News: Celebrities

Robert Zemeckis On The Past, Present And Future Of Motion Capture

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 15:13:00 GMT

You're working primarily in the field of motion-capture these days, what is it about the process that so interests you?

"What attracts me is that I have more control making a movie than I ever had before with live-action. I'm able to maintain performances by actors, which is where I think the magic comes from, and you get to turn the actors loose without any restrictions. They are completely unencumbered as you don't actually have to photograph them. They can do whatever they want to do and then I can simulate them later with complete control. For me, it's a dream come true."

Did you decide to make A Christmas Carol with mo-cap because it really gave you the chance to authentically recreate Charles Dickens' grotesque characters?

"Usually you'd have to put heavy rubber appliances of actors' faces to get the same effect. If you look at these movies where they have to wear heavy facial prosthesis, the life of the character is taken away. The only thing you can do to a human actor is to put something on top of them and bulk them up. What we were able to do with Scrooge was to give him an incredibly thin neck and bend his body and deform his legs a little bit. We were able to stylise him in a way that Mr Dickens described him in the original book while at the same time as having Jim's [Carrey] performance drive the character."

When did you realise that motion capture would be a viable tool for movie-making?

"Well, motion capture was invented by the medical profession to study the range of human motion and it was then perfected by the golfing industry. It was then adapted by the video-game industry and it's now being used in movies. I realised that, when I was introduced to the process in the lead up to making The Polar Express, that this certainly could be the way to really make the most of digital cinema by working in this digital world."

How do actors generally react to the process?

"At the beginning they're very sceptical because it's very hard to wrap your head around the idea that you're working in this way, there are no cameras, there are no lenses and it's very hard for people to understand. But then after the first 30 minutes of working, they're completely freed up and liberated and every one of them says they love working with the medium because they just get to act all day long."

As shown with A Christmas Carol, there are virtually no limits to what you can do with the technology. Where do you see it going in the future?

"You know, what's really exciting is that I have no idea. What we're doing now is very much in the infancy of this art form and I just know that it's going to become more powerful and it's going to become cheaper and it's going to be boundless. What it's really going to become is a way of writing with images, everything's going to go right back to the core of what storytelling is all about."

A Christmas Carol finds you reuniting with Bob Hoskins, your old mucker from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. With mo-cap technology now so advanced, will you finally be making the long-mooted sequel?

"You know, we have to see if a good screenplay is developed and if it's going to be something faithful to the original, we really don't know until we see where it goes. The technology of motion capture will really allow us to enhance a lot of things but I wouldn't use it to do the animation. I wouldn't dimensionalise Roger or Jessica... Jessica can't be dimensionalised anyway because she doesn't have a nose!"

Glen Ferris

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Tuesday 3 November 2009

Roman Polanski Taken Into Custody

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:51:00 GMT

This morning, the interweb is a-buzz with the news that revered director Roman Polanski has been been taken into custody in Zurich, Switzerland, and is awaiting extradition proceedings on a 32-year-old statutory rape charge.

In what has struck many netheads as something of a tender trap, Polanski was arrested after travelling from France to Zurich to collect a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival. While festival organizers experienced "shock and dismay" at the director's detention, a planned career retrospective is scheduled to go ahead anyway.

Polanski has been living in self-imposed exile in Paris since 1976 after he fled America following a conviction for having sex with a minor, 13-year-old Samantha Gailey.

The French authorities have repeatedly refused to allow Polanski's extradition but it seems that the Swiss authorities don't share the same ideas.

The Oscar-winning director of The Pianist and the genius mind behind such acclaimed classics as Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown and Repulsion is said to be "in good spirits" as he awaits his fate.

The 76-year-old, who has just finished filming The Ghost (a political thriller starring Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor), has repeatedly tried to have the charges against him dismissed and his alleged victim, now called Samantha Geimer, has stated in interviews that she wants this entire incident put behind her, but U.S. prosecutors demanded he surrender for sentencing before any appeal will be heard.

We'll keep you up to date with all the latest developments in this story. In the meantime, leave your comments below...

Glen Ferris

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Monday 28 September 2009

Chris Addison Interview

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:07:00 GMT

In The Loop was very well received on its theatrical run, but do you think it stands up to multiple viewings?

"I think they're essential actually because there's so much depth to it. I've seen it a few times now and I found that even by the fourth or fifth time you see things you hadn't noticed before, partly because the jokes come so thick and fast that you're often laughing over them."

Can you clear one thing up? The Thick of It, your character is Oliver Reeder and in In The Loop, you play Toby Wright - are they illegitimate brothers? Or did you have to change the name to protect the feckless?

"They are different characters but it's surprising how many intelligent people can't tell that. If we called him Oliver Reeder but he was different character then you'd have complaints.

"I always think of them as cousins. In fact, whenever I was working at my desk in the film I would always pretend I was writing an email to Olly just for my own amusement.

"In The Thick Of It, Olly works at Social Affairs and Citizenship and Toby is the minister's right-hand man at the Department For International Development. If we made it Olly in the film, it would have implications on future episodes of The Thick Of It, which we couldn't really do, so hence two different characters.

"I have to say that Toby is really a little bit nastier, Olly is really just like a rabbit in the headlights but Toby is a bit of, well, a shit."

One of the things that really struck me about watching it the second time around was the inventive level of swearing going on. Toby didn't have much to add by way of cuss words but were you able to contribute any good profanities to the proceedings yourself?

"Well the profanities are incredibly fine tuned. They're mined in an actual fuck mine and they're smelted and they are made filigree and delicate by a team of incredibly talented profanists! So we don't really need to do any of that, we just turn up and say the swear words.

"There are always little bits that you improvise and add to the film but I didn't really provide any unique swearing - we have brilliant writers for that."

Many of the best jokes struck true - I'm thinking of the Register Of Members' Interests gag here - because they collided with what's going on in British politics right now. Did Armando Ianucci have to constantly rewrite the script to keep it up to date?

"You know, that line was written ages before that scandal. The 'spanking one out over a shark documentary' gag was written long before Jacqui Smith's husband, so when the line went in the film and we heard the story we were all like 'Oh yes!'

"But that does seem to constantly happen with The Thick Of It and In The Loop, it's almost what Armando does actually. He made The Day Today 15 years ago and that's basically what the news looks like now, it's almost like a training video. Every time we try to come up with something absurd for The Thick Of It or In The Loop, it happens.

"In the very first episode of The Thick Of It, there's a bit where the minister and his assistants are in the back of the car and they're on their way to make an announcement but they've got nothing to say so they're making up a policy. A minister said to Armando, 'You know that's me in the back of that car - I've been in that position!'"

So Armando may be some kind of soothsayer?

"He's either that or he's writing our future, in which case he needs to be contained! Or maybe it's just a fact that no matter how ridiculous the world is, it'll always turn out to be more ridiculous than you could possibly imagine."

You're currently working on eight new episodes of The Thick Of It. How's that going?

