Last year Yorgos Lanthimos bowed the divisive Kinds Of Kindness starring Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, an imprenetrable triptych that dared one to like it. At this year’s Venice Film Festival the trio debuted a linear, grimly funny and ultimately profound cosmic comedy that explores the horrors of humanity and the perception of powerful women.
Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features
‘Bugonia’ – though not explained by the film – is an ancient Mediterranean ritual where the carcass of an ox was believed to be able to recreate bee life. A death of a greater beast was required to give life to the pollinating, essential apinae. Lanthimos’ film begins with the bees, as Plemons’ Georgia warehouse worker and amateur apiarist, Teddy, describes their integral role in the world and the need to stop the poison that is killing them. As we watch Teddy prep himself and his sweet cousin Donny (Aidan Delbis, delightful) for the event they’re planning in their squalid farmhouse it becomes apparent that the duo subscribe to web conspiracy theories, are emotionally damaged by Teddy’s opioid-abusing mother (Alicia Silverstone) now being in a coma after a medical trial, and are intent on kidnapping big pharma CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone). Believing Fuller to be both responsible for the stasis of Teddy’s Mom and an alien from the Andromedea galaxy, the duo hope to save humanity with their plan – comedically doing yoga on filthy towels, shopping for Jennifer Aniston masks at Goodwill and chemically castrating themselves in order to be ‘neurologically free’.
Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features
Fuller is a precise businesswoman who complains about too much use of the word diversity in a diversity training video and mandates a 5.30pm clock-off time for her workers while also reminding them of the need to meet quotas. She wakes at 4.30am, trains ferociously, wears a stiletto-heeled daily uniform and appears to have no private life – an alien MO to the societal expectations of feminity. When she’s kidnapped by the duo (in a laugh-out-loud physical comedy sequence) and tied up in their basement she continually, coolly, asks for ‘dialogue’. And that’s what Lanthimos provides, as Teddy and Michelle verbally negotiate, power shifting forwards and backwards, audience belief in the truth flip-flopping with every turn. Is Teddy a delusional crackpot with abandonment issues? Or has this random man actually got a point?
Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features
Based on the 2003 film from South Korea, Save the Green Planet!, this is nonetheless a Lanthimos film, so darkness creeps into every facet of the process like the black mould seeping across Teddy’s kitchen ceiling. Teddy may not get his ‘news from the news’, but he is complex, bright and riddled with heartbreaking trauma (seen in weird monochrome flashbacks and hinted at by the local sheriff). Donny is driven by love and a need to escape his life, his compassion tempering Teddy’s more ruthless instincts as they torture Michelle. There’s an element of Ed Gein and some shocking blood splatter moments. Throughout though, there is humour and humanity; Plemons has never been better as the product of broken America while Stone’s large eyes (enhanced by a shaved head) and machine-gun cadence convince as both heartless CEO and credible ET. And the more dialogue the two engage in the more an audience is drawn in – not only to the ideological duel that demands a viewer take a stance, but to larger ideas of environmentalism, global accountancy and the sins of man. By the time the final reel is playing soundtracked by Peter, Paul and Mary’s plaintive ‘Where have all the flowers gone?’ you have to agree with the refrain and sentiment; ‘when will they ever learn?’
Words by JANE CROWTHER Photographs courtesy of Focus Features Bugonia premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival and will be in cinemas 31 October
Noah Baumbach and Emily Mortimer’s gentle ribbing of Hollywood begins with deliberate artifice: movie star Jay Kelly (Clooney leaning all the way into his public persona) is filming his martini shot on his latest flick, a death scene set on New York’s waterfront but actually carefully concocted in a Hollywood soundstage. As he utters his last line he asks for his co-star dog to come in later, and for another take. His team – Adam Sandler’s manager, Laura Dern’s publicist, Mortimer’s HMUA – flutter around him. But when he shuts himself in his trailer we see his interior life; one where he admits his existence doesn’t feel real, that he nurses regret, that ‘all my memories are movies’. After a failure to connect with his teen daughter (Grace Edwards) and a stinging meet-up with an old roommate (a scene-stealing Billy Crudup) Jay reassesses his cosseted, infantalised life, deciding to embark on european odyssey as he reflects on relationships with his neglected elder daughter (Riley Keogh, also bringing personal insight to her role), a co-star (Eve Hewson) and his acting class friend (Louis Partridge). Along the way there’s meltdowns, a lot of cheesecake, kookie Italians, central-casting Brits and a tone that veers between absurd and nostalgic, with nods to Fellini and Wild Strawberries. Baumbach deploys physical sets to interplay between present day and memory, and a heightened sense of realism that feels intentionally fake to reflect the inauthenticity that has crept into all aspects of Kelly’s life. Is his train ride through Italy really filled with morose German cyclists and cor blimey tourists or is this how he’s filtering it for a story on a late night talk show?
Peter Mountain/NetflixPeter Mountain/Netflix
Based on Baumbach and Mortimer’s own experiences in the film industry (they met when Mortimer’s son, Sam, starred in White Noise), Jay Kelly recalls other insider-baseball studies of Tinseltown (Entourage, The Player, The Studio) without particular bite. This is an affectionate look at coddled talent who say they are always ‘alone’ just as staff hand them a drink, the way that famous, wealthy people expect full commitment and loyalty from their entourage without giving it back, the disconnect of a star complaining how hard they work while living in a palatial mansion and travelling by private jet. When it’s the affable Clooney essaying such narcissism Kelly’s selfishness and black hole effect on his team’s lives reads as somewhat charming and unintentional. Dressed in perfectly pressed suits, that world famous crinkly smile hiding the pain beneath, Clooney walks a performance tightrope of showing everything while simultaneously holding back. A moment where he watches his real back catalogue of film manages to convey the wonder of cinema, the bewilderment of a star whose life is chronicled by projects, and the impressive career of Clooney to date. Aiding him in this endeavour is Sandler, rumpled perfection as manager Ron who facilitates, parents and apologises for his client while trying to juggle his own work/life balance. He has a minor love story with Dern but the real romance here is the one between Ron and Jay, both men having spent decades married to each other as a work family, missing out on personal commitments with their real nearest and dearest. And it’s seeing Jay through Sandler’s teary, loving eyes that helps us an audience connect with him despite his shortcomings. Though somewhat meta in its depiction of the star ecosystem, Jay Kelly is generalist in poking fun; at its best it showcases the finesse of its players. This is particularly true of Crudup who is masterful in a scene where he Method-reads a menu. Across the table, Clooney/Kelly’s eyes light up in delight at the magic trick performed in reciting entrees and it’s one of several moments that celebrate the artistry of cinema, as well as the sense of community and awe fostered in those who love to sit in the dark and watch it.
