fri 16/05/2025

Interviews with leading figures from the arts

theartsdesk Q&A: Zoë Telford on playing a stressed-out psychiatrist in ITV's 'Malpractice'

Adam Sweeting

If you compiled a list of favourite TV series from the last couple of decades, you’d find that Zoë Telford has appeared in most of them. The Thick of It, Foyle’s War, Ashes to Ashes, Sherlock, Silent Witness, Unforgotten, Death in Paradise, Grantchester, Vera… they all appear on her on CV, with many more besides.

theartsdesk Q&A: Gary Oldman on playing John Cheever in 'Parthenope' and beating the booze

Pamela Jahn

Gary Oldman has always lived life to the fullest, on screen and off. Maybe that's why he is often at his best in his pitch-perfect portraits of real-life personae such as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour and Herman J Mankiewicz in Mank. He now stars as the bibulous middle-aged American author John Cheever in Parthenope, Paolo Sorrentino's latest lush homage to Italy's recent past. 

theartsdesk Q&A: film director Déa...

Pamela Jahn

One of the most exciting new voices in Eastern European film, Déa Kulumbegashvili is not concerned with conventional shot lengths. She has been...

theartsdesk Q&A: director Leonardo Van Dijl...

Pamela Jahn

"Julie's story takes place everywhere", says the writer-director Leonardo Van Dijl, whose psychological drama Julie Keeps Quiet has little to do...

theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Miguel Gomes on...

Pamela Jahn

It doesn't take much to get lost in a film by Miguel Gomes. In fact, it's required. Multiple layers, timelines, and perspectives unfold in his cinema...

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theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer on his apocalyptic musical 'The End'

Pamela Jahn

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'

Nick Hasted

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'

Pamela Jahn

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'

Pamela Jahn

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'

Pamela Jahn

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

Rachel Halliburton

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'

Nick Hasted

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'

Justine Elias

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'

Nick Hasted

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'

Pamela Jahn

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

Rachel Halliburton

Beautiful books take you to worlds that are intricately imagined and a feast for the eye

Interview: Roy Haynes, Jazz Drumming Giant (1925-2024)

Nick Hasted

The jazz legend reminisces, from Satchmo to Metheny

theartsdesk Q&A: director Jacques Audiard on his Mexican trans gangster musical 'Emilia Pérez'

Pamela Jahn

The French filmmaker concocted an extravagant genre mash-up to confront the tragedy of Mexico's 'disappeared'

theartsdesk Q&A: Anna Bogutskaya on her new book about the past decade of horror cinema

Harry Thorfinn-George

In time for Halloween, the author discusses 'Feeding the Monster' - and why she thinks horror cinema has entered a new phase

theartsdesk Q&A: Alice Lowe on 'Timestalker' and what women rue through the ages

Justine Elias

The writer, director, and star inserts herself into the history of love

theartsdesk Q&A: young pianist Ignas Maknickas on appearing at the Roman River Festival and beyond

Rachel Halliburton

A rising talent who first performed with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra aged 9

The Third Man rides again - 75th anniversary of Carol Reed's noir classic

Adam Sweeting

Script supervisor Angela Allen on Orson Welles and filming in a war-ravaged Vienna

theartsdesk Q&A: conductor Dalia Stasevska on her new album of contemporary orchestral music

Bernard Hughes

Finnish-Ukrainian conductor looks to bring the music of today to new audiences

theartsdesk Q&A: David Morrissey on (among other things) the return of 'Sherwood' and 'Daddy Issues'

Adam Sweeting

Liverpool-born actor reflects on a journey from Everyman Theatre to film and TV stardom

theartsdesk Q&A: violinist Braimah and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, guitarist Plínio Fernandes, on their two Fantasia Proms

David Nice

String siblings and old friend reunite with Tom Fetherstonhaugh's inspiring orchestra

10 Questions for DJ-producer Dave Clarke

Thomas H Green

The techno don talks new music, Brexit, cars, Gustav Holst and much more

theartsdesk Q&A: Lucie Shorthouse is flying high with 'We Are Lady Parts' and 'Rebus'

Adam Sweeting

An actor's progress from Cambridge Footlights to 'Everybody's Talking About Jamie', a female Muslim punk band and crime-fighting in Edinburgh

theartsdesk Q&A: Viggo Mortensen on 'The Dead Don't Hurt', Westerns and the dangers of patriotism

Nick Hasted

The star considers romance in Durango, co-star Vicky Krieps, his outsider childhood and taste for adventure

theartsdesk Q&A: Matthew Modine on 'Hard Miles', 40 years in showbusiness and safer cycling

Adam Sweeting

An eventful journey from 'Full Metal Jacket' to 'Oppenheimer' and 'Stranger Things'

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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...

theartsdesk Q&A: Zoë Telford on playing a stressed-out p...

If you compiled a list of favourite TV series from the last couple of decades, you’d find that Zoë Telford has appeared in most of them. The...

Good One review - a life lesson in the wild with her dad and...

Good One is a generation-and-gender gap drama that mostly unfolds during a weekend hiking and camping trip in the Catskill Forest...

E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea review - dull...

It’s hard to say who is going to enjoy E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea. Admirers of the modernist designer-architect will...

Album: Rico Nasty - LETHAL

Rico Nasty’s new album LETHAL signals a shift in direction, but whether it is a bold evolution or a step towards something less distinct...

The Marching Band review - what's the French for '...

In Emmanuel Courcol’s drama The Marching Band (En Fanfare in French, and also released as My Brother's Band), a...

Lucy Farrell, Catherine MacLellan, The Green Note review - s...

Lucy Farrell, one quarter of the brilliant, award-winning Anglo-Scots band Furrow Collective, and a solo artist whose stunning debut album, We...

1536, Almeida Theatre review - fast and furious portrayal of...

Ava Pickett’s award-winning début play, 1536, is a foul-mouthed, furious, frenetically funny ride through the lives of three young women...

The Comedy About Spies, Noel Coward Theatre review - 'G...

From the creative team that brought you The Play That Goes Wrong in 2012 (and assorted sequels) comes this spy caper. As ever...

Album: Billy Nomates - Metalhorse

Metalhorse is a concept album that uses visions of a dilapidated funfair as a metaphor for life’s various ups and downs. It especially...

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