"It's great, really good fun. We've got a wonderful new minister in the shape of Rebecca Front and it's been a blast. We've just come off our summer break in which we were promoting In The Loop in the States and we're back to work next week. You can expect to see a new minister being ground down by Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) and you can expect, well, many more predictions of the future!"

Will we be seeing another movie version?

"Well, I have literally no idea. There's rich pickings in that world so I would imagine that they could but whether or not Armando would is up to him. He's a busy man with a lot of ideas."

In The Loop is available to buy on DVD now.

Glen Ferris

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Wednesday 26 August 2009

Karl Malden 1912-2009

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 10:35:00 GMT

Karl Malden - quite simply one of the greatest character actors in the history of motion pictures - has passed away at the age of 97.

The bulbous nosed actor played the role of Blanche DuBois's suitor Mitch in the original stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire and went on to win a best supporting actor Oscar for reprising the role in Elia Kazan's film alongside Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski.

He went on to star in a number of films alongside Brando - most notably as the strongly moralistic priest in On the Waterfront which was again directed by Kazan.

Following a run of acclaimed supporting performances in the 60s, Malden starred in and finally won an Emmy (after five nominations) for his role alongside rookie Michael Douglas in TV series The Streets of San Francisco.

Our most recent memory of him - in fact his last screen performance - was as President Bartlet's priest in a moving episode from the first season of The West Wing (Take This Sabbath Day).

The movies have lost a true legend, what are your memories of him?

SL

Filmography

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 2 July 2009

Moby At The Movies

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:07:00 GMT

How did your friendship with David Lynch come about?

David Lynch is one of my favourite American film directors of all time. In addition to loving his movies, I've always appreciated his creative process because there are a lot of conventional vernacular elements in his films, but they're also deeply experimental and very idiosyncratic. We became friends a couple of years ago, and we've worked on a few things, and when it came time to put out the first single for this album, normally for an established artist on a major label, your first single is your most commercial, but as I'm now an independent artist, I wanted my first single to be arguably the least commercial single I've ever put out so I picked the song Shot In The Back of the Head, which is a strange instrumental that can never get played on radio. I sent the music to David and I asked him if he had any footage lying around and five days later he sent me the video, which he had animated himself, and it really did appeal to the old punk-rocker in me - the idea of having a first single that can't get played on radio, and a first video that can not get played on MTV!

Your song Porcelain was is in the Film The Beach, which was scored by David Lynch's collaborator Angelo Badalamenti. Are you a big fan of his work, specifically his work with Lynch, as you have sampled a theme from the TV series Twin Peaks in your song Go?

I only know his work with David and I'm a little embarrassed by my ignorance. I don't know what Angelo has done outside of working with David but the Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me soundtracks, and the Julee Cruise album are phenomenal. They're some of my favourite records ever made. It seems like just a remarkable partnership. He clearly understands what David's trying to do because David is a great sound designer, but he doesn't want to be a musician. He loves music, he loves working with musicians but I think he likes the idea of being more of a listener than a musician. My favourite thing that they've ever done is on the Fire Walk With Me soundtrack. It's a song called Pink Room and it's a cello and a drum and some guitar. It has so much space and atmosphere to it.

And Fire Walk With Me is a very idiosyncratic film, following Twin Peaks, which in itself is very unique...

Yes I actually liked Fire Walk With Me more than Twin Peaks because it's a lot darker. When it came out it really disappointed a lot of people, as with Lost Highway, and then Inland Empire is one of the weirdest commercial movies he's ever made. I saw it four times in the theatre because I loved it so much, and so it's almost this inverse thing where the less other people seem to like his movies, the more I invariably end up liking them.

Are you a fan of any other directors, composers, or their work on a particular film score?

I've done music for a lot of different directors: Michael Mann, Oliver Stone... and some are really adventurous with their use of music and do really interesting things. I think Michael Mann really pushes himself to use interesting music sometimes in very unconventional ways. Sometimes in quite conventional ways but him and Oliver Stone are people who are open to anything. The directors that I have no interest in working with are the people who just use very conventional score. At this point, I honestly don't even know why they commission new score because it all sounds the same. In 1973 they should have just recorded five hours of stock score... there's happy score, there's sad score, there's scary score, you know, but every now and then music is used in a film, and it becomes such an integral part of the movie and invariably it's more challenging, like the score for Blade Runner, or even the music for The Godfather. When Francis Ford Coppola was making The Godfather, Paramount, I believe, tried to fire the composer - they thought the music was too ethnic and too dark. I think they also wanted to replace Al Pacino with Robert Redford, but luckily the studio was not able to implement it.

Do you tend to visualise as you compose?

No. I mean I like music, like the music on this album Wait For Me. One of the reason I like this album is because it creates almost a visual tabula rasa; it doesn't seem like it's imposing anything on the listener. It kind of just clears the slate and lets the listener project upon it.
But as far as director, apart from David Lynch, my favourite working director would be Takeshi Kitano, the Japanese director. I love his movies; I just think they're amazing. Danny Boyle is becoming a really interesting filmmaker. Slumdog Millionaire, it's strange... I thought the craft behind it was phenomenal, but I didn't like the film that much. I was just kind of in awe of what an auteur he's become, because when he started out, I got the sense that he was sort of a savant, like he didn't 100% know what he was doing and now he seems like such a confident director. I'm really interested to see what his next project is because now he can do what he wants. There was also the 28 Days/28 Weeks Later franchise, and so he's established himself as someone who can raise a lot of money to make a movie. He's next movie will either be confused and commercial or phenomenal and interesting.

It seems as though the more money one makes for a studio or record company, the more creative license he or she is given on future projects.

It's a trade off. If you make success, it can create a lot of pressure and confusion. There are some people who are really good at dealing with success - people who want success and then when they get it they know what to do with it. For myself, I never expected to have any success, and so when I've had records that have sold well, I've just been confused by it. It's nice having an audience, but when you pursue success you have to compromise, and at this point in my life, it's not that I don't want to compromise, I'm just not good at it. There are some people who are great at artistic compromise; I'm just not one of those people.

You set up the site mobygratis.com for independent filmmakers. Why did you set up a project to help filmmakers as opposed to struggling artists?

There isn't much I can do to help up and coming bands and DJs apart from maybe setting up a volunteer legal service or something, because everyone needs legal advice.
The university I went to is called SUNY Purchase and it's mainly a performing arts school, and they had a huge film programme. I think they're actually the last school in the United States to have a major in experimental film, and so since going there, I've just had a lot of friends in the world of indie film. Their biggest recurring complaint is that licensing music for movies is really difficult, and I've watched my friends making small indie films. Someone sits down to write a book, it's a difficult undertaking but it's basically just him or her with a computer. I sit down to write music, again, it's not an easy undertaking but there's not a huge time and financial investment in it. To make an indie film is the most time intensive, money intensive, artistic undertaking I can think of. My friends make indie films, they mortgage their house, they sell everything they have, they take out ten credit cards, loans and all these things just to make an indie film, so mobygratis.com is my way of trying to make their lives a little bit easy. It's like saying here's one part of the film making process that isn't going to cost anything.

