"Tom Hiddleston was so effortlessly charming": Kenneth Branagh remembers discovering a star

DIGITAL SPY
BY MORGAN JEFFERY

Tom Hiddleston is now one of Hollywood's brightest lights, adored by legions of fans - and Kenneth Branagh always suspected he'd become a star.

Branagh – who cast Hiddleston as Loki in 2011's Thor – remembered how he first saw the actor in Othello at the Donmar Warehouse several years prior.

"I saw Tom Hiddleston play Cassio in Michael Grandage's production of Othello, which starred Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor," Branagh recalled.

"I'd not seen him before, but it was quite clear that he was an utterly naturalistic speaker of Shakespeare. It's not necessarily a part in which you can score, Cassio - he is in many ways the relatively straightforward young man...

"But Tom made him so effortlessly charming and was so adept, adroit and invisibly easy with the language, that it did feel like it was the start of something.

"Even against those two [Ejiofor and McGregor], that boy really stood out."

Hiddleston later appeared opposite Branagh in the first series of BBC One's Wallander in 2008 - and the two crossed paths again at the auditions for Thor.

"He auditioned with a clarity of purpose and a drive... not arrogance, and not over-ambition, but he was just very clear - I felt like I was watching that process happen before my very eyes," Branagh recalled.

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/news/a794870/tom-hiddleston-was-so-effortlessly-charming-kenneth-branagh-remembers-discovering-a-star/

Tom Hiddleston, interview: from Thor to a sell-out Coriolanus

THE TELEGRAPH
By Chloe Fox11:00AM GMT 14 Jan 2014


Tom Hiddleston photographed for the Telegraph magazine in 2013 Photo: Lorenzo Agius

There is an electric atmosphere in the auditorium of the Donmar Warehouse – more befitting a rock concert than a Shakespearean tragedy – as the audience waits for a preview performance of Coriolanus to begin.

Five years since he last appeared on this small stage as a little-known actor, Tom Hiddleston is returning as a bona fide film star.

At 32 Hiddleston has achieved the kind of success that most young actors can only dream of. His performance as Captain Nicholls in Steven Spielberg’s 2011 adaptation of the National Theatre’s War Horse was by far the film’s most memorable. But it is as Loki in Marvel Comics’ blockbusting Thor franchise that Hiddleston has generated an obsessive following.

When he made a surprise appearance in character at the international Comic-Con convention in San Diego last summer, some members of the hysterical 7,000-strong crowd actually knelt in worship. At last count, his Twitter following was approaching a million.

Hiddleston in Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse. Photo: Johan Persson

‘It’s mad and bananas and amazing,’ Hiddleston tells me, over a restorative full English breakfast at a central London hotel, the morning after the Coriolanus preview. ‘But I can handle it for the simple reason that it genuinely feels like it’s not real. You know when you go to a fancy dress party and everyone looks incredible and there are crazy things hanging from the ceiling? For about five hours or so, you enter into another world and then, when you come out of it, you are sitting at home with a cup of tea and a biscuit and you’re thinking to yourself, “Well, that was weird. Fun, but weird.” That’s exactly what it feels like.’

Hiddleston gives a powerhouse performance,’ said Telegraph theatre critic Charles Spencer of his Coriolanus. Photo: Johan Persson

Hiddleston’s Coriolanus is a masterclass in layering; a celebrated warrior with matinee-idol looks who is part venomous despot, part isolated soul-searcher. For a full two and a half hours, the 6ft 1in actor commands the stage with a complexity that leaves the audience in silent rapture. ‘Hiddleston gives a powerhouse performance,’ was the Telegraph critic Charles Spencer’s verdict. ‘The mixture of charisma and emotional truth in his performance is very special indeed.’

Little wonder that Coriolanus will be only the second Donmar Warehouse production to be shown live in cinemas around the world when National Theatre Live broadcasts the January 30 performance. ‘It is a huge and slightly overwhelming privilege,’ Hiddleston says. ‘I feel incredibly excited about it.’


