn, Matthew Macfadyen, and Adam Rothenberg in ‘Ripper Street’
The eight part series, created by Richard Warlow, is set in and around Whitechapel in London’s East End in 1889, during the aftermath of the Jack The Ripper murders.
Starring Matthew Macfadyen (Spooks/MI-5, Pride and Prejudice), Jerome Flynn (Game of Thrones), Adam Rothenberg (Alcatraz), Myanna Buring (White Heat) and David Dawson (Luther). The action centers on the notorious H Division, which is charged with keeping order in the chaotic streets of East London.
BBC AMERICA’s SVP of Programming, Richard De Croce said: “We’re thrilled that Ripper Street is coming to our channel as part of Dramaville, the home of outstanding British drama. To this day, audiences continue to be fascinated by Jack The Ripper and the events in Whitechapel in the late 19th Century.
This script and cast are going to take us for a great ride. We’re excited to be involved in such an ambitious production with Tiger Aspect and Lookout Point.” Tiger Aspect’s Head of Drama Greg Brenman added,
“We are so excited to have started production and be seeing these glorious scripts by Richard Warlow come to life. There is so much zest and urgency in Ripper Street that I honestly believe we’re helping re-define the accepted notion of British period drama.”
READ MORE: http://insidemediatrack.com/2012/03/28/bbc-drama-ripper-street-starring-matthew-macfadyen-begins-filming/
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Matthew Macfadyen: BBC rip it up on the streets (Independent ie.)
Dublin Castle and Clancy Barracks have been transformed into London's dark and dingy East End in the late 1800s, where a tour group stumble upon a young girl who has had her throat cut, pictured left.
The series stars 'Pride and Prejudice' actor Matthew Macfadyen (inset) and Jerome Flynn, who also features in the cult series 'Game of Thrones'. The thriller is set in London in 1889 when the identity of the killer was still unknown and the Ripper was at large. It will be shown in the autumn.
READ MORE: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/bbc-rip-it-up-on-the-streets-3060134.html
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Matthew Macfadyen: BBC America Stalks Period Crime Series ‘Ripper Street’ With Matthew Macfadyen DEADLINE LONDON
By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor |
Tuesday, 20 March 2012 11:16 UK
With British period drama all the rage, BBC America has boarded crime series Ripper Street as co-producer. Filming is already underway in Dublin on the 8-parter that’s set in 1899 London in the aftermath of the Jack The Ripper murders. Three Musketeers and Pride And Prejudice’s Matthew Macfadyen stars with Game Of Thrones’ Jerome Flynn and Alcatraz’s Adam Rothenberg. Twilight’s Myanna Buring and Luther’s David Dawson also star. An enduring and macabre fascination with Jack The Ripper, the never-identified serial killer who murdered prostitutes in London’s East End, has spurred films, books, TV shows – and some very popular walking tours of his stalking grounds.
Ripper Street’s action centers on the H Division group of detectives who investigated the murders and tried to keep the peace in a panicked section of east London. The series was created by Richard Warlow, a writer on Mistresses, the UK drama that ABC is remaking in the States. Ripper Street is produced for the BBC by Tiger Aspect Productions, Lookout Point and BBC America. Executive producers are Greg Brenman and Will Gould at Tiger Aspect and Simon Vaughan at Lookout Point.
READ MORE: http://www.deadline.com/2012/03/bbc-america-stalks-period-crime-series-ripper-street-with-matthew-macfadyen/
Monday, March 19, 2012
Matthew Macfadyen: BBC America nabs 'Ripper Street' (VARIETY)
Cabler to co-produce period drama for fall bow
By CYNTHIA LITTLETON
BBC America will revisit London in the era of Jack the Ripper in a new drama series from Tiger Aspect Prods. and Lookout Point. BBC America has boarded "Ripper Street" as a co-producer, and BBC Worldwide will handle international distribution.
The series created by Brit drama vet Richard Warlow ("Mistresses," "Waking the Dead") was commissioned for eight episodes by the Beeb last September. It began lensing skedded in Dublin earlier this month and will bow as part of the cabler's "Dramaville" block of original drama series.
