Pixar’s latest treatise on childhood and the importance of play couldn’t arrive at a more timely point as governments and society wrestle with the dangers of screen time and social media. The UK has decided to follow Australia’s suit in banning social media for under-16s and the physical toys in the studio’s beloved 30 year-old franchise have big things to say about real connection, imagination and nostalgia as they battle for kid attention with a wifi-ed screen. Easy pickings, but the film also plays parental/carer heartstrings like a harp with musings on letting go, becoming obsolete and the bittersweet joy of knowing a child no longer needs you.
Pixar
With lanky cowboy doll Woody (Tom Hanks) having headed into the sunset with Bo (Annie Potts) last movie, this instalment focuses on new toybox leader Jessie (a returning Joan Cusack), and her relationships with her current and previous owners. Eight year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) now owns Jessie, faithful cloth steed Bullseye, space ranger Buzz (Tim Allen) and the rest of the inherited and found playthings. And unlike every other screen zombied kid in the neighbourhood she actually still plays with her toys. As Bonnie creates weddings and adventures in her backyard (whimsically animated in a hand-drawn style), the screens glow in the windows next door, preventing Bonnie from forming relationships. Concerned, her parents cave and buy a ‘Lily Pad’ (Greta Lee), an always-listening edu-tainment tablet hooked up to the web and pre-teen chatrooms. Bonnie is instantly addicted and drawn into cyber bullying, the false promise of internet friends and the yearning to grow up as quickly as possible.
Pixar
Bonnie’s rejection of her toys fuels an SOS call to Woody, Bo and stunt action figure Duke Kaboom (Keanu Reeves) for some jokes about getting older (Woody has a paunch, bald spot and is indulging in mid-life crisis dressing) as well as an emotional journey for Jessie as she re-lives a previous dumping by a child called Emily. Inadvertently transported back to her former owner’s home, Jessie meets a trio of first-gen electronic gadgets: a potty trainer (Conan O’Brien), a camera (Shelby Rabara) and a GPS widget (Craig Robinson) plus a shelf full of toy horses and a squadron of Buzz Lightyears seeking their leader…
Pixar
There’s plenty of gumption and toy gags to go at (Buzz riding a winged My Little Pony, drone excitement, a literally deflated flamingo in a garden ‘safe house’) and Cusack is a plucky antagonist who brings the joy. But there’s also the bone-deep sadness that we expect from Pixar – the moments that hit hard and require tissues. A nasty group-chat comment that stings, the discovery of generation love found in a hidden treasure trove, the lump-in-the-throat dedication of Bullseye, a realisation that parenting has been done well if your charge trots off without a backward glance… Like the much-loved hand-me-downs in Bonnie’s toy box, Pixar’s franchise might be a little frayed and well-used in its deployment of these narrative beats, but when it’s done this elegantly, who cares? And when the overriding message is not one of polarisation but of community – and finding your twin nerd in the world (Blaze voiced by Mykal-Michelle Harris) – it’s a film that not only feels suitable for family viewing, but necessary. Squeeze your kids and toys (however old they are) a little harder after the end-titles…
Pixar
Words by JANE CROWTHER Images courtesy of PIXAR Toy Story 5 is in cinemas now
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by GREG WILLIAMS/JANE CROWTHER
She plays a former novice nun in Disclosure Day, and Eve Hewson tells Hollywood Authentic about her belief system for negotiating acting and fame as she takes a London stroll.
Before she begins two days of UK press for Disclosure Day I meet Eve Hewson at the Corinthia Hotel in London on a blustery day in early June. Like her character in Steven Spielberg’s highly-anticipated latest foray into sci-fi, we are looking to the skies – the British weather is being particularly erratic for our planned stroll over Westminster Bridge to take in one of my favourite views of the capital. In the movie, the Dublin-born actor plays Jane, an ex-novitiate who is caught up in a dangerous race against time when her boyfriend Daniel (Josh O’Connor) steals whistleblower evidence of UAPs and ETs from his top-secret work with the intention of collaborating with fellow defector Hugo (Colman Domingo) to expose the truth to the world. ‘I think the sun’s going to come out,’ Eve says as we pull up outside Big Ben. ‘God is on our side.’
It’s appropriate that she should evoke a higher power given that she plays a religious character wrestling with the theological impact of understanding there may be life outside of humanity in Spielberg’s film. ‘My character asks the more religious questions. What does that mean for faith if aliens, or UAPs, really do exist – what does that mean for religion? What does that mean for God? What does that mean for everything we’ve been told to believe about how the world began?’ Despite its big questions, Disclosure Day is a true Spielberg film, loaded with action, wonder and empathy. It’s a blockbuster event movie, and a huge achievement to add to any actor’s resume.
For the 34-year-old it’s the second time she’s worked with the legendary filmmaker. ‘I worked with him at the beginning of my career on Bridge of Spies when I was 22 and terrified,’ she says as we walk across Westminster Bridge, dodging tourists and London swag sellers. She recounts how their latest project came to her on a ‘random Wednesday’, with her agent asking her to Zoom with the storied director. ‘I Zoomed with him, and then he sent me the script which was hand-delivered – very old-school Hollywood. You feel like you’re in some sort of secret society.