Hiddleston as Cassio with Kelly Riley (Desdemona) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Othello) in Othello at the Donmar Warehouse in 2007. Photo: Noriko Takasugi


READ MORE HERE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/10561842/Tom-Hiddleston-interview-from-Thor-to-a-sell-out-Coriolanus.html

Maggie Smith, Laurence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, Derek Jacobi: National Theatre's 50th: the best shows from 1963-1973

THE TELEGRAPH

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2013

By Dominic Cavendish

11:30AM BST 14 Oct 2013

The hope for a National Theatre stretches right back to the Victorian age but it wasn't until 1962 that the theatre's story officially began. After protracted discussions over funding, and a dismally slow construction pace, the decision was made to establish a National Theatre company without waiting for the theatre to be opened. In the interim, the company would perform at the Old Vic and in August 1962, the National's first artistic director was named as Laurence Olivier. The company's first performance (Hamlet) followed on 22 October 1963, and the National Theatre was born.



The Old Vic episode, though protracted, was in many ways glorious. Directors included William Gaskill, Franco Zeffirelli, Jonathan Miller and Olivier himself. The list of actors collected for Zeffirelli’s production of Much Ado about Nothing alone spelt magnificence – among them Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Albert Finney, Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen. Having an actor-manager of Olivier’s stature at the helm made the National a base for the best of British theatre, as it was intended to be.To select 10 productions from that first decade is an invidious task – the choices are open to challenge. But to try and measure the scale of the National Theatre's achievement one must identify those shows it’s still worth talking about and summon them up from the dusty vaults of national memory. Away we go…

Although the National Theatre Company launched in its temporary home at the Old Vic in 1963 with a Hamlet starring Peter O’Toole and directed by Laurence Olivier, its first hour was not its finest. Far more significant was when Olivier, the company’s artistic director, stepped into the title role of Othello (in black-face) to electrifying effect the following year. “Nowhere else in the world could a more completely realised performance than his have been seen,” Simon Callow observed in his history of the NT, published in 2007. The production, which also starred Maggie Smith as Desdemona, was rendered into a film the following year.

As You Like It, directed by Clifford Williams, starring Ronald Pickup, Anthony Hopkins and Derek Jacobi; 1967

This all-male production was a box-office hit and a sign of more liberated times, although the revival had a troubled history. John Dexter initially proposed a more sexually provocative approach but his vision was so diluted at Olivier’s insistence that he resigned. Ronald Pickup starred as Rosalind, other cast members included Anthony Hopkins, Robert Stephens, Derek Jacobi and Jeremy Brett. The New York Times was effusive: "As You Like It is fantastic, one of the most dazzling, sheerly enjoyable Shakespearean productions I have ever seen." He praised Pickup: "Within a minute or two you forget that this lanky, touching figure is a man (although he makes no effort to disguise his voice) and you see him as a soul in love.”

The National Health, directed by Michael Blakemore, starring Tom Baker and Jim Dale; 1969
Peter Nichols’s play collided the grim experience of those reaching the end of life in an NHS ward with a pastiche TV soap opera (Nurse Norton’s Affair); the result, shaped and directed by Blakemore, was a sensation that won the Evening Standard Best Play award. As Blakemore records in his memoir Stage Blood: “On one side of the stage… challenges were bravely met and tragedy averted; on the other death made its random and monotonous progress through the ward… Both Peter and I began to realise that we were on to something that maybe hadn’t been done on stage before.” The show marked a return to the NT’s popular health, after a slight dip in fortunes.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, directed by Michael Blakemore, starring Laurence Olivier, 1971
Michael Billington in the Guardian was spellbound by this account of Eugene O’Neill's posthumously published autobiographical masterpiece, dominated as it was by the fading grandeur of Laurence Olivier in his last major role for the company: “Olivier’s James Tyrone is a massive performance moving from an initial nervy jocularity to a throttled, brick-red despair at his wife’s relapse to a thrilling, soul-baring intensity in his cups… For a genuinely great actor to play a nearly-great actor is the hardest technical feat of all: Olivier does it to perfection.” Of this highly popular production he added: “Such is the quality of acting and direction we seem to be not merely watching great drama but to be eavesdropping on life itself.”



