In absence of Bette Midler to play lawyer, HBO film on Phil Spector falls to Plan B: Helen Mirren (NY DAILY NEWS)

DAVID HINCKLEY

PASADENA, Calif. — No Bette Midler?
No problem. Just ring up Helen Mirren.

When Midler had back problems that forced her to drop out of HBO’s upcoming movie on Phil Spector, titled “Spector,” the producers fortunately had a Plan B: Mirren.

We should all plan so well.

The British actress is better known for elegant BBC productions than the crazy world of the convicted record producer, which premieres next month. But she told TV critics here she enjoyed the ride — and that having no time to research the role wasn’t a problem.

“It’s a strange amalgamation of imagination and reality,” Mirren told TV critics here. “The imaginative part, I think, is as important as the realistic element.”


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/helen-mirren-subs-midler-hbo-phil-spector-biopic-article-1.1233829#ixzz2HDJdgEC6

Benedict Cumberbatch returns in Parade's End By Benjamin Secher7:00AM BST 11 Aug 2012 (THE TELEGRAPH)

A world away from Sherlock Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch's latest television role sees him playing a repressed civil servant

Benedict Cumberbatch has fallen in love with an overweight civil servant called Christopher. 'I am enamoured of his principles, his virtue and the goodness he stands for,' he says, grinning the wonky grin of the hopelessly smitten. 'I love him. I really do think that Christopher Tietjens is the character I'm most fond of ever having played.'

Tietjens needs all the love he can get. The anti-hero of Parade's End – a tetralogy of novels written by Ford Madox Ford in the 1920s, about the life and relationships of Tietjens before and during the First World War, and now adapted by Tom Stoppard into a five-part television drama – may be intellectually sharp, but he's physically cumbersome and all but incapable of articulating the emotion buried beneath his ungainly exterior. 'As Tietjens saw the world, you didn't "talk",' Ford writes. 'Perhaps you didn't even think about how you felt.'

Cumberbatch's performance, in an ambitious series co-produced by the BBC with the American network HBO, is mesmerising; it is further proof of his knack for making even the most peculiar characters seem overwhelmingly human. While his Sherlock Holmes, the character that made him a household name and bona fide heart-throb, may share a certain cruel wit with his Tietjens, in other ways the two figures could hardly be more different. If Sherlock zips breakneck across the screen like a jet ski, Tietjens glides, with the stately movement of an ocean liner. Where Sherlock arrives at the truth by employing what Cumberbatch calls his 'sociopathic, motormouth deducting genius', Tietjens seems to carry it within him.

His Tietjens is the kind of man who will pore over the Encyclopaedia Britannica, scribbling corrections in the margin, while the nation stands on the brink of war, and his wife (Rebecca Hall) – a volatile beauty who is openly cheating on him with another man – hurls insults at him across the breakfast table. 'He tries to kill her with kindness,' Cumberbatch says. 'But what she really wants from him is to be told to stop f***ing around, not be mollycoddled and treated as damaged goods.'

READ MORE:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9459441/Benedict-Cumberbatch-returns-in-Parades-End.html

Clive Owen: Fine Tuning for Monday, May 28 BY ALEX STRACHAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS (CANADA .COM)

Quiet, studied, cerebral and eerily compelling, the new HBO biopic Hemingway & Gellhorn is both a throwback and surprisingly modern.

The two-and-a-half-hour film, long by TV-movie standards, is a reminder that made-for-TV movies don't have to pander. Increasingly, films made by adults for adults are being seen on cable channels like HBO. If the Hollywood studios had their way, and it weren't for indie filmmakers, summer at the movie theatres would be one long superhero movie. There's a reason A-listers like Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman choose to slum in TV. Increasingly, that reason is movies like Hemingway & Gellhorn.

As directed by seminal filmmaker Philip Kaufman - few film directors can claim credits as distinctive and differing as The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Invasion of the Body Snatchers within a few years of each other - Hemingway & Gellhorn is a reminder, too, that, long before Arwa Damon, Marie Colvin and Christiane Amanpour, women were at the front lines of the world's most prominent, respected war correspondents. Gellhorn, considered by the Daily Telegraph to be one of the greatest war correspondents of her generation, covered nearly every major conflict that occurred during her storied 60-year career.