After I read the script I spoke with him again, and pitched him my ideas. And then I had to wait. He was like, “I’m not going to torture you over this, but I’m speaking to other people. I’ll let you know by the end of the week.” I got violently ill from the anxiety, because I just wanted it really badly. I puked a few times, which happens to me when I really care about something.’ Spielberg kept his word and told her he wanted her to co-lead the movie alongside Emily Blunt (as a TV weather reporter with a secret past), O’Connor, Domingo and Colin Firth, as a shadowy government consultant. Firth and Eve share a number of tense scenes which required incredible focus from her, not least because she had a particularly special audience while shooting.
‘I always keep the storyline of anything I’m doing secret from friends and family, because it’s more fun for me, and for them when they see it. But that was hard to do the day when Obama came to set, because I had the most bizarre day of my life doing that scene with Colin. It was so complicated and genuinely quite daunting as an actor. And then Obama was there. I did text my family at the end of the day, and say, “I can’t explain to you why this was the weirdest day of my life, but I can’t wait for you to see the movie because I get to say, ‘that was a scene that the former leader of the free world came to visit.”’
Though she’d worked with Spielberg previously, Eve admits to still being ‘terrified’ for round two. ‘This was a huge responsibility and a big role – I wanted to do it well, and I wanted to make him proud. Every day, you just had to come in and give 150%. It was just about stepping up, and taking on those responsibilities, and making sure that you aren’t shit.’ How has she changed as an actor in the time between Bridge of Spies and Disclosure Day? ‘The first time I worked with him, I was just learning what a set was, and what cameras were. It was maybe my third or fourth job. I was very new. When it came to Disclosure Day it was just a completely different experience.’
As we look over towards the Houses of Parliament, Eve tells me about living in London for three years during the pandemic when she and her friends would walk the streets with a hot toddy and look at the city, what she terms ‘whiskey walks’. Then she landed her role in hit TV show Bad Sisters and stayed longer. ‘And then I moved to LA. I went to the dark side. I didn’t love LA.’ She returned to Dublin where her parents, musician Bono and activist Ali Hewson, are based. She’s said in the past that as a younger artist LA had been tough to negotiate with all the rejection inherent in acting, driving past billboards of projects she didn’t get. ‘Now I’m on them,’ she chuckles, having moved back to Los Angeles. She remains level-headed thanks to a strong group of friends, many of whom are not in the business. ‘I’m a friend kind of chick. My friends mean a lot to me. I’ve had the same friends since I was four years old. Some of them are artists, but a lot of them are social workers, lawyers, working in finance – just not Hollywood people.’
It’s a balance between the business and real life that she’s always had growing up with a dad in U2. ‘It was a weird, strange, Hannah Montana version of my childhood, where we lived in Dublin, I got the train to school every day, I went to a normal school. And then two or three months out of the year, we would go off on tour with my dad, and live this insane rock-star existence. Which is great, because it’s actually quite similar to being an actor. You have your normal life, and then you go away, and you have this otherworldly experience with people. And then you come home, you know?’ She can, she says, ‘smell the bullshit easier’ because of it. ‘The ‘Bad Sisters’ [Sarah Greene, Sharon Horgan, Eva Birthistle and Anne-Marie Duff] call me their cunt compass,’ she laughs. ‘We’re in a group chat that has a foul name, and we all are in there every day still catching up with each other, and telling each other our deepest, darkest secrets.’
Like many artists I talk to, Eve says she’s ‘a huge introvert, an introverted extrovert’. ‘I was super-shy when I was a kid, and I used to not say anything. I would sit in the corner, and suck my thumb, put my hood up. As a little kid I cut off my hair, and I made everybody call me Elliott from E.T. which is so on brand. One time, I was brought to meet President Clinton and Hillary Clinton, and apparently I got under the table, and just started growling. I was that shy. And then Hillary got on all fours, and she was all, “Come out, little Eve. Come out.” And I was like, ‘Rarhhhhh!’ I was an interesting kid.’ Acting was an escape because she could disappear. ‘You get to pretend to be somebody else, but you also get to express yourself completely. But it’s like you’re wearing a mask. It’s a safe space. It’s a role play.’
These days she says her ambition is to be in bed by dusk. ‘I could go to bed at like 6pm. Me and my cat, Luna, a little bit of Bravo – that’s my jam.’ Professionally she’d like to play a vampire, a Hollywood agent, explore comedy and work with Paul Thomas Anderson. ‘If I’ve already done Spielberg – he is my number one. In my first year of college at NYU, I was mad about Paul Thomas Anderson, and I wrote my final paper on him, and handed it to my professor. I was going to meet some friends at the Greenwich Hotel. I came from my professor’s office, and I walked up to the Greenwich Hotel, and who opened the door for me? Paul Thomas Anderson. It was an incredible moment. He doesn’t remember it, but it was like a beautiful sort of nod from the universe that maybe one day I’ll work with him.’ I ask if she believes in nods from the universe?
‘I do. You have to. It makes life a lot more fun, you know? When I worked with Spielberg at the beginning of my career, that was like a nod from him, from the God of the movie universe. Then the fact that I’ve come back around full circle at this point of my career, and I’m working with him on this big movie on this big part – it’s the most beautiful story. I like to believe that the parts that I’m getting are the parts that are meant to be. It’s a nice philosophy to have, to be able to survive, otherwise you would be tearing yourself apart with all of the rejection and the close calls. What’s meant for me, will find me. And what’s for you, won’t pass you by.’
