Film Interviews

Juliette Binoche: ‘Repetition feels like near death’

Demetrios Matheou Thursday, 19 April 2018

It’s about time Juliette Binoche and Claire Denis teamed up: the legendary French actress, Gallic film royalty known by her countrymen and women as La Binoche, with one of the country’s most unique directors, both talented and formidable women who have very much forged their own paths in the...

Milos Forman: 'The less you know about yourself, the happier you are'

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 17 April 2018

The second thing I noticed about Miloš Forman, who has died at the age of 86, was the spectacular imperfection of his English.

Clio Barnard: 'We need to talk about sexual abuse' - interview

Owen Richards Tuesday, 20 February 2018

Clio Barnard has quietly been building a reputation as one of Britain’s most human storytellers.

Daniel Day-Lewis: 'I'm quite good at mending things'

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 30 January 2018

Daniel Day-Lewis doesn’t look like a 60-year-old retiree. He’s wearing a striped T-shirt under a dark blue shirt, light brown trousers which descend no further than mid-calf and boots laced high above the ankle he could easily have worn as a young actor in My Beautiful Laundrette. Ditto the earring. He remains as thin and sleek as a whippet.

Jeremy Irons: 'I was never very beautiful' - interview

Jasper Rees Monday, 22 January 2018

In 2016 the Bristol Old Vic turned 250. To blow out the candles, England’s oldest continually running theatre summoned home one of its most splendid alumni.

'It was appealing to make a thriller about mental illness': Gareth Tunley and Alice Lowe on 'The Ghoul'

Thomas Barrie Saturday, 05 August 2017

Gareth Tunley, director of the psychological drama The Ghoul, and Alice Lowe, one of its stars, are a duo with eclectic tastes. They share a background in comedy, but cite everything from punk to surrealism and the occult as influences on Tunley’s directorial debut, which was produced by Ben Wheatley.

Olivia Williams interview: 'Are you on drugs?' 'No I've just spent the day acting'

Jasper Rees Monday, 24 July 2017

Olivia Williams’s first film was, (in)famously, seen by almost no one. The Postman, Kevin Costner’s expensive futuristic misfire, may have summoned her from the depths of chronic unemployment, but the first time anyone actually clapped eyes on her was in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, in which Bill Murray most understandably falls in love with her peachy reserved English rose. Then came The Sixth Sense, in which with great subtlety she in effect gave two performances as...

10 Questions for Adeel Akhtar: 'The first form of defiance is to laugh'

Jasper Rees Saturday, 15 July 2017

Earlier this year Adeel Akhtar won the BAFTA for best actor. In Murdered By My Father, he gave a heartbreaking performance as the widowed father of a daughter who goes against his desire to arrange an advantageous marriage for her. In a nuanced domestic tragedy, he revealed fresh depths of agony, fear and rage that will have surprised those who mainly knew him as Faisal, the dimwitted terrorist in...

10 Questions for film director Roger Donaldson – 'motor racing in the 1960s was incredibly dangerous'

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 23 May 2017

An Australian who emigrated to New Zealand in 1965, Roger Donaldson cut his teeth in documentaries and TV before launching into a career in feature films. His first feature, Sleeping Dogs (1976), on the unlikely theme of a New Zealand plunged into totalitarianism, immediately attracted attention, and after he made Smash Palace (1982) Hollywood came calling.

Charlotte Rampling: 'I had to survive!' - interview

Liz Thomson Tuesday, 11 April 2017

The seizième arrondissement, the Paris equivalent of Kensington and Chelsea, or Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Haussmann’s Paris par excellence. Here, in a gated complex where American heiress Florence Gould hosted lavish wartime salons, indulging in conduct which, come the liberation, she was required to explain, lives Charlotte Rampling. The marble foyer is vast, the lift small and cranky, like something out of a movie.

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Brighton Festival 2017: 12 Free Events

Thomas H Green Thursday, 06 April 2017

The Brighton Festival, which takes place every May, is renowned for its plethora of free events. The 2017 Festival is curated by Guest Director Kate Tempest, the poet, writer and performer, alongside Festival CEO Andrew Comben who’s been the event's overall manager since 2008 (also overseeing the Brighton Dome venues all year round). This year the Festival’s theme is “Everyday Epic”.

theartsdesk Q&A: Writer David Storey, pt 1

Jasper Rees Monday, 27 March 2017

David Storey, who has died at the age of 83, was the last of the Angry Young Men who, in fiction and drama, made a hero of the working-class Northerner.

theartsdesk Q&A: Writer David Storey, pt 2

Jasper Rees Monday, 27 March 2017

In Radcliffe, an early novel by David Storey, one character murders another with a telling blow from a hammer. The author was later advised that Kenneth Halliwell was reading Radcliffe on the night in 1967 before he killed his lover Joe Orton, also with a hammer. But however many Orton plays Storey indirectly lost, he pulped many more of his own.

10 Questions for Director Olivier Assayas

Nick Hasted Monday, 20 March 2017

Olivier Assayas was born into French cinema, as the son of screenwriter Jacques Remy, but his three acclaimed decades as a director have followed a mazy course.

10 Questions for Director Gurinder Chadha

Jasper Rees Monday, 27 February 2017

Gurinder Chadha is still best-known for directing a low-budget comedy set in Hounslow about two girls who just want to play football. Bend It Like Beckham (2002) introduced Keira Knightley and in 2015 became a stage musical that lured Asian audiences to the West End. While she also explored British Asian culture in Bride and Prejudice (2004) and It’s a Wonderful...

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10 Minutes with Director Paolo Sorrentino

Nick Hasted Saturday, 11 February 2017

Two Neapolitans are wrestling for Italian cinema’s crown. Paolo Sorrentino and Matteo Garrone’s rivalry was for a time so personal that, though they were neighbours, they didn’t speak for years.