READ MORE HERE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/10361968/National-Theatres-50th-the-best-shows-from-1963-1973.html

War Horse and Macbeth, Starring Kenneth Branagh, Will Be Featured in National Theatre Live's 2013-14 Season (PLAYBILL)By Carey Purcell 17 Jun 2013

The 2013-14 season of National Theatre Live will feature the first screening of War Horse and several Shakespeare plays.

The season will feature the National's new production of Shakespeare's Othello, directed by Nicholas Hytner, which will air Sept. 26; the Manchester International Festival's production of Macbeth, starring Kenneth Branagh, will be broadcast live in the UK on July 20 and internationally on Oct. 17 and a 50th Anniversary celebration of the National Theatre will be broadcast live from the National on Nov. 2.

The Donmar Warehouse's production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, directed by Josie Rourke, will broadcast live on Jan. 30, 2014; and the National's internationally acclaimed production of War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, adapted by Nick Stafford, and directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris in association with Handspring Puppet Company, will be broadcast live from the West End for the first time ever in 2014, with specific dates to be announced at a later time.


READ MORE; http://www.playbill.com/news/article/179220-War-Horse-and-Macbeth-Starring-Kenneth-Branagh-Will-Be-Featured-in-National-Theatre-Lives-2013-14-Season

Tom Hiddleston - Full Acceptance Speech at South Bank Sky Arts Awards

daisyjj104 

Ewan McGregor Talks About “The Impossible” And Family POSTED DEC. 26, 2012, 6:00 AM BEVERLY COHN / EDITOR-AT-LARGE (SANTA MONICA MIRROR)

It is no accident that the perennial youthful and stunningly handsome Ewan McGregor is an international acting treasure who has racked up a list of impressive credits earning him the Number 9 spot on Channel 4’s Greatest Movie Stars of All Time.

His breakout role was in “Trainspotting” in which he played a heroin addict and since then starred in such films as the prequel trilogy of “Star Wars” playing Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, the love-struck poet in “Moulin Rouge,” the son in both “Big Fish” and “Beginners,” as well starring roles in “Black Hawk Down,” “Cassandra’s Dream,” “Emma,” “Ghost Writer,” and “Angels & Demons.” Theatre trained, McGregor also received accolades for his stage performances in “Guys and Dolls,” and “Othello.”

His latest film, “The Impossible,” is the heart-wrenching story of a family’s struggle for survival in the wake of the horrifying tsunami that hit Thailand the morning after Christmas in 2004. One of the worst natural disasters in history, it tells the story of determination and bravery under unimaginable conditions. McGregor plays Henry, the father and co-stars with Naomi Watts as his wife, Maria, and three wonderful young actors who play their sons – Tom Holland (Lucas), Samuel Joslin (Thomas), and Oaklee Pendergast (Simon). The film is a monument to honoring the best that human beings can be in the face of unspeakable carnage.

McGregor recently sat down with a group of select journalists to discuss the film, along with personal revelations, and the following has been edited for content and continuity for print purposes.

What this family went through is beyond belief. Did you meet the father who you played as Henry?

Ewan: I met him when the family came out to Kolok (Thailand) where we were shooting, after about a month of filming. I did have telephone calls with him. They are a Spanish family, but we decided not to play them as a Spanish family, so I felt like I was concentrating playing the guy on the page. The character in the script is Henry and I used the things I learned from the real father about his experience, but also things I learned from other survivors. I met this amazing woman in London who was very gracious and told me her story. She lost her husband in the tsunami and she has three children and her story is very similar to my character’s in that she was with her two younger kids and her husband and eldest daughter were separated. She didn’t know where they were. So her experience and journey was very similar to his (Henry) in that she was looking for them. She would find somewhere safe to leave her kids and then she would search for her daughter and her husband.

READ MORE: http://www.smmirror.com/articles/seven-days/Ewan-McGregor-Talks-About-The-Impossible-And-Family/36390

Christopher Plummer/BARRYMORE Movie: Oscar 2013? (ALT FILM GUIDE)

The play Barrymore, which in 1997 earned Christopher Plummer a Tony Award for his portrayal of legendary stage and screen star John Barrymore, will be shown at movie houses in Canada in May. Screenings in the United States and elsewhere will follow in October.

