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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.’
Ninety years ago, LA opened an observatory high in the hills to watch the firmament above – and the Hollywood community below. Fifty years ago, it starred in landmark teen picture Rebel Without a Cause, making an icon of James Dean. Hollywood Authentic celebrates the Deco architectural beauty that remains a jewel in the crown of La La Land and cinema.
Perched above Hollywood, clinging to the side of the hills, is a white landmark of Los Angeles known around the world as synonymous with the city and the industry that thrums in it. Not the Hollywood sign but, across the canyon from that former real estate-hoarding, the Griffith Observatory. We’ve all driven the winding road or hiked up from the Greek Theatre to take in the picture postcard view. But perhaps we’ve taken this most cinematic of LA locations for granted, not appreciating its unique history and use, and its contributing role to making a legendary film such an enduring classic.
On 27 October, the 90-year-old observatory offers visitors the chance to step inside 1955’s Rebel Without a Causeduring its 70th anniversary year with a special on-site screening. The only film in which James Dean got top billing during his short-lived but brilliant career, Rebel Without a Cause not only contributed to the actor’s legend but was one of the so-called ‘teen’ pictures that shaped a key box-office demographic. Dean plays high schooler Jim, who arrives at the observatory on a school trip. After a presentation in the planetarium, he ends up on the west terrace, where a slashed tyre leads to a flick-knife fight, and later a fateful game of chicken. The Griffith Observatory is baked into Rebel’s milieu, a culturally and socially important spot that not only promotes astronomy and invites visitors to scientifically engage with the world, but also honours Dean’s legacy. The actor is memorialised in a bronze bust that watches over the front lawn, framed by the Hollywood sign behind it.
Though it has appeared in countless movies, the observatory’s prime purpose has always been to look towards the stars. ‘California was like the Alexandria of the world for astronomy in the early 20th century,’ Dr. E. C. Krupp, acting director of the Griffith, tells Hollywood Authentic about how the building reflects the Golden State’s long connection to the skies. ‘Great telescopic innovations took place here… And now the tentacles of California astronomy extend all over the place. It’s just part of what modern astronomy has all become.’
The observatory’s roots are as old as cinema itself. It all started in 1896 with Griffith J. Griffith, the benefactor who gave his name, and his land, to the park and observatory. Born in Wales, Griffith made his name and fortune as a United States citizen. A silver-mining expert and a journalist, he cannily made his money from Mexican mines, and subsequently invested in Californian real estate. Settling in Los Angeles County, he bought Rancho Los Feliz in 1882, where he’d live out the rest of his days. It was touring Europe that really gave him the drive to create what would become his defining legacy, leaving him better remembered as a philanthropist than an industrialist. He was enchanted and inspired by Europe’s public parks, and felt that his adopted home needed one of its own. Griffith bequeathed 3,015 acres of the ranch to the City of Los Angeles, as a way to ‘pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered’. Later, following a fascination with astronomy that blossomed thanks to visits to Southern California Academy of Sciences’ Astronomical Section, he offered the city $100,000 dollars to build the observatory, on the strict condition it would remain free for the public to access, and owned and operated by the city in perpetuity. As cinema would bring culture to the masses, Griffith Observatory and Park would keep science and nature accessible to all.
Key to the observatory’s longevity has been its location on the south side of Mount Hollywood. ‘The view isn’t just a nice thing that the observatory provides,’ Krupp insists. ‘The view offers perspective. And that’s what the observatory is all about. It’s a perspective that begins at the Earth, and goes into the universe. You begin to get an inkling of that when you see the basin spread out before you, to the ocean and the mountains…. And it begins to become apparent that there’s this bigger picture.’
Perhaps inevitably, such a grand undertaking was not completed in Griffith’s lifetime; he died in 1919, though his will contained instructions that bear the tenets of the observatory’s mission to this day, enacted by a trust, and construction on the three-domed structure eventually got underway in 1933. While there’s a timeless quality to the clean lines of the observatory – the symmetry of the large central dome flanked by smaller domes on either side, the precise rectangular lines of the main building and windows, and the geometrical precision of the lawn that surrounds the Astronomers Monument out front – the Art Deco style reflects the fashion of the time it was built. There are also Moderne and Modified Greek influences, with the overall plan nodding to Beaux-Arts. Concrete was decided on for the outer walls for its earthquake-proof durability, but Greek-style fluting lent it an enduring, classic look. The entrance doors are bronze and glass and the domes copper, while the interior features marble and travertine.
