November 24, 2023

paolo sorrentino, the hand of god, gary oldman, celeste dalla porta

Paolo Sorrentino, director of an as yet untitled love letter to his native city, heads back to Naples.

I have photographed Paolo Sorrentino a number of times over the past five years, getting to know him better as his awards campaign for The Hand of God ramped up from Venice through to the Oscars. But I truly connected with him when he was kind enough to request me to do the print element of a Dolce & Gabbana fragrance campaign he was directing, starring Katy Perry, in Capri last summer.

So when I got a call this August from Paolo saying, ‘I’m shooting this feature film, would you like to come and visit the set in Capri?’, I jumped at the opportunity. I said I’d volunteer my services if they’d put me up in my favourite hotel!

I journeyed from the Venice Film Festival to Capri, accompanied by Paolo’s wife Daniela D’Antonio, the most lovely, warm person. I had very little information about the project, apart from what I had read in Paolo’s director’s statement where he talked in typically poetic terms of a film about ‘youth’s lightheartedness and its demise, classical beauty and its inexorable permutations, pointless and impossible loves, stale flirtations and dizzying passion, night-time kisses on Capri, flashes of joy and persistent suffering… endings, and new beginnings.’

paolo sorrentino, the hand of god, gary oldman, celeste dalla porta
Celeste Dalla Porta and Gary Oldman

[Paolo] talked in typically poetic terms of… ‘youth’s lightheartedness and its demise, classical beauty and its inexorable permutations, pointless and impossible loves, stale flirtations and dizzying passion, night-time kisses on Capri, flashes of joy and persistent suffering… endings, and new beginnings’

The gateway to what would turn out to be Paolo’s world was Naples itself, his hometown and the location for much of the film. Naples is also where Daniela was brought up – she explained that she came from ‘the very rough side’, and the city is a paradox, both dangerous in some parts and incredibly cultured in others. Driving from the airport, Naples feels exciting and absolutely authentically itself. It’s not like anywhere else in Italy; an entirely unique place; its own country nearly. And it explains a lot about Paolo’s vision, which is deeply suffused in romance and myth. In fact, in his director’s statement Paolo says the film’s action is ‘accompanied… by Naples, who charms and enchants…and who knows just how to hurt you.’

So we boarded a boat to Capri. In its centre you have to walk everywhere, so the journey to the set from the hotel was a leisurely 25-minute stroll. And unlike most film sets, it was incredibly relaxed. In part, this is because as the roads are four feet wide there isn’t the usual circus of trucks parked at the location. Everything was carried in.

paolo sorrentino, the hand of god, gary oldman, celeste dalla porta
Daniele Rienzo, Celeste Dalla Porta and Dario Aita

The place was just so calm. I don’t mean to suggest that people were not working hard, more that you got the feeling that everybody involved was doing what they were born to do. Paolo was incredibly warm, greeting me as a friend and saying, ‘Do whatever you want, just don’t walk in front of
my camera.’

Another treat was to see my friends Gary Oldman and his wife Gisele Schmidt. Their interest in photography has brought us close in recent years, so I couldn’t have felt more at home. 

paolo sorrentino, the hand of god, gary oldman, celeste dalla porta
Gary Oldman

The first day we were shooting in a beautiful house absolutely steeped in history. Apparently Fitzgerald finished The Great Gatsby there and it has been a place where many renowned artists lived and worked. I found myself sat on the terrace looking over at the famous Faraglioni rocks – one of which has the distinctive hole in it – sipping gin and tonics and hearing about the history of the house from its graceful owners and feeling like a house guest.

Then over the following days we moved on to doing night shoots, and during the day we’d rent a boat and go riding round the island. At one time I took Celeste Dalla Porta, who plays the lead, and shot her underwater.

paolo sorrentino, the hand of god, gary oldman, celeste dalla porta
Celeste Dalla Porta

When I think of my time on the set there is one image that I always return to. It was at the beginning of the first night shoot, and there is Paolo, deep in thought, everyone giving him space. He’s walking around, blocking the scene in his mind, a glass of red wine in one hand and a cigar in the other. We are about to start work and have just enjoyed the set catering, which here in Capri is a 15-minute walk down the mountain to a great three-course dinner at a waterside restaurant with unforgettable views.

This is not how things are usually done in cinema nowadays. It was a flashback to another era of filmmaking and to me felt deeply romantic, timeless and nostalgic.


Photographs and words by Greg Williams
The feature is a Fremantle film produced by Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle company; Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent; Paolo Sorrentino for Numero 10 and Ardavan Safaee for Pathé. Starring, in alphabetical order, Celeste Dalla Porta, Silvia Degrandi, Isabella Ferrari, Lorenzo Gleijeses, Biagio Izzo, Peppe Lanzetta, Nello Mascia, Gary Oldman, Silvio Orlando, Luisa Ranieri, Stefania Sandrelli and Alfonso Santagata. Starring, in alphabetical order, Celeste Dalla Porta, Silvia Degrandi, Isabella Ferrari, Lorenzo Gleijeses, Biagio Izzo, Peppe Lanzetta, Nello Mascia, Gary Oldman, Silvio Orlando, Luisa Ranieri, Stefania Sandrelli and Alfonso Santagata.

