Interviews with leading figures from the arts
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Sam Riley on playing a washed-up loner in the thriller 'Islands'
Friday, 12 September 2025
You won't find Sam Riley lying at the pool in a holiday resort – unless it's for work. "I'd rather stay home to be honest", says the Berlin-based Yorkshireman, who plays a washed-up tennis player turned coach living on the Canary island of Fuerteventura in Jan-Ole Gerster's slow-burning psychological thriller Islands. "I'm sure it's great to drop the kids off for a while and enjoy some peace and quiet. But my idea of relaxation is quite different."
theartsdesk Q&A: Suranne Jones on 'Hostage', power pants and politics
Friday, 29 August 2025
If she decided to run for election, Suranne Jones would probably stand a good chance of winning. The Chadderton-born actress and producer has been a driving figure in British television ever since she became known for playing Karen McDonald on Coronation Street (2000 and 2004). Her vigorous presence and fearless nature made her a force to be reckoned with right from the start.
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Leonie Benesch on...
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
The German actor Leonie Benesch has an issue with erratic pacing in films. "I find it awful when a character talks and then there's a two-second...
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud...
Wednesday, 06 August 2025
"First love is always both terrible and wonderful at the same time", says the 60-year-Norwegian dramatist-novelist-director Dag Johan Haugerud, whose...
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Lars Eidinger on...
Thursday, 31 July 2025
To get Lars Eidinger "right", one must take him cloven hoof and all. He's intense, unconventional, and driven – but by what, exactly? Self-hatred, he...
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theartsdesk Q&A: director Athina Rachel Tsangari on her brooding new film 'Harvest'
The Greek filmmaker talks about adapting Jim Crace's novel and putting the mercurial Caleb Landry Jones centre stage |
theartsdesk Q&A: writer and actor Mark Gatiss on 'Bookish'
The multi-talented performer ponders storytelling, crime and retiring to run a bookshop |
Interview: Quinteto Astor Piazzolla on playing in London and why Mick Jagger's a fan
Music Director Julián Vat and pianist Matias Feigin compare notes on Piazzolla |
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Emma Mackey on 'Hot Milk' and life education
The Anglo-French star of 'Sex Education' talks about her new film’s turbulent mother-daughter bind |
theartsdesk Q&A: director Andreas Dresen on his anti-Nazi resistance drama 'From Hilde, with Love'
The East German-born filmmaker explains why his biopic of the activist Hilde Coppi isn't bound to the 1940s |
Bleak landscapes and banjos: composer Bernard Hughes discusses his score for 'Chicken Town'
Our critic talks about his recent film project |
theartsdesk Q&A: Zoë Telford on playing a stressed-out psychiatrist in ITV's 'Malpractice'
She nearly became a dancer, but now she's one of TV's most familiar faces |
theartsdesk Q&A: Gary Oldman on playing John Cheever in 'Parthenope' and beating the booze
Exclusive: A candid interview with the master actor |
theartsdesk Q&A: film director Déa Kulumbegashvili on her startling second feature, 'April'
The Georgian filmmaker talks about her award-winning abortion drama, motherhood and her relationship with the unknown |
theartsdesk Q&A: director Leonardo Van Dijl discusses his sexual abuse drama 'Julie Keeps Quiet'
The Belgian filmmaker unfolds an all too familiar tragedy in the world of tennis |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Miguel Gomes on his latest exotic opus, 'Grand Tour'
The Portuguese director's comic melodrama takes a fantastical journey through Southeast Asia and the history of cinema |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer on his apocalyptic musical 'The End'
The documentary director talks about his ominous first fiction film and why its characters break into song |
theartsdesk Q&A: director François Ozon on 'When Autumn Falls'
The modern French master reflects on ageing, useful lies and country secrets in his new slow crime film |
theartsdesk Q&A: Indian star Radhika Apte on 'Sister Midnight'
The actor on her breakout screen performance capturing the frantic pulse of Mumbai, and living and working between London and India |
theartsdesk Q&A: Raoul Peck, director of the documentary 'Ernest Cole: Lost and Found'
Peck analyses his approach to the anti-apartheid photographer's work and to his methods as a political filmmaker |
theartsdesk Q&A: Oscar-winner Adrien Brody on 'The Brutalist'
The much-garlanded actor on what playing the architect László Toth meant to him |
Interview: Polar photographer Sebastian Copeland talks about the dramatic changes in the Arctic
An ominous shift has come with dark patches appearing on the Greenland ice sheet |
theartsdesk Q&A: Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof on 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' - 'It became a question of self-respect'
The exiled filmmaker on authoritarian minds, reluctant radicalism and Iran's future |
10 Questions for Mark Gatiss, writer-director of 'A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone'
Gatiss explains why his eerie tale begins with its original Victorian-Edwardian author Edith Nesbit |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmakers Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson on 'Rumours'
Archetype-bending auteur Maddin and co. discuss their new film's starry, absurd G7, autobiography and artifice |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Payal Kapadia on 'All We Imagine as Light'
An in-depth conversation with the director of the instant Indian arthouse classic |
Interview: rising star Chloe Savage on the Arctic, outer space, and igniting children's wonder for the unknown
Beautiful books take you to worlds that are intricately imagined and a feast for the eye |
Interview: Roy Haynes, Jazz Drumming Giant (1925-2024)
The jazz legend reminisces, from Satchmo to Metheny |
theartsdesk Q&A: director Jacques Audiard on his Mexican trans gangster musical 'Emilia Pérez'
The French filmmaker concocted an extravagant genre mash-up to confront the tragedy of Mexico's 'disappeared' |
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