Peter Mountain/Netflix
Words by JANE CROWTHER Photographs courtesy of Netflix Jay Kelly premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival and is out in cinemas 14 November
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
Actor and producer Dakota Johnson explores London in a vintage Bentley with Greg Williams to discuss growing up in a Hollywood family, how she’s learned to trust herself and why Sean Penn calls her the ‘truth machine’.
This is very old Hollywood,’ I say as I photograph Dakota Johnson reclining in a marbled bathroom in a suite at the newly opened Chancery Rosewood Hotel in Grovensor Square in London. The building is the former US Embassy (complete with golden eagle atop its roof) and Dakota is wearing a gown by Annie’s Ibiza, white feathers cascading across the floor. ‘Is it?’ she jokes, a Boucheron diamond cat ring glinting on her finger. ‘This is me on a regular Tuesday…’
It’s the first week of July and Dakota has flown into London from Karlovy Vary Film Festival in Prague where her films Materialists and Splitsville were shown, with the latter receiving the president’s award. She’s meeting me at this storied building to tell some stories of her own. Now the founder of a production company, TeaTime Pictures, as well as an actor and a book-club figurehead, she’s the child of movie actors (Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson) and the grandchild of a Hitchcock star (Tippi Hedren). Old Hollywood seems to run through her veins, in the way she moves through the world. ‘I think I carry myself as just myself. I also grew up around my mom, who’s an actress, and my grandmother, who’s an actress, and it’s very intense the way they move, the way they interact with people. I guess I must have absorbed a bit of that. But I try to not try to be anything.’
Is she close to her grandmother? ‘I saw her on Mother’s Day. And I try to call her every week. You know, she’s 95 but she has wild fashion right now. She gets these long nails. And the last time I saw her, they were marbled green. And she was wearing red lipstick and red eyeshadow. It was a strong look. And a tie-died green t-shirt that had lions and tigers all over it…’ Hedren of course is famous for her dedication to animal welfare, establishing Californian big cat sanctuaries, the Roar Foundation and the Shambala Preserve, appearing in the film Roar and having a menagerie of animals living with her at her home. She was famously photographed for Life magazine in 1971, hanging out at home with Neil, a 400lb male lion who padded around her pool and kitchen, and shared a bed with then-teenager Melanie. ‘At her peak she had 70 lions and tigers that she had rescued, and two elephants. She had a black leopard that had three legs, and his name was Boo. And she had snakes. Everything. She just rescued these animals,’ Dakota says. ‘By the time I was born, they weren’t out of their compounds. But my mom grew up with them in the house. If I go to the preserve now, there’s a few lions that, if I lean against the fence, they’ll rub up on me. Who knows what’s going to happen in life? I may inherit some lions and tigers…’
As she begins to brush her teeth I ask her about her relationship with London, a city that her grandmother visited often and that has been a regular stop on her travels since she made her movie acting debut in The Social Network. ‘I love London,’ she tells me through the toothpaste. ‘I actually lived here as a kid. My mom and Antonio [Banderas] got married here, and we lived here. My brother and I were tutored. And I had two Irish nannies growing up. We lived in a house where I had a room in the attic – I loved it.’ Though she filmed Austen adaptation Persuasion in the capital, she mostly visits now to promote her work. I ask what she’s working on right now. ‘Myself,’ she smiles through the mirror.
In truth she seems consumed with a number of projects, not least the ones she’s producing with TeaTime. Shepherding films through production to release, shaping them and contributing to the conversation about film is something she says is invigorating. ‘You know when something happens in your life, and it unlocks a part of your brain, and your creativity – that you’re like, “Oh my God, I knew you were there, but I didn’t know how to access…” I feel like a switch has flipped, and I’m so inspired all the time. I’m thinking all the time about the development, and the inner landscape of women of all different ages.’ That passion has led to reading Jungian psychology at the moment. ‘There’s a book by Robert A. Johnson called She, and it’s about the feminine psyche. I really want to tell stories about the truth of women, and I think there’s so many truths. Like, where do you even begin? There’s a movie that I’m going to make that my friend Vanessa Burghardt is going to be in. She is an incredible actress, artist and musician and she is autistic. She wrote a movie about her life as an autistic girl. It’s pretty amazing.’
I think I carry myself as just myself. I also grew up around my mom, who’s an actress, and my grandmother, who’s an actress, and it’s very intense the way they move, the way they interact with people. I guess I must have absorbed a bit of that. But I try to not try to be anything
She clearly recalls the catalyst for this obsession but tells me she doesn’t want to tell me the details of it. ‘I saw something happen, and I was obsessed with it for days. I still am. I think about this thing all the time. I think I’ll probably write about it, or put it in a movie of some kind. Normally I’m inspired by other people’s ideas. This was kind of foreign territory for me. I don’t quite know what to do with all these thoughts and feelings and images. I’m not really confident enough in writing yet. I think I just have to stop being a bitch about it! I’ve always felt inspired by characters that are written by other people, and I now feel inspired by these things that exist in my heart and in my head and in my soul. I’m bursting at the seams with ideas.’ I ask if this feels like an artistic evolution. ‘Yeah. It feels like I’m learning and interrogating myself so I can grow and evolve.’
We decide to go for a drive in a beautiful vintage Bentley I have borrowed, in a nod to her grandmother’s time in London when she shot to international fame thanks to her starring roles in Hitchcock’s The Birds and Marnie. Hedren then stayed in London while filming Charlie Chaplin’s last film, A Countess from Hong Kong, at Pinewood with Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren. We climb into the silver 1952 R-type Continental and take a spin around the streets of Mayfair. ‘This makes me love London even more,’ Dakota enthuses. ‘Today is like one of those perfect, glorious days in London. It’s just sweet. Tomorrow will probably be muggy and rainy, and I’ll be like, “Oh, this is one of those perfect, muggy, rainy London days…” She’s enchanted by the car and asks the driver to toot the horn for her. ‘That’s the most beautiful horn. Can you imagine if that’s what it sounded like in New York? People would be so much happier.’
Before I can ask Dakota anything else she’s talking to the driver, getting him to open up about his family in beautiful detail. ‘How did you draw all that out of me?’ he marvels as he turns onto Piccadilly. ‘It’s my gift,’ Dakota laughs. ‘It’s just a thing that happens. I think people feel safe with me. Sean Penn calls me a truth machine. When we were making Daddio together, he came up with that. I won’t take bullshit, you know? If somebody’s talking nonsense, I’ll just be like, “OK, nice to meet you. Bye.” And I don’t really like small talk.’