Skein starring Matthew Macfadyen ("MI-5," "The Pillars of the Earth") and Jerome Flynn ("Game of Thrones") is set in London's East End in 1889, during the aftermath of the murder spree that remains one of history's most notorious serial killer cases.
Series revolves around the police precinct tasked with keeping order in the rough Whitechapel neighborhood, and it will delve into the lives of characters affected by the murders.
READ MORE: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118051605
Thursday, March 8, 2012
David Oakes will have cameo on Pillars of the Earth Sequel - World Without End (DAVID OAKES)
Channel 4 has acquired the rights to World Without End, the follow-up to medieval drama Pillars of the Earth, which it showed in late 2010.
The eight-part series adapted from Ken Follett’s sequel is set 150 years later in the same fictional town of Kingsbridge, and features some of the descendants of the original characters from Pillars of the Earth. Miranda Richardson stars alongside Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon and Spooks’s Peter Firth.
The co-production between Tandem, Take 5 and Galafilm is made in association with director Ridley Scott’s production company Scott Free Films.
Read further: http://david-oakes.co.uk/content/world-without-end-channel-4-acquires-rights
Friday, November 25, 2011
Eddie Redmayne: The rising star chats My Week With Marilyn, keeping tabs on his peers and crossing the pond.
Adam Woodward
Friday, November 25 2011 16:5911 GMT
Having already established himself on the theatre circuit, Eddie Redmayne is set to become one of British cinema’s most distinctive faces. Before appearing in Abi Morgan’s Birdsong next year, Redmayne can be seen in My Week With Marilyn, in cinemas November 25, as Mrs Monroe’s wide-eyed assistant Colin Clark during the production of The Prince and the Showgirl. LWLies sat down with Redmayne at an East London coffee shop recently to discuss his career trajectory.
LWLies: You’ve been back and forth between the US and the UK recently, been to any good festivals in that time?
Redmayne: I don’t get to go very often. Do you get out to many festivals?
LWLies: A few. Cannes for a couple of weeks in May, handful since.
Two weeks! Bet you came back and needed a holiday…
Something like that. What about you, do you find yourself wanting to go to more and more festivals?
Redmayne: Yeah but to be honest I find that side of it a bit of a clusterfuck. But I went to Toronto with a film called Hick. It’s by a guy called Derick Martini and it’s basically about this little girl in Nebraska who comes from this white trash family. She’s 14 years old on that weird cusp of adolescence, and she has fantasies of going to Las Vegas and becoming a celebrity. And so she runs away from home and gets picked up by – in a slightly heightened Wizard of Oz fashion – by this Texan cowboy with a limp, which is what I play, who seems nice enough… You pretty promptly realise that he’s not all there and she winds up getting chucked out of his car and finds herself pairing up with Blake Lively’s character, this white trash meth addict. My character, who’s called Eddie, comes back and develops this weird kind of friendship with her that turns sinister.
It was an amazing experience because Chloë Moretz plays the girl and she’s fucking formidable and so much fun to play alongside. She’s this weird hybrid of being like… there’s nothing about her that’s like, ‘Oh, it’s just the fluke of youth’, you know, she’s a serious actress, but she’s also a 14-year-old girl. Here, in England, I do a lot of theatre and period pieces and it’s fun to have another life over there.
You’re fairly well known over here, particularly on the theatre circuit. Is it fun escaping to somewhere where you’re still something of an unknown entity?
In the States as an actor when you arrive no one knows what you do, because you’re English, it’s tough for people to put you into a casting bracket, which is what American producers love to do. They put you up for everything, so in the States I’ve gone from Savage Grace playing a very wealthy, gay young man to playing a limping Texan meth addict. That’s what’s fun for me… whereas so much of our industry is period drama driven or casting to type, it’s a release for me to scare myself and challenge myself. It can be terrifying, but it makes you stretch the parameters.
And you into acting through the theatre circuit?
I did, I did it a lot at school and really enjoyed it, and then when I was university it was the four hundredth anniversary of Twelfth Night and the Globe theatre were looking for a young guy to play Viola. I did a lot off the back of that and got an agent and it was one of those things that I loved doing but didn’t really ever know whether you were really allowed to do it professionally. So I took a year off after uni and gave it a shot. I started in theatre because that was all I knew, and it’s been exciting for me to stumble into other aspects of acting.