Although Hemingway is the more familiar name, Hemingway & Gellhorn is Gellhorn's story. It's a cliche to describe Gellhorn as a woman before her time, but consider this: Shortly after meeting Hemingway in 1936 in Key West and becoming his third wife in 1940, Gellhorn chafed at being cast in the shadow of the renowned novelist and ladies' man, famously remarking to a friend that she didn't care to be ``a footnote in someone else's life.'' Extramarital affairs followed - on both sides - and the marriage fractured, as the saying goes: ``We were good in war. And when there was no war, we made our own.''


READ MORE: http://www.canada.com/entertainment/Fine+Tuning+Monday/6673236/story.html

Clive Owen: Sore feet? The usually pristine Nicole Kidman kicks off her heels and goes barefoot after promoting with Clive Owen (Mail OnLine)

By J J Anisiobi
Last updated at 2:24 PM on 14th January 2012

She is almost always dressed immaculately with not a hair or a wrinkle out of place.

But the usually pristine Nicole Kidman was caught barefoot yesterday in Pasadena, California.
The 44-year-old actress had been answering questions all day for the HBO television film Hemingway & Gellhorn at the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

Lady and a tramp: Nicole Kidman poses for photos yesterday in Pasadena, California, barefoot

Dressed in a blue lace dress and with her hair down, the Australian had worn a pair of heels to the event and after a full day of questioning and posing for photos she couldn't wait to kick them off. 

 Joined by British leading man Clive Owen, the pair both spoke of their roles in the upcoming movie in which they act out the epic love story between journalist Martha Gellhorn and writer Ernest Hemingway.

The film is a biopic about the two famous literary names and Kidman, who posed for photos without her shoes on, described her character as a real 'trailblazer'.

Two's company: Nicole poses with her co-star Clive Owen who appears in Hemingway & Gellhorn with her

In talks: Nicole answered questions from an audience at the Television Critics Association winter press tour

She said: 'She was the first female, really, war correspondent, and she wrote with such direct truth and that is so hard to do.'

Kidman added: 'She’s not Hemingway, she doesn’t want to write novels, she wants to be a correspondent and I love that she was the first woman to do that. She was a trailblazer.'

However, when asked if she would like to see a movie made about her own life on the big screen one day she sharply defended her privacy and said 'no, please no.'

At the helm: Director Philip Kaufman sits in between the two stars during the question and answer session

She said: 'Part of the reason of being an actor is you like playing other people’s lives and exploring all the psychologies in that and the emotions.

'I think having my life be as private and quiet as possible is a way in which then I can go and play characters. I like the privacy of my life and I protect it quite vigilantly.'

The former wife of Tom Cruise lives with husband Keith Urban in Nashville, Tennessee, along with their two daughters.

Her co-star shares her opinion and agreed that he would never want a biopic made of his life adding: 'I wouldn't want to see it.'

The actors guild: Clive Owen, Philip Kaufman and Nicole Kidman take some pictures after having been on stage

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2086624/Nicole-Kidman-goes-barefoot-promoting-Hemingway--Gellhorn-Clive-Owen.html#ixzz1jRuGrBGa

Clive Owen, Nicole Kidman, play writers Gellhorn, Hemingway but nix idea of their own biopics (The Washington Post)

(HBO/Associated Press) - In this image released by HBO, Nicole Kidman, left, and Clive Owen are shown in a scene from the HBO film, “Hemingway & Gellhorn.” Owen and Kidman portray writer Ernest Hemingway and war reporter Martha Gellhorn in the film debuting in May

By Associated Press, Published: January 13

 

PASADENA, Calif. — Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen play writers Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway in a new HBO film, but they’d prefer to keep their own lives off-screen.

At a news conference Friday promoting “Hemingway & Gellhorn,” Kidman said she likes her privacy and protects it “quite diligently.” She and husband Keith Urban live in Nashville, Tenn., with their two daughters.  Her British co-star shares her viewpoint. Of a Clive Owen biopic, he said, “I wouldn’t want to see it.”

“Hemingway & Gellhorn” is set to air in May. It’s about the passionate, short-lived relationship of Gellhorn, a daring war correspondent, and the great novelist.

Kidman says she enjoys portraying inspirational women “who defy the odds and that burn bright,” as Gellhorn did.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/nicole-kidman-clive-owen-play-writers-gellhorn-hemingway-but-nix-idea-of-their-own-biopics/2012/01/13/gIQA0lODxP_story.html