Dakota has a reputation for truth telling and no BS – influencer Blakely Thornton calls her a ‘little Caucasian chaos demon’ thanks to her refusal to be anything other than herself in interviews. I wonder if she’s always been this way, so assured in her own skin, and she shakes her head. ‘I’ve had to teach myself that for sure. I’ve had to learn the hard way. I was a teenage girl once, you know? And that’s, of course, when I think you’re trying everything. You’re trying: “Who am I?” But then it’s very exhausting. I would rather know myself more and more, and be as unique as possible. I don’t want to try to be something else.’
That confidence is something that would lend itself to directing, and Dakota has started down that road by directing a music video. Later this year she hopes to direct the film she’s producing for Vanessa Burghardt. But she’s reluctant to say she’s directing a feature film. ‘I don’t know why I don’t want to say, “I’m directing a film.” It’s just a thing that I’m making with my friends and amazing, talented people, and we’re making it together.’
We head to The Wolseley for a martini and caviar (which the gluten-allergic actor eats on sliced cucumber). I ask about growing up with Antonio Banderas as her stepfather (her parents split in 1994 and Melanie married Antonio in 1996) and what he might have taught her. ‘They’re not married anymore, but he’s still my stepdad, I would say. He’s extremely disciplined with prepping movies, prepping his roles. But also taking care of himself. He’s always warming up his voice and his body. He’s very disciplined with diet and exercise. He’s always studying movies and theatre. He’s obsessed with theatre.’ Is that discipline something that rubbed off on Dakota? ‘I think so. I’m very disciplined with my health and wellness. I’m bad at texts and emails!’
Did Antonio’s dedication to his art give her the drive for a creative 10-year plan of her own? ‘I just want to move in the direction of my soul and my heart,’ Dakota says. ‘I don’t have a 10-year plan or a five-year plan.’ What perspective has growing up in the film industry with actor parents given her? ‘Maybe a sense of not taking it so seriously, and also knowing that it all could go away any second. It’s all just silly. I mean, it’s serious, but it’s also silly. I take it seriously, but I don’t take myself seriously. Growing up inside of this world, I’ve observed it for so long that it’s all just kind of ridiculous, but I’m also in love with it. So it’s just fun, and, at times, gruelling and hurtful and difficult. You know, when I don’t get a job that I really want. And it happens all the time. But you just kind of get used to it.’
We find our table at the restaurant and order gin martinis with a twist while Dakota reflects again on the tough side of the film business. ‘Some people just have creative genius in their minds. But a lot of us have lived through certain difficulties or traumas. Like, I’ve been in therapy since I was four. Because my family was so famous. My parents were so famous. I’m always guarded, talking about them, because I don’t want to bring their personal lives into the world. But it also was always in the press. They both struggled with addiction, which is not news to anyone. And I think growing up in a very public family with that going on inside the home, was challenging. But it led me down a path of being so curious about developing myself – learning and growing and interrogating myself constantly so that I can grow and heal.’
We share steak and lobster, and Dakota tells me more about her experience of producing and why she finds it so inspiring. ‘Not only can I curate what I’m making, I can curate the people that I’m working with, and make sure that everybody gets along, and is collaborative and kind. And if not, I can say, “This doesn’t work for us. I wish you the best of luck.” So I help create the world, obviously, of the movie for writers and directors. And then I build around them people that protect them, uplift them and support them. I just really don’t like being on sets where nobody knows what’s going on, and that happens a lot. And it sucks. It makes you feel unsafe as an actor. You can’t do your job, and it’s the worst. Like, this business model doesn’t work, and it could be better.’ Though TeaTime doesn’t have a mandate, Dakota is clear in the type of art she wants to make. ‘I like films that are provocative in some sense; emotionally, intellectually or visually. And I like films that have female characters that are explosive or subdued or complex or quiet. It’s not; hot, blonde, 24, wears glasses so she’s smart and nerdy. Like, “She’s hot but she doesn’t know it.”’
Dakota feels she has never fitted neatly into a casting box. ‘I think the industry might be a little confused by me, so I appreciate that. I like that. I think they know I can deliver in a comedy. They know I can deliver it in whatever sense. But there are movies that I’d love to do like The Lost Daughter or Suspiria or A Bigger Splash or The Peanut Butter Falcon. I don’t know what people expect of me. No actress is one thing, but no woman is one thing…’
I don’t know why I don’t want to say, ‘I’m directing a film.’ It’s just a thing that I’m making with my friends and amazing, talented people, and we’re making it together
When we’re done with dinner, Dakota gets changed in the back of the car outside the Ritz, slipping into a silver fringed dress that moves like water. It has turned dark outside and we walk to a street corner under a lamp to catch the light dancing across her as she moves. ‘I feel like this corner works for me,’ she jokes as she twirls and passing motorists shout encouragement out of their car windows. ‘This is my new job!’ As we walk through the twilight I pick up again on the trauma Dakota talked about earlier, asking her if she has an age she reverts to now, the source of her psychological make-up. ‘If I revert to an age, it’s four,’ she says decisively. When I ask if the circumstances are a secret, she nods. ‘Everything is a secret in my life, sadly. I wish I could say everything, but I just can’t. I think some artists are able to be like, “This happened, and this happened, and this is why this happened.” And I just can’t. Not because of the fact that my family is known, but I just don’t think it’s anybody’s business, honestly.’
Is childlike innocence important to her craft? ‘It’s all play. It’s make-believe. So you have to have it. I really respect actors that are in it all day. And I just can’t do it. It just makes me laugh. The whole thing makes me laugh. Even scenes where I’m devastated make me laugh. Because it’s ridiculous. I feel like childlike play means being open to the universe and inspiration and imagination. For me, if I become so focused on a thing, and if I have to be a certain way, it makes me not do my thing well. So I have to do both. I have to be focused, and also allowing for the bullshit to come through.’ She corrects herself as the dress shimmers in the half light. ‘It’s not bullshit. It’s magic.’
We climb back in the Bentley to head for a stroll alongside the Thames and it reminds me of a car ride in London with Dakota in 2016. She was nominated for BAFTA’s Rising Star award and we shared a car from the hotel to the event. ‘Didn’t win,’ she smiles. ‘It was like when I didn’t get into Juilliard. I didn’t want to go to college anyway. I worked instead. My dad told me that if I didn’t go to college – he likes to say this in press, so I will quote him – he says that if I didn’t go to college, I would be off the payroll. So I said I’ll apply to one college only, and it was Juilliard. And I got an audition. I went in there to audition with 200 kids, and you do this group warmup. And I was just like, “Fuck this shit.” And they asked me to sing. I didn’t know that you had to have a song prepared. So I didn’t have a song prepared. But Radiohead’s In Rainbows had just come out and so the song Nude was stuck in my head… which is just impossible to sing if you’re not Thom Yorke and a horrible choice in audition song. So I really fucked that up. And you’re supposed to go and get asked for another audition, and they were like, “You’re not going to have another audition.” And I said, “That’s fair.” So I moved out of my house.’