Has it felt like a quick transition to the screen?
It’s interesting because I sort of feel that but then I actually look back on it and I started in 2004 and it’s been six or seven years, you know. And it’s been a massive learning curve, particularly with film. The culture over here is that you go to drama schools, agents come to the drama schools and you’re then working in television and theatre and then you get a break and maybe go to America. Whereas in America it starts more in the commercial world, doing ads and TV, so I think that British actors, much more than American actors, have to learn film acting. Most of us start in theatre, and it’s a very different thing. You try to learn through the people you work with.
Let’s talk about My Week With Marilyn. You play a guy named Colin Clark…
That’s right. Alan Clark, the politician was Colin’s brother, and their father was a man named Kenneth Clark, one of the great art historians, an incredibly eccentric chap. They were new money, but they lived in this amazing castle in Kent called Saltford Castle, they were very bohemian and because of that artistic background the family hung out a lot with Margot Fontaine and Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. What’s interesting is that Colin Clark went to Eton and had a very privileged upbringing but, at a time when everyone at Eton was fishing and shooting, here was this art historian’s son who never quite fitted in with his public school background. He was surrounded by these massive characters, and as a pretext that lead to him working in the film industry.
Through his parent connections he got a job as a runner on this film The Prince and the Showgirl, and it’s extraordinary because in one sense you’re the lowest of the low but at the same time you’ve got unprecedented access with the talent. You’re privy to conversations far beyond your status. So this film, Prince and Showgirl, was meant to be the meeting of the greatest actor in the world and the greatest film star in the world, both of whom wanted what the other one had; Olivier wanted to be a movie star and Monroe wanted to be taken seriously as an actress. In theory it was perfect but in practice it was a complete disaster, and her behaviour is well documented as being incredibly late the whole time – despite it being her money that was funding the whole thing – doped up to the nines on sleeping pills after having just married Arthur Miller and having by all account quite a rough time with him. It’s not a classic but it’s worth having a look at.
Everyone on set hated her because she was always late; there was a massive animosity towards her from the British crew. Yet despite all this there is no question that she steals the film whereas Olivier looks kind of mannered and stilted. So I think within the story the crew and everyone found her excruciating, but this guy, in getting so close to her, saw that her behaviour was influenced by what was going on in her private life. Having been brought up around all these people in this privileged youth he wasn’t intimidated by her and ended up having this one week of seeing through all the bullshit. And because he was so different from her she used him as a cipher by which to have a moment of breathing space, and he probably fell in love with the notion of what that was.
How much time did you spend with Michelle [Williams] during pre-production?
We had met in New York beforehand where I was doing a play and she was in London after. We had a limited rehearsal process and she was a lot busier than I was during that time.
When you’re playing such a famous figure you need to get every aspect of them spot on, whereas Colin is unknown to the audience…
Exactly. What was odd, though, was in one moment when his son and his wife and twin sister arrived on set. It must have been very odd for them to see me attempting to play their loved one. Michelle and Kenneth [Branagh] – playing Olivier – had it particularly tough but in some ways, although I was playing a real person, it was difficult finding the character.
You mention about doing more period stuff in the UK, which is influenced a lot by audience tastes being cultured towards certain trends, but is that something you’d like to step away from long-term?
You know what, I’ve had it incredibly good so far… I love the variety of having a schedule like Marilyn, Birdsong and Hick, I love the fact that you can do those types at films in quick succession. I don’t feel like I have to carve out a niche, or exclusively do film over theatre, but at the same time I’m not against working on similar projects. Everyone asks what I prefer, and I suppose I do like variety, but both film and theatre feed each other. What was interesting for me after establishing myself in the theatre was going away for four years and just doing film and then coming back and doing theatre again. It’s intimidating, but the film work really informed the later theatre work I did, much more so than the other way around, I would say.
When you reach the point where you’re constantly being labelled a ‘rising star’, do you become more aware of your own trajectory?
