British actors David Harewood (“Homeland”), Neil Morrissey (“Line of Duty”), Katherine Kelly (“Mr Selfridge”) and Tobias Menzies (“The Honorable Woman”) have been announced to join the star-studded cast of the television adaptation of John le Carré’s novel “The Night Manager,” which started filming last month.
Co-produced by AMC with BBC One and The Ink Factory, the latest names to feature in the international production join previously-announced stars Hugh Laurie (“House”), Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers), Olivia Colman (“Broadchurch”), Tom Hollander (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest), Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) and Academy Award-winning director Susanne Bier (In a Better World).
Harewood is most well-known for his role in Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning drama “Homeland,” whilst Morrissey was recently featured in BAFTA-nominated drama “Line of Duty.” Kelly starred in two series of Emmy-nominated British drama “Mr Selfridge,” and Menzies has made a name for himself in Golden Globe-winning drama “The Honorable Woman” and Emmy Award-winning series “Game of Thrones.”
Other names announced to appear in the espionage drama include BAFTA nominees Adeel Akhtar (“Utopia”) and Natasha Little (“Wolf Hall”), as well as Jonathan Aris (“Sherlock”) and Hannah Steele (“Wolf Hall”).
A contemporary interpretation of le Carré’s 1993 novel – and the first television adaptation of a le Carré novel in more than 20 years – “The Night Manager” mini-series will bring together love, loss and revenge in a complex story of modern criminality. The series follows former British soldier Jonathan Pine (Hiddleston) who is recruited by an intelligence operative named Burr (Colman) to navigate the shadowy recesses of Whitehall and Washington where an unholy alliance operates between the intelligence community and the secret arms trade. To infiltrate the inner circle of lethal arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper (Laurie), which includes girlfriend Jed (Debicki) and an associate named Corcoran (Hollander), Pine must himself become a criminal.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By ANDREW GOLDMAN
March 5, 2015 3:36 p.m. ET
HAS THERE EVER LIVED a lustier, more murderous cast of characters than the Tudors? The infamy of the English dynasty owes largely to the treacherous 38-year reign of Henry VIII, but an even more compelling character may be his enabler and brain for hire, Thomas Cromwell, the commoner who rose in his court to become a kind of Henry whisperer, an advisor renowned for his ability to read the king’s mind like a book. For 500 years, Cromwell was viewed as a great heavy in the Tudor drama, a character whose lure became irresistible to the British novelist Hilary Mantel. “When I was researching, I started off with a fairly conventional viewpoint: that Cromwell’s a villain but an interesting villain,” Mantel says. “Then I began to discover other things and modified my view very fast.” Cromwell was the consummate fixer—in Mantel’s words, “the man to cut through some legal entanglement that’s ensnared you for three generations, or talk your sniffling little daughter into the marriage she swears she will never make.” Mantel also found him unusually sympathetic: After the deaths of his wife and daughters, he went on to support his large extended family. She devoted eight years and a thousand pages to novelizing the first 51 years of Cromwell’s life with Wolf Hall, released in 2009, and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, published three years later.
The books made Mantel a literary star—the first British author to win the Man Booker Prize twice. Naturally, film producers came calling. “There were many suitors, yes,” she says. But her books are serious works of historical fiction. The Tudors—notably in the Showtime series of the same name and the filmed adaptation of The Other Boleyn Girl—had been transformed in the popular imagination as characters scheming and copulating through airbrushed Hollywood bodice rippers (“bonkbusters,” as the genre is known in England). Mantel feared what would become of her Cromwell in the wrong hands, how tempting it might be to drown him in an orgiastic, Game of Thrones–style bloodbath.
One suitor stood out from the rest: Colin Callender, the British-born producer who’d just left HBO after 21 years to start his own production company. As the president of HBO films, Callender had overseen the production of John Adams, a miniseries based on David McCullough’s biography. Mantel loved the seriousness of the project—the fact that it starred Paul Giamatti, not Tom Cruise—and that it made colonial life look as cold and austere as history tells us it was. Callender, she trusted, wouldn’t make the Tudors, in her word, too “cute.”