It’s mind-boggling to comprehend the level of thought and planning that went into making the Observatory one with the stars and the universe it aspires to shed light on. Architecturally cardinally oriented and built to be used as an instrument itself
It’s mind-boggling to comprehend the level of thought and planning that went into making the observatory one with the stars and the universe it aspires to shed light on. Architecturally cardinally oriented and built to be used as an instrument itself, the site boasts the Gottlieb Transit Corridor on its west side, which aligns the building with a north-south meridian line. The concept of the approach is that the building is designed to make the visitor an active observer the minute they step off their hiking trail or out of their car. That Astronomers Monument is a concrete tribute to six pioneering historical figures from the field including Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton. Each figure was sculpted by one of six different artists, though the style of Newton might look familiar to LA residents. He was designed by George Stanley, most famous for sculpting the Muse statue at the Hollywood Bowl and the iconic Oscar statuette. Also out front, the 34in sundial casts a shadow back to the earliest days of astronomy and timekeeping (and can be adjusted for Daylight Savings). It’s also a tangible embodiment of the Earth’s rotation and axis, giving an essential sense of perspective before you step inside.
Another mesmerising use of ancient fundamentals is visible in the Foucault pendulum in the W.M. Keck Foundation Central Rotunda. The hypnotic instrument has been a fixture of the observatory since opening. Attached to the ceiling on a 40ft cable, the 240lb bronze ball swings constantly, with its plane of motion turning with the Earth over a 24-hour period, knocking down pegs to prove the shift. Also adding to the classical vibe are the murals on the walls and ceiling of the rotunda. Painter Hugo Ballin was also a film producer, and the artworks are an intersection between mythology and science, celebrating the god-inspired planets and zodiac constellations, as well as depictions of the ‘Advancement of Science’ (featuring topics as varied as engineering, time and biology). The rotunda of the building’s western dome focuses the three beams of sunlight using a coelostat (‘sky-stopper’ in Greek).
Of course, it wouldn’t be an observatory without a telescope, and Griffith can boast of having the most looked-through in the world. That honour goes to its Zeiss telescope, a 12in refracting telescope for nighttime stargazing. There are also three solar telescopes for keeping tabs on our ‘local star’, the sun, as well as coin-operated telescopes around the terrace for scoping out the surrounding area – including the one around which Jim and Buzz have their pivotal fight in Rebel Without a Cause.
That film also brings us back to the planetarium – one part of the venue where a nominal fee is charged. It has always been a fixture, but was updated as part of the wider renovation and expansion the observatory underwent from 2002. With a new dome, star projector and digital laser projection system installed, the Samuel Oschin Planetarium can seat almost 300. While it marks an update of the experience that James Dean’s Jim and classmates sat through, the new planetarium had a recent memorable on-screen close up in Damien Chazelle’s Oscar-winning La La Land. Mia (Emma Stone) and Seb (Ryan Gosling) are literally dancing on air during an after-hours visit, following an entirely uncoincidental screening of Rebel. ‘Hollywood always has its eye on us,’ says Krupp. ‘And it has had its eye on us since even before the building opened.’
Countless other films have either shot at Griffith Observatory or referenced it, including The Terminator, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Transformers and Bowfinger. But Rebel has had the biggest impact, says Krupp, with La La Land providing a more recent boost. ‘Rebel Without a Cause made an indelible impression on the popular imagination, and it was unique in the sense that the theme of the film was absolutely bonded to the character of the place.’ Present for the La La Land shoot, Krupp watched the dancing sequence being filmed, the camera swirling to lens the murals before capturing Stone and Gosling spinning around the rotunda. He immediately headed to his deputy director, Mark Pine: ‘I said, “This movie is going to do for Griffith Observatory what Rebel Without a Cause did for it.” And it did.’
While the planetarium is a serious piece of scientific machinery that has been used over the years to help train pilots and astronauts in celestial navigation, it also provides an unmistakable metaphorical link between the observatory in the Hills and the Dream Factory’s signature product. Both offer the opportunity to be transported, see new worlds, and be part of something much bigger than yourself. Hollywood’s influence on Griffith Observatory even extends to its narrative approach. ‘I would not diminish the connection with Hollywood as somehow just a superficial element of us happening to be here,’ says Krump. ‘It goes deeper than that, and it has from the beginning. Our sensibility is, there’s a story to be told.’
Yes, that ‘first steps’ title does refer to an origin story of sorts and we meet the Fantastic Four in their retro-future world four years after being zapped by cosmic radiation in space and gaining superpowers. The quartet, in their spiffy blue suits, are just feeling out their position in the world – as protectors, role models, superstars and leaders. But also, as we discover from the off, as parents.