The move from the family home and out on her own was facilitated by a supermodel. ‘I was at an airport with my mom, who’s obviously a famous person. We ran into Naomi Campbell when I was 16, and she said, “Your daughter should model” because I was gawky and skinny and weird-looking. And I was like, “Yeah, I should, I should, I should, I should.” Because I wanted to make money so that I could leave my house. And so she called Ivan Bart at IMG, and I got signed to IMG. And then I did two jobs that made me enough money to support myself until I got a job. So I moved out of my house at 18 with my dog Zeppelin and supported myself.’
I like films that are more emotionally provocative or intellectually provocative. And I like films that have female characters that are explosive or subdued or complex or quiet
She didn’t model again but she did live the struggling actor life as she tried to get her foot in the door. She lived in a ‘shitty’ West Hollywood apartment, her car got broken into all the time, and she had cockroaches. Now she’s shimmying to No Broke Boys by Tinashe on her phone on the banks of the Thames, under Somerset House. The London Eye winks across the river. ‘I feel like I have always belonged here in a way, and I don’t know where I belong yet,’ she says of London. ‘I’m always drawn back. And I would live here if I needed to. And maybe I will. To me, London is the central part of the world. There’s such an incredible mixture of people and it also feels removed from the world in a way. Most of my favourite musicians have come out of the UK, like Led Zeppelin, the Stones, the Beatles, Blur, Oasis and Pulp… the list goes on.’ She laughs and leans against the car. ‘And I’m putting my ass on a Bentley. You know from Betty Blue where she says, “I’m warming my ass?” I’m warming my ass.’
Now it’s late, it’s time to head to a mutual friend’s premiere party. We get back in the car and continue to talk as we travel to Claridges. Dakota is a frank person and I notice that she brings that frankness to her two latest films. Celine Song’s Materialists sees Dakota play a NY matchmaker caught between two romantic options: Pedro Pascal’s millionaire and Chris Evans’ penniless actor, and talks honestly about the role money plays in love. In Splitsville, two married couples explore open relationships with a candour that is disarming. ‘I think as an actress I’m quite frank, but I think I’m drawn to filmmakers and writers who are very honest – brutally, radically honest in their writing. So the frankness is kind of inherent. It’s provocative to me, and it makes me feel alive. It makes me feel seen. I see people being drawn to movies that are a bit more direct, not skirting around the truth of life and love. Materialists is certainly frank in one direction, and Splitsville is very frank in the other. But, truly, I think it’s just about honesty. I think there are so many honest paths of love, and it doesn’t matter what they look like, as long as everyone is happy and not hurting anybody else. I think it’s interesting that these movies are coming out a couple of months apart. But I just am so interested in love and relationships, and how people are choosing to love each other. We’ve been swiftly moving into a phase of humanity where some people are lucky enough to be really themselves, and love the way they want to love, and be true to themselves, and honest with themselves. I just want to try to represent the vastness of the human condition in film. Materialists is, “Who do you marry?” The person that represents the life you think you want, or the person that may not have all of the material assets, but truly sees you and loves you and just completely wants the whole of you?” Splitsville is, “How do you just really live your life, and also commit to another person without unnecessary rules or boundaries?” And neither is the right answer. It’s just: to each his own. Her own.’
I think as an actress I’m quite frank, but I think I’m drawn to filmmakers and writers who are very honest – brutally, radically honest in their writing. So the frankness is kind of inherent. It’s provocative to me, and it makes me feel alive
Do you think there’s a right answer? I ask as we arrive at our party. She smiles at me with that trademark mischief as the street lights illuminate her face. ‘I don’t think there’s a right answer at all…’
Photographs and interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER Materialistsis out now Splitsvilleis in selected cinemas today and everywhere from 5 September
Words & Interview by ARIANNE PHILLIPS As told to JANE CROWTHER
The award-winning British costume designer who regularly reteams with the cream of directors tells Arianne Phillips about starting out with Lindsay Kemp, continuing to learn on the job and her signature personal style.
Sandy Powell is one of our most accomplished and celebrated filmmakers in the field of costume design – an incredibly prolific and visionary artist. She has well over 50 feature films to her credit. Sandy has designed some of the most groundbreaking, influential, enduring, visually stunning and iconic films of our time, some of which include Caravaggio, Orlando, The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire, Michael Collins, The Wings of the Dove, Velvet Goldmine, The End of the Affair, Far from Heaven, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Wolf of Wall Street, Cinderella, Carol, The Favourite, Mary Poppins Returns, Living and The Irishman. Her esteemed list of directors she has collaborated with reads like a who’s who of some of our greatest and most important filmmakers, among them Derek Jarman, Julie Taymor, Sally Potter, Neil Jordan, Stephen Frears, Todd Haynes, Mike Figgis, Rob Marshall, Yorgos Lanthimos, and perhaps the greatest of his generation, Martin Scorsese.
Carol, 2015. TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy
Sandy started out as a student at Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Central School of Art in London where she specialised in theatre design, after which she started working alongside the great multidisciplinary artist, Lindsay Kemp. She has rightfully been acknowledged and awarded for her prolific and visionary work. The most notable is that she’s been nominated 15 times for an Academy Award, for which she has won three – for Shakespeare in Love, The Aviator and The Young Victoria. She has been nominated 16 times for a BAFTA award and won four, the fourth being in 2023 when she was awarded the prestigious BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award. Sandy was awarded an OBE in 2011 and has recently been promoted to a CBE. In 2013, she was made a Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts and, in October 2024, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) presented ‘Dressing the Part: Costume Design for Film’ a comprehensive exhibition of 70 costumes from nearly 30 of Sandy’s films, spanning her 40-year illustrious career.
AP: At what point did you know that you wanted to pursue costume design? What was your entry path?
SP: That didn’t actually happen until I was in my teens, but from as young as I can remember, I was interested in clothes. I made dolls’ clothes. And then really quite early on, I attempted to make myself something. I think before I even knew how to sew, I cut up a skirt of my mother’s to try to make a pair of shorts. I was about four or five. There was a little girl who lived down the road from me and she had this amazing outfit that her parents bought her from Carnaby Street, psychedelic patterned little shorts, but with a tunic dress over the top. I was desperate for one of those. So I tried to make my own. I then got my mum to teach me how to make clothes, so I grew up choosing fabrics, and looking through the pattern books, and I used to make my own fashion magazines as well.
AP: I learned about choreographer Lindsay Kemp because of my own fascination as a teenager with David Bowie. So how did you connect with him?