While devouring Wolf Hall, Callender recognized something novel, but also enticingly familiar, about Cromwell. As he’d seen firsthand at HBO, The Sopranos had irrevocably darkened the public’s taste and tolerance of its television protagonists, opening the doors for the likes of House of Cards’ Frank Underwood, Ray Donovan and, Callender imagined, the centuries-despised Thomas Cromwell. “Audiences are increasingly interested in characters who live on both sides of the moral equation,” Callender says. “I thought, here was the way to reinvigorate the television historical drama for the post–Sopranos, Breaking Bad world.” The rights to Mantel’s book became the first acquisition at Callender’s Playground Entertainment. Now he just needed actors with the gifts to sell Mantel’s portrayal of the insatiable Henry and his deft consigliere, Cromwell.
THERE ARE MANY who swear that Mark Rylance, the man Callender tapped to play Cromwell, is the greatest actor alive, that seeing him embody the small-time drug dealer Johnny “Rooster” Byron in Jerusalem is as close to a religious experience as the theater can offer. At lunch on a Pasadena, California, hotel patio, Rylance blushes, looking at his feet while Damian Lewis, who plays Wolf Hall’s Henry VIII, testifies to his brilliance. “I don’t know who the greatest actor is—it’s kind of a ridiculous notion—but if you haven’t seen Mark onstage, I’m here to tell you he’s extraordinary,” Lewis says. “He’s kind of cornered the market in redefining characters that we think we know.”
As they are both actors who spent their early professional years performing the Bard at the Royal Shakespeare Company, it might be tempting for American audiences to toss Rylance and Lewis into the same classically trained British actor bin. But just eyeballing them sitting next to each other suggests that their social circles rarely intersect. Rylance, who arrived wearing his trademark fedora, comes across as a theater bohemian, with silver Navajo bracelets on each wrist (he’s actively involved in Survival International, a group committed to protecting tribal people around the world) and a short-sleeved patterned bowling shirt; Lewis, the Eton-educated, St. John’s Wood–reared son of London privilege, is chic in a tailored dark blue shirt, designer jeans and a Rolex, and carries himself with a natural masculine confidence. Given that Rylance has spent his life projecting his voice onstage—he’s won three Tonys and two Oliviers—it’s surprising that he speaks so softly one has to lean in to hear him, even sitting a few feet away. (As a child, Rylance suffered from an intense shyness that kept him from speaking a word until he was 6.)
Through Wolf Hall, Rylance has taken on the job that Mantel began—redefining Cromwell, saving him even, almost 500 years after he was beheaded on trumped-up charges of treason. Rylance, best described as sprightly, might not be the first actor who comes to mind to play Cromwell; in Wolf Hall he’s a physically imposing brute who had likely killed a man or two in close combat during his mysterious younger days and was depicted in the enduring Hans Holbein likeness as a bruiser, fleshy and austere under his black bonnet. “I’m aware I’m not so big as Cromwell is physically, but I can take on psychological weight,” Rylance says. Playing bigger isn’t a problem for an actor of Rylance’s gifts; in fact, just the day before, he’d been sitting with Steven Spielberg, discussing how he will play the titular big friendly giant in The BFG, the director’s upcoming adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book. He’s thought deeply about the mechanics of the Cromwell-Henry relationship and came upon an unexpected insight when he encountered a man who keeps grizzly bears in Montana. “He said to me, the thing with bears is they are incredibly emotional, they’re made of emotions,” Rylance says. “You have to be very clear and very loving towards this bear, which is emotionally like a 15- or 16-year-old autistic child. I compare Damian’s Henry to that.”
Stars including Benedict Cumberbatch, Sienna Miller and Damian Lewis have joined forces to film themselves performing difficult tongue-twisters in support of a 12-year-old girl whose skin blisters at the slightest touch.
Sohana Collins from London suffers from an incredibly rare genetic disorder called epidermolysis bullosa (EB). If Sohana’s skin is touched, even lightly, it reacts as if she’s been burned.
Her hands are so fragile she has to wear gloves, and all her food must be liquidised as her mouth and oesophagus are also prone to blistering.
Her mum, Sharmila Nikapota, 45, contacted Homeland actor Damien Lewis and, after learning about Sohana, he agreed to become patron of a charity in her name - The Sohana Research Fund.
As the name of her condition is quite the tongue-twister in itself, Damien had the idea to film himself stumbling over another awkward tongue-twister before nominating Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch to do the same.
In turn, Benedict nominated actress and model Sienna Miller, and since then BBC presenter Mishal Husain, Damien Lewis’ wife actress Helen McCrory and Emma Watson have also thrown their weight behind the campaign.
Sharmila hopes the campaign will be as big as the ice bucket challenge, which dominated social media timelines last summer and raised over $98 million for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association.
“When Sohana was born in 2002, there was very little prospect of an effective treatment let alone cure, but breakthroughs in research underpin the significant hope that this is no longer the case,” she said.
“It is critical that funding is achieved for key projects that will harness this research optimism."
THIS IS SOMERSET By Steve Grant November 4, 2013
It's an act of deduction worthy of Hercule Poirot himself, but actor David Suchet believes he spotted the talents of some of Britain's most successful actors long before they became stars in their own right.
Suchet, who was educated at Wellington School, Somerset, told the Radio Times he had accurately predicted which of the drama's bit-part players would go on to become household names.
Among the 1,124 actors who appeared in the 13 series of Agatha Christie's Poirot were Joely Richardson, Damian Lewis and Michael Fassbender – all before they were well known.
"This is quite true," Suchet told Radio Times of his talent-spotting skills. "As regards everybody who has now become a big name – I have said at the time, 'Watch out for that one'. I've sensed it."
He said he and the production team did not want the programme to be a "Spotlight gallery" – a reference to the actors' directory used by casting agents. However, the requirement for fresh faces to adopt looks of consternation when accused of a crime created a huge demand for new talent.
The cast included two men who went on to play the lead role in Doctor Who. Peter Capaldi, who makes his first appearance as the Doctor at Christmas, turned up in Wasps' Nest in 1991, 14 years before he became a household name as Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It. Christopher Eccleston was a fascist thug in One, Two, Buckle My Shoe in 1992.
Richardson had one of her first television roles in Poirot in 1989 when she was 24. Four years later she starred in the BBC adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover.
Lewis was a recent graduate from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama when he played a young resident at a hostel beset by thievery in Hickory Dickory Dock in 1995. By 2001 he had taken the lead role in Band of Brothers and is currently playing the compromised war hero at the centre of Homeland.
Emily Blunt, meanwhile, fared considerably better than her character in Death on the Nile in 2004. Linnet Ridgeway, an American heiress, was found with a bullet hole in her head. Blunt herself went on to take leading roles in My Summer of Love and The Devil Wears Prada.
Spoiler alert! Homeland stars Damian Lewis and Claire Danes have revealed a series of clues about the show’s third series to be screened here later this year.
The actors admitted its main character, former hostage and double agent Nicholas Brody, played by Lewis, will not appear in the first two episodes.
Lewis, 42, who has won an Emmy for the role, said: “He’s on the lam. He’s disappeared into a network Carrie has effected, and he’s the most wanted criminal in the world, so he has to lay low. I do hope that when you do see Brody for the first time, it will be real, real interesting.”
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. -- “Homeland” is gearing up to return to Showtime for its third season this September and Executive Producer Howard Gordon hinted at the drama ahead.
“The focus this season really is the aftershocks of last year,” Howard told AccessHollywood.com at TNT’s 25th anniversary bash following Wednesday’s portion of the Television Critics Association Summer Tour in Beverly Hills.
Gordon said nothing is set yet, so they are keeping those writers’ room ideas under wraps. He was happy, however, to open up about his new show coming to TNT – “Legends,” starring former “Game of Thrones” star Sean Bean.
“He’s electric,” Gordon said of casting Bean as his leading man, Martin Odum, an agent working for the Deep Cover Operations division of the FBI.
“I had been a fan of his for so many years,” Gordon said. “The thing about Sean is he is extraordinary and charismatic and he’s a movie star, but he’s an actor and this part is about being an actor.”
And Gordon praised Bean’s performance in Season 1 of “Thrones.”
“It was transcendent and he has that kind of dignity and that kind of grace and the pathos that I think audiences have connected with and I hope this is a part and a role that really reengages the audiences with him,” Gordon said.
British actor Tom Hiddleston arrives at the screening of the film "Only Lovers Left Alive" on May 25, 2013 at the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival (ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
A company named AudioGO – “The home of BBC Audiobooks” has announced that British actor Tom Hiddleston will record audiobooks of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels Octopussy and The Living Daylights. This makes lots of sense, because his fans absolutely love to hear him talk. The recordings will be available in September, as CDs or as Internet downloads.
AudioGO has lots of experience with this sort of thing; it has already recorded The Man with the Golden Gun, read by Kenneth Branagh, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, read by David Tennant (of Doctor Who fame), Moonraker, read by Bill Nighy, Diamonds are Forever, read by Damian Lewis (of U.S. TV show Homeland), Live and Let Die, read by Rory Kinnear, The Spy Who Loved Me, read by Rosamund Pike, along with several other selections.
(Michael Buckner/Getty Images)
News of this project created much excitement among Hiddleston’s fans, since many of them would like to see him play 007 in a film one day, and the audiobook could serve as an audition of sorts. Can you imagine the disappointment, bewilderment and grumbling when they (we) learned that these audiobooks won’t be available in the U.S. or Canada?
AudioGo’s UK Facebook page says it does not have the rights to sell the audio books in the U.S. or Canada.
(Brendon Thorne/Getty Images) . . .with Kenneth Branagh, left, in the film Thor and the TV series Wallander. . .(that’s Jaimie Alexander in the centre).
A quick Internet search found a Los Angeles Times article from 2012 that says that Amazon.com had announced its purchase of the North American rights to Ian Fleming’s James Bond books.
Stars of Homeland and Parade's End head the British nominations for major television awards across the Pond.
By JENNY MANNING
Published: 23rd May 2013
DAMIAN Lewis and Benedict Cumberbatch are among a host of stars flying the flag for Britain at the 2013 American Critics’ Choice Television Awards.
The two actors have been honoured with nominations for their performances in Homeland and BBC mini-series Parade’s End respectively.
Lewis, whose Homeland co-star Claire Danes is also nominated, faces competition for best actor from fellow Brits Andrew Lincoln and Matthew Rhys, together with Kevin Spacey, Bryan Cranston and Timothy Olyphant.
Cumberbatch will battle it out against Behind The Candelabra stars Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, as well as Toby Jones, Al Pacino and Dominic West, in the best actor in a movie or mini-series field.
While Brit actresses Sienna Miller and Imelda Staunton have received nods for their portrayals of Tippi Hedren and Alfred Hitchcock’s wife Alma Reville in the BBC and HBO TV drama The Girl.
UPROOTING from the UK to the US doesn’t just mean shifting a few boxes if you’re a celeb.
Dan Stevens
Downton Abbey actor DAN STEVENS is the latest Brit actor to have had a La La Land makeover – in a bid to make sure the quest for worldwide fame doesn’t turn ugly.
It's he hottest new musical in the West End after already wowing audiences Stateside.
So it was no surprise to see a host of Britain's biggest names turning out to the opening night of the London production of The Book Of Mormon.
And showing that it's a play fit for a Lady, Downton Abbey stars Elizabeth McGovern and Laura Carmichael joined the the show's creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone at the Prince Of Wales Theatre.
The actresses, who play mother and daughter Cora Crawley the Countess of Grantham and Lady Edith Crawley looked a far cry from their onscreen characters.
Elizabeth, 51, looked great in a navy peplum dress, over which she wore a bright blue quilted coat.
The pretty actress added a splash of colour with bright red lipstick, as she happily posed for the cameras.
Laura, who plays her somewhat dowdy daughter, cut a very stylish figure in a chic beige trench coat, underneath which she wore an all black outfit with black heels.
Also from the ITV period drama was the women's co-star Brendan Coyle, who plays Bates, attended with his girlfriend Joy Harrison.
Homeland star Damian Lewis was wrapped up for the cold weather with his actress wife Helen McCrory.
As anticipation mounts among fantasy fans ahead of the Radio 4/4 Extra co-production of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, RadioTimes.com can reveal the first exclusive shot of the star-studded cast, which reads like a who's who of cult TV.
Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch and X-Men's James McAvoy are joined by Game of Thrones and former Fades star Natalie Dormer, Doctor Who alumnus Sophie Okonedo and Homeland's David Harewood for the tale of London Below, an alternate reality beneath the capital where famous landmarks take on a life of their own.
Screen legends Christopher Lee and Bernard Cribbins also star in an adaptation that is being described as an "audio film".
'Skins’ actor Jack O’Connell and ‘Homeland’ actor Rupert Friend have begun shooting ‘Starred Up’ in Northern Ireland.
The feature film, which began principal photography in Belfast yesterday, sees O’Connell, best known for his role as James in Channel 4 series ‘Skins’, play troubled teenager Eric, who is transferred to an adult prison.
When a gang member he meets in prison turns out to be his father, Eric’s violent ways look set to continue, until the prison psychologist takes an interest in him and he slowly begins a transformation.
Friend is expected to be playing the father, while ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ actor Ben Mendelsohn is thought to play the role of the psychologist.
Shooting is currently taking place in Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast.
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.
Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey. Photo: Andrew Crowley
By Alice Vincent, Entertainment writer online11:43AM GMT 03 Jan 2013
Downton Abbey’s producers, including creator Julian Fellowes, are up for the Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television, Drama award from the Producers Guild of America. The other shows in the category include popular shows Mad Men, Homeland and Game of Thrones.
In the motion picture category, long-standing Bond producer siblings Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson are nominated for Skyfall, alongside Life of Pi, Argo and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year.
Writers Mark Gatkiss and Steven Moffat, also responsible for episodes of Doctor Who, are nominated for their joint production of Sherlock, the crime drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch, in the long-form television category.
Caroline Davies and agency
The Guardian, Thursday 27 December 2012
The sleuth drama Sherlock, a modern-day version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's crime-solving stories, has been voted the top TV show of 2012 in a Radio Times poll of writers and critics.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, the BBC1 series beat the US Emmy and Golden Globe winning thriller Homeland, shown on Channel 4, into second place.
The Olympics comedy Twenty Twelve, the BBC2 mockumentary following a fictitious team behind the Games and starring Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes, was voted third.
Armando Iannucci's political satire The Thick of It, another BBC2 series, was placed fourth in the TV Top 10.
The nominations have just be announced for the Screen Actor’s Guild awards, 2012, and it is fair to say that the Brits have done a very nice job. So much so that only two awards are unblessed by British influence, and Dame Maggie Smith may well end the night on the phone to a carpenter, to build her a bigger sideboard.
Let’s go through the nominees, and point at the Brits in the list. The full list is here:
In the motion picture collection of awards, we’ve got Daniel Day-Lewis (nominated for Lincoln) battling it out with Bradley Cooper, Denzel Washington, John Hawke and Hugh Jackman for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role. Meanwhile Dame Helen Mirren (Hitchcock) and Naomi Watts (The Impossible) are up against Jessica Chastain, Marion Cotillard, and Jennifer Lawrence for the female equivalent.
Over on the supporting actor lists, Skyfall is represented by Javier Bardem (he only has to beat Alan Arkin, Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Tommy Lee Jones, how hard can that be?) and Maggie Smith is up for her first award, for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a movie which is also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, alongside Les Misérables (some good Brits in there), Lincoln (ditto), and Silver Linings Playbook (nope.).
Skyfall also gets a nod in the Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Team category, although its TV equivalent appears to have ignored any British shows, including Doctor Who, and (perhaps unkindest of all) the all-action Downton Abbey. It’s an outrage!
In the TV section, Clive Owen is nominated for the TV Movie Male Actor gong, for his portrayal of Ernest Hemingway in HBO’s Hemingway and Gellhorn. Charlotte Rampling takes up the British flag in the Female Actor section, after getting a nomination for her role in Restless.
Damian Lewis and Gemma Arterton were a few of the stars at the 58th London Evening Standard Theatre Awards last night (November 25), where director Danny Boyle was honored for his contribution to the London 2012 Opening Ceremony.
Boyle received the 'Beyond Theatre' award at the event in association with Burberry at the Savoy Hotel, while Dame Judi Dench was recognized for her contribution to theatre with the Moscow Art Theatre's 'Golden Seagull' award.
Other guests included Gemma Arterton, glamorous in a glitzy strapless LBD, James Corden, Bill Nighy, Sir Ian McKellen, former Strictly Come Dancing star Victoria Pendleton and Tinie Tempah.
Oscar winner Colin Firth and wife Livia, Ralph Fiennes, Helen McCrory, Jeremy Irvine, Rafe Spall and Michelle Ryan also graced the black carpet.
THIS IS SOMERSET