Walt Disney StudiosWalt Disney Studios
Married supers Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) may have super-stretchy limbs (him) and the ability to shield and turn invisible (her) but they haven’t managed to get pregnant. Until the opening scene when they can’t hide the happy news from their family, human torch and Sue’s bro, Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and rock beast The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). The impending arrival matches another as a shiny, surfing herald (Julia Garner) turns up to declare that planet-munching colossus Galactus (Ralph Inerson) is heading to earth for lunch. Can the four stop him? Will parenthood change things? Is the baby going to have powers?
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No spoilers but the answer is yes to all – as Marvel fans know, Franklin Richards will grow to have an impact on everything, not just his Mom and Dad, so this is as much about his first steps as theirs. And while the Jetsons-style world-building is a treat, the real draw here is the emphasis on more relatable aspects of the group’s dynamics. First Steps is essentially a movie about the panic of first-time parents (how can we know what our child will be like? How do we do this right? How do we protect but also nurture?), the primal power of motherhood and the shared experience that connects humanity: family. Anyone who’s ever tried to put a flat-pack cot together or install a car seat will recognise the anxiety of Reed. While the sheer force and yes, superpower, it takes to birth a human is celebrated in Sue’s zero gravity labour. Where it comes slightly undone is in the shifting scale of Galactus (is he planet-sized or Godzilla dimensioned?) and the suspension of disbelief that earth threatened with extinction would happily allow the key to salvation not to be tossed into space in appeasement. But Marvel has a superweapon in Kirby, who sells the emotional pull with her large blue eyes and a demeanour that is the screen definition of an iron fist in a velvet glove. Quite the feat to steal focus from the always excellent Pascal, leaning into his Zaddy charisma and that Grogu daddy softness. A shame that Natasha Lyonne and Julia Garner do not have more to do, but based on this assured debut, the Fantastic Four have many more footsteps ahead of them.
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
The American chameleon tells Hollywood Authentic about honing his highlands accent for Harvest and the risk that drives his career.
When Caleb Landry Jones arrived at the Venice Film Festival in 2023 to promote Luc Besson’s Dogman he conducted all his press duties in a thick Scottish burr due to jetting in direct from filming Athina Rachel Tsangari’s folk-esque drama Harvest in Oban, Scotland. There he was playing Walter, a Middle-Ages Scot whose community is rocked by the arrival of a stranger. Tsangari’s English-language debut after Attenberg and Chevelier, it was filmed on location with meticulous attention to period detail and taps into themes of racism, colonialism and patriarchal oppression. When Landry Jones arrived in Venice in 2024 with the film, the accent was back to his native Texan as he took in the floating city with Greg Williams one evening and sat down with Hollywood Authentic to discuss how he inhabited a medieval man with a vastly different life experience to his own.
‘Athina wanted us all to wear clogs, because she wanted this specifically in the film,’ he laughs over a beer as he recalls the dedication to authenticity. ‘Somehow I bitched and whined enough to where I could wear boots because I was just worried I’d break an ankle. I’m from Texas, from the suburbs, and I’m used to concrete!’ Landry Jones prepped for playing a man who is at one with nature by taking long walks around Oban. ‘That was also kind of a way into the character – getting to know the land, and getting to know the environment. Because the environment plays such a pivotal role in the film. It’s one of the main characters in the film.’
The whole cast lived in close quarters, echoing the village dynamics of their characters, and Landry Jones stayed in accent for the duration of the shoot – including that trip to Venice. ‘I’m not very good at flipflopping,’ he says of maintaining his accent. ‘I worked for three months with a dialect coach, Conor Fenton, very hard. We had a very important scene and I came the day before I’m shooting that scene to Venice, knowing that the next day, we would be up on that hill, shooting that scene. So I wasn’t going to mess around with any of that, you know?’
I saw A Clockwork Orange, and that’s what started something. After I saw that movie, I started looking at life differently. I watched Fellini, Visconti, Time Bandits and Godard…
Landry Jones is known for his out-there choices – in project and performance – and he admits it’s something he leans towards when choosing people to work with. ‘I think everyone’s afraid to touch certain subject matter. I think everyone’s afraid to take chances. I think there’s a lot of fear that keeps us to some kind of performance or film that we’ve seen a million times over because we’re too afraid to go outside of that. Athina is one of the boldest filmmakers I’ve ever worked with, in this regard.’