Could that possibly mean a third Oscar nomination for Plummer, this year's Best Supporting Actor winner for Mike Mills' Beginners? Unless Academy rules have changed in that regard — and Barrymore gets shown for a week in the Los Angeles area — that's certainly a possibility.

Filmed plays — Barrymore was filmed with multiple high-definition cameras last year — have earned Academy recognition in the past. For instance, a 1965 filmed version of Britain's National Theatre presentation of Othello earned acting nods for Laurence Olivier, Frank Finlay, Maggie Smith, and Joyce Redman.

In 1975, James Whitmore was shortlisted in the Best Actor category for the Theatrovision production of his one-man show Give 'em Hell, Harry!. Written by William Luce, Barrymore offers a portrayal of John Barrymore while rehearsing Richard III several months before his death.

In addition to the actor known (back in his heyday) as The Great Profile, the play features only one more character, the stage manager, who communicates with the actor through a loudspeaker.


READ MORE:  http://www.altfg.com/blog/movie/christopher-plummer-barrymore-movie/

Spotlight On ANONYMOUS: Shakespeare's Top 5 Lines; videos from prior great Shakespeare films

BroadwayWorld 

Thursday, October 27, 2011; Posted: 01:10 PM - by Pat Cerasaro

Today we continue our special SPOTLIGHT ON series consisting of five entries total, each of which highlight a different facet of the rich and wonderful world of William Shakespeare and all with a particular emphasis on the controversial new feature film that explores the time, place, politics and goings-on of the Elizabethan era and focuses on the possibility that the true author of the esteemed plays we now know may very well have been someone else entirely - Edward de Vere - and how the question of the canon’s true creation then comes into play - ANONYMOUS.

“All the world’s a stage,” after all, so it should come as no surprise that acts of lust, bloodshed and betrayal would exist in the actual life - or even the supposed one - of the man who created the most bloody and thought-provoking tragedies in the history of literature - whoever he may have actually been. Perhaps some brief analysis of the finest leading players, most memorable lines and moments, as well as an exploration of other notable acts of grand betrayal in Shakespeare’s plays will aid us on the journey to understanding the thesis of ANONYMOUS and bring us into a closer relationship with the individual who penned the greatest plays in the English language.

Since we have now analyzed the top ten male and female Shakespearean performers of the last few decades, today we are going to take a look at some of the most famous lines from Shakespeare’s plays and some of the best audiovisual examples of them given full weight in their dramatic context - ROMEO & JULIET, AS YOU LIKE IT, RICHARD III included - with leading players as iconic as Marlon Brando, Kevin Kline, Sir Ian McKellen, Kenneth Branagh and Leonardo DiCaprio!

Be sure to check out the introductory essay in this SPOTLIGHT ON ANONYMOUS series here, as well as the two previous columns in this 5 Top 5 special series singling out the top present day leading men and leading ladies of Shakespeare both onstage and onscreen.

A little bit AMADEUS, with a touch of TIMON OF ATHENS; a dash of DANGEROUS LIASONS and a heaping of HENRY IV: Parts 1 and 2; a generous helping of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE with a wink to MERCHANT OF VENICE; a bit of BARRY LYNDON and a hint at HAMLET; romance and jealousy ala ROMEO & JULIET; Iago-ian sexual intrigue evocative of OTHELLO; maybe even a malicious, macabre moment of murderous violence or two reminiscent of MACBETH; then, all of it collectively taken, shaken, stirred and whipped up into a visual feast only the man behind THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW could possibly conjure up - like THE TEMPEST's Trinculo himself. That is only some of what ANONYMOUS can and could very well turn out to be. Find out for yourself on October 28!