Caravaggio, 1986. Cinematic/Alamy
SP: Like you, I read everything printed about David Bowie, so I learned about this amazing-looking man [Kemp]. And then I think I was 16 or 17 at school and I saw his company perform Flowers at the Roundhouse Theatre at Chalk Farm – it was like nothing I’d ever seen or experienced before. It was just the most magical, intoxicating event. But it wasn’t until a few years later when I was at Central School of Art doing a Theatre Design course that I got to meet him in person. At the end of my second year, Lindsay Kemp was doing dance classes at the Pineapple Dance Centre in Covent Garden. So I took myself off, and did a dance class and at the end, I went up and said, ‘I saw you when I was 16. I love your work. Do you want to have a look at some of mine?’ He said, ‘Yeah. Let’s go to the pub.’ And that was it. By the end of the summer, I was jumping on a plane, and went to Barcelona where he was living at the time to stay with him. He just said, ‘Oh, come and work for me.’ I then went home, spoke to my parents, called my college, and said, ‘I’m having a year out before the final year.’ I never went back. We stayed close friends until he died in 2019. He continued to be inspiring, amazing and funny.
AP: Then your first film was Caravaggio with Derek Jarman. How did you connect with him?
SP: I did the same thing as I did with Lindsay, really. I cold-called him. I was working in fringe theatre in the early ’80s, designing the sets and the costumes. I realised I was more interested in the costumes than the sets. I’d seen a couple of Derek’s films and I thought, ‘He’d be an interesting person to work with.’ A male friend of mine said, ‘Oh, I see Derek quite often in Heaven [nightclub]. I’ll get his phone number for you.’ So I basically got his phone number, called him up, and said, ‘Look, I’ve got a show on at the ICA. Would you like to come and see it?’ He came to see the show I’d done, and invited me back to tea. And that was the start of that relationship. Again – luck. What’s interesting about both of those people was that they were both incredibly generous with their knowledge, and surrounded themselves with young people who they then gave loads of trust to. I think that’s an incredibly generous thing to do, to give everybody their first chance. It’s amazing.
AP: Tell me about your experience of working on Caravaggio?
SP: I was thrown in the deep end. I was making the costumes with my assistant, Annie Symons, who’s now a costume designer as well. Honestly, we were two weeks of production before either one of us should be on set while they’re shooting! We were filming in this massive warehouse in Limehouse. We had no idea that that’s what you had to do. But, you know, we learned!
Orlando, 1992. Maximum Film/Alamy
AP: You also worked with Sally Potter on Orlando…
SP: By the time I did Orlando, I’d already done a few more films with Tilda [Swinton] and Derek. Back in the early days, I’d do anything for the experience and for the job. One of my college tutors said, ‘When you’re starting out, you say yes to everything, because whatever it is, you’re going to learn something. It’s going to be a valuable experience.’ Looking back on it, I think we were so lucky then, because it felt like there were so many more interesting things to do, and people taking risks, as there was more money put into the lower-budget end of things, both in theatre and in film. What attracts me to a project now – is the script and the director. I usually now say it’s got to be a film that I would pay money to go and see. A film that I would want to see is a film that I would like to work on.
AP: The thing that struck me about your CV is these repeat relationships. There are multiple films with Todd Haynes, Martin Scorsese, Julie Taymor, Neil Jordan, Derek Jarman and Mike Figgis. What do you attribute to these enduring relationships and collaborations?
SP: You have to get on as human beings, as people. You have to like each other. With the director you have to work creatively well together. At the end, it comes down to respect and trust. And probably the most important thing is communication. And if you crack that, then you’re there – you’re halfway there. So I guess the relationships that endure are the ones where it works out, really.
AP: What did that feel like to see your career represented by the SCAD exhibition?
Velvet Goldmine, 1998. Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
SP: It was like seeing your life flash before you. I suddenly thought: it’s 40 years of my life. But not only the work. You just remember what was going on in your life. And that was really quite emotional. So that was a career highlight. And most of the costumes in the exhibition were mine. I’d actually been collecting them, over the years. Because as you know, at the end of films, it’s really sad when you have to say goodbye to everything. And then, quite often, they just disappear. They get sold. They get packed up in boxes and left in some warehouse somewhere. And then years later, everyone forgets where they are, or what’s in that box. It’s not in my contract to keep costumes but a couple of times, there’s been an actor who has it in their contract they can keep the costumes, and then they give them to me, which is great. Or if there are doubles or multiples made, I ask if I can take one. And I’m glad I’ve taken care of them, so they now have a new life.
AP: Can you think of any particular experiences on any of your film projects that are career highlights for you?
SP: Obviously Caravaggio as the first one. Orlando as well, but then I might jump to Velvet Goldmine with Todd, which was an amazing experience. Another good one – Gangs of New York. I think probably it’s one of the highlights simply because, obviously, it’s my first film with Marty. But it was epic. It was extraordinary. It got bigger and bigger and bigger. And we shot the whole thing at Cinecittà, so I got to live in Rome for almost a year. Marty said that he wanted world in the Five Points to be a sort of world of its own. He gave me that freedom to come up with things… he responds very well. He’s very, very visual. He’s also amazing with providing reference. Back in the day, you’d get a box full of VHS [tapes]. For Gangs, I had to watch an entire film to look for a stripe on a collar.
Then there was Cinderella. I really enjoyed doing Cate [Blanchett] for that, as the stepmother. Cinderella’s blue ballgown haunts me because every young person in the world loves that dress more than anything else! It didn’t occur to me when I started that I would be doing anything like the original, animated version. I went through many different colours and what I ended up with was a mix of different colours making up a blue that worked on Lily [James]. But then afterwards I realised that maybe if I’d done – I don’t know – an emerald green dress, somebody from Disney probably would have had something to say about it! But I didn’t remember there being a directive. I guess Carol is the other big one.
Snow White, 2025. Album/Alamy
AP: What have you just wrapped on?
SP: That’s a film called The Bitter End, and it’s about Wallis Simpson in her older years, after the death of her husband, the Duke of Windsor. He passed away in 1972, and this film goes from 1973 to about 1980. Wallis Simpson is played by Joan Collins, and then the other protagonist in it, is a lawyer called Maître Blum, who’s played by Isabella Rossellini, who’s very thrilled to be playing her first baddie ever in her entire career! Obviously that was the main attraction of doing a film like this. The two main characters are two older females. How often does that happen? And The Bride is a wild, wild ride! It’s a film written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. And it’s a very loose take on the Bride of Frankenstein story set in the 1930s. It’s out there. That script read like somebody taking a lot of risks. I guess it could be described as a punky, 1930s world.
AP: What advice would you give students who want to pursue this career?