Now living in LA, he thinks his upbringing away from Tinseltown is something that contributes to that MO and helped him latch onto the inner workings of a character like Walter, who, on paper, seems vastly different from himself. ‘Where I grew up was just outside of Dallas – Richardson, Texas. It’s a suburb next to the fire station. I could walk to the ice cream. I could walk to school. There was an aspect of knowing your neighbour, which you don’t have so much in Los Angeles, this kind of thing that I could liken to Scotland – a certain kind of humour that exists that I could liken to the Scottish humour in a way. It’s very different worlds, ways of living. But, at the end, it’s still people with beating hearts. We have these commonalities.’
‘I’ve been so fortunate with the things that have come my way. Usually the hardest thing is, you finish a film that you believe in, that you’re proud of, that you’ve had a real experience with the people who are making it, and it’s very hard to figure out: what do you do next? Where do you from here, when that was such an incredible experience? Where do you go from that? I think I’ve just been very fortunate that someone like Luc [Besson] asks me to do something so vastly different from Justin Kurzel with Nitram, and then Athina bringing me into her world, which is so vastly different from anything I’ve done before. Now I suppose I am looking for a challenge. I am looking to stretch. To play the same role again and again sounds like hell. After Get Out, the film I did with Jordan Peele, there was a bunch of people wanting me for the same kind of role in many ways. So I said no to a lot of things. And this was because I didn’t want to repeat myself in that kind of way.’
He will allow himself to repeat working with filmmakers he admires though – he’ll reteam with Besson on his interpretation of Dracula. ‘Working with someone is a kind of repetition I’ve been looking for all my life. But to play the same character again and again is something that sounds like a snoozefest. But Luc saw me as a piece of clay, and ‘what can I do with this piece of clay?’ And then he’s asked me to do something completely different than anything I’ve been asked to do before. A sword fight, and on horses, you know? It made sense to be like, ‘OK, buddy. I don’t understand why, and I don’t know where to start, but let’s start’.’
Risk, he says, is something that’s always been a part of his work and drive. ‘I had $5,000 and knew nobody,’ he says of his move to LA to pursue acting. ‘I had some kind of delusion in my head that I would succeed; that there would be no failure, and that it was impossible. I look back and go, ‘What were you thinking? You didn’t know anybody. What made you think this was going to work?’ But there was something in me. I had a little Quixote. The windmill was real, and there was a giant, and that’s what it was. Nobody was going to be able to pull me from that. And I was very fortunate to meet people that I’m still working with today. I love seeing risk and chance.’
As someone who arrived in California wanting to work with the next Lindsay Anderson, who does Landry Jones have on his list for working with next? ‘I think an agent once asked me that, and I made a list, and they were all dead. They said, ‘Caleb, this is great, but they’re all dead’. It’s not so much to work with these people, but these are the kinds of films and artists that I’m drawn to, and why I went out to Los Angeles, to begin with. At 16, I saw A Clockwork Orange, and that’s what started something. After I saw that movie, I started looking at life differently. I watched Fellini, Visconti, Time Banditsand Godard… Everybody’s very afraid of a lot of things that are happening right now in front of our faces, that we, I think, have a responsibility not to shy away from or water down.’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER Harvestis out now in cinemas
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams visits the Superman set in Atlanta as David Corenswet first suits up and later makes a flying visit to Juilliard to discuss vulnerability, confidence and his Lego plans for opening weekend.
20 February 2024
I arrive at Atlanta’s Trilith Studios on a cloudy Thursday in February to meet David Corenswet. It’s no ordinary day for the actor who was cast as Superman in the DCU’s ‘soft reboot’ of the Man Of Steel story in June 2023. There’s a palpable sense of excitement on a soundstage on day one of production as the co-CEOs of DC Studios, James Gunn and Peter Safran, await their lead dressed for the first time in his iconic suit and cape. I find Corenswet putting the final touches to his costume and hair in the make-up trailer. His hair is black with a curl hanging over his forehead and he’s wearing the latest iteration of the newly designed super suit. He’s worked out to up his muscle mass and after more than six months of prep, looks ready to embody Kal-El, the son of Krypton who lands on earth and becomes the superhero the world needs. In a bid to keep everything super secret, Corenswet wraps up in a black cotton cape to protect the suit from prying eyes as we walk across from the trailers to the soundstage and studio meeting rooms where the cast will have their first table read.