On the big budget side of the industry, your songs have been used in many movie. Could you give us your thoughts on the following collaborations:

Porcelain/The Beach

When the album it was off of, Play, first came out, it was kind of a failure. It didn't sell well, didn't get good reviews and no one really came out to the live concerts. Then a few things happened that brought my music to a bigger audience, and one of the big things was Porcelain and The Beach. The movie didn't do all that well long term, but as far as I know, it was the first big Danny Boyle movie after Trainspotting and the first Leo DiCaprio movie after Titanic, so when it first came out everybody went to see it, and Porcelain was such a centre piece of the movie, and aesthetically it really worked. There's this beautiful shot of the island and then the song plays and it works really well. Selfishly it also helped save that record from obscurity. I got really luck.

James Bond Tomorrow Never Dies remix

If I'm honest, I've never really been a big James Bond fan. I've seen all the James Bond movies but I'm more into Star Trek and science fiction. One of my big disappointments is that J.J. Abrams almost used one of my songs in the new Star Trek movie, and just for pure sci-fi geek status I would've loved that; however, at the last minute they didn't. But the original James Bond theme is perfect. It felt wrong to redo it so I wasn't really happy with my version of the song.

Your video We Are All Made of Stars has you in a space suit against a lot of bleak images from Hollywood. Are you critical of the Hollywood machine?

It's hard for me to generalise because percentage wise, I would say there are just as many good indie films as Hollywood films. I live in New York and within a 10-minute walk from my house there are probably 10 or 11 theatres that play nothing but indie films, so I see a lot of them. A lot are really bad but there are also some amazing ones. The same thing is true of Hollywood so I think the success rate of Hollywood and indie films is about the same. Cleary indie film needs more support and indie filmmakers need to be given more carte blanche to experiment, because I think that when indie film doesn't work is when it's trying to be too conventional. My favourite indie films are the ones where the director really lets himself or herself do something really strange and idiosyncratic.

Like Eraserhead?

Or even one of my favourite movies last year, Let The Right One In. It's an indie film, it's very unconventional but it really works. It's just an amazing film. I think I'm more critical of the institution of fame because it's a waste of time. I mean it's entertaining, it's a great spectator sport, I just think it's sad that so many people aspire to be famous, and so many famous people make themselves miserable trying to remain famous. The only happy famous people I've ever met are dumb famous people. Anyone with a degree of intellect or character who becomes famous is slaughtered by it.

Moby's new album Wait For Me is in stores 29 June 2009

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Tuesday 23 June 2009

Kung Fu Star David Carradine Dies

Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:02:00 GMT

Cult actor David Carradine has been found dead in a hotel room in Bangkok. Police suspect he hanged himself.

According to his personal manager, Chuck Binder, the 72 year-old Kill Bill star had been shooting a film in Thailand when his body was discovered earlier today. The Nation reports that a police investigation showed that he hung himself with a curtain rope.

Binder told the BBC that the news was "shocking", adding: "He was full of life, always wanting to work... a great person."

Besides his role in Quentin Tarantino's two-parter, Carradine was best known for playing half-Chinese monk Caine in the 1970s TV drama "Kung Fu", but made notable appearances in the films Boxcar Bertha, The Serpent's Egg and Bound for Glory, in which he played folksinger Woody Guthrie. He also graced the small-screen on numerous occasions, in series such as "Alias" and "Charmed", and he had most recently appeared in the music video for The Jonas Brothers' "Burning Up", playing a Kung Fu Master, and in Crank 2: High Voltage, portraying a 100 year-old Chinese gangster.

He was the son of noted actor John Carradine, and is survived by his wife, Annie Bierman, and his two children.

SL

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 4 June 2009

Michelle Pfeiffer Talks To Screenrush

Thu, 7 May 2009 11:56:00 GMT

In Ch�ri, released this Friday, Michelle Pfeiffer plays a French courtesan entering into middle age but with little intention of giving up her work. Asked by a friend to tutor her young son in the ways of love, she finds herself falling for him, as he does for her. We met up with the actress in London to talk about her 35 years in the acting industry.

Was it refreshing to have the older woman/younger man scenario, given that it's so often the other way round?

Actually, this is my third movie playing �the older woman' recently. But it's always welcome. The older I get, the younger my leading men get, which is interesting because it was always the opposite way round when I was younger. It seems that people don't want to see people of the same age in a movie together.

What was it like working with Stephen Frears again after so many years? It's about 20 years since Dangerous Liaisons.

Yeah, it was funny because he hasn't changed a bit. Maybe I haven't either. Maybe we're both a bit more stubborn and set in our ways. But we just picked up where we left off. I was so, so excited when he called me about this.

So when did the call come?

I was working on a film and sitting in the make up chair when my phone rang � it was Stephen Frears! Out of the blue. He had tracked me down through my hairdresser. Who knows how, but that's typical of him. [in gruff English accent] �Hello! Stephen here!" I was probably never more excited to start a movie than I was for this one.

How did you get on with him initially?

I think I always got him. It's been a long time and I don't ever remember not getting him. I just remember enjoying him tremendously. He has this sort of Detective Columbo thing that he does.

Did you know much about this world before doing the film?

No, I really didn't know anything about the world of the courtesan, so it was very interesting. I wasn't familiar with Collette (the author), so it was a nice introduction. But I loved the novel and I found these women fascinating. It was a nice little pocket of time where women didn't have many choices, if any, and didn't have control of their own destiny or own real estate or really work. These women were emancipated already.

So you see them as liberated?

At a cost. It doesn't come without a price, but I think that's the case for anyone who paves the way for others.

One of the movie's themes is about women ageing in a young people's world. Acting is very much a similar world. What's your take on the pressure to stay young and the increasing surgical lengths some actresses go to maintain youth?

Well, the older you get the harder it is to say never. It's easy to say no when you're 25. I don't object to it. I don't really care one way or the other. It's not interesting to me. It doesn't matter to me. I do think it's upsetting when you see [women] starting to have a kind of distorted look. That I object to. I guess I object to bad plastic surgery, not surgery itself.

You recently took some time out of the industry. How long was it you took off?

Roughly four years. It kind of got harder and harder finding projects that didn't entail me being away for a long time during the school year. I think that when the kids were small I actually worked a lot, because I could take them with me. But once they were enrolled in school I just didn't like the idea of uprooting them or leaving them. Then we moved out of Los Angeles and it was really overwhelming to move to a completely different community. That kept me very busy and occupied and, I guess, distracted from my work. Then once we settled I realised how long it had been and thought it was time to go back.

How easy is it to come back after time away?

It seemed to be [quite easy]. Hairspray was there and then Stardust was there.