All The Men And Women Merely Players

As the forlorn and disillusioned artist and balladeer Jaques intones in AS YOU LIKE IT, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players,” and so goes today’s spotlight on some of the greatest and most-quoted Shakespeare lines to date. While every highschooler knows the balcony scene from ROMEO & JULIET and Marc Antony‘s funereal oration for the fallen JULIUS CAESER, perhaps the RICHARD III material - oh so applicable to modern times, particularly the fearless and prescient McKellen version sampled herein - may also ring a bell or three for you, too. Iago is one of Shakespeare’s finest creations and his monologues in OTHELLO are littered with famous phrases and quotable quips, yet his chilling “I am not what I am” cuts closest to the quick insofar as compelling drama revelations are concerned. From Kenneth Branagh to Marlon Brando to Kevin Kline, as well as modern-day Shakespeare stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, these lines are just a handful of the many momentous occasions of poetic brilliance throughout the comedies, tragedies, histories and latter plays and give an idea of the extent of rich imagery and unforgettable rhetoric inherent in the works of the world’s greatest dramatist, William Shakespeare.

#5 AS YOU LIKE IT - “All the world’s a stage…”

Taken from Kenneth Branagh’s recent film adaptation of the gender-bending comedy/drama AS YOU LIKE IT, first seen on HBO in the US but released in cineplexes internationally, here we have noted Shakespeare interpreter Kevin Kline as an award-winning Jaques, delivering a lovely and lilting song before reciting one of the most recognizable and adored speeches from any Shakespeare comedy - or any play at all, for that matter - the Seven Ages Of Man monologue, which is of course otherwise known as “All the world’s a stage….”



#4 ROMEO & JULIET - “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?”

Baz Luhrmann’s simply stunning and unprecedented modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare’s most classic romantic tragedy shocked and awed audiences when it was released fifteen years ago, yet the power of the Bard’s most potent and youthful speeches come through in full force now as much as then, if not more - particularly in the balcony scene as effectively and innovatively directed by Luhurmann and acted by an assured Claire Danes and a deeply romantic Leonardo DiCaprio, ideally cast in the tragic title roles.




#3 RICHARD III - “Now is the winter of my discontent…”

In perhaps the most ironic staging of any famous and notable Shakespearean line in today’s countdown, see master thespian Sir Ian McKellen deliver Richard III’s immortal “Now is the winter of my discontent” speech as you have most certainly never seen it before: while in the men’s room and making a pretty clear - as it were - comment with an in-your-face visual metaphor to beat the band. What a bustling musical accompaniment we get to go along with the irony, to boot!




#2 OTHELLO - “I am not what I am”

Kenneth Branagh’s worldwide presence as one of the foremost Shakespeare interpreters of the twenty-first century has been firmly established prior here with his appearance as one of our Top Ten Leading Men - if for his Hamlet alone - yet his palpably, desperately sinister portrayal of the diabolical anti-hero Iago in the 1995 film version of OTHELLO is proof that he can conjure considerable dramatic magic even when performing under another director besides himself, as he does so brilliantly and subtly and memorably here in Iago’s most pivotal of his many genius scenes in the complex, sex-drenched tragedy.


#1 JULIUS CAESAR - “Friends, Romans, countrymen…”
Saving the most remembered and riveting for last, here is perhaps the best known Shakespeare line of all - or at least one of the many, many quotable lines that have become a part of our language and culture in the last near-five hundred years - delivered with earth shattering gravitas by one of the greatest and most beloved American actors of all time, Marlon Brando. Here is Mark Antony’s funereal remembrance of his fallen leader, Julius Caesar, and his impassioned words of potential perseverance and, at last, naked honesty, given to the people of Rome.


So, which Shakespeare line do you think will go down in the history books as the most memorable and oft-quoted of all? Surely, more people are familiar with the balcony scene from ROMEO & JULIET than perhaps any other play or musical in history, so, at the end of the day, that may take the prize. Yet, who can help but me moved by Mark Anthony’s heroic words - particularly as performed by the legendary Marlon Brando? As with all of our entries in this special column, limiting the possible entrants to five precludes some of the riches in this collection of the greatest dramatic writing the world has ever known.
Be sure to stay tuned to BroadwayWorld for all things ANONYMOUS as we anticipate its release in movie theaters on October 28. Also, check back for our next Top 5 features, highlighting the Bard's most memorable scenes and moments of deception.

Read more: http://broadwayworld.com/article/Spotlight-On-ANONYMOUS-Shakespeares-Top-5-Lines-20111027#ixzz1cBIUPdF6