SP: I think it’s: be prepared to work hard. Unfortunately, a lot of younger people now expect things to happen a lot quicker. They expect success or notoriety or whatever or fame to happen a lot quicker, simply because of social media. This is different. This is hard graft. It’s work. Be prepared to do the work, and to put the hours in at the beginning. I also think you should learn to sew. As a designer, I think you’ve got to learn the basics of making clothes. Obviously you don’t have to be the best in the world. But I really think you should understand construction. Doing a nice drawing means absolutely nothing if you don’t know how to specifically communicate that, if you don’t know how the costume is put together. To actually understand what isn’t working in a fitting – this only works if you know how things are put together. It helps if you understand what your cutter is talking about, or wanting to do to make something work. You’ve got to have the basic skills.
AP: You’re known for your personal style – is that an important part of being a costume designer?
SP: I’ve always enjoyed dressing up; I’ve been a show-off in that sense, I suppose. I’ve enjoyed expressing myself through clothing. I also think that as a costume designer, the first thing you have to do when you meet an actor is getting their trust. And I think if you look OK yourself, you’re a little bit of the way there. I like to think that that gives somebody confidence in me.
AP: Is there a person or a genre you haven’t worked with yet that you would really love to?
SP: No. I’m not interested in spacesuits at all. Or creatures or Hobbits or superhero outfits. Other people are much, much better at that. I just like doing more of the same. You still continue to learn something new every time you do a job, even if it’s a period you’ve done five times before.
When we first started Hollywood Authentic, we were advised that most new magazines don’t make it past their third issue. I’m so proud to prove that statistic wrong by presenting you with issue 10, the most extraordinary issue we’ve ever created in terms of access and content.
Take my shoot with Dakota Johnson in London – a story nine years in the making and a key part of the creation of Hollywood Authentic. I first met Dakota on the red carpet at Venice in 2015 as she walked it with Johnny Depp for Black Mass. Afterward we travelled by boat to The Cipriani and I showed her the sort of photos I took – without a plan, we took a walk and shot some beautiful moments. In the same year, I bumped into Dakota at the Chateau Marmont and we made a plan to shoot the following morning. A plan with no plan. She collected me in her old pick-up and drove over to Laurel Canyon where she lived at the time. We stopped for coffee at the Canyon Store and then hung out in her backyard by the pool playing Radiohead records and chatting. The photos from that simple authentic slice of life were a stepping stone towards the shooting style I have since finessed, and right at the inception of the Hollywood Authentic ethos that I’m proud to say feels unique to other publications. Shooting Dakota in July in London felt like a full-circle moment.
Dakota Johnson and Greg Williams
Another great story in this issue is our shot-over-a-two-year-period account of David Corenswet’s rise to global fame, which began on the day he first set foot on set in his Superman costume and concluded with a flashback tour of his acting school, Juilliard. It was amazing to experience a front-row seat to the metamorphosis of an actor becoming a star in real time – rather like when I documented Daniel Craig becoming Bond.
Equally exclusive is our coverage of Emma Watson as she gauges her new priorities with our mutual friend Hassan Akkad over a game of pickleball on the French Riviera. Emma does little to no press, so to get access to her thoughts at this time felt like a gift. It was also extraordinary to get the in-garage access to Toto Wolff and the Mercedes-AMG F1 team at two Grand Prix in Bahrain and Monaco. There’s also inside-baseball insight from Arianne Phillips and Sandy Powell, my old friends and Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, and Ariana Greenblatt talks ‘A Little Nonsense’. And we get a unique look around the Griffith Observatory care of photographer Mark Read. And did we mention the biggest movie actor in the world, Tom Cruise? As I say, our greatest issue yet…
Greg Williams takes pause to consider the bigger picture on images seen small on his social media. This issue: Tom Cruise at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in May.
I arrived to shoot Tom Cruise in his hotel room just before he premiered Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning at the Palais as part of the festival. I was looking for something in the room to light a fuse and there was a chair I thought we could do something with. Tom immediately stood on it and put his foot on the back of it, tipping it very slightly – about an inch. I said, ‘It’d be great if you could do just that, but lift it a tiny bit more.’ Being Tom Cruise, he doesn’t do things by halves. Instead of balancing on the chair so it lifted just an inch and a half, he tipped it to the maximum he could, balancing for a moment at the tipping point before it clattered to the ground and he jumped away. He did four takes. It ended up being a picture that in its simplicity gave a taste of the incredibly complex stunts he does and collaborative spirit in which he undertakes them.
I had turned all the lights off in the room so this was only lit by the late afternoon light coming from the window and reflecting off the walls. I exposed for my shadows so the background windows are entirely blown out – there’s no information there whatsoever. When I posted this picture, a few photographers complained about this exposure and this reminded me of how my ethos differs from a lot of other photographers. How a photograph makes you feel is far more important than its technicalities. This picture tells you about the physicality, passion and fun Tom Cruise puts into his films.
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams gets the need for speed when he’s invited into the paddock with the Mercedes- AMG Petronas Formula 1 team at the Bahrain and Monaco Grand Prix, shadowing team principal Toto Wolff and his drivers.
Carmen Montero Mundt is watching her boyfriend, British Formula 1 driver, George Russell, perform his pre-race warm up in his dressing room in the Mercedes garage at the Bahrain Grand Prix in April. It’s approximately an hour before the race and while principal Toto Wolff studies car and track data with the team, Russell is strength training with a neck harness for the G-force he’ll be subjecting his body to as he hurtles round the circuit at speeds of up to 230mph. He’s paying particular attention to his neck and head, which can endure 6Gs on the track. He seems quite relaxed given the baying crowds in the stadium outside and the building sense of excitement and anticipation thrumming in the garage. He’s got an ice bath waiting for him post-race, but for now his concentration is all on what’s about to come…
I have unprecedented access to all the moving parts of the Mercedes team on this blistering hot Sunday and it’s a fascinating experience. I can see why fans and teams became addicted to the hi-octane energy of the sport as the crew and wider team move like a well- oiled machine. Like a movie set, this is a company of people moving in sync and with a single-minded mission. Key to that focused drive is team principal Wolff – an exceptionally impressive man with extraordinary leadership skills where you can tell that everyone that works at Mercedes would follow him in. They follow behind him because he leads from the front with great humour and self-deprecation, and he pursues perfection and excellence in a way that very few do. ‘There is no such thing as perfection,’ Wolff smiles as I ask what perfection looks like to him. ‘It’s only the pursuit of perfection. So we’re always going to find the hair in the soup. Even if you finish first and second.’ It’s very different to my photography, where I regard perfection as the enemy of what I do, but when you’re shaving hundredths of seconds off laptimes, perfection is what you chase in F1.