Do you think there will ever be a time when you stop working?

I can't imagine that. I've been working since I was 14 and I loved it from the moment I had my first job. I don't think I'll ever retire. I might not do as much as I do now, but I'm a real worker bee. I have a friend and what she always wanted out of life was to meet a really rich guy and then sit around the pool all day drinking bloody marys. I would say to her, �what is fun about that?!' I think different people just want different things.

So what else keeps you interested?

I don't know. I might direct one day. I paint, which I love. I have different ideas for businesses - which I won't share with you!

What movies did you watch growing up?

I used to stay up late and watch those old Bette Davis movies and think �I can do that'. Isn't that an odd thing for a kid to think? That's my earliest memory of wanting to be an actor, or having that feeling that maybe I could do that.

You recently turned 50...

I did?!

Did it feel like a milestone?

Well, it came and it went and it wasn't a really big deal...it's not something I think a lot about, but it is sort of entering your second half and it is a sort of a loss. But it's not something I really spend too much time on.

Professionally, does it feel like it makes a difference?

I started getting asked about how it feels ageing in Hollywood when I was 35! So...I remember one of the reviews for What Lies Beneath called Harrison Ford and I � who was maybe 15 years older than me � �the middle-aged protagonists'. So that's not new to me. I do think that there's a small transitional phase of actresses between 40 and 50 where you can only plat the psychotic mother-in-law or the wife. Most will pick the psychotic mother-in-law because at least it's interesting. I've not played one, but a number have come across my desk. I've read them. A lot of them...But I think it might be true that there are more roles around now and there are some great actresses who have, shall we say, �crossed that threshold'. I'm certainly very happy.

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 7 May 2009

Natasha Richardson Dies At 45

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:49:00 GMT

British actress Natasha Richardson has sadly died at the age of 45 after sustaining serious head injuries in a skiing accident.

Richardson was having a skiing lesson on the nursery slopes of the Mont Tremblant resort in Canada when she fell. Her injuries were not initially thought to be serious, but she later complained of a headache and was taken to a Canadian hospital. She was later flown to New York for further treatment but was taken off life support last night. Her husband, Liam Neeson; mother, Vanessa Redgrave and sister, Joely Richardson, were with her.

Richardson was best known for being a part of the Redgrave acting dynasty and had roles in films as diverse as The Comfort of Strangers, Gothic and The Parent Trap. She was also a well-respected stage actress and won a Tony award for her role as Sally Bowles in Sam Mendes' '90s revival of Cabaret.

Our sympathies go to Richardson's family.

Olly Richards

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 19 March 2009

Ron Silver Dies

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:27:00 GMT

Best known to audiences in the UK for his recurring role as slick campaign strategist Bruno Gianelli in the fourth and seventh series of The West Wing, Ron Silver died yesterday in New York City aged 62. He had been fighting esophageal cancer for two years.

Silver's bursting filmography includes regular appearences in Veronica's Closet and Chicago Hope on television alongside roles in Ali, Enemies : A Love Story and Reversal of Fortune on film, and his Tony award winning turn as Hollywood producer Charlie Fox in David Mamet's 'Speed-the-Plow'.

The actor was also well-known for his political activism following his notorious shift to conservatism and outspoken support of George W. Bush following the 9/11 attacks on Washington D.C. and New York.

He is survived by his children Adam and Alexandra and by his ex-wife Lynne Miller.

SL

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Monday 16 March 2009

Taken Tops US box office

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:53:00 GMT

Despite Super Bowl Sunday stealing its usual high proportion of audiences, CIA action thriller Taken exceeded expectations by grossing an estimated $24.6 million in its opening weekend. Directed by Pierre Morel from Luc Besson's screenplay, the pic sees Oscar-nominated Liam Neeson take on the role of an angry dad-turned-super-spy who is faced with recovering his kidnapped daughter.

After a two week reign, Mall Cop dropped to second place, closely followed by The Uninvited, a DreamWorks' remake of the 2003 South Korean thriller which managed a measly $10.5 million.

Family comedy Hotel for Dogs continued its unstoppable run, taking fourth place once again with $8.7 million, bringing its total box office to $48 million. Last week's number three, Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino rounded off the top five.

The only other new release this week, Ren�e Zellweger's latest comedy New in Town failed to impress, settling for eighth place below Slumdog Millionaire and Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans.

Next week's releases sees serious competition from the likes of Paul McGuigan's Push, Pink Panther 2 and He's Just Not That Into You, starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Connelly.

Charlotte Balnave

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Monday 2 February 2009

RIP: Patrick McGoohan And Ricardo Montalban

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:05:00 GMT

The acting world lost two cult heroes yesterday when both Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan passed away.

Montalban, who was 88, first made his name in MGM musicals in the 1940s, but became better known first for his role as the mysterious Mr Roarke in the successful TV show Fantasy Island, and then, to a slightly younger audience, for his role as the villain Khan in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Patrick McGoohan, who was 80, will always be best remembered for creating and starring in The Prisoner, the enormously popular series about a man trapped in a strange village by the mysterious Number One and a hostile big white bouncy ball. He also made his mark on the movie world, appearing in Escape from Alcatraz, A Time To Kill and, notably, as King Edward Longshanks in the Oscar-winner Braveheart.

Olly Richards

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 15 January 2009

Steven Soderbergh: Part Two

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:00:00 GMT

In the second part of our in-depth interview (click here to read the previous instalment), Che director Steven Soderbergh talks to us about filming in Spanish, calling on Matt Damon for a special favour and his plans to make a Cleopatra musical... in 3-D.

SCREENRUSH: Why did you decide to film Che not in the English language?
STEVEN SODERBERGH That was around the time that I said we have to include the story of Cuba and by the way... It has to be in Spanish. Nobody really blinked at that I have to say. That shit's got to stop, people have to stop making movies about other cultures talking in the English language. It wouldn't have made any sense to have Benicio (Del Toro) walking around talking English is a Spanish accent. It just seemed comical to me. The only real ramification was that we had no American money, the Spanish thing really put people over.

How was it directing in Spanish?
I loved it. It's really freeing in a strange way. It's like listening to music, you might not understand the lyric but you know when a note's wrong and I know enough of the language to put things right. I came away thinking I'd love to make a movie in Japanese.

One of the best moments in Che: Part Two is when Matt Damon pops up and speaks in Spanish. How did he deal with it?
Well I was stuck, I needed somebody for that part. It's kind of an odd part, a German priest living in Bolivia, and I needed somebody who spoke Spanish. I called him up literally two weeks before we shot that scene and said, �Man, I don't know what you're doing with Bourne right now but if you can blow through Madrid for two days and do this thing you'd really be doing me a solid.' And he did. What's really funny is that one of the camera assistants said �Should we tell him that he sounded kind of like a German?' I told Matt that and he was so happy.