It’s interesting… I was talking to someone about it the other day… In Hick, you don’t see it onscreen but I end up raping a 14-year-old, and that’s heavy stuff, in the same way that Savage Grace was about incest. People’s reactions are always the same: ‘Ah, what bold choices…’ That always interests me because for me they don’t feel like bold choices because they’re really interesting, well-written parts. If I read a script and a character jumps out and it’s not exploitative, perhaps just pushing taboos, then there really is no question in my mind as to whether it’s the right choice. The one thing I think you begin to become more aware of is where your physical attributes will push you.
In some ways… You don’t let that limit you, but sometimes I get sent scripts that are kind of inappropriate and I can see where I’m trying to be positioned. And you’ll go along for the ride, maybe, but not pretend that it’s ultimately feasible. To give an example of it working in my favour, the Moretz family saw Savage Grace and felt quite strongly that I’d be right for the part in Hick. So when I got that script I wasn’t surprised, having done a film about incest, that I was being approached. That being said, the characters are such polar opposites. That’s what liberating, being sent scripts by producers who aren’t intimidated by hardcore subject matter.
Informally you’re part of a group of up-and-coming British actors making waves in the States right now. Is there a sense within that group of having made it?
Yeah. Well… Working and spending time in the States, it’s interesting to see the group of actors and actresses from my generation, who all started around the same time, getting so much respect. It’s wonderful, and at some point I’d love to work with some of my mates in that capacity, because it’s exciting, having started off as jokers trying to get a gig, thinking that our paths could meet.
Who are we talking about, exactly?
Dom Cooper, Andrew Garfield, Ben Whishaw, Charlie Cox… We’re not best mates, I’d say more close peers.
Sure. Is there an element of competition within that group?
Well we all go up for the same parts, and have done for years, and sometimes someone will land an extraordinary part that pushes them to a new league. But the answer is that it always will always remain competitive, but what we’ve learned to do is support each other. If I don’t get a part I think, ‘fuck’, of course, but if someone I respect and admire gets it… that kind of makes it easier to take. Interestingly I think that’s easier for men than it is for women, because there are fewer parts for women and it’s even more to do with looks. I often thank myself that I’m a guy.
For some female actresses the rise can seem very sudden, and the shelf-life short…
You’re often told as an actor, even when you’re a kid, that 99 per cent of actors are unemployed and it’s an unrealistic career path. But even if you’ve got support – and my parents were incredibly supportive – you’re always aware of that statistic and you never believe you’re ever going to make it.
Is there ever a point when you feel like you’ve made it?
You never feel that, really. I’ve just been looking around today trying to buy somewhere and although I’ve got a certain amount of money set aside, as an actor, even if you’ve worked consistently, banks are wary of giving you loans because effectively you’re self-employed. It’s not sustainable, but because you’ve always been told it’s never going to work you never feel like you’re never going to get another job again. It might sound ridiculous, because obviously I’ve been incredibly lucky so far, but when I’m looking for a house at the same time I’m seeing it as a huge risk because I‘ve got this insecurity that I’m never going to work again ingrained deep within my mind. You have to ask yourself whether you would ever consciously do ‘bad’ work just to keep living, and obviously some actors have lavish lifestyles so that’s an inevitability, because it’s incredibly rare to have long-term success.
Someone like Andrew Garfield though must surely be set for the next few years off the back of a big film like Spider-Man?
Well that’s the thing – when you do a big great film that earns a lot of money it feels like you might be set up for the short-term. But the thing to remember is that there aren’t that many movie stars around today, not in the sense of the Tom Cruises and Brad Pitts. Nowadays financing a film is very different, so I think there’s guys like Andrew and Rob Pattinson and Shia LaBeouf who can get a film financed, but that’s kind of it. Andrew’s very passionate about Spider-Man, but it gives him a freedom in that he can now go and do theatre or something smaller, independent. I often think that those big films are dangled in front of young actors affixed with a three-picture deal, but they don’t always come off. It’s risky. I love fucking watching those films, as well, I see ‘em all… and so as much as I want to do serious work, it’s exciting to be able to able to do fun stuff, the kind of films you grew up loving.
What do you love about movies?