Not passing her by; Plan B film Isle of Man which she’s currently filming and learning to ride a motorbike for alongside Channing Tatum; and playing a mother of four in Lenny Abrahamson’s Dublin-set period drama, Hillside Drive. ‘Lenny is just such a talent, and I’m so blessed that he asked me to be in this film, it’s a really exceptional role and I think we made something very special.
Having shot on the bridge we hurry back to the car to get Eve back to her junket and press responsibilities. ‘All my dreams have come true,’ she smiles, pushing her wind-whipped hair back in place. ‘Being in my underwear in public – it’s my favourite thing!’ It’s also something that might become increasingly difficult to do when Disclosure Day releases and she becomes even more recognisable. ‘I get people recognising me quite a bit, but they’re nice, because they’re fans of something that I’ve done. I haven’t been mauled. I haven’t had it being too much of an invasion of my life. I can still do all the things that I want to do. I never really think ahead in those terms.’ We drive back to the hotel, where she loses a shoe getting out of the car, like a modern Cinderella. ‘Fashion emergency!’ she jokes and leans back in the car before disappearing into the lobby. ‘That was really fast and iconic,’ she says. ‘Fast and iconic. There she is…’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by GREG WILLIAMS/JANE CROWTHER Hair by HALLEY BRISKER Make-up by ALEX BABSKY Styling by KARLA WELCH Disclosure Dayis in cinemas now
If Artemis’ recent moon mission has taught us anything, it’s that humans are still capable of wonder at our universe. In a world of bin fire news headlines, war and polarisation, a global community was awed by the possibility and unknown of the endless stars, shared common ground in curiosity of, and appreciation for, the magnitude of our galaxy. Steven Spielberg’s latest foray into sci-fi leans hard into what unites us as a race, rather than what divides us – exploring the possibility of aliens and UAPs through a lens of compassion and empathy, tapping into his ET toolbag more than that of War of the Worlds.
Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
Based on a story crafted by Spielberg and screenwritten by his longtime collaborator David Koepp (who’s penned genre stablemates Jurassic Park, War of The Worlds and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for the director), Disclosure Day asks not if other life exists, but rather what happens if we have proof of it. As a spiritual sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the filmmaker wants to unpack what evidence of not being alone does to humanity; emotionally, politically, theologically. His tale centres on four key players: maths genius and cyber security expert Daniel (Josh O’Conner) who is on the run with a smoking gun backpack, TV weather reporter Margaret (Emily Blunt), whose morning meeting with a Red Cardinal bird gives her incredible empath powers, whistleblower mastermind Hugo (Colman Domingo) and Daniel’s girlfriend and former novice nun, Jane (Eve Hewson).
Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
In a ticking-clock espionage drama, the four are chased as they attempt to reveal the truth of alien life by Big Bad, Scanlon (Colin Firth), the turtleneck-wearing head of WARDEX, a shadowy government consultancy outfit who have kept the public in the dark about visitations from other planets since Roswell in 1947. All have pasts that have shaped their ideology, and will clash during a 48-hour period when the top story on rolling news is the possibility of war with Korea as people panic-buy and faith is tested.
Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
As an addition to Spielberg’s sci-fi canon, Disclosure Day feels like a director operating at the top of his emotional game and playfully referencing his previous work, tracking clear lines of fascination all the way back to his teenage-made Super 8 movie, Firelight (revisited in The Fabelmans). Some of the lensing and lighting is evocative or ET and Close Encounters, John Williams’ score is deja vu in orchestral soar, there’s a motel called Inn-Di-Ana, Scanlon’s arc recalls Keys from ET, a heart-pounding train sequence is reminiscent of both Duel and Spielberg’s grand obsession with The Greatest Show on Earth…
Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures/Amblin EntertainmentNiko Tavernise/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
As a storyteller who has dominated most audience members’ cinematic history, that adds to the warmth of this tale, the idea of shared experience and emotional pull. Spielberg has already succeeded in making generations feel for a stranded alien and he creates the same magic trick again, frontloading his picture with top-drawer action and intrigue before walloping with tear-inducing sequences of human cruelty, solidarity, heroism and ultimately, affinity. Aspects of that could be criticised as soft-pedalling the realities of our species’ nature, but this is a film that positions itself firmly within hope, optimism and fellowship – misanthropes may struggle.
Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
Key to that emotional register are Spielberg’s players – strongest among them, Blunt and Domingo, who may be on the awards train as well the one hurtling through Maryland in that high-octane action segment. Domingo emanates empathy and elegance as a melodious missionary, intent on providing clarity to the world while also understanding the terror inherent in that. Blunt, so often sidelined in roles as a wife/girlfriend, finally gets her big moment as a powerful woman fighting darkness through communication. Those getting the stories out in the newsroom (a key scene was filmed at NBC’s news studios in Rockefeller Plaza using real TV journalists) also adds heft and messaging about the importance of impartial reportage and truth seeking in a world of ‘alternative facts’ and partisan coverage. It’s a film that believes in our ability to be better and – in entertaining us with what-ifs – asks us if we can be.
Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
Words by JANE CROWTHER Images courtesy of UNIVERSAL PICTURES/AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT Disclosure Dayis in cinemas now
Barbie for boys? That’s one way of looking at this reboot of Mattel’s ’80s dominating toy line. In the original stories and cartoons – which previously received the live-action treatment in a Dolph Lundgren-fronted film from 1987 – Prince Adam hailed from the fantasyland of Eternia, where he was heir to Castle Grayskull. By wielding the Power Sword and chanting his famous catchphrase (‘By the power of Grayskull… I have the power!’), Adam would transform into the super-strong He-Man and do battle with his enemy Skeletor, a hench, skull-faced sorcerer as archetypally evil as He-Man was heroic.
Giles Keyte/Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Travis Knight – who knows his way around an ’80s-inflected, toy-inspired blockbuster thanks to his work on Bumblebee, comfortably the best live-action Transformers movie – this latest incarnation Masters of the Universe has a deep affection for its source. But while MOTU ’26 delivers fan service aplenty, it’s also smart enough to know that you can’t just make a straight-faced romp out of this material, stuffing in Thor: Ragnarok levels of gags, self-mockery and near-the-knuckle rudeness into a solid quest narrative that’s on a par with a decent Marvel character intro.
Giles Keyte/Sony Pictures Releasing
In this mercifully ungritty take, Adam (Nicholas Galitzine, possessing the bulging biceps and self-aware humour the role requires) is spirited away to Earth as a kid, to keep him safe when Skeletor (Jared Leto) attacks. Years later, he’s working an HR office job – the source of plenty of yuks, not least the pronoun-bearing nameplate on his desk – but hasn’t forgotten about Eternia, and is desperate to find his missing sword and return. The path to reclaiming his homeland is littered with action set-pieces, as old pal and potential love interest Teela (Camila Mendes) brings him back to a very different Eternia.
Giles Keyte/Sony Pictures Releasing
It’s heaps of fun, and anyone who grew up with the franchise and will get a bonus nostalgia boost out of the sheer number of familiar faces here (and that’s before you even get to the three post credit stings). MOTU doesn’t shy away from some of the sillier supporting characters from the series’ history – Beast Man, Trap Jaw, Mekaneck and Fisto all get a look in – and Skeletor hams it up in all his cartoonish glory. You’d struggle to guess that he’s played by Leto, as his face is replaced with a CGI skull, and his boomingly camp voice is unrecognisable. But like much of the rest of the film he remains true to the spirit of the animated series while being transplanted onto a big-budget blockbuster backdrop. Supporting turns from the likes of Idris Elba (as Adam’s mentor Duncan, AKA Man-At-Arms) and Alison Brie (as Skeletor’s right-hand-woman Evil-Lyn) add some good-value gravitas, with everyone on the same page about what film they’re making.
Sony Pictures Releasing
If the narrative arc is basic, and a bit familiar to anyone well versed in contemporary superhero movies, it’s still easy to get swept along thanks to the brightly coloured world, game performances, and the absolutely rocking score by Project Hail Mary’s Daniel Pemberton, who brings in Queen legend Brian May on guitar duties. The Flash Gordon inspiration is clear and it’s an apt accompaniment to the film’s action-figure playset energy. If it’s not quite as philosophical and subversive as Barbie, it still manages to add some depth to a cartoon hero predominantly known for his magically bestowed super-strength, and – whisper it – it’ll actually be more satisfying for viewers in the age range that still play with toys than Barbie was. If MOTU is not quite masterful, it has the power where it counts.
Words by MATT MAYTUM Images courtesy of SONY PICTURES RELEASING Masters of the Universe is in cinemas now
‘Never complain, never explain’ is a maxim Kate Moss legendarily lives by, but as exec-producer on this semi-biopic, she attempts to do some explaining on the May-December relationship of the supermodel and painter Lucian Freud during the months in which she sat for him for a portrait. We meet Moss (Ellie Bamber) smoking and speeding at the wheel of her vintage MBG in 2002, a supermodel and it-girl who is seeking some sort of enlightenment in an endless carousel of photo shoots, catwalks and club nights. When her friend Bella Freud suggests her artist father would like to meet with the possibility of painting her, Moss arrives at the National Portrait Gallery after an all-nighter, strutting the gallery and smoking her trademark cigarette. (Moss had said in a Dazed & Confused interview that she yearned to be captured by him). Charmed by Kate, Freud (Derek Jacobi) suggests she sit for him three nights a week for as long as it takes to finish the painting. Despite her misgivings over the amount of time it requires, Moss chooses to sit nude and the duo begin a conversation over the easel that unwinds over several months. Their unusual relationship lasted for the remainder of his lifetime.
Sean Gleason/Cornerstone Films
Writer-director James Lucas explores fame, persona and creativity as Moss is habitually late and incenses Freud, they discuss his past lovers, she seeks to be truly ‘seen’. The painter is enchanted by her – possibly in love with her – and Moss comes to view Freud as the truth-teller in her life. In limiting the time-scale to the life cycle of the portrait (which is later sold for £3.9million), Moss & Freud charts a tumultuous time in the supermodel’s life as she meets Jefferson Hack and becomes pregnant with her daughter. It probably should feel more pop culture than it does, possibly because of the involvement of both parties (Freud’s estate helped produce). That makes for a somewhat toothless character study of either cultural icon. Both feel less vibrant and more conventional than their well-known profiles – perhaps the reality, or the result of careful curation. We learn that the duo smoked opium and discussed truth, image and artistic ownership – and how/why Freud tattooed Kate, but it feels somewhat sanitised.