hollywood authentic, greg williams, hollywood authentic magazine

April 9, 2022

fantastic beasts, eddie redmayne, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which is set decades prior to the Harry Potter series, feels strangely prescient: Newt Scamander must help Professor Albus Dumbledore and a band of outsiders to stop the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald from seizing control of the wizarding world. As Dumbledore says to Newt, ‘The world as we know it is coming undone. Grindelwald is pulling it apart with hate.’

fantastic beasts, jude law, harry potter, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, jude law, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

But let’s rewind. Last October, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first of eight Potter films, was re-released after 20 years. In that film Richard Harris played Albus Dumbledore (after two outings as the wizard, he was replaced following his death by Michael Gambon), and today the role of inhabiting the character’s back story in the Fantastic Beasts films belongs to a bearded Jude Law. In the new film, Law is reunited with Eddie Redmayne as “magizoologist” Newt Scamander, an experience that he says ‘is like spending time with an old friend… He’s both great fun and very entertaining to be with, interested and interesting. And he’s also someone that takes it to another level when it comes to prep.’ Director David Yates, who directed four of the Potter films and all three Fantastic Beasts movies, agrees: ‘Eddie works harder than any actor I know. He is an absolute workaholic and a perfectionist. I think the thing I love about him most is he’s transformative.’

fantastic beasts, jude law, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

The first Potter book was published in 1997, with a print run of just 500, after author JK Rowling was famously rejected by 12 publishers. Warner Bros bought the rights for a reported $1 million, and the first Potter film was shot at Leavesden in Hertfordshire, in a former aircraft engine factory that had previously provided the setting for GoldenEye and The Dark Knight.

fantastic beasts,mads mikkelsen, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, ezra miller, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Warner Bros Studios at Leavesden quickly became the exclusive home to the franchise and then, in 2016, to its extension, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. One of the Potter series’ biggest achievements is the way in which it helped to cement the UK’s status in the special effects industry. On the first Potter film, complicated visual effects were done on the west coast of America, but by the second, they were assigned to the UK. As Tanya Seghatchian, who executive produced several Potter films, has pointed out, ‘Now we’re recognised as the leading provider for visual effects in the world. Every facility is fully booked and that wasn’t the case before Harry Potter.’

fantastic beasts, ezra miller, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

In 2009, when I was invited on the set of the sixth Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, it was eight years since the release of the first movie in the franchise, and Leavesden studios had already morphed from what had been essentially some sheds without sound stages into something altogether slicker. I was struck by the scale of the vast metal hanger at its core, but also by its capacity for intimacy. Cast and crew had pushbikes to pedal from one location to the next, Hogwarts’ Great Hall was built to scale and the Weasleys’ small, cold and dark living room had a strong smell of washing powder which was at odds with its dankness. Daniel Radcliffe, an engaging Harry Potter on screen and a thoughtful young man off it, explained how he learned to dive for an underwater scene in The Goblet of Fire in Europe’s largest film-making tank, which was set up in a corner of the studio. 

Fast forward to the pandemic and it is Eddie Redmayne whose swimming skills are called into action. Because of Covid-19 restrictions, a sequence in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore in which Newt enters summer waters had to be shifted to night shoots in Leavesden in December. Not the warmest of prospects, but achievable at the Warner Bros Hertfordshire studios, which in the decade since my visit have grown even further into an astonishing state-of-the-art operation.

fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Director David Yates told me that he likes ‘the infrastructure of making a blockbuster; it’s like having a big train set’. A huge train set: Christian Mänz, the Oscar-nominated VFX supervisor on Harry Potter and then Fantastic Beasts, has a team of 1,500 people working on the creation of visual effects. He also collaborates closely with Stuart Craig, production designer on all eight Potter films, and whose job it is to bring the wizarding world to life. Craig has described asking JK Rowling about the geography of Hogwarts: ‘She immediately took out a pen and paper, and made the most extraordinarily complete map on a sheet of A4. I was still referring to that map on the eighth film.’ 

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was written by Rowling and Steve Kloves, who wrote all the Potter screenplays. If production designer Craig creates the universe, then VFX supervisor Mänz augments that reality. The Fantastic Beasts films are set in the historical past, with this latest taking place in the ’30s, in the build-up to World War II, and featuring global locations that have been specially created at Leavesden. For example, to prepare a scene set in Paris, 90 digitally-scanned locations helped recreate a version of the French capital so that the team could work out what could be physically built and what then had to be digitally recreated. 

fantastic beasts,mads mikkelsen, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Grindelwald, explains the benefit of such technical expertise: ‘We didn’t have to pretend. It’s a minimum of green screen work; everything is there.’ Law, too, is enthusiastic: ‘It’s a total dream for actors because you just step on [set] and you don’t have to do an awful lot of imagining. It’s all there with trams and cars and shop fronts or vistas and views, whatever. And we jumped through various cities around the world at various times. Being on something this scale is very rewarding.’

fantastic beasts,eddie redmayne, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,eddie redmayne, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,eddie redmayne, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,callum turner, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, ezra miller, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, ezra miller, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, jude law, harry potter, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,mads mikkelsen, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Amy Raphael is a journalist, critic and novelist. She has written for The Face, NME and British Esquire; her books include the biographies of Mike Leigh and Danny Boyle