Film Interviews
theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Michael SheenSaturday, 11 September 2010
Either it’s a bizarre accident. Or there’s something in the water. Port Talbot, the unlovely steel town in Wales where smoke stacks belch fumes into the cloudy coastal sky, has been sending its sons to work in Hollywood for decades now. Richard Burton was the first to put his glowering blue eyes and golden larynx at the service of Tinseltown. Anthony Hopkins, for all his American passport, has never shed the native tinge from his accent. And in recent years there has been Michael Sheen (b.... Read more...
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theartsdesk Q&A: Actress Julianne MooreSaturday, 24 July 2010
Julianne Moore (b. 1960) is a true rarity. It’s not just that her hair flames like no other star since Katharine Hepburn. Or that alone of her generation she seems impervious to middle age’s indignities. There’s something else. Having worked with dinosaurs in The Lost World and a cannibal in Hannibal, she is mainstream enough to be considered a genuine leading lady. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Writer Willy RussellSaturday, 03 July 2010
No one understands escapism like Willy Russell. Either side of 1980, he wrote two plays about working-class Liverpool women in flight from a humdrum existence. In one a young hairdresser seeks fulfilment through a literary education with the Open University. In the other, a middle-aged housewife has an island-holiday romance. As films, Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine earned Oscar nominations for, respectively, Julie Walters and Pauline Collins. Read more... |
Actress Carey Mulligan, Emotionally SpeakingTuesday, 13 October 2009
“You’ve no idea how boring everything was before I met you.” As written by Nick Hornby and spoken by Carey Mulligan in An Education, these words of gratitude come after a moment of stillness in which Jenny, Mulligan’s character, reflects on her experience as a 16-year-old schoolgirl taken on a social joyride by a 35-ish hustler, David (Peter Sarsga Read more... |
Daryl HannahSunday, 27 September 2009
Daryl Hannah’s played sexy, sassy, funny and dangerous, from the naive mermaid in Splash, to the vicious one eyed assassin in director Quentin Tarantino’s ultra violent Kill Bill films. Her leading men are among the all-time greats: Harrison Ford in Blade Runner, Robert Redford in Legal Eagles, Michael Douglas in Wall St and Steve Martin in Roxanne. And it would appear that real life has been just thrilling for the alluring actress. She started acting at 11 and was a...
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theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Michael CaineWednesday, 09 September 2009
Michael Caine has made more than 100 films: from Zulu, The Ipcress File, Alfie and Get Carter to The Italian Job and Educating Rita. He won best supporting actor Oscars for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules. This interview dates from 2007 when his more recent films were the remake of Sleuth with Jude Law and The Dark Knight. Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Elektra, Duke of York's Theatre review - Brie Larson...
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Widmann, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - razor-sharp attack...
Perhaps all great music counterpoints and comments on the times, but Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra have been searingly...
Bring Them Down review - ramming it home in the west of Irel...
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Album: Rats on Rafts - Deep Below
Deep Below’s first track is titled “Hibernation.” “A winter breeze blows through my mind,” intones a colourless, dispirited male voice....
First Person: writer Lauren Mooney on bringing bodies togeth...
It started with a Guardian long-read. I’m ashamed to admit it since so many shows could say the same, but that was the beginning.
It was the...
The Marriage of Figaro, English National Opera review - long...
Who’s in and who’s not – on the secret, the joke, the relationship, the family, the club? That’s the fulcrum of Joe Hill-Gibbins’ ingeniously...
September 5 review - gripping real-life thriller
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Oedipus, Old Vic review - disappointing leads in a productio...
The opening scene of the Old Vic’s Oedipus is dominated by a giant backdrop of a skull-like face, eyes shut and rock-like. It...
Album: Hifi Sean & David McAlmont - Twilight
It was only six months ago that Hifi Sean and David McAlmont released their Daylight album. A fine disc of summery dance pop that was...