Let's take a moment to talk about some of your upcoming projects. First of all, Cleopatra in 3-D...
It's going to be awesome, we just need someone to pay for it. It's going to be a real Elvis musical, it's like Viva Las Vegas meets Tommy. It's not serious, it's supposed to be a total gas. I want to be able to shoot the way they used to shoot. I want to be able to do a four-minute take where people would go, �Wow that looks hard, there's no cutting there, they can really dance and they can really do that shit'. I've always wanted to do a musical and it's something I've been working on the past four years. I think Hugh Jackman is going to do Mark Anthony and we're currently in the process of casting Caesar - that's a tough part to cast. When I was first thinking about making this, I realised that the audiences for musicals tend to be more female based than male based, so I started thinking about who that could be and what historical figures and I started thinking about what actresses I knew who could sing and dance could play them, so I thought of Catherine Zeta-Jones and I thought of Cleopatra.

And you're going to film it in 3-D?
It really lends itself to that format. The technology is really there and it's going to be this really splashy, colourful thing and with 3-D it could be really neat.

Then you've got The Girlfriend Experience next...
Yeah we're shooting that now. It's costing two million bucks and it's going to be interesting. Structurally, it's going to be the closest thing to The Limey since The Limey for me. It's a very non-linear piece, so I'm really excited about it. The shoot is going really well and I think it's going to be fun.

The Girlfriend Experience stars Sasha Grey, a real-life porn star, how has she adapted to working in the mainstream?
She's just sort of unique. I read an article about her in Los Angeles magazine and the way she spoke about herself and her work I was just sort of struck by. So I called her and had a meeting and thought she was a very interesting young lady for a lot of reasons. It turns out that she's a total film nut, she watches a lot of movies and is very cine-literate. She's going to be 21 in March, she's seen a lot and she sees a lot and she's going to be great in the movie. I don't know what this will do for her but I know what it has done for me and it just brings home that whole thing that directors are just total fucking vampires who just suck people dry and move on to the next thing, but she's very bright and she'll figure it out. Anyone who has ever doubted this decision will soon be eating their hat when they see this, she's great.

Che: Part One is release on January 2 and Che: Part Two is released on February 20.

Glen Ferris

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Tuesday 30 December 2008

Eartha Kitt Dies At 81

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:13:00 GMT

Eartha Kitt, the original Catwomen in the 1960s TV series Batman, has died, aged 81 reports SciFiWire.

After a battle with colon cancer, the actress died on Thursday. Kitt came from a background of South Carolina cotton fields to become an iconic face in Hollywood during the 1960's.

Eartha Kitt was one of the rare performers to have received nominations for Tony, Grammy and Emmy award categories in a career that spanned 60 years.

However, Kitt was not just a pretty face, as she was blacklisted in the USA in the late 1960's, for speaking out against the Vietnam War.

Her acting talents were then matched by her singing, through which she achieved a number of hit songs, including Old Fashioned Girl, C'est Si Bon and Santa Baby.

Kitt gained international celebrity playing Catwoman in the 1966-66-67 tv series of Batman, and has miore recently voiced Yzma in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove.

Martyn Dunn

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Monday 29 December 2008

Harold Pinter 1930-2008

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:00:00 GMT

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Monday 29 December 2008

Steven Soderbergh: Part One

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 09:00:00 GMT

Steven Soderbergh's latest project is also his most ambitious - a four-hour-plus biopic in two parts about the life of revolutionary guerrilla Ernesto �Che' Guevara. In a two-part in-depth interview with Screenrush, Soderbergh tells us about the trials and tribulations he faced with this massive undertaking...

SCREENRUSH: We were lucky enough to see Che Part One and Part Two at the same time. Is watching the whole thing in one sitting the ideal way of seeing it?
STEVEN SODERBERGH I think so. I understand it's not an option for most people but the sort of call and response of the two films is so much more obvious is you can see them in one go. The echoes are just right there in front of you. It seems just so much more apparent.

Did you always intend it to be two films?
Well, I always saw it as one big movie but it would have to be, for mostly business reasons, split into two parts. This all started as just one film, which was set in Bolivia, but through the process of development, it just kept expanding and expanding, taking in Cuba, New York and Bolivia and I finally just said that it just wouldn't work. It felt like a trailer for a six-hour movie, you just had hundreds of scenes that were a page and a half and you just couldn't sit with anything. So I said, �Look here's what we're going to do. Let's go back and say it's going to be two', and that's what we did. In my mind at least, it was always going to be one movie with an intermission.

You could have made it three and include Che's unfortunate experiences in the Congo?
I thought about that but this movie would have had to have made a lot of money.

Was the idea to show people that Che was more than just an icon on a T-shirt?
I guess my reason for doing this was a kind of kneejerk reaction that came from my own superficial knowledge which was, �Oh, how did he die?' If we answer that question, then we've done our job - I thought that people know what he did in Cuba, we just need to tell them about what happened to him at the end. But then it became apparent that you really didn't understand Bolivia unless you saw Cuba, if you saw it on its own you'd think, �Why don't they leave? Everything is going wrong, why don't they leave?' We're years into this already if you can imagine and now I'm going, �Okay let's research Cuba and New York and what about Mexico City?' It just kept ballooning but it just seemed so interesting to me and I just thought he was interesting enough that it just seemed to be the accumulation of detail and incident that aren't necessarily in aid of some larger narrative device, they're just scenes of people that make you think that must have been what it was like to be there. I wanted it to be somewhat impressionistic and not have those big movie moments and a lot of that is how the movie is shot. It certainly seemed disingenuous to make a movie about a guy who's a communist and an egalitarian and then to just isolate him in close-ups that seemed to me to be false. And also, Benicio is a very physical actor and I really wanted to take advantage of that.

Did the fact that The Motorcycle Diaries was made a few years ago mean that you didn't feel the need to touch on Che's early years?
Well that was certainly a help, somebody did act one for us, but the early years never really appealed to me. I was most interested in the war part, the actual procedural. I didn't really feel that I had to explain why he was feeling the way he was when he went into Cuba, there were hundreds of people who felt just as strongly as he did. What's unique about him is his unbending will, he's the opposite of what a character is supposed to be in a move � people talk about arcs and all that shit � Che is just a straight line and the tension is in whether or not external forces will be great enough to make him bend. And the answer is obviously no. This is a guy who walked away from everything twice and that's not a thing a lot of people would do. He walked away from his family and he walked away from Cuba to go do it again. He did that twice, he went to the Congo and that was a disaster and then he went to Bolivia. That's when we were talking about a third movie, him in the Congo and Prague writing about the Congo. We thought that would be an interesting framing device.

You wouldn't be interested in going back and revisiting that part of his history?
No. No, I don't think anybody would but it's just an interesting story.

Opinion about Che is quite divided. Were you wary about glorifying him too much?
I just had to go with my own compass on that. It helps, I think, that I'm not Latino. I don't feel that sense of cultural responsibility but I do feel responsibility as a film-maker. I've read all the books and I know all the speeches but I can't really worry about what people think. I guess the ultimate response if people are lit up then they should really go and make a movie themselves. I don't have a stake in making him a devil or a saint, this is just the impression I came away with and what I was exposed to.