When Corenswet enters the soundstage the atmosphere is electric; Gunn and Safran are clearly stoked to see their vision come to life. I ask Corenswet how he’s feeling. ‘A little surreal. But in a good way,’ he smiles. He adopts a kneeling hero pose, and turns this way and that in front of the cameras, his red cape billowing behind him, the lights glancing off the blue of the suit. His onscreen nemesis, Nicholas Hoult, newly bald as Lex Luthor, arrives suited and booted and the actors josh with each other. ‘Are you not wearing your trunks outside your pants?’ Corenswet jokes. It’s not the first time they’ve been on a set together (Corenswet visited the set of Rebel in the Rye when Hoult was filming in 2017 as a newly graduated actor) but it’s the first time they’re worked together. ‘That’s Superman!’ Hoult whispers excitedly as Corenswet swishes past.
Two days later, back in their own clothes, the cast and crew gather in a conference room to read through the script before walking outside to take a group photo. Rachel Brosnahan (playing Lois Lane) leans against Corenswet as he crosses his arms – unconsciously mimicking the classic pose of Superman as he smiles. He’s a week away from principal photography beginning on Superman’s birthday in the comic books, 29 February. Corenswet will kick off his reign as Clark Kent/Superman filming sequences for the Fortress of Solitude in Svalbard, Norway…
5 June 2025
Fast forward 16 months and the actor is meeting me at Juilliard, the performing arts conservatory in New York. He’s travelled from his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was born and raised and now lives with his actor wife, Julia Best Warner, and baby daughter. It’s the calm before the storm. Though the Superman team have presented the movie at 2024’s San Diego Comic-Con and the teaser trailer broke records for the most views in a 24-hour period for both DC and Warner Bros, reaching over 250 million across all platforms, Corenswet is still able to go about his business in relative anonymity. On a warm June morning in Manhattan, we both know that is about to change as we stand outside the institution where his acting journey began – a place he refers to as ‘home’.
Corenswet attended the school after graduating from Penn, recalling the phone call telling him he’d made the selection as though it were yesterday. He graduated from Juilliard in 2016 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and worked on TV show House of Cards before Ryan Murphy’s The Politician and Hollywood. Though he’d appear in Affairs of State in 2018, his transfer to movies came with Look Both Ways and then playing a rakish movie theatre projectionist in Ti West’s Pearl. That led to a nebbish role as a weather-chasing scientist in blockbuster Twisters, his delightful, nerdy performance possibly a calling card for playing klutzy Daily Planet reporter and Superman alter-ego, Clark Kent.
We enter the building where staff remember him from his student days and wander through the corridors and rooms as he recalls his time here. ‘This is our main room that we hung out in, where we had our first-year scene study class,’ he says as we walk into a cavernous space with stacked chairs and a piano. ‘It’s where we did our discovery project, which is the first production you do. A lot of hours spent in this room.’ He wanders over to the piano and starts noodling with the keys. ‘One thing I would always do is I’d end up playing the piano. Because it’s a music school, they had pianos in every room. So, after hours, I would just learn specific songs. I learned this song because my classmate, J.J., sang it in singing class: “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry”.’
I was like, ‘How long do I have to keep this secret?’ And he said, ‘Oh, we have to tell people immediately. It’s going to leak. We’re telling people in an hour’
As the music echoes round the room it conjures up images of Corenswet being a fledgling actor dreaming of getting a big break, and I think back to asking him on set in Atlanta how he found out he’d succeeded in landing Superman after an intense audition process. ‘It was 27 June, 2023, at 2:30 in the afternoon,’ he’d replied, fast, of the phone call from James Gunn. Clearly a huge moment for him. ‘I was like, “How long do I have to keep this secret?” And he said, “Oh, we have to tell people immediately. It’s going to leak. We’re telling people in an hour.”’ The same week he learned he’d got Superman, he also found out that his wife, Julia, was pregnant with their first child and due a few days before production was slated to start. A massive step-change in his personal and creative life.
As we walk to another room with a stage I ask if it’s emotional now to return to Juilliard. ‘I wouldn’t describe what I feel at the moment as emotional,’ he says sitting in the audience seats. ‘I don’t feel like I’m going to cry, or like I’m overwhelmed. But I’m thinking about a lot of things. I’m remembering a lot of things. They’re very special memories.’ He looks towards the stage where a lone light is standing in the darkness. ‘This is the ghost light, by the way,’ he explains. ‘This is the thing they put in to keep the ghosts away. That’s the lore. I think it’s mostly to stop people from tripping.’