There is no such thing as perfection… It’s only the pursuit of perfection
The Austrian former racing driver and billionaire is CEO and owner of a third of the Mercedes-AMG F1 team, where he has won eight consecutive World Constructors’ Championship titles and oversaw Lewis Hamilton winning six championships with the team. Wolff is fluent in English, French, Italian and Polish as well as his native German, but the language he’s most proficient in is motorsports. As he leans over monitors and converses with engineers and his drivers, Russell and 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli, he exudes an authority; a paternal, quiet calm. I have my teenage son along with me as my assistant and Wolff is incredibly warm and engaged with him despite the pressure on him in the moment. He also seems fair and kind with his team and with people’s mistakes, without being weak – a very together, impressive person. He reminds me of the command Ridley Scott has of his epic crew on set.
It’s little surprise that Wolff was sought out for advice and cameoed in recent blockbuster F1: The Movie. ‘We were involved from the early, early stages giving input and feedback on how to do the cars,’ Wolff says of the experience. ‘Then I was asked whether I wanted to do a cameo. I said yes, without really knowing whether that would happen or without knowing what it would mean. And then the filming felt horrendous for me because I was out of my comfort zone; I didn’t feel it was coming across authentic. When I saw myself onscreen it made me cringe even more. But the feedback was positive, so I’ll go with that opinion rather than my own!’ As a principal, what does Wolff make of Brad Pitt’s rebel character, Sonny Hayes, a brilliant driver who breaks all the rules? How would he deal with him? ‘Well, obviously it’s a Hollywood movie, but breaking the internal rules or not following team instructions is something that I would never believe in the team. But it was quite entertaining to watch it nevertheless.’
The drivers aren’t the only team members warming up before the race. The pit crew stretch with bands in the garage, getting ready for the incredibly physical task of prepping cars in seconds when drivers come into the box. Russell, out of his dressing room, is now totally focused and in the zone. I don’t speak to him at all at this stage of prep; it would be like trying to chat to a stunt performer before a set-piece. Russell and Wolff swap notes with the unflappable Bradley Lord, Mercedes’ trusted chief comms officer. The atmosphere is intense as the race gets underway, with applause held back until the task is completed.
When I join the team again in Monaco, I find Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes junior driver who was given Lewis Hamilton’s seat when he left for Ferrari after 12 years. He’s taking his school exams while also placing third on the podium as one of the youngest drivers to ever do so. It’s late May and the temperatures are rising, so Antonelli wears an ice vest to keep himself cool before he departs for the drivers’ parade pre-race. Before he leaves the garage, he looks through the data with Wolff. Wolff admits that when he watches a race he’s looking at three drivers: George, Kimi and Lewis ‘because he’s still in my heart’.
When I watch both Antonelli and Russell pull on their racing suits and balaclavas just before they get in the driving seat, I see another switch in concentration. We are stepping up another gear. The noise when the cars race is astonishing. Later, when Russell returns he’s wearing a cooling jacket packed with fans that makes him look like an astronaut. Antonelli chats to his race engineer, Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, who was previously engineer for Hamilton and has endless experience to impart to the youngest racer in Formula 1.
Experiencing the race from the paddock rather than the stadium is a unique one. I was amazed by the spotlessness of the garage (even tire marks are removed from the garage floor) and how impressive the Mercedes-AMG team are – a 58-headed monster. It gave me a new appreciation for Formula 1 and the real risks involved. It reminds me of the idea that a good movie has jeopardy and I’m now intrigued to see how the rest of Mercedes’ season goes. Wolff isn’t just looking at the season though. ‘My objectives are very long-term objectives, not for a single weekend or a single season, but trying to be contributing to setting an organisation in place that can win sustainably over the next five or 10 years,’ he says. ‘All of the decisions taken are always with a focus on that.’
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
Screenwriters for seven 007 films, Robert Wade and Neal Purvis, consider the ‘proto-James Bond’ of Cary Grant’s gentleman spy in Hitchcock’s perfect cocktail of an espionage thriller.
HITCHCOCK’S BOND: NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) A great movie with a nonsensical title (there is no such official point on the compass). Most films you can rewatch with ease, dipping in and out. But with some, wherever you come in, you’re captured. You just have to stay for the next bit. And then the next. North by Northwest is precisely that movie.
The screenplay is terrific; lean and smart, with almost every character trading in understated but tack-sharp wit. Ernest Lehman wrote it when he and Hitchcock were blocked on another screenplay, TheWreck of the Mary Deare, for MGM. (As screenwriters, we know the feeling.)
Hitch had an itch he wanted to scratch – the image of someone hiding in Lincoln’s nose on Mount Rushmore, revealing themselves to their pursuers with a sneeze. Cute. It would be fun to think a whole movie grew out of that one idea, but in truth Lehman took some sketchy story bones Hitchcock had bought years before from a journalist at the New York Herald Tribune and conjured them into a bit of nonsense that made perfect sense.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
The most exquisite part is the premise of the FBI inventing a fictional master-spy in order to take suspicion off a real spy in play – and an innocent being mistaken for this non-existent person.
But living up to such a clever premise is not easy, and Lehman had a nightmarish journey, writing as they filmed, not knowing how the next part would resolve – exactly like the experience of Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill in the movie. Perhaps that’s why it’s so compelling?
And perhaps that is the reason this film unites us two in admiration – because in writing seven James Bond films (for which North by Northwest is arguably the template) we’ve had a very similar experience. What happens next? How the hell do we get him out of this pickle? How do we make the next pickle bigger?
The character of Roger Thornhill is in so many ways the proto James Bond. Debonair, urbane, well-tailored, his casual air and ease with women marks him out as special – even if in this he is playing an ‘ordinary’ advertising guy. Thornhill is mistaken for a government agent named George Kaplan. Pursued by foreign spies across America, he navigates dangerous situations – from a deadly crop duster attack to a suspenseful climax atop Mount Rushmore – while uncovering layers of espionage and deception. Along the way, he falls for the mysterious Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), whose loyalties remain unclear until the film’s thrilling conclusion when she is revealed as a double agent. Ultimately, Thornhill transforms from an innocent victim into a resourceful hero, cleverly outwitting his pursuers.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
One of the two James Bond producers, Cubby Broccoli, was a good friend of Cary Grant. In 1959, the year Northby Northwest came out, Cubby asked Cary to be his best man – which Grant accepted. As Cubby then readied the first Bond movie, he asked Cary to play the lead – which he rejected. At 57, he was undoubtedly right to do that. He was already the age that Roger Moore would eventually retire from the role. Cary Grant’s given reason was he didn’t want a multi-movie deal.
But who could possibly have imagined that Dr No would spawn such a bullet-proof multi-movie series, a franchise, a genre, that’s still around more than 60 years later?