What was one of the most interesting things about Marilyn was the film-within-a-film concept. And also the fact that it’s part of this British heritage – The Prince and the Showgirl was filmed in Pinewood and we shot it in the same studio; Michelle was in the same dressing room that Marilyn was in; we shot in the same corridors. While we were there Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was shot in the next lot over and there were all sorts of bedraggled pirates wandering along the corridors, and Chloe was actually there doing Hugo and so you’d see a load of French people in the dressing room… There are thousands of people working on completely different types of movies, and that pirate is walking the same corridors that Marilyn Monroe walked. Then you’ve got Ken Branagh strutting around dressed as Olivier and then running off at night to edit Thor via Skype. That’s fucking amazing. That sense of heritage really struck me. It’s very British not to over-celebrate what we do, but we have an amazing history and it was a wonderfully romantic feeling looking back at that. I’m very proud to be apart of that.
LittleWhiteLies
LWLies: You’ve been back and forth between the US and the UK recently, been to any good festivals in that time?
Redmayne: I don’t get to go very often. Do you get out to many festivals?
LWLies: A few. Cannes for a couple of weeks in May, handful since.
Two weeks! Bet you came back and needed a holiday…
Something like that. What about you, do you find yourself wanting to go to more and more festivals?
Redmayne: Yeah but to be honest I find that side of it a bit of a clusterfuck. But I went to Toronto with a film called Hick. It’s by a guy called Derick Martini and it’s basically about this little girl in Nebraska who comes from this white trash family. She’s 14 years old on that weird cusp of adolescence, and she has fantasies of going to Las Vegas and becoming a celebrity. And so she runs away from home and gets picked up by – in a slightly heightened Wizard of Oz fashion – by this Texan cowboy with a limp, which is what I play, who seems nice enough… You pretty promptly realise that he’s not all there and she winds up getting chucked out of his car and finds herself pairing up with Blake Lively’s character, this white trash meth addict. My character, who’s called Eddie, comes back and develops this weird kind of friendship with her that turns sinister.
It was an amazing experience because Chloë Moretz plays the girl and she’s fucking formidable and so much fun to play alongside. She’s this weird hybrid of being like… there’s nothing about her that’s like, ‘Oh, it’s just the fluke of youth’, you know, she’s a serious actress, but she’s also a 14-year-old girl. Here, in England, I do a lot of theatre and period pieces and it’s fun to have another life over there.
You’re fairly well known over here, particularly on the theatre circuit. Is it fun escaping to somewhere where you’re still something of an unknown entity?
In the States as an actor when you arrive no one knows what you do, because you’re English, it’s tough for people to put you into a casting bracket, which is what American producers love to do. They put you up for everything, so in the States I’ve gone from Savage Grace playing a very wealthy, gay young man to playing a limping Texan meth addict. That’s what’s fun for me… whereas so much of our industry is period drama driven or casting to type, it’s a release for me to scare myself and challenge myself. It can be terrifying, but it makes you stretch the parameters.
And you into acting through the theatre circuit?
I did, I did it a lot at school and really enjoyed it, and then when I was university it was the four hundredth anniversary of Twelfth Night and the Globe theatre were looking for a young guy to play Viola. I did a lot off the back of that and got an agent and it was one of those things that I loved doing but didn’t really ever know whether you were really allowed to do it professionally. So I took a year off after uni and gave it a shot. I started in theatre because that was all I knew, and it’s been exciting for me to stumble into other aspects of acting.
Has it felt like a quick transition to the screen?
It’s interesting because I sort of feel that but then I actually look back on it and I started in 2004 and it’s been six or seven years, you know. And it’s been a massive learning curve, particularly with film. The culture over here is that you go to drama schools, agents come to the drama schools and you’re then working in television and theatre and then you get a break and maybe go to America. Whereas in America it starts more in the commercial world, doing ads and TV, so I think that British actors, much more than American actors, have to learn film acting. Most of us start in theatre, and it’s a very different thing. You try to learn through the people you work with.