I ask what his teachers thought of him as an actor and student when he used to study and perform in these rooms. ‘That I struggled with being vulnerable. Which I don’t think was true.’ Superman is extraordinarily vulnerable, I say. ‘Well, yeah,’ he nods. ‘I think all characters have to have a certain vulnerability. One of the great things about Nick’s performance as Lex is there’s a great vulnerability underneath. That’s what gives it stakes. It’s the possibility that things could go wrong for this person. I think that’s what vulnerability is.’ He still, he says, asks a lot of questions, as he did when he studied here. At Juilliard he began to question direction to get a deeper understanding of his craft. To follow instruction without conversation is akin to ‘if anybody tells you to jump off a cliff, you jump off a cliff’. He wanted to unpack the reasoning more. ‘What you want to be able to do is say: Why this cliff? Why now? And where are we hoping I’m going to land? I just like to get clear on that.’
His questioning continued on Superman. ‘If you talk to James [Gunn], that’s the one area where I’m difficult. And very quickly, that can start to sound like an argument. It can sound argumentative to people. He gave me a note that was very much not what I thought was appropriate for the scene. And so I started going back and forth with him a little bit. To anyone watching, it would look like an argument. It looked like I didn’t want to do things the way he wanted them done. And there was one sentence that he said in the heat of it all – you know, face to face. He said one sentence, and I went, “Stop. Great. I know exactly what you mean.” I walked back off, and did the thing. And it was what he wanted. I just wanted that moment where I knew what he was talking about.’
We walk to another rehearsal room. ‘It’s smaller than I remember. But it felt like a pretty epic stage, and it’s actually quite intimate. It’s also cool because this is the same theatre that Patti LuPone, Kevin Kline, Christopher Reeve, and Robin Williams performed on.’ Reeve of course went on to be an iconic Superman in Richard Donner’s genre-defining movies, which paved the way for the superhero franchises audiences know now. ‘He was in the same rooms that I was in, and same theatre here that I performed in. He had a real playfulness about him as an actor generally. It’s funny watching interviews with him, too. He does have a nice edge about him.’
As we walk the corridors we pass the ‘wall of fame’, the photos of actors who have graduated from Juilliard’s doors. ‘We’ve got Anthony Mackie, the new Captain America, right there,’ Corenswet points out. ‘Bradley Whitford was always somebody we referenced, from The West Wing and Get Out and all kinds of things. Jessica Chastain is on there. Patti LuPone is up there. Jesse J. Perez. This is Jimmy “J.J.” Jeter, who was in my class. This was like the wall of inspiration.’ He points to Adam Driver. ‘There’s Adam and his wife, Joanne [Tucker]. I just remember the day that I walked by [room] 306. The doors were closed, and you’ve got windows on the door so you can see through them. But they had set up black flats on the other side so you couldn’t see in. And on the inside, you just heard sticks slamming together. My buddy was like, “Adam Driver’s in there. He’s training for Star Wars.” I was like, “I should break in and watch.” But I didn’t.’ He finds his own name in a list. ‘There I am on the wall.’
We move onto Theatre One, a black box theatre in the complex where Corenswet did his third-year productions and the wall of fame makes me think of another conversation we had on set. Where I suggested everything would change for him. ‘No,’ he disagreed at the time. ‘It’s just a change to one’s psychology. All the change was that I didn’t have to keep looking for a different job.’ I ask him if he still feels this way.
“No. But it’s not because I was wrong at the moment. It’s because you talked to me before we filmed the movie. And before you film the movie, all you know is that you get to film the movie. Now we’re a month away from the film releasing. We’ve released two trailers and a bunch of promotional materials. Billboards are going up… I think making the movie, and sharing the movie with the world, are two different things, and will have two different effects, and will change things in different ways. Nothing’s changed for me yet, really. I got to do another movie that I wouldn’t have gotten to do if I weren’t playing Superman. And I had a really, really wonderful and meaningful experience making that movie. [He’s playing real-life NFL running back John Tuggle in Jonathan Levine’s Mr Irrelevant.] At the moment, I mean, apart from going around the world to promote the film – the next two weeks are about as similar to the two weeks before I got Superman. I’m going to be at home, hanging out with my family – you know, watching movies, or cleaning, or cooking, or fixing stuff. You know, normal stuff. And I’m looking forward to that.’
He and his wife have known each other since they did summer theatre together, growing up in Philadelphia. But as we stand in a place he graduated from nearly a decade earlier with aspirations to achieve the success he has, he knows that while his home life might not modulate, his professional life will. ‘If you asked me on 12 July [the day after the film’s release], I’d probably be having some feelings, depending on whether we’re doing very well, what the critics have said…’ He pauses, then looks back at me with a grin. ‘I have this great, big collector’s edition Millennium Falcon Lego that my wife got me as a wrap gift when I finished Superman, and it’s still sitting in my closet at home. I saw it the other day, and I thought, “Maybe that’s what I’ll do on opening weekend. I’ll just turn my phone off, and do this enormous Lego for two days.” So maybe I won’t be apprehensive then either, because I’ll be too excited about my Millennium Falcon.’ He laughs.