Sean Gleason/Cornerstone Films
That said, Ellie Bamber nails the idiolect of Moss – particularly her laugh – and body language, delivering a fully believable performance. She was cast with the blessing of the model to play her and the choice pays off. She brings Moss to intriguing life beneath a selection of wigs and well known fashion looks. She delivers real vulnerability to a public figure who has always maintained a purposeful distance from her audience. This film will continue that trend.
Sean Gleason/Cornerstone Films
Words by JANE CROWTHER Images courtesy of CORNERSTONE FILMS Moss & Freud is out in cinemas now
CANNES DISPATCH Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words byJANE CROWTHER
‘He’s someone who is a really nasty guy,’ French actor Benoît Magimel admits of his latest character in Léa Mysius’ The Birthday Party (Histoires de la Nuit) which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival last week – earning a 12-minute ovation in the Grand Théâtre Lumière. Greg Williams shot the actor at his hotel before he walked the rouge carpet. Magimel plays Franck, a disgruntled dad who disrupts a surprise birthday party in the home invasion thriller based on Laurent Mauvignier’s bestselling novel.
‘The character to begin with was very brutal, very tough,’ Magimel told assembled journalists at the film’s press conference. ‘I thought there should be contradictions, more nuances. Then he came back with another version that was absolutely perfect, magical.’ Not so magical for the family living in remote marshland who get a visit from Franck and his friends. Thomas (Bastien Bouillon), his wife Nora (Hafsia Herzi) and her daughter Ida (Tawba El Gharchi) plus Monica Bellucci’s neighbour, find their rural idyll shattered by Franck, by turns charming and violent.
The cast and crew filmed the project over 31 sweltering days during a heatwave in Bellac and the oppressive temperature and claustrophobia is tangible for audiences. Magimel said that his inspiration for his performance was Henry Fonda and reviews praised the singular menace he brought to proceedings.
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER Benoît wears sunglasses byJacques Marie Mage The Birthday Party premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival
CANNES DISPATCH Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
‘It’s a bit of heaven here,’ says Anthony Boyle as looks around the craggy coastline of the Cap Antibes, at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, a few miles away from Cannes. The Belfast actor is in town for his first Cannes Film Festival with Clio Barnard’s latest, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning. Based on the book by Keiran Goddard, the film traces the fortunes of a group of five working-class Birmingham friends as they try to gain a foothold on adulthood as they turn 30. Like the social housing constantly being razed around them, late-stage capitalism has brought their individual dreams crashing down.
Anthony plays Patrick, a father and food delivery driver whose marriage to Shiv is tested, his Socialism ideals seemingly a pipe dream in a financially polarised world where opportunity doesn’t knock. ‘It’s about austerity. It’s a bit like a Ken Loach or a Mike Leigh film. Clio directs in this way where she looks at the working class in England, and gives a voice to the voiceless. It’s the kind of film that I would have watched on Film 4 late at night, like a Quadrophenia or This Is England, when I was a kid going, ‘I want to be in that. That looks like a world that I recognise.’ I never wanted to be a movie star or in one of these big Marvel films. It was this kind of social realism that I always looked at, and thought, ‘God, I’d love to be a part of those films’. I’m just so buzzed to be in it.’
To achieve the Brummie accent, Anthony embedded in the Midlands before shooting started and can still swap his Irish lilt when I ask him. ‘I was working with a dialect coach, and I couldn’t really get it down. I Googled the place in Birmingham where it was from, and I found a video of this guy going, ‘I’m Fucking Ginge from Brum.’ And I was like, ‘I need to find this guy.’ So I get him on Instagram, and I message him; ‘Lad, I’m an actor. I’m trying to get your accent. If I fly to Birmingham, can we go for a pint?’.’ Ginge agreed and Boyle went for a ‘wee pint’ at the local boozer, got drunk and ended up hanging out with him for a couple of days. ‘He gets his mates down – graffiti artists, bareknuckle boxers – and I get embedded into the community. That’s how I got the accent. I just stayed in that community. And that bar, The Crown, we ended up using that as our production office. We based our whole film out of that bar. And we get the people in the bar in the film.’
As someone who’s nailed accents for Masters of the Air, Manhunt and The House of Guinness, Anthony finds the process of living the role before he films helpful. ‘I go to wherever we’re filming, and I try to get there a couple of weeks early and just find people. People on the street. Bars are good. Football matches. Wherever you go, just strike up a conversation. It’s funny, when you go into places, people are really open and willing to talk if you show an interest in their story. If I come in there with care, and I usually do have a lot of care, and I show the people off in a good light – they’re usually really open.’