Let’s talk about My Week With Marilyn. You play a guy named Colin Clark…
That’s right. Alan Clark, the politician was Colin’s brother, and their father was a man named Kenneth Clark, one of the great art historians, an incredibly eccentric chap. They were new money, but they lived in this amazing castle in Kent called Saltford Castle, they were very bohemian and because of that artistic background the family hung out a lot with Margot Fontaine and Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. What’s interesting is that Colin Clark went to Eton and had a very privileged upbringing but, at a time when everyone at Eton was fishing and shooting, here was this art historian’s son who never quite fitted in with his public school background. He was surrounded by these massive characters, and as a pretext that lead to him working in the film industry.
Through his parent connections he got a job as a runner on this film The Prince and the Showgirl, and it’s extraordinary because in one sense you’re the lowest of the low but at the same time you’ve got unprecedented access with the talent. You’re privy to conversations far beyond your status. So this film, Prince and Showgirl, was meant to be the meeting of the greatest actor in the world and the greatest film star in the world, both of whom wanted what the other one had; Olivier wanted to be a movie star and Monroe wanted to be taken seriously as an actress. In theory it was perfect but in practice it was a complete disaster, and her behaviour is well documented as being incredibly late the whole time – despite it being her money that was funding the whole thing – doped up to the nines on sleeping pills after having just married Arthur Miller and having by all account quite a rough time with him. It’s not a classic but it’s worth having a look at.
Everyone on set hated her because she was always late; there was a massive animosity towards her from the British crew. Yet despite all this there is no question that she steals the film whereas Olivier looks kind of mannered and stilted. So I think within the story the crew and everyone found her excruciating, but this guy, in getting so close to her, saw that her behaviour was influenced by what was going on in her private life. Having been brought up around all these people in this privileged youth he wasn’t intimidated by her and ended up having this one week of seeing through all the bullshit. And because he was so different from her she used him as a cipher by which to have a moment of breathing space, and he probably fell in love with the notion of what that was.
How much time did you spend with Michelle [Williams] during pre-production?
We had met in New York beforehand where I was doing a play and she was in London after. We had a limited rehearsal process and she was a lot busier than I was during that time.
When you’re playing such a famous figure you need to get every aspect of them spot on, whereas Colin is unknown to the audience…
Exactly. What was odd, though, was in one moment when his son and his wife and twin sister arrived on set. It must have been very odd for them to see me attempting to play their loved one. Michelle and Kenneth [Branagh] – playing Olivier – had it particularly tough but in some ways, although I was playing a real person, it was difficult finding the character.
You mention about doing more period stuff in the UK, which is influenced a lot by audience tastes being cultured towards certain trends, but is that something you’d like to step away from long-term?
You know what, I’ve had it incredibly good so far… I love the variety of having a schedule like Marilyn, Birdsong and Hick, I love the fact that you can do those types at films in quick succession. I don’t feel like I have to carve out a niche, or exclusively do film over theatre, but at the same time I’m not against working on similar projects. Everyone asks what I prefer, and I suppose I do like variety, but both film and theatre feed each other. What was interesting for me after establishing myself in the theatre was going away for four years and just doing film and then coming back and doing theatre again. It’s intimidating, but the film work really informed the later theatre work I did, much more so than the other way around, I would say.
When you reach the point where you’re constantly being labelled a ‘rising star’, do you become more aware of your own trajectory?
It’s interesting… I was talking to someone about it the other day… In Hick, you don’t see it onscreen but I end up raping a 14-year-old, and that’s heavy stuff, in the same way that Savage Grace was about incest. People’s reactions are always the same: ‘Ah, what bold choices…’ That always interests me because for me they don’t feel like bold choices because they’re really interesting, well-written parts. If I read a script and a character jumps out and it’s not exploitative, perhaps just pushing taboos, then there really is no question in my mind as to whether it’s the right choice. The one thing I think you begin to become more aware of is where your physical attributes will push you.
In some ways… You don’t let that limit you, but sometimes I get sent scripts that are kind of inappropriate and I can see where I’m trying to be positioned. And you’ll go along for the ride, maybe, but not pretend that it’s ultimately feasible. To give an example of it working in my favour, the Moretz family saw Savage Grace and felt quite strongly that I’d be right for the part in Hick. So when I got that script I wasn’t surprised, having done a film about incest, that I was being approached. That being said, the characters are such polar opposites. That’s what liberating, being sent scripts by producers who aren’t intimidated by hardcore subject matter.