When did you first start thinking about making Che?
Well, Benicio Del Toro (the films' star) and Laura Bickford (the producer) had shown interest in the project since 1997 and they approached me about it during Traffic so I wasn't on it since the beginning. I worked on it a while and then Terrence Malick got involved first as a writer and a consultant and then as the director because he was working as a journalist in Bolivia when Che was killed. Then it was close to happening but he went off to do The New World and they wanted it keep going so they contacted me about taking over as director. That's when I started to say that we had to expand it, Bolivia was not enough, and we started to fill it out to the movies that you see today.

I can't imagine how long the Terrence Malick version would have been...
Well it would have been a Terence Malick movie and it would have been great. But it would have been very different. I was not interested in making anything poetic, I wanted it to be a blunt instrument. Maybe he can do the Congo movie...

Join us tomorrow for the second part of our in-depth interview with Steven Soderbergh, when he will be talking about filming in Spanish, calling on Matt Damon for a favour and his plans for a Cleopatra musical in 3-D...

Che: Part One is release on January 2 and Che: Part Two is released on February 20.

Glen Ferris

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Monday 29 December 2008

Twilight Team Talk

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:57:00 GMT

We chat to actors Twilight actors Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson and director Catherine Hardwicke about dreams, screams and cloud dancing...

Your film trounced High School Musical 3 and Quantum Of Solace at the US box office when it was released. How did that feel?
CH: "One of my earliest dreams was to beat James Bond and that's now a goal that I have achieved. No really, I was very proud to have been part of that, very proud that so many people have been caught up in this dream."

At what point in the film-making process did you realise how important Twilight was to the readers of the books?
KS: "I knew it was important to a small group of readers but I had no idea how widespread it really was. If I had, I may have thought twice about doing the movie. When we were making the movie, we thought it would be kind of a cult film, we didn't think that we'd be coming to London and there'd be all this craziness."

Did you read the book before you made the film?
KS: "I read the book at the time of the audition. I was kind of snobby about it at the time but then I realised what a big deal it was after I did auditioned some of the scenes and then couldn't stop talking about them. I think it was at that point I realised how amazing the whole thing was."

Robert, you've seen this kind of hysteria with the Harry Potter movies but did that in any way prepare you for the reception this movie has been getting?
RP: "No, not really. I don't know why I'm not getting used to it, people have been screaming for quite a while now but it's not something that I think I'll ever be able to get used to."

Catherine, when you've got two characters that have so much chemistry between them, how do you go about casting the two actors?
CH: "It's very obviously important because if there's no spark between them then it wouldn't work at all. First of all, we cast Kristen as Bella because she was perfect for the role and then the search was on for the perfect Edward and we were getting really desperate you know. (Laughs) So that's when we found Robert. Lots of people auditioned for the role of Edward but they were kind of high school, next-door neighbour types who weren't right for the role but there was something otherworldly about Robert that we really thought he fitted the bill. When they auditioned together, and this was for the kissing scene, we really started to feel the magic between them."

How did you prepare for your intimate scenes together?
RP: "I used to run into Kirsten's room naked (laughs). No I don't know, it's funny because all the romantic scenes were pivotal moments in the film and we were both wearing contact lenses, and so much of the story depends on making eye contact with each other, that we sometimes both felt a little removed from what was going on. I guess, that made things a little less intense for both of us."

Catherine, your role in this was keeping the tension high...
CH: "Well, I think for me that the most critical thing was keeping that tension between two people and from the first moment that they meet you have to know that there's some kind of magnetic pull between them. I think it's a real testament to these guys (points to Robert and Kristen) that they really pulled it off and made my life so much easier."

How difficult was it to schedule the shoot to make sure you had the right damp look?
CH: "Well, you can go online and it'll tell you what the weather's supposed to be like for any given day of the year, so you can plan around that. But when you get to the location, you find that the weather breaks up much more quickly and it can rain, sleet, snow or shine at any given point. So some of the scenes were really hard to shoot, it was pretty wild getting it all together. We had this little cloud dance, where we would try to pull down the clouds and get everybody to try to do the same."
KS: "Yeah, there were like 150 embarrassed extras forced to join in."
CH: "We were desperate to get the right weather because it gives the movie the right atmosphere, so we would do anything to get the right weather... Including doing a silly dance!"

With the material being so popular, did you have to utilise any subterfuge to keep the shoot under wraps?
CH: "Well we tried but somehow the fans would always find you. We'd be up a mountain in the middle of the night and people would still manage to sneak on set."
KS: "We called it Transit right?"
CH: "That's right, the shooting title was Transit and people still managed to figure out what we were really shooting."

There has been a rash of vampire movies and TV shows recently where the vampires are presented as good guys. Why do you think that the traditional mythology has been turned on its head?
RP: "I was thinking about that today. I was thinking that it allows a way to express violence as something which isn't too bad. For some reason, humans are very accepting of vampiric violence. I mean if Luke Perry in Buffy was just some kid who went around killing people it would have a really different slant but if he's a vampire people are much more accepting. That's possibly the worst ever answer but there you have it."

How has Twilight changed your life?
RP: "You know it's weird, it really hasn't changed things all that much. Just little weird things like people coming into your house which I guess is a little strange but otherwise I'm just the same person. I can still go on the Tube and no-one knows who I am but you can go to certain places and people just scream at me. It's like they're being paid to be there."

How do you feel about seeing your face plastered on the side of a bus?
RP: "It's really weird and it's not something I'd recommend for someone who suffers from extreme paranoia. Luckily, I don't get out of the house too much."

Twilight goes on general release from Friday, December 19.

Glen Ferris

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Wednesday 17 December 2008

Clark Gregg Talks Choke

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:11:00 GMT

Clark Gregg has been working as an actor and writer for years, but finally makes his directorial debut with an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's Choke, a story of a sex addict (Sam Rockwell) whose mother (Anjelica Huston) makes him think his ancestry might be a little more interesting than he'd imagined. We spoke to Gregg about his first experience behind the camera.

So you're making your first film � a tricky thing in itself � and you decide not only to take on a Chuck Palahniuk book, but one of his most difficult books to adapt. What on earth were you thinking?

Apparently very little. I think it's naivety. I read it and, as one does with these things, I felt like I could see it. It felt so visual and funny and the story felt coherent. I certainly saw some of the difficulties that you're speaking about, but either had a really clear vision of it or was completely na�ve about bringing that kind of story to the screen.

When did you first read it?

I was brought the book, just to adapt as a screenwriter, when it was still in gallies in 2001. It had not been released yet and I immediately tried to secure the rights with a view to adapting and directing it. That was seven years ago.

What held it up for so long?