We’ve released two trailers and a bunch of promotional materials. Billboards are going up… I think making the movie, and sharing the movie with the world, are two different things, and will have two different effects, and will change things in different ways. Nothing’s changed for me yet, really
I ask if he had confidence in getting the job when making his self-tape for Gunn and Safran. ‘No, mostly because I saw this sort of old Hollywood humour in it, like a Fred Astaire or a Donald O’Connor or a Jimmy Stewart humour. I was excited to do that, and I thought I’d do a good job with that, but I wasn’t sure that James had intended it to be that way. So for all I knew, that was not going to be what he was looking for, and I had just seen something that wasn’t really there. So there was no confidence that I was going to be the guy for the job.’
Did he have to have confidence in embodying self-assured Superman – and in stepping onto that Atlanta soundstage on that first day in the suit? ‘I had to fake some confidence doing that,’ he admits. ‘Walking onto this big soundstage with four or five dozen people standing around – lighting and filming and standing behind monitors. I didn’t know James that well at that point. But you go through the fear of people looking at the suit or looking at your hair… I just thought for this I should probably muster up some confidence, even if it was faux-courage, and just try to be as Superman-y as I could.’
Corenswet has been mastering performance nerves for a long time, having started as the son of an actor who later became a lawyer. ‘My dad, who was an actor for many years in New York after college – theatre and background work on some things – he saw an audition notice for nine-year-old boys, and thought, ‘I’ve got one of those.’ I liked school. I liked the academics of school. But I always had this thing of like: why is this important? Doing theatre – it was much more immediate. You rehearse so that you know what you’re doing when the audience shows up, and the audience shows up because they’re paying money to see the show. I worked at a bunch of regional theatres in Philadelphia. So I was about 16. I did theatre in school, and I did a summer theatre programme – Upper Darby Summer Stage – which was a great musical theatre. I took acting quite seriously for my age, but I couldn’t really compete in the musical theatre space. I was not as good a singer, and not as good a dancer, as most of my peers.’
Nonetheless, he got into prestigious Juilliard. ‘I think getting into Juilliard was a bigger, clearer path change than when I got the role of Superman, because I was studying psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, doing theatre extracurricular-ly. I had no idea what a path forward as an actor would be, even though I was still excited by it. And when I got the call that I’d gotten into Juilliard, that was the moment when I was like, “OK, well, I’m going to be an actor – at least for a while. At least, you know, until I get really good data that I don’t belong here, I’m going to be an actor.” If you show up to school every day for four years, you’re going to figure some stuff out, and you’re going to get better. But that was, I think, a very clear split in my path of like: “OK, you’re going to do this, and you’re going to do it 100 per cent for a while.”’
His experience at Juilliard clearly paved the way for Superman in the roles he was initially assigned. ‘I was put into roles that were buttoned-up and logical; a lot of patriarchs, and a lot of first half of the 20th century young men. The first time I got to do something really crazy was in the beginning of my third year. I played a heroin addict in New York in the ’90s.’ It’s probably no surprise then that an actor who excelled at playing golden-era Hollywood young men would land Superman, a character born in 1938 in Action Comics and a hero who is known for being thoroughly good and decent. Corenswet nods as we head back out the door. ‘This is what James said about this movie: it’s about Superman, who ultimately is a guy who’s a good person, who’s trying to do his best, in a world where being a good person and doing your best is not necessarily valued.’ I’m left feeling like there’s a real correlation between the amount of views the trailer had and the fact that we all might be looking for some hope and decency in a world where that’s lacking.
Photographs and interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER Read our review of Superman Supermanis out in cinemas now
If you liked Guardians of The Galaxy and the latter Suicide Squad, then James Gunn’s signature goofy take on Superman is going to hit all the right notes. As the new head honcho at DC (alongside Peter Safran) the filmmaker’s fingerprints are all over this reboot from the irreverent tone to the colour pop visuals, the needle-drop soundtrack to the easter eggs.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Instead of starting from scratch with an origin story, Gunn’s Superman plops us down right in the middle of the Man of Steel’s (David Corenswet) busy schedule. Having just stopped a war between two fictional countries (though real headline nations could easily be inferred from the geo-politics), he’s taken a beating from a mecha ‘Ultraman’, the design of tech wiz, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and is lying in the arctic in need of help. Enter Krypto, an incorrigible super mutt who lives at Supe’s robot-staffed Fortress of Solitude and is MVP of the film whenever he pops up, one ear cocked. Superman is trying to negotiate his life as journalist Clark Kent, secret boyfriend to ace reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and emblem for good. It’s not going so well. Lois may have the hots for Clark and the cape but she’s uncertain about the relationship, Superman’s media profile is iffy and his purpose is unclear despite his ‘aw shucks’ sweet optimism in the face of social media trolls, spin doctors and world politics. Luthor, it turns out, has an queer coded obsession with Superman that is driving his need to create pocket universes, establish conflict and rip a black hole in Metropolis. If that were not enough to contend with, Superman also has other superheroes to navigate: shapeshifting Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion plus comedy wig), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi, being truly terrific).
As Superman grapples with his identity and buildings cave, Gunn explores themes of imperialism, colonialism, immigration, social media and whether it’s enough to be merely ‘good’. In a zingy interview between Lois and Clark (and the most interesting part of the film) the duo flirt and fight over whether Superman needs to contextualise his actions; if, in today’s complicated and nuanced world, anyone can ever truly be non-partisan. It’s one of a number of moments that pulls Superman very definitely into the 21st century – there’s a cute explanation for why people don’t recognise Supes in Clark Kent’s glasses, monkeys on keyboards are literally represented, Luthor has a relatable vulnerability and Christopher Reeve’s son Will makes a cameo. But there’s also regression; Luthor’s airhead girlfriend seems out of another decade and there’s no getting away from CGI ‘destruction porn’. However, if you’re looking for laughs, a defiantly comic book world and a delightfully relatable Kal-El in Corenswet (who seems physically built for this with his expressive cornflower peepers and a jawline that might have been drawn), Gunn flies high.
Jessica Miglio/Warner Bros. Pictures
Words by JANE CROWTHER Photographs courtesy of Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures Superman is out in cinemas now
In Gareth Edwards’ reboot of the JP franchise, set after Dominion but without any of the same characters, dinosaurs are old news. Dying in their zoos and no longer pulling the crowds, the only place they flourish is an equatorial island that is off-limits to visitors. Of course, big pharma, personified by Rupert Friend’s gimlet-eyed rep, won’t let a ban stop them from sending a team there to harvest dino DNA to find a cure for heart disease. Enter Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) a special-ops hardass who’s struggling with morality after the death of a colleague and looking for a payday. Along for the ride, the obligatory palaeontologist Dr Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), swallowing his misgivings for a chance to see his obsession in the wild, and a salty seadog (Mahershala Ali) who’s going to boat them all to an ex-DNA experimentation lab long-abandoned on the island. Obviously, things don’t go to plan.
Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
The first fly in the ointment is a family, inadvisably bobbing across the beast-infested ocean from Barbados to Cape Town in a modest sailing boat as a vacation (no, noone on-screen can understand why either). When their boat is capsized by a Mosasaurus, they become part of the group heading to the island – and prospective dinner for the previously extinct. As the team are shipwrecked, chased down a river by a swimming, gnashing T-Rex (an exemplary sequence that rivals the original’s first Tyrannosaur tete a tete), attacked by Quetzalcoatlus and observe a Titanosaurus romance, their perspectives and alliances shift as they hold onto the rescue hope of a helicopter arriving in 48 hours. Plus there’s a cute, portable Aquilops called Delores, who likes licorice.
Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures/Amblin EntertainmentJasin Boland/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
Essentially a theme park ride – boat rollercoaster, log flume, escape room, gift shop – Rebirth gets the recipe right with its casting. Johansson brings unexpected compassion to a rote role and is clearly having great fun alongside Bailey, serving as an audience avatar as he noisily eats mints, questions ethics and gazes in awe at CGI critters, rather like Sam Neill before him. Both are incredibly charming and sell a story as old as a mosquito in amber. Ali and Friend also seem to get the memo about nostalgic tropes; Ali is a charismatic cynic who becomes a hero, Friend, the all-out bad suit. It’s surprising he doesn’t get chomped on a toilet given the callbacks nodded to here. Less magnetic are the family and a pot-head boyfriend, though his jungle pee does provide humour.
Daft but decent, Rebirth doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it does manage to harness some of that original Spielberg magic and entertain for the time it’s on screen. And it will make you want to buy a Delores as soon as the lights come up – as well as a Snickers bar, such is the product placement.
Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
Words by JANE CROWTHER Photographs courtesy of Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment Jurassic World: Rebirthis in cinemas now