There’s no doubting the Bond franchise was heavily influenced by North by Northwest, though Hitchcock could well have been influenced himself by the Ian Fleming novels. Whatever, Fleming was a fan of Hitchcock and through his friend, the superb novelist Eric Ambler, asked if Hitchcock would direct the first James Bond film. His exact reply is not known – but the fact is… Hitch had already made his Bond movie.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
The comparisons are obvious. The extravagant title sequence courtesy of Saul Bass’ striking graphics, the villains, the girl, the espionage, the suspense, the witty lines, the gorgeous locations, the action, the sturdy soundtrack. The very look of Sean Connery even bears comparison with Cary Grant: the tan, the hair, the suits.
Dr No (1962) was filmed on a fairly small budget but the bigger-budget From Russia with Love (1963) was more clearly influenced by North by Northwest. Particularly the way it ‘homaged’ the crop duster action scene with its helicopter chase of Connery, using very similar shots to the plane chase.
And as fans 45 years later, when writing Casino Royale (also written with Paul Haggis), we dared to homage the train scene between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, aiming to capture some of their playful, sexually charged tone – with a tenser, competitive dynamic to the verbal sparring, reflecting the buried vulnerabilities of Bond (Daniel Craig) and Vesper (Eva Green). (It turned out this relationship became central to the arc of all of Craig’s Bond films).
Terence Young, who directed the early Bond films, admitted Hitchcock’s profound influence on his approach to Bond. And North by Northwest isn’t the only one in the mould. Neil Jordan believes Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940) was the first Bond film, but we think you could go further back to The 39 Steps (1935), where Hitchcock altered the John Buchan book to include a new female character played by Madeleine Caroll, who is reluctantly forced on the run with Robert Donat by being handcuffed to him. Perhaps the earliest example of a Bond girl? Then there’s Notorious (1946) and To Catch a Thief (1955) – other movies with twists, glamour and espionage.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
But it is North by Northwest that perfected the cocktail.
It has been analysed to death. “I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw,” speaketh Hamlet. Perhaps the films title references the confusing, blurred reality Hamlet was experiencing. So maybe not such a meaningless title after all? Then there’s the Freudian analysis, the Oedipal aspect of Thornhill’s relationship with his mother, the patriarchal symbolism of Mount Rushmore, and much more.
But what makes us keep watching is Hitchcock’s pulsating filmmaking; cinematography, dialogue, music, acting, narrative – all coalesce into the perfect entertainment vehicle, commanding our attention as we move forward from sequence to sequence. Even the corny aspects of the film (such as the back projection) acquire a fetishistic ‘rightness’. The suit, with its high-waisted trousers, is mesmerising. When Cary Grant calls housekeeping to have it sponged, a whole lost world is evoked. But of course it’s a brilliant plot device, to deprive our hero of dignity and agency (no trousers). Thornhill is both ‘other’ – who would think of having their suit ‘sponged’ – and disarming and relatable (he’s left in his underpants). The overall effect is that you just can’t stop watching Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill. Just like James Bond.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Obviously the marriage of Cary Grant and Hitchcock was made in heaven, but this final blossoming may have come about for a rather unglamorous reason. When making Rear Window (1954) on a colossal set at Paramount, the studio simply didn’t have enough lights available, and ended up borrowing equipment from MGM in return for… Cary Grant.
Somehow that seems perfect.
And finally – and this will not go down well with any top directors reading it – despite the great Bernard Herrmann score to Vertigo, North by Northwest is the superior film. For all the symbolism in Vertigo, you really can’t top the train going into the tunnel at the end.
The Now You See Me: Now You Don’t starand L’Oréal ambassador tells Hollywood Authentic about manifestation, matches and mom’s cooking.
How important is a little bit of nonsense now and then to you? It’s pretty important; nonsense is fun and allows me to take myself a little less seriously. If you ask the people closest to me they would definitely say I enjoy taking part in a bit of nonsense.
What, if anything, makes you believe in magic? If we are talking about abracadabra magic then I think the magic lives in the audience’s hope and curiosity about the trick. If we are talking about universal magic – the magic of manifestation and the stars is truly what I live by. Divine timing, paths crossing and figurative signs are all examples of magic to me.
What was your last act of true cowardice? Although I’ve gotten very close to lacking bravery, I always do it, I always go for it. I guess my last act of true cowardice was when I almost gave up on doing this big stunt. It was a battle with my own brain; I was yelling at myself in my head and did it!
What single thing do you miss most when you’re away from home? I get really homesick a lot. There are loads of things I miss but if I were to pick one I’d say my room. My bed and when my dogs hang with me, knowing my family is just a few feet away.
Do you have any odd habits or rituals? A ton. I’m very superstitious and a huge believer in manifesting. I won’t share my rituals because I feel like it would mess with their power.
What is your party trick? I don’t go to parties to show this trick, but I can put a lit match in my mouth and close my mouth over the flame then pull it out and blow the smoke. It’s fucking cool if you ask me.
What is your mantra? I have a few. ‘Everything happens for a reason’; ‘Treat people the way you want to be treated’; ‘Don’t listen to the noise.’ There’s one more but I keep that one to myself; it’s something my dad taught me.
What is your favourite smell? I love the smell of my parents’ room, my mom’s cooking, vanilla perfume (my signature scent), and my friends. Also gasoline, a Cold Stone shop right when you walk in, the small room in my house with cleaning supplies, and a campfire.
What do you always carry with you? Headphones. I need a new pair. The left side is blown out.
What is your guilty pleasure? I’m not really guilty that I like these things but I guess YouTube videos and sugar.
What would be your least favourite way to die? I’m scared of plane crashes, getting shot without seeing it coming, drowning, or if the world literally implodes. But I’m not putting any of that into the universe. No.
What’s your idea of heaven? Ever since I learned what heaven was, I pictured a soft golden abyss with flying animals and pretty angels, everyone is happy and they take turns creating the sunsets and sunrises for people still alive. That fantasy always made me feel a little more at ease about the concept of death.
New York-born Ariana Greenblatt started her career as a pre-teen in the Disney Channel comedy series Stuck in the Middle and moved to feature films with A Bad Moms Christmas, Avengers: Infinity War, In the Heights and playing America Ferrera’s unimpressed daughter in Barbie – all before turning 16. She’s played the young Ahsoka in the Disney TV show of the same name, appeared alongside Cate Blanchett in Eli Roth’s Borderlands and has completed shooting on two films set for release this year: Fear Street: Prom Queen and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (out 14 November). She lives in LA and is a L’Oréal ambassador.
*Arguably one of the most memorable (and quotable) scenes in 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is when Mr Salt mumbles, ‘It’s a lot of nonsense,’ to which Wonka replies, in a sing-song voice, ‘A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.’