The irony is not lost on him that he’s talking about social realism while looking out at a bay filled with super-yachts. He laughs. ‘There is a beautiful thing about premiering this movie in Cannes to this audience in this bourgeois and moneyed place. People are going to see it. We’ve already had people from France and Italy say, ‘Oh, this area of Birmingham feels like a place in Greece. It feels like a place in France. It can be somewhere in America.’ So I’m really happy to be premiering it here.’
He has his eye on the water and decides to go for a swim. But in the suit he’s wearing. He clambers up to the diving platform jutting out of the cliff and removes his jacket and shoes, sits on the edge looking down. ‘We’ll get naked afterwards, Greg!’ he jokes, before standing and jumping into the sea. He returns to the surface, gasping. As he treads water I ask about his producing career and what he’s currently producing. ‘I’m producing hypothermia right now,’ he laughs. ‘I produced a TV show called Close to Home, written by Michael Magee, a lad that used to sit beside my brother at school. It’s about Belfast, and this young guy who goes off to Liverpool uni. He comes back to Belfast. He was promised that something would be different for him, and it’s not. It’s all the same old shit. It’s my favourite novel. I’m so buzzing that we got to make it. I called the writer, and was like, ‘Lad, I’ll give you £50 if you let me play you in your movie’. He said, ‘We’ve got a picture of you up on the wall. We want it to be you’. It’s just one of those serendipity fate moments, you know?’
He’s just finished shooting The Altruists with Julie Garner, an eight-part drama for Netflix about real-like Crypto dealers Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, who were accused of stealing $8 billion. Anthony plays Bankman-Fried and found common ground as both of them are dyslexic. As usual, Anthony approached the role by spending time marinating in the world he’d be playing in. ‘He was doing something really interesting. He was transferring funds on his PlayStation while also playing World of Warcraft. So he would be more upset at his XP points dropping in his game than he was losing $500 million. We were emailing each other while he was in jail. He was in the same cell block as P Diddy. What I thought was really interesting is, like, even through the emails, I felt just how intelligent he was. I felt like he was almost profiling me. The things that he was giving me, the examples he was giving me, were so intelligent and so clever. I was really taken by him.’
He clambers out of the sea, his suit pooling water at his feet and a happy expression on his face. ‘That was heaven,’ he says again as he grabs a towel to dry off. Luckily he has another suit for his premiere…
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER Styling by LUKE DAY Anthony wears SAINT LAURENT / PAUL SMITH I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival The Altruists will be on Netflix tba
CANNES DISPATCH Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview byJANE CROWTHER
When Greg Williams photographs Tom Sturridge in his Cannes hotel suite just before he walks the red carpet for the premiere of his latest project, Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love, he admits to feeling a little nervous. Not because this is his first time at Cannes but because he would be seeing his film for the first time in the Lumiere Theatre at the Palais. There’s a certain trepidation in that, watching your work with an audience, both discovering it for the first time. ‘The thing that was most special was the room itself – the warmth,’ Sturridge says when Hollywood Authentic catches up with him a few days later. The film received an eight-minute standing ovation and was subject to rapturous reviews. ‘I’ve done that room a couple of times, and it was the most love I’ve ever felt for a film – in my experience. I do prefer, in general, not to watch, but I think when you’re in competition in Cannes, it’s kind of rude not to.’ In Sachs’ period piece, he plays Dennis, the partner of HIV-positive actor Jimmy George (Rami Malek) in Reagan-era New York. As Jimmy voraciously devours life in order to stave off death, Dennis quietly and gently cares for him, ensuring he takes his meds, bathing him, forgiving him. It’s a study of a relationship that lives between the words, Sturridge conveying a long romance through tender glance and touch.
‘My role in it aside, it’s a special piece of work,’ the British actor says bashfully, still discovering how to discuss the film having only just seen it. ‘I think it’s beautiful. What surprised me the most was how it allowed you into that world, that time of New York in 1989, and was so absorbing, tangible.’ He recalls seeing a key scene with Jimmy walking through a club, encountering different characters and essentially a lost world. ‘I became overwhelmingly moved by these extraordinary humans who were the coolest, cleverest, most creative, most brave… And just knowing that we lost so many of them, those humans, just dancing in the club.’
The film is low-key in its period styling, specific in tone. Achieved, Sturridge says, from Sachs’ methodology as the cast began preparing. ‘It began with his personal stories. He shared with all of us his recollections of when he first moved to New York. And then, beyond that, he would very organically send pieces of cinema, literature, documentaries, images or weird clips on YouTube. He would make us watch a lot of films that had no literal connection to our story. It was films by Chantal Akerman, Maurice Pialat and Cassavetes, which were much more about trying to suggest a kind of cinematic grammar that he was aiming for. That was profoundly helpful in accessing the sort of truth that he was looking for, in a surprising way, because it wasn’t through an obvious lens.’