It was a couple of things. Certainly it took me a while to get the adaptation to work. Also, for all its fans now, Fight Club (another Palahniuk adaptation) was not, at that time, considered to be a success in Hollywood. It didn't make as much money as it cost � which was a lot, lot more than ours cost. I took it to a producer whose work I loved and we would just work on it whenever we had the time. That's really why it took a while; we had to do it in our own time between other gigs.

Was there one thing that pushed it into being?

Well, we were always concerned that we wouldn't find someone to take on a sex-addicted colonial re-enactor under the current political climate. So I wanted to get the right cast in line...So, it was when we found Sam Rockwell. From the minute he signed on it just all kind of fell into place.

And how did Anjelica Huston, who plays Sam's mother, come on board?

She wasn't what I thought of when I read the book, but after working on the script for a while her face kept coming into my mind. When Sam signed up she agreed to meet with me because she was a fan of his. She liked the script, but she was a little concerned as well; it's a rather complicated project to start with, let alone with a first time director. When she actually sat down with me, she took one look at me and started to get very emotional. Tears came to her eyes. She told me that she'd been raised by an Irish nanny when her mother passed away and that I looked just like this lady! From then on we got along famously.

How do you react when someone tells you you look like their nanny?

Well, I was afraid I would have to show up in some kind of domestic uniform.

As a first time director, how did you find the experience?

During the time I was trying to get the script right, I fell in love and had a baby. It's similar, because no matter what anyone tells you about the concept of having a baby, there's nothing that really prepares you for it. It's indescribable and also not the same for any two people. You're just in this abject terror. No matter how many great directors I was lucky enough to know and talk to, none of them really had the secret. Finally, after it was over, I realised that it's like jumping out of an aeroplane with a parachute kit in a box, so you have to put the parachute together as quick as you can as you watch the ground advancing towards you.

Has it always been an ambition to direct a movie or was it just this story?

Well, I was lucky enough in college to end up in a workshop with David Mamet and William H. Macy and then we formed The Atlantic Theatre Company 25 years ago, maybe � god. So that was all I did for the first 8 or 9 years of my career and at that company we all did everything: acting, writing, directing...That changes when you move into film, you have to do what you can, so I spent a lot of time scripting and acting...As an actor you're kind of a song in someone else's mix-tape. I wanted to be the DJ at some point.

You pop up yourself in the film. Why did you decide to do that?

I wasn't going to. I thought that would be hubris. Also I thought I'd be in over my head. But I've played people like this guy a lot, so I felt like I couldn't pass up the chance to be someone called The Lord High Charlie. When I saw how people looked at me dressed in that colonial garb while I was trying to give instructions for lighting and angles, then I wondered if maybe I'd made the right choice.

How's the experience been promoting a film that's yours, rather than something you've appeared in but are not responsible for?

I think it's more terrifying. There are a lot of people to blame when you're just the actor, but that's a bit harder when you're the director and scriptwriter. Not a lot of blame to pass around then. Many people I showed it to over the years, in script form, felt it was just wrong and not healthy. I saw a lot of comedy in it, so when I heard the first laugh at Sundance I felt a level of relief that I think I'll never experience again.

Choke is out now

Olly Richards

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Friday 21 November 2008

Quantum Of Solace Premiere Report

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:38:00 GMT

To the dulcet tones of Shirley Bassey's greatest hits and among a cavalcade of video screens, screaming fans and a rather swanky Aston Martin DBS, the stars of James Bond's 22nd adventure hit the red carpet in London's Leicester Square on Wednesday night.

In town to celebrate the Royal World Premiere of Quantum Of Solace, the likes of Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright and director Marc Forster donned tuxedos and glad rags and genuflected for their royal highnesses Princes Harry and William at one of the biggest cinematic events of the year.

"It's such an honour to be involved in this movie," said Jeffrey Wright who plays Bond's ally, CIA agent Felix Leiter. "There's no bigger franchise in film but at the same time there's a level of intelligence that audiences really appreciate."

Fans who had queued for a good spot since the wee small hours were rewarded with a live performance from electro-classical quartet Escala and, despite the chilly conditions, basked in the starry glow of Bond actors old and new. One such attendee was one-time Miss Moneypenny, Samantha Bond. But what does she make of her former character's notable absence from the reduxed 007 canon?

"They have made a very big point about her not being in it and I don't quite know why," she said. "I'm sure Q will be back and I hope Moneypenny will make her return but I suppose it's nice that it hasn't happened immediately."

Would she like to return to the role?

"Oh no my love. Next time she'll be young and blonde and frothy. I'm done with her but I would love to return as a villain, I'd die my hair black and be really evil."

Another former Bond affiliate on the red carpet was Robbie Coltrane, who revealed that his aspirations to play a bad guy are not just confined to James Bond movies.

"I was going to play a gangster in a Martin Scorsese film," he said. "He's going to make a film about New York in the 1980s but I can't do it. I was offered a part but I was signed up to Harry Potter so what can you do?"

A new addition to Quantum Of Solace is the lovely Gemma Arterton, who plays Agent Fields.

"It was very nerve-wracking but Daniel was fantastic and I had such an amazing time making this film," she said before talking about her role in the upcoming video-game adaptation, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. "It's going to be very action packed, I'm actually covered in bruises but I'm loving all the action. It's going to be like nothing you've ever seen before."

Talking of action, Quantum Of Solace is the first major blockbuster from respected director Marc Forster and his explosive vision has won him an army of new fans, does that mean he'll want to return for another adventure.

"I was really happy to just make Quantum Of Solace, they asked me to return but I thought it best to move on to something else," said Forster. "Would I return to 007? Never say never again."

Glen Ferris

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 30 October 2008

Steve McQueen Talks Hunger

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:38:00 GMT

Steve McQueen (II) (no, not that one) is currently quite the darling of the British film scene. The one-time Turner Prize winner's first film, Hunger, tells the story of Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) the IRA member who led a very public hunger strike in 1981 when the British government refused to grant political status to he and other imprisoned members of the republican army. A hit at festivals across the world and already an awards possibility, it's the kind of film that bright, shiny careers are made of. So why doesn't McQueen want fame and fortune?

Screenrush: You say in the press material for this film that Bobby Sands influenced you when you were younger. What do you mean by that?

Steve McQueen: What I meant by that was that he influenced me, as an 11-year-old child, as someone on the TV screen. He influenced me as far as a coming-of-age situation. Being 11 years old and watching the 9 O'clock News and seeing the image on the TV of this man and every day there was a number underneath the image. At first I thought it was his age, but then my parents told me that this person was on hunger strike. As an 11-year-old child that was very odd to me, the fact that someone would use not eating as a way to be heard. So it was more having an impression on me than influencing me...There was an interview that Jean-Luc Godard gave to Pauline Kael two days after Bobby Sands had died and he said that Sands' actions were very childish. Then I had this idea of a child sitting at a table with a plate of food in front of him that he wouldn't eat, despite his parents telling him he had to. Every decision in the child's life � what he wears; when he goes to bed � is made by a parent, so the only power he has is to refrain from eating. That's how I made sense of what this was.