Informally you’re part of a group of up-and-coming British actors making waves in the States right now. Is there a sense within that group of having made it?
Yeah. Well… Working and spending time in the States, it’s interesting to see the group of actors and actresses from my generation, who all started around the same time, getting so much respect. It’s wonderful, and at some point I’d love to work with some of my mates in that capacity, because it’s exciting, having started off as jokers trying to get a gig, thinking that our paths could meet.
Who are we talking about, exactly?
Dom Cooper, Andrew Garfield, Ben Whishaw, Charlie Cox… We’re not best mates, I’d say more close peers.
Sure. Is there an element of competition within that group?
Well we all go up for the same parts, and have done for years, and sometimes someone will land an extraordinary part that pushes them to a new league. But the answer is that it always will always remain competitive, but what we’ve learned to do is support each other. If I don’t get a part I think, ‘fuck’, of course, but if someone I respect and admire gets it… that kind of makes it easier to take. Interestingly I think that’s easier for men than it is for women, because there are fewer parts for women and it’s even more to do with looks. I often thank myself that I’m a guy.
For some female actresses the rise can seem very sudden, and the shelf-life short…
You’re often told as an actor, even when you’re a kid, that 99 per cent of actors are unemployed and it’s an unrealistic career path. But even if you’ve got support – and my parents were incredibly supportive – you’re always aware of that statistic and you never believe you’re ever going to make it.
Is there ever a point when you feel like you’ve made it?
You never feel that, really. I’ve just been looking around today trying to buy somewhere and although I’ve got a certain amount of money set aside, as an actor, even if you’ve worked consistently, banks are wary of giving you loans because effectively you’re self-employed. It’s not sustainable, but because you’ve always been told it’s never going to work you never feel like you’re never going to get another job again. It might sound ridiculous, because obviously I’ve been incredibly lucky so far, but when I’m looking for a house at the same time I’m seeing it as a huge risk because I‘ve got this insecurity that I’m never going to work again ingrained deep within my mind. You have to ask yourself whether you would ever consciously do ‘bad’ work just to keep living, and obviously some actors have lavish lifestyles so that’s an inevitability, because it’s incredibly rare to have long-term success.
Someone like Andrew Garfield though must surely be set for the next few years off the back of a big film like Spider-Man?
Well that’s the thing – when you do a big great film that earns a lot of money it feels like you might be set up for the short-term. But the thing to remember is that there aren’t that many movie stars around today, not in the sense of the Tom Cruises and Brad Pitts. Nowadays financing a film is very different, so I think there’s guys like Andrew and Rob Pattinson and Shia LaBeouf who can get a film financed, but that’s kind of it. Andrew’s very passionate about Spider-Man, but it gives him a freedom in that he can now go and do theatre or something smaller, independent. I often think that those big films are dangled in front of young actors affixed with a three-picture deal, but they don’t always come off. It’s risky. I love fucking watching those films, as well, I see ‘em all… and so as much as I want to do serious work, it’s exciting to be able to able to do fun stuff, the kind of films you grew up loving.
What do you love about movies?
What was one of the most interesting things about Marilyn was the film-within-a-film concept. And also the fact that it’s part of this British heritage – The Prince and the Showgirl was filmed in Pinewood and we shot it in the same studio; Michelle was in the same dressing room that Marilyn was in; we shot in the same corridors. While we were there Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was shot in the next lot over and there were all sorts of bedraggled pirates wandering along the corridors, and Chloe was actually there doing Hugo and so you’d see a load of French people in the dressing room… There are thousands of people working on completely different types of movies, and that pirate is walking the same corridors that Marilyn Monroe walked. Then you’ve got Ken Branagh strutting around dressed as Olivier and then running off at night to edit Thor via Skype. That’s fucking amazing. That sense of heritage really struck me. It’s very British not to over-celebrate what we do, but we have an amazing history and it was a wonderfully romantic feeling looking back at that. I’m very proud to be apart of that.
LittleWhiteLies
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