He namechecks books Borrowed Time by Paul Monette and Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran, as well as documentary How to Survive a Plague by David France, all of which were useful in his pre-production prep. But essential to creating the specific vibe of the project was the trust developed between director and cast. ‘An actor’s relationship with a director is always about trust. Ira is someone who doesn’t like to talk much – or really at all – about the text of the script, or the character. When you’re doing lighting setups before you’re shooting a scene – it’s very normal for actors to run the scene. Ira is allergic to hearing his lines spoken before the camera is rolling. He very much wants everything to be discovered in the moment. That requires a profound amount of faith.’ That faith goes both ways. Without traditional rehearsal time, Sachs had to trust his actors to deliver. ‘Absolutely. This was very much an independent film. We did not have months and months to shoot. If he didn’t get what he wanted; if something magical didn’t happen in those eight minutes, then he was going to be in trouble. But weirdly, it releases a lot of freedom. Feeling the faith from him was very liberating. But most specifically, I knew that I would never leave the scene without him getting what he wanted. Despite all of the ephemeral preparation, and not knowing what you were going to do in the moment – he’s very rigorous and precise once the camera is rolling about getting what he wants. So the combination of that rigour and that freedom was intoxicating.’
In order to create a tangible sense of a lived-in relationship with Malek Sturridge connected with the actor beforehand to find an intimacy that translated onscreen. ‘We met a few months before we started shooting, not really talking about the project itself, but just being aware that when you’re portraying people who have loved each other for many years, there is a level of intimacy that you can’t really conjure in the moment. We do have to have an idea of how we’re going to physically communicate with each other. We just spent a lot of time together learning how our bodies work, and move, and finding a kind of physical language.’ The result is an unspoken connection, one that is incredibly evident in a moving scene in which Dennis lovingly bathes Jimmy in a tub. No words are spoken but feelings and stories are told in each gentle caress. ‘I think a performance always sounds stupid when spoken about,’ Sturridge says. ‘But we shot that scene towards the end of the shoot. Whatever subliminal work we’d done up to that point, was allowed to be articulated. Ira put the camera in the room, closed the door, and left us for a long, long, long time. There’s certainly a version of that scene that’s about three hours long.’
Like The Man I Love, Sturridge is drawn to projects by their directors and his next two gigs are dream jobs. He has a small role in Mia Hansen-Løve’s If Love Should Die (shooting soon) and worked with Dustin Hoffman on The Revisionist. ‘I think [Hansen-Løve] is one of the greatest filmmakers of any generation, let alone her own. I was fortunate enough to meet her a couple of years ago, and I just basically said, ‘I will make the coffee for you’.’ Working with Hoffman was an education he says as a fan of his career, particularly The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy. ‘He has gifted the world some of the most extraordinary cinematic performances ever. When you have the chance to be in a chamber piece and play the violin with the greatest violinist, it’s too bizarre an opportunity to pass up. He’s someone who just has absolute freedom in the way he performs. He’ll do the scene as written, and then he’ll do the scene absolutely as not written, and then he’ll do the scene in German, and then he’ll do the scene as a lion. He has endless imagination. He’s constantly testing you and pushing you, and trying to drag you into a reality, rather than sitting in the page. For someone of his maturity it’s extraordinarily alive – far beyond anyone I have ever worked with. He’s just constantly filled with ideas and effervescent life.’ So is Sturridge’s goal to be as curious as Hoffman while still working in his eighties? ‘Yeah, absolutely. I still want to care the way he does. He could easily just be putting his feet up now, but he doesn’t want to. Not in a dissimilar way to the story of our film – he needs to create to live.’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER Styling by ROSE FORDE Grooming by ALEXIS DAY The Man I Love premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival
CANNES DISPATCH Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview byJANE CROWTHER
Gillian Anderson opened up Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section this year with a sapphic, psycho-sexual, feminist take on slasher movies where she’s drenched in blood, gorges on fried chicken and makes the phrase ‘dipping sauce’ sound like a sexual invitation. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma was a hit with the critics on the Croisette and marked the first time Anderson had really stepped into genre cinema after her long run as Agent Scully on X-Files made her wary of repetition and like all us, she watched a terrifying film too young.
‘I had a bad experience with a horror film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, when I was very young, and so even music from horror films can bring panic attacks on me,’ Anderson admits when she chats with Hollywood Authentic in a suite at the JW Marriott, an appropriately red fruit juice in her hand. ‘I have embraced dark true-crime over the past decade, and also, working on X-Files for so long, my daughter jokes that her childhood was spent putting her pram with severed heads in it on set. So it’s been in my periphery for a long time. But I don’t have a real understanding of the history around horror films and subgenres and slashers, etcetera. So this was an education for me.’
In the film Anderson plays a fan favourite actress, Billy, who starred in a huge franchise and now lives on the set of the original film in which she played the ‘final girl’. When a young director, played by Hannah Einbinder, visits with the intention of rebooting the film series, all hell breaks loose. Serial killers emerge from the lake, heads roll, blood gushes… There’s a knowing wink in casting Anderson with her X-Files past in such a role. ‘I didn’t necessarily reflect on it, but I did understand it enough to be able to embrace it, and take advantage of it as much as possible, to be able to enjoy the moment and the meta element of it,’ she says.
The film also explores generational ideas on gender, identity, and sexuality as Einbender’s director and Anderson’s actress grow closer sexually. ‘I feel like the film is a celebration of the fact that despite their decades’ divide, they’re meeting in common experience. But it was important for me that I really didn’t want for Billy to feel creepy or predatory. My daughter is the same age as Hannah is. For me, it needed to feel very purposeful – and weird in the places where it was meant to be weird. There’s a beauty, I think, in what the film has to say about what we can learn from each other. There is a vital commonality, which is that we are women, you know? So often today, that gets lost in the power struggle within social media – knowing and having information, and having something clever to say – that the universal bond of potential support, of commonality, gets lost. So I think it’s really important that it shows up in this film in a way that is actually profound.’