Why did you want to cover this subject through film, rather than some other medium?

Well, I come from the art world. The analogy I can put it to is poetry. Everyone in the world understands poetry. It's ridiculous to say this, but that's amazing. Anyone in the world can tell you a story, which I think is amazing. But not everybody is steeped in the world of western art, so the idea of making a film that everyone can look at and communicate with was very appealing. It was great. The narrative is great.

Had you been looking for a film project before this?

No. Sometimes thing come along in extraordinary ways. Jan Younghusband from Channel 4 Film � who's extraordinary � asked me what I'd like to make a film about, and I said this. That was it. Do I just want to make films? I don't want to waste any time. There are so many films out there that I wanted to make a film about something necessary. I was just surprised that nobody had ever made a film of it before; it's one of the most important events of the last 30 years.

The film opens with fourteen minutes without dialogue. Where did that idea come from?

Often there's a case when people go into the cinema that it's filled with confetti. There's so many little things to distract them. I think what's interesting is to reduce that and use cinema for what cinema is good at. I don't know how we reached a point in cinema where everything is done in an identical way. It's like there's only one cinematic language, which is completely wrong. When cinema started there were so many ways of telling a story, and that's what I wanted to explore. You can use sound to describe architecture, with noises bouncing off the walls because a room is so big. So you can get an idea of what that place is like. Sound can give you smell; sound can give you texture...

You show all sides of the argument, but not the damage done by the IRA. Why is that?

What I wanted to do was focus in on the prison. The H-Block was the front line. We did see one aspect of [IRA violence] when the prison officer is executed. But I didn't want to leave the prison, or institutions. When the officer is executed it's while visiting his mother in a home. It's prisons in different forms. The focus was on the Maze prison, that extraordinary world where you come into work every day and the floors and walls are covered with excrement. The prisoners who had to live in that for 24 hours a day for four years, that's where my nucleus was...This is where the two extremes met; where Mrs Thatcher met the blanket men, in effect.

How did you find Michael Fassbender, who plays Bobby Sands?

Well, I'm a bit green in terms of auditions, so I didn't bring him in. You can never tell who people are in an audition. You're not seeing the real person. Michael came in the first time and was very cocky, and I was like, �who's this guy?' Then he came in again and it was very interesting. I got to talking to him and then that was it. Again, it's being interesting in people more than film.

You never come down on any one side during the film. Were you ever swayed during the making of the film?

No, I don't believe in bad human beings. Bad situations and events make people do horrible, inhumane things. But that's circumstance. This is a political film, because it's in a political context, but it's the people who have to deal with that situation that I'm interested in. I'm interested in the people who have to live in this extraordinary circumstance and make it ordinary. It's not about good guys or bad guys.

You use Margaret Thatcher as this quite sinister disembodied voice. What are your feelings on her?

I don't have any opinions on Margaret Thatcher because my parents wouldn't let me watch her. Every time she came on the TV when I was little they'd switch it over to something else.

When you knew you were going to make a film, did you take inspiration or lessons from anyone?

When I put eye to the lens I'm not thinking of Godard; I'm not thinking of Hitchcock; I'm not thinking of Tarkovsky, or Scorsese, or Spielberg. I'm thinking of the best way to make that scene. What I've discovered is that what I'm excited about is not film, but life. That's what makes me want to make a film. Great shots don't interest me. Life interests me...I love film � don't get me wrong. I love to watch film, but what stimulates me to make one is story.

As a first time director, how have you felt about the process that goes with directing a successful film: the touring and the promotion?

Tiring. To be honest with you, people are usually fantastic � god, that sounds so corny. I prefer it in Britain because I don't have to try so hard with language. I'm always wanting to communicate the best I can, and when I'm somewhere that they don't speak English I find it very tiring not being able to communicate my ideas. But I like it. It's ok. Just don't tax me too much.

Do you want to make more films?

I don't know about that. It's all about the idea and where the idea leads me. I'm not in love with 35mm feature films; I'm more in love with the idea. That idea might lead me to make something out of clay or make a painting. It's not about the medium, it's about the idea.

The film's been very well received so far. Has that brought approaches from people wanting you to make films, even if you're not interested in making another?

Yes. I've got a Hollywood agent and all that stuff, but I don't want to just take any old thing off the shelf. I don't know what that means. It doesn't really mean anything to me, because it's not about money. What I am saying is that I'm not interested in compromising on anything. I want final cut and I want to do my thing and that's it. It's not about money; it's about what we can make.

It's interesting then that you have an American agent. Why have the agent if you don't want to make the movies?

Well, they asked me and I said yes. There's a possibility I might want to make a film in America, so it makes sense to be represented. God, that sounds really egotistical. I don't mean it like that.

What do think of British film at the moment?

I think we should be taking more risks and trying more things. People like Jan Younghusband at Channel 4 should be championed, because what she did for me was amazing. Film 4 wouldn't have done this, but she helped it. I think we've lost a lot of Hitchcocks and David Leans because we don't help people make films. We need to find our own voice and not always worry about following the Americans.

Are there any British films you've liked recently?

Not enough, no. There aren't enough young people making films. We've got a great music scene because we've got loads of great young minds that translate into great music. Why's that not happening with feature films? How can we make great music and not great films?

Hunger is out on Friday.

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Wednesday 29 October 2008

The Voice Of Dobby Speaks!

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:08:00 GMT

It's not every day you get to talk to a house elf - after all the funny-looking magical creatures are there to be seen and not heard - but when we got a chance to chat with Harry Potter's big-eared chum Dobby, we simply couldn't pass up the opportunity.

Okay, so we didn't exactly talk to Dobby himself but Toby Jones, who provided the voice for the beloved character in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, is the next best thing.

Three movies have been and gone since Dobby has been seen on our screens, so does Toby think he'll ever return?

"Well, every film that comes out makes me think that maybe they need him again but I'm told it would be hard to imagine Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - part 1 being done without Dobby's return," says the actor speaking at the European Premiere of Oliver Stone's W.

If Toby sounds a little unsure of himself, it's because he has a startling admission to make...

"I haven't read that book, I haven't read any of the books, so I don't know," he admits. "Keep this to yourselves but I really don't know the books.

"I'm making up for it now because I'm slowly reading the first ones with my daughter, so I'll be wiser to the story as time goes on."

As anyone who has read the final chapter in JK Rowling's magical movies will know, Dobby is a recurring character throughout the entire series but it is in the final book that he plays a pivotal role.

"I hear that he figures a great deal in the last one," says Toby, "so I'm hoping to get the phone call quite soon. Would I return to the role? Yes. Have I had the call? No yet."

With Warner Bros planning to split The Deathly Hallows into two seperate films, we fully expecting Toby breathing life into Dobby again quite soon.

Glen Ferris
>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Friday 24 October 2008