Much like Disney + show The Mandalorian immerses you back into the Star Wars universe, so Alien: Romulus is a film that deep dives you into the world that began with Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi/horror masterpiece Alien. Directed by Fede Álvarez (Don’t Breathe), this takes place between the events of Alien and James Cameron’s 1986 sequel Aliens, as the Weyland-Yutani Corporation deal with the fallout of the creature that wreaked havoc in the Nostromo ship, killing all but warrant officer Ellen Ripley in Scott’s original movie.
Here, Álvarez selects a young cast as his leads, led by Priscilla star Cailee Spaeny, who plays Rain, a young woman entombed in W-Y’s Jackson Star’s Mining Colony. With her is Andy (Industry’s David Jonsson), an android she treats as her brother. Rescued by Rain’s father, Andy’s only directive is to keep Rain safe. But things change when youngsters Tyler (Archie Renaux), his sister Kay (Isabela Merced) and fellow renegades Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and Navarro (Aileen Wu) approach Rain with a plan to escape the colony.
Desperate to jet off to a faraway planet, the gang can only do it with the help of some cryogenic pods that will put them to sleep for the 9-year journey. Fortunately, a nearby derelict space station that’s just been found has the requisite equipment. But it just so happens that this giant vessel, with its bays named ‘Romulus’ and ‘Remus’, is overrun with facehuggers – the skittery, spider-like blighters that use humans as incubators to give birth to the Aliens. Soon, this heist becomes a terrifying matter of survival. Álvarez doesn’t just offer up another tale of extraterrestrials devouring their prey, although there is plenty of that, including one spellbinding scene involving gravity and the creatures’ acid blood. Instead, the script expands on the universe first conjured by Dan O’Bannon in his script for the original Alien, notably exploring the ruthless machinations of “the company”, who will go to any lengths to research these creatures – the so-called “perfect organism”.
A resourceful Spaeny is a marvellous alternative to Sigourney Weaver, who played Ripley across the first four Alien movies. But alongside her, the cast is fresh and exciting, particularly Jonsson, who plays Andy superbly (going from timid to something more sinister). Visually, the film neatly captures the worn-down look of the Alien films, thanks to production designer Naaman Marshall, while Benjamin Wallfisch’s throbbing score is propulsive. The best blockbuster this summer, Alien: Romulus is also the best Alien movie in nearly forty years.
From Queen Elizabeth I to Bob Dylan in his electric era to The Lord of the Rings’ ethereal Galadriel, two-time Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett can do no wrong. And so she proves again in Eli Roth’s Borderlands, a rambunctious adaptation of the popular videogame series from Gearbox Software.
It’s not often that the chameleon-like Australian star graces blockbusters, although she was glorious as a Russian villain in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Hela in Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok. Here, guns at the ready, she’s Lilith, the red-haired anti-heroine at the heart of this madcap sci-fi that owes a lot of its energy to another MCU title, Guardians of the Galaxy.
Set in a decaying futuristic far-away world, Lilith is a lone wolf bounty hunter who gets hired by Atlas (Édgar Ramírez), the head of a sophisticated weapons company, to find his daughter. Affectionately known as Tiny Tina (Barbie’s Ariana Greenblatt), this girl has been kidnapped by one of his own men, Roland (Kevin Hart).
After a little arm-twisting, Lilith jets off to the dilapidated Pandora, a planet she knows from her own murky past, where she soon locates her target. Trouble is, Tina doesn’t want to go home – what with her father desperate to use her to help locate something only known as The Vault.
With Lilith, Tina and Roland joining forces, they’re accompanied by a robot named Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black) and the musclebound Krieg (Creed II’s Florian Muneanu), as they progress through Pandora. Much in the way a gamer might pick their way through levels, there are keys to collect and puzzles to solve.
Director Roth (Hostel, Thanksgiving) and his team do a fine job of recreating Pandora in all its grimness, a planet that is over-populated by marauding psychos and creatures known as Threshers. There’s even an appearance by Jamie Lee Curtis as a scientist who lends a helping hand, as this ragtag group look to survive this hot toxic mess.
Along the way, there are some exhilarating action scenes – not least one race through Pandora’s rocky roads that puts a new definition on the phrase ‘monster truck’. Intriguingly, comic star Hart plays it straight as the hardcore action hero, something he pulls off with aplomb, while Greenblatt has a field day as the explosive, dynamite-chucking Tiny Tina. Best of all, Blanchett is on fire as Lilith – yet another killer role to add to her considerable collection.
In 2008 Fremont, teen Chris Wang (Izaac Wang) is living his summer before he starts high school in a liminal space; vacillating between friendship groups, loathing/loving his older sister, desperate/terrified to have his first kiss, rejecting his heritage but ultimately comforted by it. As he negotiates his world via MySpace, his flip phone and house parties, Chris tries on identities. He’s ‘Dìdi’ at home to his mother and grandma, ‘Wang Wang’ who ‘Wu-tangs’ his spliffs to his bros, a boy who likes chick-flicks to the object of his affection, ‘Asian Chris’ to a skate group he attempts to befriend as a videographer and all manner of hateful names to his screaming sis who’s about to leave home for college. All he really wants from his summer is for his mum to stop being ‘so Asian’ and his crush, Madi (Mahaela Park), to be his girl. But inopportune erections, friendship wipeouts and drunkenness are going to cause acute embarrassment and failure…
Developed by writer/director Sean Wang as part of the Sundance Institute film programme and winner of the audience award at this year’s festival, Dìdi is a semi-autobiographical confection loaded with equal parts nostalgia and cringe. Based on Wang’s own upbringing (his real-life grandmother plays Dìdi’s), it’s a study of teenage awkwardness through a lens of compassion that evokes comparisons with Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade. But it’s also a film that explores the immigrant experience in America via Chris’ interactions with his mom (played with beautiful subtly by Joan Chen). A woman bringing her children up alone with a judgey mother-in-law and broken dreams of her own, Mrs Wang reacts to everyday racism where Chris does not, eats her Big Mac with a knife and fork despite his admonishments and delivers a heartfelt, tender affirmation of him at his lowest point that recalls the tear-inducing speech from father to son in Call Me By Your Name. In this way, Wang’s film absolutely sings to those who will recognise the signifiers of Chris’ specific time and place (Livestrong wristbands, indigo braces, AOL, watching Superbad at pool parties) but will also chime with parents who have endured the cruelties of bratty teens in any era. Equally, the visceral feeling of self-consciousness and angst as an adolescent is one that is (painfully) universal.
Sweet and salty in equal measure, Wang’s expertly curated time-capsule serves as a poignant reminder to parents and children alike that everyone of every generation is simply trying their best to grow into their own approximation of a decent adult. And that that journey is a life-long one.
Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds have been playing social media frenemies since their characters met in 2009’s X-Men Origins so it was only ever a matter of time before the duo did their faux sniping and trash-talking on the big screen. Obviously, since X-Men, Deadpool and Wolverine have been through the wringer, both narratively and corporately – with the ‘Merc With The Mouth’ staging a rebirth driven by Reynolds and Wolverine popping his clogs in James Mangold’s elegant send-off Logan in 2017. Now, Deadpool’s shepherd, Reynolds, is going to assume audiences rocking up for a third instalment of R-rated humour and violence will be up to speed in Disney’s takeover of Fox, comic book lore and the personal lives of its stars – ‘I’m telling Blake’ he says of his real-life wife, and makes cracks about Jackman’s divorce. Like Deadpool himself, this mash-up is fast, loose and takes no prisoners.
So where do we find Wade Wilson this time around? In a pre-title sequence that sets the tone, Deadpool is digging up Wolverine’s grave, breaking the fourth wall and swearing up a storm when he only finds his adamantium skeleton. This soon leads to bloody hell and an explanation; in an exposition-heavy flashback (which Deadpool naturally acknowledges) we discover that the TVA (seen most prominently in the Loki TV series) are messing with timelines again, forcing Deadpool to try to set the universe right by hopping the multiverse and interacting with variants in each dimension. That means multiple versions of Wolverine (all grumpy and soused), Deadpool (Dogpool, Lady Deadpool and more) and alt-universe superheroes cameoed by famous faces. At the heart of the matter is the timeline junkyard, ‘the void’, presided over by Emma Corrin’s Cassandra Nova – a baddie with links to Charles Xavier, the ability to stick fingers into brains and a kick-ass wardrobe. Unwillingly, Wolverine must accompany Deadpool on a journey that takes in forgotten superheroes, self sacrifice, ironic needledrops, slo-mo team-ups and a lot of dick jokes to find peace.
Though the uninitiated might struggle to get every in-joke zinger and easter egg, Marvel fans will enjoy the ride, perhaps obeying Deadpool when he instructs them to use their ‘special sock’ for some of the frenetic action set pieces. No spoilers, but the cameos are genuinely thrilling callbacks, a fight in a minivan is a cracker (complete with a Greatest Showman hat-tip), Matthew Macfadyen is Tom Wambsgan-witheringly excellent as a TVA suit, the chemistry between Reynolds and Jackman genuinely heartwarming and the end credits BTS and EPK footage a true nostalgia hit. And though there’s numerous digs about Jackman coming out of Wolvie-retirement, the gravitas and soul he brings to proceedings is the true heart of the piece and warrants the grave robbing. (Of course, any tear in the eye is dissipated by Deadpool criticising an oiled up, topless Jackman for getting out his ‘greasy tits’.)
Juvenile, daft, irreverent and sentimental, Deadpool is a messy riot. As the boy themselves say; ‘Let’s f***ing go!’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
It’s every filmmaker and actor’s worst nightmare when a project looks like it might stall just before principal photography begins. For cinematographer Benoît Delhomme the exit of his director from period thriller Mothers’ Instinct four days before a tight 24-day shoot became an opportunity. When Olivier Masset-Depasse had to leave the film for personal reasons, producers and leads Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway asked Delhomme if he would be prepared to step up and make his directorial debut.
‘Four days before the shoot started – I was given it on a tray, like a beautiful gift, with two great actresses, a good script, and everything set up,’ Benoît tells Hollywood Authentic. ‘We had the location, the costumes, all the cast. I was already the DoP. Jessica and I had breakfast together because it was a crisis moment. Jessica said, ‘What about you also directing it?’ I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to do it.’’
Four days before the shoot started – I was given it on a tray, like a beautiful gift, with two great actresses, a good script, and everything set up
Adapted from Barbara Abel’s novel “Derrière la haine” into a French film, Duelles, directed by Masset-Depasse in 2018, the film caught the eye of manager and producer Paul Nelson who suggested a remake to Jessica Chastain. Masset-Depasse’s original film had won a record-breaking nine Magritte Awards and Chastain’s Freckle Films, invited him to helm an English language remake transposed to 60s New Jersey. Focusing on the relationship between two neighbours and friends, Alice (Chastain) and Celeste (Anne Hathaway), whose same-age sons play together, the movie charts the emotional fallout when one of the women’s sons dies in an accident. The friends become estranged as grief, suspicion and mental breaks force them apart. As both women unravel, their husbands (Josh Charles and Anders Danielsen Lie) don’t know who to believe as each is convinced the other is working against her.
A veteran DoP of 67 films, Benoît admits to feeling terror immediately after agreeing to take on the project. ‘The next hour I was scared. I said, ‘OK, I have enough experience. If I was the DoP arriving today on this movie, I could do it without any prep. So let’s pretend.’’ With the film hanging on the Parisian’s ability to swap hats, Benoît created a psychological system to pick his way through the task. ‘I had so many directors in my life. So many times, you arrive on set, and the director is like, ‘Benoît, help me’. I’ve been helping directors all my life, and I love to do that – I’m a creative partner. So I said to myself, ‘Let’s pretend the director is sick, and I have to replace him for one day. And maybe after 24 days I’ll have a film.’” With only days to prep before shooting Benoît tried watching the master of suspense for inspiration. “I did watch films like Marnie and Vertigo. But when you see a Hitchcock movie immediately it’s like, ‘I can’t make a film, I can’t be a director’. It’s too beautifully made. So I didn’t want to make it like a Hitchcock film. I thought Jessica and Annie could make the tension without trying to make the shots look like Hitchcock. I thought maybe my strength is how I can shoot actresses. I’m really good at connecting with them through the camera. On this film it’s more precious to capture what they do, rather than trying to be obsessed with the genre. You want to say, ‘Listen, I’m going to give you the frame.’’
Benoît had connected as a cinematographer with both leads on previous projects; On Salome and Lawless with Chastain and on One Day with Hathaway. And he knew that they could trust each other and work well together. ‘I think they have great instincts. I knew they’ve wanted to play together for a long time. I wanted to be like a small mouse on set, trying to film them. I observed them more than I directed. But I thought: when the camera is starting, I want to be the best cameraman, also, to capture them.’
With such a short shoot, the team had to work fast. So Benoît made a rule of only two takes before moving on. The discipline helped focus the actors’ choices. ‘It gave such pressure for everyone to be good. Not to experiment and try things. I had to go straight to the point. And I love this idea. I think maybe it’s great to have the time to shoot all of the possibilities, but you have to choose two.’ And when in doubt, the director thought about his previous mentors and how they might have handled the project. ‘I remember working with Anthony Minghella [on The Talented Mr Ripley and Play], and realised that every morning he was terrified to make the day. Many times, I would think about Anthony when I was making this film. Sadly, he’s not with us anymore, but I would have loved to call him and say, ‘Anthony, how can I make this film?’ I was calling him in my imagination. He would say, ‘Forget the story. Just see the two characters. See how these two women interact, and just be there.’’
Using the camera as a friend and not as a ‘dangerous stranger’, Benoît leaned on the fact that Chastain and Hathaway were close in real-life (‘even if the script is pushing them against each other, it’s not going to damage them,’) and active collaborators on the project. ‘When you make a film with two movie stars in 24 days – if they’re not producing, they can say, ‘What’s going on? Why don’t we have 48 days?’ But they knew where the money was going, they knew the rules, they wanted the film to exist. And I think when you make a thriller, it’s good to have rules, you keep your direction. We couldn’t drift. It’s super-controlled.’
During the swift shoot, Hollywood Authentic’s founder Greg Williams was on set in Cranford, New Jersey, to capture Anne and Jessica at work in the two mirroring period properties that played their characters’ homes. Each home was decorated by production designer Russell Barnes to reflect the early 60s but also each character’s personality.
The experience of directing under such circumstances was a learning one for Benoît. ‘When you have worked with 20 directors, you think you know it all. And you start to become a little bit pretentious because you’re a good technician, you know? And you start to judge directors, but then I was there in the director’s seat, thinking, ‘How can I judge anyone? It’s so difficult!’’ Making the movie may have been a trial by fire but it’s an experience Benoît is ultimately grateful for.
‘Listen, I always thought that one day I would do a movie. But I was successful as a DoP, directors liked me, I always had great projects. So I always postponed this idea. But with this we had to be like, ‘OK, it’s an emergency! Let’s get it!” And I think we all loved it. We had to rush. But I think this gave something to this movie. I feel I made it in a very special way.”
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER Mothers’ Instinct is in UK cinemas now
The latest retro refit of a beloved blockbuster taps into the wins of Top Gun: Maverick – not least in harnessing the star wattage of Hangman himself, Glen Powell, to fuel a sexy, entertaining big screen ride designed for the IMAX wow-factor, that you won’t regret spending cash on.
Capitalising on the verve he also displayed in Hit Man, Powell arrives on-screen as a fully formed movie star here – all cocky swagger, dazzling smile and palpable chemistry with Daisy Edgar-Jones – as a cowboy (literally and figuratively) storm chaser, Tyler, who pops fireworks into the eye of tornadoes for his YouTube channel. He’s as loud as his Western shirts and seems to have little care for the destruction and danger these weather events pose to the inhabitants living in their shadow in Oklahoma. He’s the nemesis of a sober scientific team led by Javi (Anthony Ramos) who has co-opted his former classmate, Kate (Edgar Jones) to help in locating twisters in order to study them. Kate’s in a spin of her own having survived a deadly T5 tornado five years earlier which killed her partner and friends in the process of trying out an experiment to stop the storm from raging – but she’s also preternaturally gifted at sensing where and when a twister will land.
As the two teams (hedonistic youtubers vs ethical scientists) try to outsmart each other to get tornado gold, a love triangle forms between Tyler, Javi and Kate, and a film that on the surface is about thrilling audiences with big stunt pieces and effects, begins to explore who the real victims are of cynical capitalism and lack of investment in economies and communities in the path of destruction. A neatly executed bait’n’switch shows the bad guys aren’t necessarily who we might think…
Minari director Lee Isaac Chung takes up Jan De Bont’s baton from 1996’s Twister (though no flying cows in this one), bringing a gentle authenticity to the Oklahoma people he sketches and a no-holds-barred approach to the action. Like Maverick, Twisters succeeds in landing the emotional journey and investment in character as well as the heart-quickening set pieces that are so furious it’s like spending time in a tumble dryer. Each action sequence ups the ante until a moment set in a cinema (Ha! Of course!) leaves both cast and audience hanging on by their fingertips – breath snatched by the physical and CG effects, but also caring for the outcomes of the characters. It’s a disarming and polished combination that seems to buck the algorithm and gives Twisters the edge on being just another big budget disaster blockbuster cashing in on legacy IP.
‘In this business,’ reads the opening quote by Bette Davis, ‘until you’re known as a monster, you’re not a star.’ In Ti West’s slasher trilogy closer (which began with X and continued with Pearl), that correlation between audience appetite for depravity and the ruthless ambition required for climbing the Hollywood ladder is explored via eighties video nasties and lurid headlines. Seeing the two previous films West has made with his star, Mia Goth, isn’t a requirement to get into the scuzzy, febrile vibe of this installment but there are delicious easter eggs and call backs for those who’ve made the multi-era journey.
For the uninitiated, X followed a 1979 porn shoot gone bloodily wrong when Pearl, the elderly owner of a Texas farm preys on the cast and crew including Maxine Minx (Goth). Pearl tracks the titular character in her youth (Goth), transmuting from WW1-era farm girl to killer. Now, we reunite with Maxine (Goth) trying to outrun her past in 1985 Hollywood where moral panic about movies and music is at a hysterical high, and serial killer the Night Stalker casts a violent pall over the city. Hoping to transition from adult to mainstream movies, Maxine auditions for a horror sequel directed by Elizabeth Debicki’s helmer just as a venal PI (Kevin Bacon) starts tailing her and her friends begin to be butchered…
The most gleeful and self-reflexive of the trilogy, Maxxxine is filthy-gorgeous and neon-drenched, loaded with Hollywood hat-tips to movie lore and iconic flicks. Theda Bara, the Hollywood sign, Chinatown, Psycho, Mann’s Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Universal’s backlot, the good cop/bad cop, psycho-biddy and the last girl tropes… all are woven into a winky, trashy celebration of the dream factory and the VHS era. The horror is squelchy, lurid, daft (balls are skewered, heads popped), the performances equally ripe.
Bacon is a hoot as a Jake Gittes-lite gumshoe with a Southern accent oozing molasses (who later oozes in a mischievously horrible way) while Debicki and Lily Collins lean into cliches of ballbusters and starlets. But the film belongs to Goth, strutting through every scene with a killer wardrobe and attitude for days. A woman with ‘monstrous’ ambition who talks about fame in terms of simply working hard, Maxine is a trope and a timeless truism. Those background billboards asking for the ‘X Factor’ and the nods to tinseltown cults, audience prurience and the career-making power of scandal are as relevant today as they were in ‘85. It’s a film like the one Dibicki’s director is making: A B-movie with A ideas.
Jeff Nichols taps a certain type of Americana with his tactile, evocative films, and his adaptation of Danny Lyon’s seminal photo-essay book, The Bikeriders, is an artistic collaboration that quickens the pulse as much as the guttural rev of a classic Harley Davidson. Lyon tracked a group of bikers in 60s Chicago and readers could practically smell the engine oil and hair grease in his black-and-white photos of meets and the outlier community formed around them. Nichols has taken that aesthetic and run with it, crafting a screenplay that explores identity, social tribes, loyalty, lust and the thrill of the open road in a love triangle formed between three stars operating at full wattage.
Seen through the eyes of Kathy (Jodie Comer) as she looks back on her romance with maverick Benny (Austin Butler), this patchwork of moments straddle a decade as biker gang, the Vandals, grow from a grassroots outfit to a State-wide, and increasingly violent, operation. As Kathy tells it – in a brawny Chicago idiolect Comer has expertly lifted directly from Lyon’s own interviews with the real woman – she must share Benny with the road and gang leader, Johnny (Tom Hardy, doing some of his best work). The process of trying to tie him down parallels the difficulty of halting the brutal evolution of the vandals: Benny is a man who is all feral instinct and doesn’t want to be anything to anyone, the gang cannot remain as ‘riding club’ as Johnny first conceived it without a tough new kingpin. As Kathy tries to pin Benny down to domesticity, Johnny tries to woo him to leadership…
Adam Stone’s cinematography echoes Lyon’s cool pictures as a stellar cast breathe intricate life into snapshots of characters in the gang. Michael Shannon is alpha hurt as Zipco, a man who hates ‘pinko college kids’ but smarts from being rejected by the army. Boyd Holbrook exudes zen (and the art of motorcycle maintenance) as Cal, the gang’s mechanic. Norman Reedus does bad teeth and hippy impishness as Funny Sonny, a California big-hair. Building on his menace in Babyteeth and The Royal Hotel, Toby Wallace brings chaos energy; and Mike Faist, Emery Cohen and Damon Herriman make impressions despite practical cameos.
But the film belongs to a trifecta of charisma. Hardy, a reluctant hardman with a soft core and a gut-punch of a narrative arc. Butler, giving a bad boy heartthrob emotional depth while understanding his role as an archetype. Comer, flexing her considerable skills and more than matching her on-screen partners. When the trio interact the atmosphere crackles and glows like the embers of the numerous cigarettes they smoke. A meet-cute between Kathy and Benny and a conversation between Benny and Johnny are matched in their erotic charge, and the space between their silences speak volumes. And when they’re riding gleaming chrome bikes into the vanishing point of midwest roads as vintage needle-drops play…
It’s the sort of character-led cinema Hollywood would have you believe is as consigned to the past as a ‘65 panhead Harley. That textured, gritty storytelling that immerses audiences in a specific world without spoon feeding. And a showcase for artists onscreen and off (that cinematography, Erin Benach’s precise costumes, Chad Keith’s period perfect production design) who will surely be shortlisted come awards season.
Be warned, it will make you want to buy a bike…
The Bikeriders directed by Jeff Nichols staring Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer is in cinemas now
DISPATCH: VICKY KRIEPS THE DEAD DON’T HURT Words by JANE CROWTHER Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Luxemburg actor Vicky Krieps is feeling buoyed after her jury time at Cannes Film Festival, in the Certain Regard section, where she saw a wide range of cinematic genres and voices. ‘Movies are probably one of the oldest international languages of exchange,’ she tells Hollywood Authentic. ‘A movie can be the voice for a country, a voice for a generation. A movie can be a voice for victims or marginalised people. And that was represented in the movies that I saw in my section. It gave me hope, and it was inspiring. With all the money and restrictions in the world, what can never be erased is the power of cinema, you know? The power and freedom of expression. And people somewhere in the world getting together, even if they don’t have money, and creating something that can cross every border.’
Krieps’ own output certainly falls into that category, having impressed critics and audiences alike in Phantom Thread, Bergman Island and Corsage – all of which debuted at Cannes Film Festival in the Palais where Greg Williams shot her before a screening of The Most Precious Of Cargoes. Her latest film, The Dead Don’t Hurt is slow-burn cinema that asks audiences to go on a journey, to live with characters through their highs and lows, to relate to the hardscrabble human pursuit of happiness and the act of forgiveness. Written, directed and led by Viggo Mortensen, it tracks a couple making their way together on the 1860s American frontier with Krieps playing Vivianne, an independent woman who decides to make her life with Danish immigrant, Holgar (Mortensen).
When casting the role Mortensen could only think of Krieps, likening her to an acting icon who received the honorary Palme D’or at the recent Cannes festival. ‘She reminded me of Meryl Streep the first time I saw her,’ he told the Academy in a recent interview. ‘She has a quality and ability to communicate so much, even in silence. It’s almost like her thoughts and feelings come through her skin. It’s remarkable what she can do. It’s a gift.’
Mortensen gave Krieps the space to fully inhabit and communicate a character in Vivienne as she meets Holgar in San Francisco and sets up a home with him in Elk Flats, Nevada, where he becomes sheriff. Vivianne tames the arid land in Elk Flats, but not necessarily the townsfolk, and a violent act changes her and Holgar’s destiny forever. A non-linear storyline sees Vivienne throughout key moments in her life – from childhood to death bed – and explores the particular emotional, moral and maternal strength of women living in an unforgiving environment. A non-traditional oater then, but not one that Krieps would call a ‘Feminist western’.
‘No, it’s not like that,’ Krieps says. ‘Viggo just made a very honest movie, it’s a humane film. It’s a tale about love and about humans, and he tried to make it his own way. And it’s a very personal film for him. It’s cinema that is not trying to impress. It’s not trying to shock. It’s not there to be a new invention of something new. This is the kind of cinema I do, and it’s the kind of cinema that I really live for. It’s not trying to say, ‘oh, we are feminists because that’s in fashion.’
Speaking of fashion, Krieps has endured corsets before – especially on the critically-acclaimed Corsage, playing Empress Elisabeth of Austria. And she was determined not to restrict herself again on this film, which lensed in Durango, Mexico in searing heat and required horseriding and the portrayal of manual work. ‘I immediately got rid of the corset!’ she laughs when recalling her meeting with the film’s costume designer. ‘I swore after Corsage I would not wear a corset again, just knowing what it does to you psychologically and physically. I wanted Vivienne to have a very normal movement – when you wear a corset, you can’t even run the way you would run. I think the historical shape is not important. What is important is that we make it look like it’s real, so that someone from today can relate to it, and is emotionally struck. On the weekend, we would take the horses, and ride up the canyon. I would be in a pair of trousers, and I could gallop, and I was free!’
Understanding the demands of location work on an independent period drama Mortensen told the cast and crew at the beginning of filming that he hoped ‘you will have a good time, but that the experience won’t punish you too much’. Did Krieps feel she had a good time or a punishing one? ‘It was a bit of both. The nature was pretty tough because we had a low budget, and that means that you’re always outside, standing most of the time either in the heat or in the cold. And all the time in the dust. So that was quite surprisingly hard, I have to say.’ The physical duress was not as challenging as the emotional though – with Vivienne experiencing the worst kind of brutality at the hands of men. ‘For me what was hard, to be honest, was the story – to open myself to this pain. I remember I went really deep. I’m just this way. I cannot just act, and then shake it off. It stayed with me for a few days. The role wasn’t a happy role, I have to say. But it was so wonderful to be in that landscape.’
The resulting film is one that Krieps feels encouraged by – that it exists in a world increasingly dominated by attention deficient streaming and algorithms. ‘We live in a time where sometimes I find it hard to keep up my hope for cinema because everything is switching to these huge platforms. They have so much money, and they have all the power in the world. So it becomes very, very difficult for independent movies to even exist.’
Krieps’ next two projects are part of that drive to make independent and challenging cinema – she’s just finished shooting Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother and an AI-scripted film based on Werner Herzog’s work, About A Hero. ‘I’m as curious as I could be about what [About A Hero] is going to be. And Father Mother Sister Brother was such fun to make. My group, my family part, was me, Cate Blanchett, and Charlotte Rampling. And it was just amazing to exchange, with these women, so much wisdom, so much experience, so much beauty and intelligence and sensitivity. It was a gift to work with these two women and with Jim, with his sensitivity. So I think it’s going to be a great film.’
The Dead Don’t Hurtis out in cinemas now About A Hero and Father Mother Brother Sister will be released TBC
Photographs, interview and video by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
When I arrive at Adria Arjona’s Hollywood Hills home, she’s prepping for her goddaughter’s birthday party in her pyjamas. She landed in Los Angeles the night before, and decided to undertake some DIY on her first owned home. ‘Get ready for my outfits, Greg,’ she laughs as she offers me some birthday party chocolate-covered strawberries. ‘There’s no Versace, no Armani, no Saint Laurent. It’s Carhartt and dirty T-shirts!’
The Spanish-style house isn’t just a place to rest her head, it’s a physical representation of the actor’s success – an ambition fulfilled. ‘I think that you get to define what the Hollywood dream is for yourself, and I believe in mine. I am very much living my dream – just being able to do what I love, to tell stories for a living, to be an artist, and to get paid for it.’
Arjona has lived at her house for six years and revamped the property from a place she describes as initially looking ‘like a weird porn video was filmed in the 80s here’. Her roof recently leaked and rather than get contractors out, she climbed up to her eaves herself to fix it. Today, she needs to patch up another rogue spot and has invited me along to help with the home improvements. It’s a change from our usual set-up; ‘I love that every time that you’ve shot me, it’s always been really glamorous and elegant… I’m always in a really nice dress and a full face of makeup when I see you. But there is a different side of me that I don’t think a lot of people know, which is: I’m a little more of a tomboy, and I am a fixer. It’s really empowering to know that I can fix something, and I don’t need anybody else to come and do it. I find beauty in things that are kind of broken. I think that kind of relates to my job as well. I find broken characters really beautiful, but I don’t try to fix them.’
Had I not been an actor, maybe I would have been a contractor. I just like the idea of having an empty canvas – an idea in your head – and then gathering a group of people and bringing a vision to life
In her latest role as Madison, an abused wife who hires Glen Powell’s contract killer to off her hubby in Richard Linklater’s comedy, Hit Man, Arjona certainly plays a character struggling to repair herself. It doesn’t help that Powell’s character is a police informant and not a murderer – or that sparks fly between the duo. ‘The movie is really sexy, and Madison is really comfortable with her own sexuality, and kind of uses it to her own advantage,’ Arjona nods. ‘Had I not been an actor, maybe I would have been a contractor. I just like the idea of having an empty canvas – an idea in your head – and then gathering a group of people and bringing a vision to life. It’s very similar to filmmaking, in a way.’
Rocking chunky boots that her character wears in Star Wars series Andor and a look she terms ‘contractor chic’, Arjona climbs on a cooler box, onto her barbeque, along a precarious wall and jumps onto the roof, inviting me to follow. We make our way across the sloping expanse to the leaking tiles – it reminds me of the rooftop scene in Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood. Arjona is already checking tiles to see if they’re watertight, the city sprawling below us and the hills rising behind.
Having trained at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York, Arjona started her acting career on the East Coast, juggling waitressing and working kids’ birthday parties (‘I got fired when they realised that I wasn’t really that good at face painting!’) in between auditions. The discipline of the Strasberg school is something she feels helped build resilience. ‘It almost felt like therapy, in a way. I went there to discover a lot about myself, and heal a lot about myself, and learn about the craft.’
Her big break came with a role on season two of True Detective, which meant a move to LA in 2015. ‘I first moved here to an apartment in West Hollywood, and I always saw the hills as this big dream of mine. I was like, “One day I will live there.” The fact that I’m already living here and I’m 31, it’s kind of epic for me. I don’t take it lightly, and I don’t take it for granted. That’s why I take care of it.’
Self-taught via YouTube tutorials, Arjona has tiled her own bathroom and incorporated friends’ work in the detail (a friend’s ceramicist boyfriend contributed features), plastered her living room walls and fixed her air-conditioning unit. ‘I’m getting my hands a little bit dirtier than in filmmaking. It’s making things – when I was little, I loved arts and crafting. I think as I’ve gotten older, and as I own my own house, I come home from four months of being away and I see it completely different. I’m like, “Ooh, now I want to do this with it.”’
The daughter of musician Ricardo Arjona and Leslie, a beauty queen, Adria was born in Puerto Rico and brought up in Mexico City until she was 12 – a place she considers a big part of her heritage (‘You can hear it when I speak Spanish, right? There’s a twang. I have a little bit of a Mexican accent’). They moved to Miami when the family felt unsafe due to her father’s growing fame, but Arjona ‘ran away from that city quick’, north to New York. ‘I was 17 when I moved to New York. I got a modelling job, I think it was a cleaning commercial, that never came out. But it paid me so good, and it really allowed me to move to New York, and kind of run away, and not really ask for permission.’
She has just completed work on Andor season two, returning as intergalactic mechanic Bix Caleen, and on Los Frikis, the true story of Cuban teens infecting themselves with HIV to live in a government treatment facility. ‘It’s probably one of the most special films I’ve ever, and probably will ever, be a part of,’ she says as she kneels over the leaking roof and begins sealing the tiles with a sticky, black sealant. Working with six young non-professional Cuban actors in the Dominican Republic, the actor saw the world differently having viewed it through their eyes. ‘You know, they had never seen a full chicken before. They had never chewed gum before. We went to a supermarket, and one of them walked out and just started crying. I asked him what was wrong. And he said, “Now I can’t unsee it.” He had never seen a full supermarket. We were in the chocolate aisle, and he goes, “Why are there so many chocolates?” It was really humbling to see life, and live, through them.’
With the roof sorted, we climb back down to the ground to head off to Home Depot for supplies in the actor’s no-nonsense Toyota pickup. Rather than a sports car or vintage runaround, this is Arjona’s ‘dream car’ and she also has the truck bed camper so she can camp out in the back. ‘I got it this year, and it gives you so much power on the road. A pickup is so cool. I learned how to drive in Mexico City. I feel like if you can drive in Mexico City, you can drive just about anywhere in the world.’
As she pilots the pickup down the ribboning canyon road to the city grid where the Hollywood sign comes into view, she recalls how she landed the role of Madison in Hit Man – a potentially game-changing gig given the rave reviews for the film out of the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered last year. Writer-director Richard Linklaker was sold on her as his femme fatale with a twist, but skipped a traditional chemistry read with his star and co-writer, Glen Powell. Instead he simply sent his potential co-stars out for a drink.
‘We went to a restaurant, and it was supposed to just be an hour meeting. We talked about the character and the story for maybe 10 minutes out of the five hours we were there,’ she laughs. ‘We weren’t the most responsible. We just got to know each other. We were both doing Dry January, and that also lasted 10 minutes! We both looked at each other, and I was like, “I kind of like you.” He was like, “I kind of like you, too. Do you want a shot?” We just started drinking mezcal… I just felt so comfortable and so safe. We talked about our lives. We talked about relationships… We sent a picture to Rick of us together after five hours, quite tipsy, and we were like, “We just left the meeting.” I think after that, we just knew that he was going to be in my life forever, and that I was going to be in his forever. Whether he wants it or not, I think Glen’s kind of stuck with me now!’
We stop off for construction supplies, Arjona zooming down the aisles of Home Depot, filling her trolley and squealing with excitement as we pass the power drills. We head to a friend’s nearby art gallery where the walls are in need of some love. ‘It’s this beautiful technique – to put it on the walls,’ Arjona enthuses about plastering, unloading her equipment from her truck’s cargo bed. ‘It’s kind of alive, it gives a zen vibe, and it’s minimalist and beautiful. But it’s pretty hard to do… The reason I go there is because I can fuck up her walls, and not mine!’
As the daughter of a beauty queen, this sort of downtime activity wasn’t necessarily Arjona’s family’s dream for her. ‘I think my whole family, grandmother included, really wanted me to be Miss Puerto Rico one day, and they had this big dream of me going to Miss Universe. I’m quite shy in front of the camera, I have to hide behind something – whether it’s an outfit; whether it’s a hair and makeup look; whether it’s a character. I need to feel like I’m hiding behind something. It’s a little too vulnerable to just be pretty, or just to be myself, I think. I get too self-conscious. I enjoy the fact that I’m saying words that aren’t mine, and wearing an outfit that doesn’t belong to me, and walking in someone else’s shoes. Red carpets, for me, are probably the scariest thing in the world.’
She gets stuck into mixing the plaster in a bucket, her hands covered, her boots splattered. ‘As a kid, my parents thought I was deaf. They took me to all of these doctors to find out if I had an actual hearing problem. And what they found out was that I was just so in my head, and I would create all these worlds in my head. I just really lived in my imagination. I wasn’t deaf; I was just ignoring the shit out of everybody!’
But that rich interior life led to an aptitude for acting. ‘There weren’t that many opportunities for Latin American actresses, even when I started. I see this younger generation, and I see more new faces, more Latin talent. I think we have a lot of work to do, but it’s really exciting that this new generation won’t have it as hard as my generation did. I didn’t have many people to look up to, to say, “I want that career.” It was definitely a hard start, because I saw myself as something, and no one else seemed to have the same vision that I did. They just saw me as this tough, Latin woman who was destined to be a cop, or the tough roles, in movies. And I wasn’t really interested in that. I wanted to play complex women, and there kind of was no space for that when I first started. I had to veer off to other things, and play in different genres in order for me to get those roles like in Good Omens. Or The Belko Experiment. Or Irma Vep. I think genre kind of saved my career, and saved me as an actress. It allowed me to have fun, and be weird, and to play different characters.’
Now she dreams of playing real-life character Lolita Lebrón, a Puerto Rican nationalist who was jailed in 1954 for attacking the US Capitol, and Arjona is in the process of developing her story for the screen. ‘She did a lot for our island, and fought for our people. She’s someone who I admire a lot, and I would love to play her.’
With the wall plastered, we head back home to the birthday party and a house full of relatives. Arjona’s mother is delighted to see her daughter after she’s spent time away working, describing her as ‘the most selfless, loving, kind, hard-working, tenacious, smart, bright, amazing human being I know.’ She kisses her and adds, ‘made in Puerto Rico!’
‘And this is what we call the Puerto Rican flag!’ laughs Arjona, slapping her backside. Both women repeat the movement in sync and giggle. ‘The Puerto Rican flag!’
Photographs, interview and video by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER Adria Arjona stars in the Netflix movie Hit Man, out 7 June