The film also reflects Anderson’s real professional life in that the X-Files is being rebooted right now by Ryan Coogler. ‘It’s being rebooted by a real artist. Ryan Coogler coming in to take over that franchise, is such an interesting and radical concept. Kudos to our showrunner, Chris Carter, the creator, for allowing him to take the helm. It’s when you have a true artist step in and say, ‘I know exactly how to apply my sensibility and gifts to the best parts of what this represents and should be, or should have been’. It’s so interesting to also be in conversation about that at the same time as doing this. I think finally, for the first time in what feels like a very long time, there’s a modicum of hope that the industry isn’t falling backwards off a cliff.’
Though she won’t be drawn on if she’s involved in Coogler’s reboot (‘that’s another conversation, but thank you for asking’ she demurs), Anderson is an enthusiastic torch-bearer for the franchise, attending fan conventions alongside her co-star David Duchovny. ‘I haven’t really been obsessed with anyone, it baffles me a little bit,’ she admits. ‘We were lucky at the beginning because we were shooting in Vancouver, not Los Angeles, and there wasn’t social media which, looking back, was such a gift. I can’t imagine coming up and having to contend with that now. I experience fandom now at Comic-Cons. I recognise how important it is for some people to be face to face with me. I don’t feel like, ‘I’m so cool. They love me so much’. It feels like it’s for what I represent. It almost helps them define who they are, that Scully represents an aspect of their internal life. And I’m happy to show up as the embodiment of that thing.’
Anderson is busy but admits to trying to think carefully about the projects she takes and what she gives her name to. ‘It’s hard, though. It takes patience. It does take a belief that if you wait and dare to do nothing until the thing arrives that it will come. I do have the tendency to just embrace everything. I enjoy all of it. I end up doing too much. There is a version of me that would do less, and only choose the jewels.’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasa premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival Gillian Anderson wears a custom version the NAVA dress from the Mary KatranzouResort 2026 collection
CANNES DISPATCH Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
Andy Garcia had been trying to make his self-written neo-noir, Diamond, for years when he watched Phantom Thread and the pieces of the puzzle came together. ‘I saw this young lady in Phantom Thread, and I said, ‘I’m not making the movie without her’,’ he enthuses about Vicky Krieps to Hollywood Authentic. Krieps plays the movie’s femme fatale, Sharon Cobbs, the enigmatic wife of a murdered billionaire, who is the prime suspect in the case. Sharon brings in period-obsessed PI Joe Diamond (Garcia) to help unravel the truth, with Krieps bringing her disarming and intriguing read to a genre staple. Sharon and Joe dance around each other romantically as Joe uncovers the facts. Garcia is captivated by the actor in real life (‘I love you, Vicky Krieps!’ he says warmly when he sees her as we sit down before the movie premieres) and relates how she inadvertently made him wait for an answer on whether she would take the role. ‘It took a while for her to read it, she made me suffer for a couple of months,’ he smiles.
‘I blame my agent,’ Krieps jokes. ‘But seriously, when it came to me I was a mother of two, you know?’ I was looking after them alone. I was really overwhelmed in my life, generally. And then I watched Ocean’s 11 with my best friend. She kept going on about Andy and after a while, I was thinking, ‘Wait…I think I have an email – a script!’ I read it the same night. And then I replied very fast. It was so well-written. The dialogue was like Billy Wilder. I hadn’t read anything like that, which is why I told him, ‘I’m coming, with whatever – or without – money. I don’t care. Tell me when.’’
Krieps, Garcia says, is incapable of delivering a false note, even within a genre piece. ‘I took it very seriously,’ she says of the process. ‘How could I – someone who’s a cineaste – in full respect of the genre and of all of Hollywood, and all the beauty and the light, bring something from today to this woman? I bring something where a woman doesn’t care if she’s liked or not. I was trying to make her mysterious but also someone who could totally exist for herself.’ The appreciation is mutual between Krieps and actor/writer/director/producer/composer Garcia. ‘I’ve worked with a few actor-directors and there was no conflict between the actor and the director with Andy,’ Krieps nods. ‘He made us feel so free. We had no time and no money, but we felt like: ‘We have all the time in the world. Should we do it again? Let’s do it again.’
Though the film is an entertaining, self-aware potboiler with murder, wiseguys and a jazzy soundtrack, Krieps says that the theme playing, like a muted trumpet, under all of it; is love. ‘This film is so unique, because of all these genres, and all that beautiful construction – but at the centre it’s all love. It’s Andy’s love for the story, the story of life itself, music, art. It’s the love for this universe. Diamond is about the love for what has gone, the love for what is here. And all the scenes are good because the people we are working with, there’s love and respect for the other person’s work.’ It’s cinema that is a world away from content churned out by an algorithm, she says, mentioning a streaming service that she did not care to work with. ‘They said the film has to be so that you can watch it on multiple screens. And you have to speak in a way that you can still understand it, but at double speed. I said, ‘Fuck you’. I couldn’t do that.’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER Diamond premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival
