Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
The lead of Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme tells Hollywood Authentic how Cannes was the secret ingredient in their latest collaboration.
Though he’s been to Cannes many times to premiere many films before, Benicio del Toro admits to still getting nerves when he climbs the famous red Palais stairs to sit in the dark with an inaugural audience. ‘It’s the best,’ he says of the festival and the experience. ‘Always fun but always nerve-wracking. You bite your nails, you feel good, you feel bad, you feel good, you feel bad, you feel good, you know? But then you try to leave on a good note.’
He left the cinema on a good note this year; his headlining performance as tycoon Zsa-Zsa Korda trying to get his business deal off the ground via international funding in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme was warmly received by critics. The premiere was a full circle moment for this project – the actor was last in Cannes with Anderson in 2021 with anthology The French Dispatch where he appeared in one of five stories, and it was during that festival that the auteur first told him about his plans for this film. ‘He was saying he was doing his next movie, and he wanted me to be a part of it. When he sent The French Dispatch to me he sent me just the pages of my part, so when he sent the first 20 pages of The Phoenician Scheme, I thought it was going to be something similar, because he’s been doing these films where there’s a lot of characters moving around, and with several stories. But then he sent the next 20 pages, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m still in it’… When he sent the next 20 pages, the fear started to take over. And then it was like, ‘Wow, this is heavy’. But, at the same time, his writing is so three-dimensional and so thorough. Aside from original, unpredictable, and funny, there’s also this heart to it that is super-exciting and one hell of a challenge for any actor. I just took the challenge and went for it. It’s really an honour. A gift.’
The heaviness that del Toro refers to is the fact that he appears in practically every scene, juggling the machinations of a complex business deal with an emotional arc that see the tycoon reunited with his nun daughter, Leisl, played by Mia Threapleton. ‘Then there’s also, you could say, the reconstruction of Zsa-zsa. But through the relationship with the daughter, is what will help him become a better person.’ The most challenging aspect of balancing a business arc with one of redemption and parental love was hard to pick for del Toro. ‘I had to know where he’s going to be. At the end, he will lose everything. I had to make a choice. How could this man have been working for decades, and has all this fortune – why would he throw it away? He has this ‘win at all costs’ mentality – and that remains the same until the end.’
As a veteran of Anderson’s films, del Toro surely had advice for newcomers to the stable, Threapleton and Michael Cera, who plays Norwegian tutor, Bjorn? ‘No advice,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Mia was probably the youngest of the group, but most of the time she behaved like a veteran. She is strong as an actress, prepared. But there were moments that we were getting tired. I was like, ‘Let’s just have fun. Don’t forget that this thing that we do – it’s at its best when we’re having fun, you know?’’Anderson’s intricate sets, huge casts and practical effects look like a great deal of fun, so Hollywood Authentic wonders if del Toro and his director were cooking up another treat during this festival that they might serve up in the Croisette in another three years time? ‘I would love to work with Wes again,’ del Toro smiles. ‘We’re not talking about something in the near future, but he knows that my door is open for anything he needs. And I like the pressure…”
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
When Hollywood Authentic meets up with Adria Arjona and her Splitsville castmate (and co-producer) Dakota Johnson in a suite at the Majestic Hotel on the Cannes Criosette it doesn’t take long for talk to turn frank. ‘In your penis scene, you saw balls?’ Arjona asks. “Not in your penis scene. In my penis scene,’ Johnson replies. It has to be said, Splitsville has a number of penis scenes to choose from in a comedy that charts the emotional fallout of two couples – Arjona’s Ashley and her spouse Carey (Kyle Marvin) and Johnson’s Julie are her other half Paul (writer/director Michael Angelo Covino) – as they break-up and try to negotiate open relationships. That’s explored by male nudity, destructively funny house fights, goldfish on rollercoaster disasters and an opening scene that sees Arjona singing The Fray during a car ride that starts with a handjob and ends with death and divorce.
‘What it’s about is something that has always really intrigued me,’ Arjona says of the lure to both acting and exec-producing on the project from the team behind TIFF hit The Climb. ‘This is fun – a movie about messy relationships. And I’ve never played a character like Ashley. I was like, ‘Oh, I get to be bonkers for a little bit’. Johnson nods; ‘It’s very authentic,’ she laughs.
Johnson’s company TeaTime Pictures part-financed the film and she is used to producing, but for Arjona this was an opportunity to refine her behind-the-camera experience further and give herself more agency within the industry. ‘I’ve produced the last couple of things that I’ve been in. [Last year’s AIDs drama] Los Frikis was the first that asked me to do that. And I learned so much. You have a seat at the table. You have a little bit more ownership over your character. And then you’re so much more invested, I feel, as an actor. It’s not that I’m not invested in movies that I don’t produce. But when you do produce them, you get the best schooling in the world. You get to be a part of the edit, and you get to really understand how movies are made. As an actor we do our job, and then we leave. And a whole other movie is formed without us being present. So really getting to understand how filmmakers’ brains work, has been a really big gift. I think I’ve become a better actor by producing, because you’re just understanding planning, the schedule, the budget and the editing. You see the world completely differently. I’m acting but I’m also thinking ‘we’re losing time. We’re losing light…’’
It sounds like Arjona, who has recently worked with Zoë Kravitz on her directorial debut, Blink Twice, might be working towards helming a picture herself? A huge smile breaks out across her face. ‘I would love to direct. It’s probably one of my biggest dreams. But I’m terrified. I’ve got a lot more filmmakers to work with before I decide to make my own movie, and I also haven’t found the story yet.’
For now she has a full slate to continue learning from in preparation. She’s got Adam Wingard’s horror-actioner Onslaught upcoming in which she plays a mother fighting to protect her family opposite Dan Stevens and Rebecca Hall. She also produced. ‘That one is a wild one. It’s crazy. It’s Adam going back to what he’s great at, what he proved to the world he could do with The Guest. So I played in the service of Adam’s vision. It’s the most extreme thing I think I’ve done. And it was a great experience.’ She’s also just completed filming on Amazon Prime’s buzzy new show, generational mob drama Criminal, acting alongside Charlie Hunnam, Richard Jenkins and Emilia Clarke. ‘Charlie is insane. He’s so cool and so sweet. It’s broken down into two sections. I’m four episodes, Emilia comes in the other four. It was a cool experience.’
Cannes, she says, is also a cool experience – and a switch-up from when she visited three years ago with Olivier Assayas’s TV show, Irma Vep. Then she was a relative unknown, now she’s the star and producer of the film she’s presenting to the festival, having made waves since in Hit Man and Andor. ‘It’s a very different experience. Irma Vep was a big ensemble cast and it’s very much Alicia [Vikander’s] show. So coming now, with this, and being with these guys, was pretty special. In a way, it kind of felt like my first time.’She’s also glad to bring the rom-com vibe to the festival. Splitsville is certainly romantic and comedic – but with a modern twist. ‘Oh, man, rom-coms are my favourite. You make all these movies, but then you come home, and you’re like, ‘I just want to curl up, and watch a really good romcom.’ And to be a part of them, too. I think we’re in this really interesting era of redefining what that is, or what romcoms are for this generation. And what resonates for people – the more I watch things, or watching people’s reactions – is things that are a little bit off-centre, and things that touch on complex subjects. Because there’s nothing more fun than watching people fall in love, fall out of love, and then fall back in love. And messily…’
Splitsville premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival
Photographs and interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
Mission: Impossible’s tech nerd tells Hollywood Authentic about his directorial dreams, DJing and what he’s learnt from Tom Cruise.
Simon Pegg moved to his current home in Hertfordshire 13 years ago from London when the experience got to be too much like living in one of his own films. ‘I was living in Crouch End, and that’s where we shot Shaun of the Dead,’ he explains as he welcomes me to his country house. ‘So I couldn’t really complain when people came up to me on the street. I don’t mind it but obviously after a while it gets a little tiring.’ The move to the country was also prompted by needing more space for his growing brood: he lives in this home with his music publicist wife, Mo, daughter, Tilly, two Schnauzers and a Cockapoo, called Cookie. The Schnauzers, Willow and Branwell, are currently winding round his feet as he gives me the tour of his garden.
He shows me his ice plunge which he jumps into every day (‘I do 3 degrees for three minutes’) and his DJ spot – a music room at the end of the garden kitted out with CDJ-3000s and shelves of vinyl. Pegg now DJs at parties and festivals having self-taught himself three years ago. ‘DJing reminds me of doing stand-up comedy, in that you have an audience, and they react immediately to what you’re doing. Stand-up is like, they either laugh or you die. With DJing, they either dance or you die!’
He’s a long way now from where he started doing stand-up gigs. A Gloucester boy who grew up around musicians at his Dad’s music shop with a cinema just down the road, Pegg’s love of acting was fostered by an amateur dramatic mum and movie-fan dad. He attended Bristol university to study theatre, film, and TV where he started a comedy club with Dominic Diamond, David Walliams, Jason Bradbury and Myfanwy Moore. His stand-up there led to getting an agent (he’s still with the same one) and a role on Big Train. The experience moved him onto co-writing and appearing in cult TV show Spaced and then to writing and working with Edgar Wright and Nick Frost on Shaun Of The Dead. That built out to the ‘Cornetto Trilogy’ and acting in films such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Ice Age and Mission: Impossible.
Nowadays the writing is done in his office, located away from the main house and a treasure trove of film memorabilia (also the setting for a Rick Astley music video). Inside he has the numbers from the house in Spaced, artwork based on Edgar Wright’s work, a photograph of Harrison Ford cracking his Indy whip at Elstree, an oscilloscope from his film Lost Transmissions and a bloodied shirt from Shaun Of The Dead. ‘There’s one here, and then there’s one in Peter Jackson’s museum in Wellington, and then there’s one in a museum in Seattle. They’re the only three I know the whereabouts of.’ Part of the Cornetto Trilogy, Pegg laughs as he recalls the genesis for the recurring ice-cream gag. ‘We came up with the idea of [Nick Frost’s character] Ed eating a Cornetto in the morning because he was hungover – that was Edgar’s hangover cure, a strawberry Cornetto. And then at the Shaun of the Dead premiere, we got free Cornettos, and we were like, ‘Oh, man, this is great. We got free ice cream. We should put one in the next film as well.’ So we did. Shaun is red-and-white strawberry. Hot Fuzz is blue and white for the police. And The World’s End was green mint choc for the aliens.’
It’s in this private sanctuary that Pegg writes, he’s currently adapting a book he holds the right to and hopes to direct. ‘When I work with Edgar, it’s the ideal situation because we write the film, and then when we’ve written it and we’re happy with it, he becomes the director and I become the lead actor. That way, we have total autonomy. I think as a director, if you can write the thing, you’ve already done half the job by the time you actually get to set, because you’ve envisioned it, and you’re aware of the shots you want to use. But it’s such a weird time in the film industry because everything’s changed so much with exhibition and the way we consume cinema. Cinema’s pricing itself out of the market slightly, and the idea of going to see a small drama at the cinema now feels like: ‘Well, why would I do that? I could just watch it at home. What’s the point of seeing it on the big screen?’ But it’s not just the big screen, it’s the community of watching a film with other people, you know? A whole vast array of differing people who you might not agree with politically on various reasons, but you all share this experience. It’s a tribe of ours that I think we’re losing. When I was a kid, there was the television, and there was the cinema. TV was a square. You couldn’t see films. You saw a cut-and-shut version of films. You didn’t see them until five or six years after they’d been on at the movies. Now that’s totally different. We all own TVs that have the right aspect ratio for cinema, and we can get them immediately. We can see them in cinematic terms because the sound and the picture is so good. It’s no one’s fault. I think lockdown had something to do with it. People started to realise they didn’t have to leave their house, you know? But then concerts have gone back. Other collective events have gone back. It’s just cinema that seems to be clinging on by its fingernails at the moment.’
His latest project is cinema writ large. He’s reprising his role as tech whiz Benji in Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning, apparently the final film in a eight-movie series powered by cinephile and champion of the theatrical experience, Tom Cruise. ‘Tom has only ever done movies. He’s not interested in doing anything else. For him, that experience is really important. And I agree with him. It’d be a terrible shame if theatrical exhibition disappeared. It would be a tragedy. That’s why I like being part of the Mission franchise. It’s wildly exciting, and big in its scope. But it’s also a kind of twisty-turny story, and there’s great characters in it. [Producer/director] McQ and Tom are always very, very insistent that we concentrate on character more than the stunts, because the stunts don’t mean anything if the characters aren’t relatable or you don’t fall in love with them. There’s art in entertainment. But there doesn’t have to be entertainment in art. Entertainment is an overrated function of art. There you go. That’s my university head talking.’
We leave the office to shoot some hoops with a Louboutin basketball and onto Pegg’s soundproofed screening room guarded by a storm trooper, with signed Laurel and Hardy photos on the wall. Pegg and his daughter watch at least two movies a weekend in the chilled out space that boasts curtains in front of the screen and a Kaleidoscope system where Pegg has digitised his vast DVD collection. Next door, his gym is signposted with a pub sign from The World’s End. Fitness is a key part of his sobriety, having given up drinking 15 years ago. It also became more important as he made Mission: Impossible films. ‘The first time I really rediscovered keeping in shape was on Ghost Protocol and then it just became part of my everyday. I got in shape for Hot Fuzz, and then I let it go again. If you watch Ghost Protocol, I lose about 20 lbs in an edit. There’s a scene of us outside in Red Square and then it cuts indoors, and I’ve got cheekbones! But now it’s part of my mental health routine as well. If you have an addictive personality, then the trick is to swap out the addictions for something that’s better for you, you know? It gets the endorphins pumping, and it makes you feel good. When I’m working I’ll do some calisthenics in my trailer before I go to make up.’
We head back outside to another passion of Pegg’s; the pizza oven. He talks me through his routine of getting the temperature to 300 degrees and having the patience not to put the pizza in too early. ‘I’ve had a lot of abortive pizzas, I’ve got to say. But eventually you get the technique, and then they come out beautiful.’ The artisan nature of his pizzas brings him back around to considering cinema. ‘There’s a lot of talk about the sheer number of IP-based cinema… but it was an interesting year at the Oscars for independent cinema and these films that were brilliant movies that weren’t relying on any kind of brand recognition. Which does show that there’s a market for that kind of stuff. I suppose the key to success is, it’s always the low production value – or low production costs – and a big comeback. That’s the golden egg. You make the film for nothing, and it makes everything. But the trouble is, it’s hard to make a film that everyone is going to go and see, if it’s small and thoughtful, you know, because people like big things. And I guess that’s what every producer wrestles with. Every film, every studio – how do you make great art and make money?’
‘My background is comedy, and the trouble with doing comedy is that no one subsequently ever takes you seriously. It’s a very overlooked skill-set, I think. They’ve just announced a category at the Oscars for stunt performance, which is great, but I’d like to see a category for comedic performance, because not everybody can do it. If there had been a category for comedic performance, then Jim Carrey would be weighed down with Oscars, you know? I’ve seen so-called straight actors attempt comedy and fail. But I’ve seen a lot of very good comedy actors be very good at dramatic acting.’
For now Pegg is consolidating everything he’s learnt in his career for his next steps. ‘I’ve learned a lot from Christopher McQuarrie because he always professes that he’s learning all the time. Steven Spielberg blew my mind when I worked with him because he just sees in film – that’s how he sees the world. I’m always really impressed by people that can do things I can’t do. You know, musicians or artists or people that have an amazing skill that I lack. But with directing, I feel that’s attainable. Having worked with Edgar so much, I just feel like it’s time to have a crack at that.’
I ask what he’s learnt from Cruise over the years. ‘I get asked about him all the time because he very rarely speaks about himself in public. You know, even in private, he’ll always switch the conversation back to you. But everyone’s so desperate for some kind of concrete information about him because he’s such an enigma. But I think that’s part of his success, that he’s maintained that. He’s maintained the interest in himself simply by just taking a step back, because he can. His journey is extremely simple when you look at it. He’s just always given 100% to everything that he does. Everything. To him, it’s quite simple: if you do that, then you get to be that, you know? He’s an eternal student of film. He’ll know what lens suits a scene, or he’ll know what piece of equipment we should use. He is across every facet of the production. But he’s just so diligent, and so invested in what he’s doing. The idea of doing it and half-arsing it, or phoning it in, would never cross his mind. He’s just not that way. He sets the tone, really. ‘Perfectionist’ is often used as a backhanded compliment. Edgar’s a perfectionist as well. Mediocrity is not in either of those people’s vocabulary. It makes for an intense experience. You know, I’ve been in these films for 20 years now, and every one of them has been an adventure, in the truest sense of the word, whether we’ve been in Vancouver or Morocco or the Arctic Circle or Venice or Rome. Tom sacrifices a certain amount of normality, I think, for the life he lives. That’s not to suggest he deserves any kind of pity. But I think he has given up something I really value, which is complete normality. But I think he knows that’s what it takes to be him, you know? He’s the last movie star, I think. I don’t think there’s anyone else like him.’
I point out that Pegg doesn’t live a totally ordinary life himself and he laughs. ‘I can still walk down the street quite easily and not be seen. The downside to having a career where you become recognisable are far, far less than the upsides of doing your hobby for a job. That, I really relish. But it’s just keeping a balance. As a rule, I try to never be away from home for longer than four weeks, if I can.’ He’s about to hit the road again with the Final Reckoning global press tour – possibly the last time he’ll be promoting the series. ‘It’s a whole IMF go-bag of mixed emotions,’ he says of the close of this chapter of his life. ‘It’s exceeded my wildest dreams. Twenty years of my life, that started with an unexpected phone call from JJ Abrams. It’s been a wild ride, literally at times. I feel very lucky to have been a part of it.’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
The Gangs Of London actor tells Hollywood Authentic about the special thrill of bringing the first Nigerian film to competition in Cannes and the emotion of filming My Father’s Shadow in Lagos.
Hollywood Authentic catches up with Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù at the Cannes Palais the day after his soulful and evocative ‘un certain regard’ film has premiered to rave reviews and celebrated with a party on the beach attended by Nigerian dignitaries. As we sit above the red carpet as Spike Lee’s latest film premieres below, Dìrísù smiles at the reaction to a project close to his heart as the child of Nigerian parents – and as exec producer on the film. ‘I think that people who have been to Lagos found there was a sensory experience to this film,’ he nods. ‘The redness of the earth… they said that they could smell and taste the food, you know? They could smell the cooking in the bukas, on the street corner. And they could feel the heat in the textures. It is a wonderful representation of the country.’
It certainly is. Akinola Davis Jr’s vivid, evocative film co-written with his brother Wale weaves through a vibrant Lagos in 1993, as a father (played by Dìrísù) shows his two pre-teen sons the teeming capital city during one eventful day as the election results that will change the country are announced. Filmed on location in Nigeria, Dìrísù found the experience very different from his trips to the country to visit family and friends. ‘I was delighted to be contributing to the history of Nigerian cinema and to be there on my own agency, personally. I’ve been back and forth from Nigeria a lot, but mainly for family reasons – weddings and birthdays and funerals, unfortunately. But I really felt great purpose being in the country, as opposed to being there on holiday. It made me feel like I was connecting with my community. And the big celebrations that have happened, not only in Nigeria but with Nigerians across the world, on the back of the success of this film have completely justified the way that I was feeling making it.’
Dìrísù plays the father to two real-life brothers, Godwin Chiemerie Egbo and Chibiuke Marvellous Egbo, and as the story unravels the relationship between parent and children becomes more nuanced. The connection between the trio had to feel authentic and the actor recalls the detail he and his director paid to ensuring it worked. ‘It was a really interesting task that Akinola and I worked a lot on, because I think the stereotype of a Nigerian father is very harsh, patriarchal and somewhat dictatorial. But the truth of a lot of fatherhood is that it’s not just that. There’s also great tenderness and love there as well. It was really important that we spent as much time together as possible. Because if we didn’t have that intimacy, which is captured so beautifully in the film, then I don’t think the film would work as well, you know? You want these boys to yearn for their father in the same way that Nigeria is yearning for great leadership. Wale talks a lot about a dream deferred and plans unfulfilled, and how that is thematically in parallel between the domestic familial story and the one of the country. The boys couldn’t swim and we wanted to capture this beautiful beach sequence. So I remember there were nights when we were at the hotel together, where I would take them swimming. I would try to teach them to swim, or give them familiarity in the water. To get to that point where their mother entrusted me to take the boys swimming, look after them, entertain them off set – I think it speaks to the relationship that we were able to foster in the course of the film.’
As we watch the red carpet below, Dìrísù explains the importance of My Father’s Shadow breaking barriers by being the first Nigerian film in competition at the festival. ‘It’s not only what it means for me, but what it means to Nigeria and the community, in the country and in the diaspora. There has been such a remarkable celebration of it. We didn’t get to see the carpet when people came to see the film yesterday – but I was told there was a wonderful expression of the joy and the pride that those who have been able to travel to Cannes have had for the film. That same joy and pride, and that expressiveness, I’ve felt on social media. I’ve felt it in conversations. I think a lot of people are excited that Nigerian cinema and Nollywood – which are definable as two different things but ultimately go film in hand – is being celebrated on a global scale. Nigeria has such a rich, deep history of filmmaking, and it’s kind of a shame that it’s taken so long for it to be on a platform like this. But I’m delighted that we’re able to break through that ceiling, and forge the connections and the global collaborations that are necessary for this to have happened.’
Backed by Irish Element Pictures, Nigerian Fatherland, the BFI, the BBC, Match Factory and Le Pacte, production on this film was, he says, ‘truly a global effort and I hope that there can be more collaborations like that in the future.’ And what does he think of possibly winning the big ‘Un Certain Regard’ prize at the end of this week? He chuckles and shrugs. ‘The experience here is a reward enough…’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
The British actor who leads Wes Anderson’s latest ensemble tells Hollywood Authentic about landing her role in The Phoenician Scheme and experiencing her inaugural Cannes.
Attending the Cannes Film Festival for the first time is ‘adrenaline-pinching’ according to Mia Threapleton. ‘It does feel quite daunting, primarily because I’ve not done that many red carpet things ever, actually,’ she laughs. ‘But it is also incredibly exciting and amazing that that is where the film is going to be seen by so many people for the first time. That, for me, is the most exciting thing.’
Though she has been acting for a while – impressing in BAFTA winning I Am Ruth and last year’s The Buccaneers – Threapleton takes centre stage in Wes Anderson’s all-star latest where she plays Liesl, the pipe-smoking, sardonic, nun daughter of Benicio Del Toro’s business mogul. It promises to be a performance and project that skyrockets her. ‘It was actually a very intense auditioning process over about six months,’ she recalls of pursuing the role. ‘The first email I was sent was extremely scant. There was no information on the character. The only name as far as the character that I had to go off was ‘young girl’. I self-taped and several meetings down the line, I had a screen test, and met the wonderful Benicio del Toro. [Anderson] gave me a little bit of an explanation: ‘You haven’t seen your father for six years, and you’ve lived in a convent for the majority of the life that you can remember living. You have some very full-on, unanswered questions…’ And I found out 24 hours later that I had the job.’
That job saw the 24 year-old joining a cast including many of Anderson’s repeat collaborators including Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jeffery Wright – and a steep learning curve in the director’s inimitable style. ‘He does have a very particular style. But, actually, when it comes to the acting, he really loves things to be as natural as possible. There’s lots of other opportunities within the scene to try a couple of different beats. So what you end up seeing is basically one of the many, many versions that we do. I think 20 takes was maybe our absolute lowest. On one of our first days, we did 69 takes.’ The experience was something she says she’s still getting her head around. ‘It just feels so surreal and equally amazing to have been able to have been a part of something like this with all the people – unbelievably talented people – cast, crew members, camera team, film team, props team, sound design, set design. I don’t think it really sunk in.’
Though Threapleton is the daughter of Kate Winslet, working with such a group of established actors must have provided plenty of useful instruction on how to navigate the precarious waters of acting. She laughs and recalls how she would observe her castmates in action to learn, even on her days off. ‘I would cycle into set and hide under tables, or Wes would point at a plant pot, and say, ‘Go hide over there. That’s a good place to hide today’. I remember having a really lovely conversation with Michael Cera, who plays Professor Bjorn. It was during a scene where we’re sat in a train car talking to each other, and then outside there’s everyone else playing basketball: Benicio, Brian [Cranston], Riz [Ahmed], Tom [Hanks]. I remember Michael turning to me and going, ‘This is so amazing. This is never going to happen again. This is crazy’. We just sat looking at each other, laughing; ‘What are we doing here? This is insane.’ It felt like summer camp every day.’
She recently saw the film ahead of its Cannes premiere and was amazed anew by the calibre of the cast and project. ‘The second that the opening credits rolled, I burst into tears. I couldn’t really believe what it was that I was seeing. There’s so much excitement, adrenaline and anticipation for seeing something like this, that everybody worked so hard on, and that you really care about. And it was so surreal watching this thing in front of me – ‘Oh God, that’s my face. That’s a lot of my face. Oh my God!’ It was overwhelming in the most amazing way possible.’
With a second series of The Buccaneers in the can, Threapleton is aware that Cannes will be a moment that could change her career and opportunities. So what projects is she looking for in the wake of her festival debut? ‘I don’t know if I really have a bucket list. What excites me so much about this job is the amount of incredible, creative people that are out there who want to tell really cool stories.’ Hollywood Authentic wonders how her perception of the industry has changed since her first experience of filming as a little girl on Alan Rickman’s A Little Chaos. ‘I don’t think it’s changed, and I don’t think it will change. I just feel like a little sponge with everything. Then I was just wanting to absorb all of it and I still do now. I like the fact that I still have so many things to learn.’
As a child who grew up with a working understanding of acting, has she ever been given advice that has helped her on her journey so far? ‘“Actually, I didn’t grow up with an understanding of acting necessarily. I really didn’t grow up on a film set at all. I can count on both hands the amount of times I went into work as a kid. But I think I was always just told, you know, ‘Do the work. Work hard on it, and concentrate’. I’ve tried to do that as best I can.’
The Phoenician Schemepremiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival Mia wears Oscar de la Renta
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
Jennifer Lawrence’s abrasive new film – which she co-produced and stars in – may not reflect her own experience of motherhood, but the choice to take it on was certainly informed by it. Lawrence made the movie about postpartum psychosis with filmmaker Lynne Ramsay between having her two children (she was five months pregnant during filming) and told Cannes press that ‘having children changes everything. It changes your whole life, but it’s brutal and incredible’. The project, she said, ‘deeply moved’ her.
Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence
In the film Lawrence plays Grace, a young woman who moves into an isolated Montana farmhouse with her boyfriend Jackson (Robert Pattinson), where she falls pregnant. When the baby arrives Grace is locked in a rinse-and-repeat pattern of feeding and changing while Jackson goes off the work, her writing ambition stalled and her grip on reality growing tenuous. Filled with rage, frustration and the need to be seen as a sexual being and not just a mother, Grace becomes erratic and violent, confounding her partner and his recently widowed mother (Sissy Spacek). Conjuring a sexual fantasy with a mysterious biker (LaKeith Stanfield) and desperate to feel something – pain, orgasm, passion – other than the numbness of a mothering routine, she wants to set her world alight. As the end credits song (performed by Ramsay) attests, ‘Love will tear us apart’…
Lynne Ramsay
Though Grace finds motherhood opens her up to self-destruction and chaos, Lawrence says that her children have helped her access more of herself as an actor. ‘I didn’t know that I could feel so much, and my job has a lot to do with emotion, and they’ve opened up the world to me. It’s almost like a blister or something, so sensitive. So they’ve changed my life, obviously, for the best, and they’ve changed me creatively. I highly recommend having kids if you want to be an actor.’
The film is certainly something of a tour de force for Lawrence who spits, fights, claws and crawls through the role like a feral creature, Grace’s fantasies overlapping and pushing against her reality. It is a fever-dream representation of the confusion, fear and delirium of post-partum depression and psychosis which the actor admitted was a terrifying condition for any woman to experience. ‘There’s not really anything like postpartum… it’s extremely isolating. The truth is extreme anxiety and extreme depression is isolating no matter where you are. You feel like an alien.’
The film premiered to a nine-minute ovation in Cannes and looks to be another role that could net Lawrence awards buzz. The actor attended wearing custom Dior, an updated version of a 1949 Poulenc gown inspired by fans, and was photographed by Greg Williams in a rooftop suite of the Carlton Hotel overlooking the Croisette.
Die, My Love premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
As he prepares to release his eighth (and final?) instalment of the Mission: Impossible series, Tom Cruise brings the action to Cannes.
Just as he brought Top Gun: Maverick to Cannes in 2022, the world’s biggest movie star returned to the Croisette this year to deliver his eighth Mission: Impossible film, The Final Reckoning, to the Palais. Stopping to sign autographs and greet fans on the red carpet (where an acapella group sang the film’s theme tune), Cruise’s latest actioner garnered a 6 minute standing ovation when it premiered.
Earlier in the day he made an unbilled appearance at a Q&A with Mission director Christopher McQuarrie who credited the actor/producer with keeping him in the film business. Cruise’s enthusiasm for cinema, McQuarrie told the crowd, was a turning point. ‘When I met him, I was going to quit the business.’ The duo have made 11 films together since and have developed a shorthand together figuratively, and on the latest film, literally – as Cruise completed death defying stunts while underwater in a groundbreaking submarine set as well as dangling from the wings of a vintage bi-plane over South Africa’s Drakensberg Mountains.
Final Reckoning rejoins the narrative a few months after the action of Dead Reckoning as Cruise’s Ethan Hunt comes to terms with losses from their team and the fallout of an agent called Gabriel (Esai Morales) trying to control an AI programme called ‘the entity’. The team must reassemble to find the source code for the AI in an attempt to stop it from triggering all-out global nuclear war. Known for completing his stunts himself, Cruise is battered in a rolling submarine on the ocean floor and fights negative Gs and incredible physical strain on his body on the wings of a vintage Boeing Stearman. During their joint on-stage chat, McQuarrie admitted that at one point during filming he didn’t know if the actor was conscious or not during a take, fearing for his life as the pilot could not land the plane with him on the wing. Luckily, Cruise rallied, climbed to the cockpit and the plane and performer landed safely.
Not such worries at the Carlton hotel on the Croisette when Greg Williams photographed Cruise balancing on a chair in his suite before walking the red carpet…
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
Paolo Sorrentino’s latest muse burns the screen up in Parthenope. Hollywood Authentic meets the Italian actor who made the leap from extra to lead to talk beauty, fame and the advice Gary Oldman gave her.
Sitting on the rooftop of the JW Marriott in Cannes, writer-director Paolo Sorrentino considers on his latest love letter to his home town of Naples. Why, he contemplates, did he choose to tell his story through the Greek myth of Parthenope (who precipitated the creation of the Bay of Naples) and focus on the siren at the heart of it? ‘What I wanted to do was to tell the story of a girl, a woman, from the moment she is born, to the moment in which she becomes an elderly person. What I really had at heart was telling how time changes us. And it does change us, even if we wear wonderful clothes.’ His currently leading lady certainly wears wonderful things in the sensual, smouldering film that almost gives audiences sunburn when watching. Sorrentino tells the tale of ‘70s Naples teen, Parthenope, born in water and drawn to the sea like a mermaid – seducing men without even trying as she puffs on cigarettes in a bikini, shimmers in sequins on the island of Capri and titillates in nothing but the ecclesiastical treasures of a horny cardinal.
Quite the ask of any actor, but especially for a newcomer who would have to go toe-to-toe with heavyweight performers such as Gary Oldman, playing real-life writer John Cheever, who is sozzled and depressed on Capri and sees pure beauty in Parthenope. ‘I looked at many Italian actresses,’ Sorrentino admits. ‘In reality, I found her quite soon, because I had already met and worked with Celeste. She was in The Hand of God as an extra. It took me some time to understand whether she was going to be able to handle the role. She had never played a main character.’
Celeste Dalla Porta, a Milan-born actor whose scene as a background artist had ended up on the cutting room floor, was up for the challenge of conveying the intelligence of Parthenope (she’s a shrewd student anthropologist) as well as her sensuality. ‘I had no doubts, but I was a little bit scared,’ Dalla Porta says, twisting the mermaid ring on her finger that belonged to her character in the film. ‘Once I accepted it, I started questioning myself: will I be able to do it? But I never had a doubt about the project because it’s such a revolutionary thing.’ Her fears about the role also extended to the fame that will surely come with the release of the film, and how her life may change. ‘I don’t know what is in store for me ahead. I’m a little bit scared. But this is what I want to do, and what I always wanted to do, to be an actress.’
I have learned a lot with [Gary Oldman]. He is this huge actor that is so open and so attentive. He paid a lot of attention. He listens to you
The experience of working with Sorrentino was, she says, expansive and supportive. ‘He’s a 360-degrees person. He has a very authentic way of being on set. He knows exactly what he wants, and he guides you to that. But I felt free working with him. Paolo gives freedom to his actors. Of course, they cannot change the story, and they cannot change the text. But he is a man who is really able to listen to what other people have to say, and to see.’ Oldman was also something of an artistic reference point during the process despite only working for a few days together. ‘I have learned a lot with him. He is this huge actor that is so open and so attentive. He paid a lot of attention. He listens to you. So, on a human level, it was also such a great experience.’
The idea of weaponised beauty is explored in the film as Parthenope leaves a trail of broken hearts in her wake. Though Dalla Porta is shot in stunning light and via an appreciative lens she doesn’t consider herself a beauty. ‘I don’t think Paolo picked me or chose me because I’m beautiful. Beauty can also be something ugly and is subjective, and something that changes over time. In Parthenope beauty is a metaphor for youth. And youth – we all remember it as something very beautiful. We think about it as something very beautiful, and something that we idealise. But then Parthenope grows up. She moves into another phase of her life, and that’s when the movie changes. There is a different photography and different people around her, and a different way of looking at her.’
Celeste Dalla Porta says goodbye to Gary Oldman
Having been the toast of Cannes when the film premiered at the festival last year, Dalla Porta is now looking for future projects. ‘I love Alice Rohrwacher. I find her to be a great, great artist, and I like her poetic way to see the world, and to tell stories. Ruben Östlund, I admire very much. Valerio Mieli – he made just a few films, but all of them talk about love. I’m super-romantic, and I love romanticism, and I love films that talk about love.’ As she navigates her way through her career she is also adhering to the advice Oldman gave to her about the business. As he tells Hollywood Authentic, their off-set relationship somewhat mirrored the one between their two characters, a mentor and a student. ‘The dynamic was very much like that with me and Celeste, because I’ve had this career, and I’m older. This is her first job, and she’s naïve. For Cheever, I think there’s an innocence and a purity that he can’t have back, that he can’t reclaim. Celeste will have an innocence and a purity that she will not be able to ever get back after this film comes out.’
Dalla Porta smiles as she recalls their chats on-set. ’He said that I have to protect what I have inside myself. I have to protect the beauty of simple things. That is something that we all have, and that we need to protect. It was very simple advice, but very important. If fame comes because you have made something that makes you feel happy inside, and it’s something you are happy with – why not? That’s what I want. And then people talk about the fame that is this kind of monster that is waiting…’ She shrugs. ‘I try to stay in the present, and to live in this moment.’
Written and directed by Academy Award Winner Paolo Sorrentino Starring, in alphabetical order: Dario Aita, Celeste Dalla Porta, Silvia Degrandi, Isabella Ferrari, Lorenzo Gleijeses, Biagio Izzo, Marlon Joubert, Peppe Lanzetta, Nello Mascia, Gary Oldman, Silvio Orlando, Luisa Ranieri, Daniele Rienzo, Stefania Sandrelli and Alfonso Santagata. A Fremantle film, an Italian-French co-production The Apartment – Pathé in association with Numero 10, in association with PiperFilm and Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello with Logical Content Ventures with the support of Canal+ with the participation of Cine+. Produced by Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment, a Fremantle Group company, Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent, Paolo Sorrentino for Numero 10, Ardavan Safaee for Pathé. International Distribution: Pathé, Northern US Distribution: A24, Italian distribution: PiperFilm.
Photographs & Interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams joins British actor-producer-director David Oyelowo at his LA barber shop to talk creating opportunity and the pursuit of excellence.
‘Getting into character, the look of the character, the physical presence of the character, is something that I tend to focus on,’ David Oyelowo tells me when I meet him at a strip mall in Tarzana one morning in February. This unassuming location off Ventura Boulevard is a place for transformation for the multi-faceted actor who has played Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, a pharma-villain in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the first African-American US Marshal in Lawmen: Bass Reeves. Today, Oyelowo is getting a haircut from his trusted barber, Gene. ‘He’s very detail orientated,’ Oyelowo says as we walk inside. ‘He gets me looking right.’
Sandwiched between a pilates studio and a dog groomers, the barber shop is a cosy space that Oyelowo has been coming to for a long time – Gene has been cutting his hair for 15 years. It’s one of his neighborhood spots in LA, now home since moving here in 2007 and becoming a US citizen in 2016. The valley is also the location for the filming of Government Cheese, his new ’60s-set dramedy show currently streaming on Apple TV+ in which he plays an ex-con who returns home to his family and causes chaos. He’s about to start a promotional campaign for the project and wants a sharp cut.
As Gene fires up the clippers, I ask Oyelowo about his relationship with excellence, given his prolific work output and his ability to plate-spin being an actor, producer and director. ‘A principle I live by is: the difference between good and great is hard work. I think that’s what excellence looks like. I’ve had to learn that there’s a difference between perfection and excellence. Perfection is debilitating. It’s unattainable. I think, actually, it ultimately leads to depression. The pursuit of excellence is something that is attainable because it’s basically doing your best, knowing you’ve done your best, and making peace with the fact that that’s as much as you can do. Failure doesn’t mean that you weren’t excellent. I used to actually take pride in being a perfectionist, especially with having kids, you’re trying to model behaviour that they will emulate. I recognise that them watching their dad pursue perfectionism is not a good example. But excellence absolutely is. That is what I now aspire to more than perfection.’
If you find good people, hold on to them for dear life
Oyelowo has certainly shown excellence in his work to date since learning his craft at the National Youth Theatre and LAMDA before making his name in BBC spy show, Spooks, in 2002. Since then he has impressed in a wide range of projects (and accents) including Lincoln, Jack Reacher, Interstellar, Silo, The Book of Clarence and most recently as Shakespeare’s Coriolanus in London’s West End. He’s been working professionally since 1995 and subscribes to the building up of a career with varied roles and experiences. ‘Young actors, or people who are aspiring to be actors, a lot of the time what they aspire to is instantaneous success, or having quite a high level of notoriety quickly. I actually think that’s a trap. What you actually want is a slow-burn career. You don’t want to have the highs be too high, and the lows be too low. But consistency is how you end up with a body of work that is admirable in its totality, as opposed to these moments that, in isolation, warrant attention, but then there’s this dearth in between. And the only way you get that is perseverance.’
As Gene carefully grades his hair, Oyelowo smiles in the mirror. ‘This is why I like having my haircut done by Gene. Every time I sit in this chair, I can tell that he is looking to do his best work. I genuinely am drawn to that. It’s one of the things that I enjoy as a producer, and whenever I’ve directed as well. It’s being around people who are brilliant at what they do. Actually, I got a great piece of advice. The feature film that I directed a little while ago, The Water Man, I called some directors who I really admire. One of them said something that really stood me in good stead, which is that your job is to hire the best people possible, communicate your vision very clearly, and then allow them to take flight. So excellent people – people who pursue greatness – is the way for you to look great as a director. And certainly I know from when I work with great directors, that’s very clearly the distinguishing factor. They surround themselves with people who are really excellent, and they model it in what they do as well.’
I ask him about working with an actor often cited for excellence, Daniel Day Lewis, who played President Lincoln to Oyelowo’s union soldier in the Spielberg film. ‘I personally think he’s the greatest living actor,’ he responds without hesitation. ‘The definition of not only an actor but a great actor is someone who is chameleonic; someone who genuinely transforms role to role; someone who clearly has studied humanity to a degree whereby they’re able to approach humanity from so many different angles and still be convincing in the roles they play. That, to me, is a master of the craft, and I can think of very few actors who take as many risks as he does, who pay a price as high as he does, and who are as successful in terms of the execution of their roles as he is. He, for me, is the gold standard. And then there’s working with Forest Whitaker on The Last King of Scotland, or a director like Christopher Nolan or Steven Spielberg or Anthony Minghella or Ava DuVernay, where you go, ‘Oh, there are levels to this thing.’ Tom Cruise is the same. These artists who you just go, ‘Oh, that’s why you’ve been doing it this long. That’s why there’s a connection between you and the audience that is not what you get everywhere.’ That gave me the blueprint, and maybe even the playbook for some of the more intense roles I’ve been afforded the opportunity to go on to play.’
Having played two historical figures in Martin Luther King Jr. and Bass Reeves, Oyelowo was hoping to add another to his resume with a long-gestating biopic of boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. ‘I think I have to make peace with the fact that I’ve probably aged out of playing Sugar Ray Robinson,’ he laughs. ‘But I still want to tell that story, and I think I’m going to still do it, probably as a producer, maybe as a director. Sugar Ray Robinson in his prime may be something that I let someone else do. But, honestly, that is something that I increasingly have enjoyed doing, keeping open the doors that have either been opened for me, or I’ve managed to get open, and making sure that others are allowed through. A big goal of mine is to leave the storytelling landscape different than I found it. A film about Dr King where he’s central had not been made before. A show that had Bass Reeves central had not been made before. Sugar Ray Robinson was the inspiration for Muhammad Ali. We should know more about him. That’s why I’m passionate about that story. And finding different ways to get these stories out there is the thing I’m ultimately very dedicated to.’
Oyelowo’s production company, Yoruba Saxon, looks for projects that shine a light on underrepresented stories. ‘We have a motto to normalise the marginalised. Our goal of normalising that is just an acknowledgment that filmmaking and television changes culture. It’s one of the most potent means of both advancing and regressing culture. And so I definitely want to be on the good side of that fence. Telling stories, for me, is a means of entertainment and education, but it’s also a political act for me.’
His move to LA from the UK was also something of a political act. Feeling limited by the opportunities available to him at home despite success with the RSC and Spooks, he turned his eyes towards America – moving himself and his wife to Hollywood. ‘It was patently obvious that the UK was not going to provide the opportunities I aspired to. Some of that is to do with race. Some of that is just to do with the size of the industry. But the two things compound each other. If it’s a smaller industry, and Black and brown people are not prioritised, then it’s an even smaller postage stamp to land on.’ Has that changed, I wonder? ‘Where I think it hasn’t changed much is I see that for Black actors in the UK, a path to a global career is still through playing roles that are not British. You still have to play American roles, or roles that are not tied to our culture in the UK, which I think is deeply unfortunate. John Boyega has to do Star Wars. Chiwetel Ejiofor has to do 12 Years a Slave. Idris Elba has to do The Wire. Naomie Harris has to do Moonlight. Thandiwe Newton has to do Mission: Impossible. Daniel Kaluuya has to do Get Out… There isn’t the same trajectory as if they’re white, British actors. It’s different.’
He recalls his methodology for trying to break out of pigeonholing. ‘I had to say to the people who were considering taking me on as an agent, “Put me up for the roles that are either non-race-specific or are specifically white, because that’s where there’s more dimension. And then I’ll bring the specificity of my Blackness to it.” When it’s written for a Black character, the aperture just goes so small, and it does fall into caricature and stereotype – and a lot of the stereotypes that I didn’t want to be perpetuating. Also, it made characters such that a global audience couldn’t relate to them. They felt so niche. They felt so boxed. A lot of my career has been spent exhaustingly having to educate people – my history, my culture, who I am, my journey, is not their bias or their perspective. Things are getting better but ultimately until women, until Black and brown people own distribution mechanisms, or have the resources to be able to tell their own stories outside of the studio system, we’re going to be in this cycle.’
Oyelowo leans forward in his chair and inspects Gene’s work before asking for minute calibrations in the weight of his goatee. I ask him about growing up in the UK as the kid of immigrants. His Nigerian parents from two different tribes ‘essentially eloped’ to Britain to be together, having him in Oxford before the family moved to South London and then back to Lagos. ‘You want to talk about a culture shock? Not only was it just different culturally, but it was very different familially. We didn’t really have any family in the UK, and suddenly we lived on the Oyelowo compound on Oyelowo Street in Lagos.’ At 13, the Oyelowos returned to London, to Islington, where the teenager caught the acting bug. Now he lives in Los Angeles with his family (a 13-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son; his two older sons, aged 20 and 23, have since flown the nest), three dogs and two parrots. At 48 he considers himself in the sweet spot for amassed experience and nous. ‘One of the greatest things about getting older and more experienced is trusting your gut. I think that it should be earned over time. It’s not something where you’re coming in as a 19-year-old and just throwing your weight around. I’ve seen that, and it’s not pretty. But an opinion based on knowing to trust your gut, combined with experience and with humility, I think is where you’re really starting to make a dent – a good one. That’s something that is increasing for me. And it’s amazing how much more you can achieve with genuine “sacrificial love”, where you’re putting other people before yourself, and therefore creating a culture with everyone looking after each other. On a set in particular – that’s one of the things I love about being a producer or a director. It’s having the opportunity to help establish that culture. If you’re not in a leadership position, it’s much harder to help engender that environment. The abuse of power is all about insecurity. I don’t like working with those guys or girls. That’s a luxury I now have. Not everyone has that luxury. But, boy, it’s one I take, because it’s so debilitating working with people who are power-hungry, who are not truly collaborative, who are toxic, and who just seem to thrive on making other people’s lives difficult. It’s just not worth it.’
Gene is done – it’s a fresh cut – and we return to the theme of excellence. Oyelowo thinks back to seeing the way Steven Spielberg surrounded himself with the highest level of craftsmanship on Lincoln. ‘If you find good people, hold on to them for dear life. With Spielberg – the director of photography, production designer, costumes – so many of the crew have done multiple films with him. And it’s a great way to just weed out the arseholes, and just have that shorthand with people.’ He turns to his groomer Vonda sitting nearby and asks how long they’ve worked together. The answer is 15 years. He asks his PA, Darnell, the same question. It’s three. Oyelowo throws up his hands in a ‘see?’ fashion and laughs. ‘I’ve told Darnell very clearly that I need at least seven years’ notice if she’s going to quit!’ He stands and brushes his hair off. ‘For me, that’s how you have not only a good life but a good working life…’
Government Cheeseis streaming now on Apple TV+ Hair: Gene Miller, Grooming: Vonda Morris, Styling: Mark Holmes
Photographs by Greg Williams Words by Jane Crowther
The temperatures were freezing for this year’s EE Bafta Awards at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank, but relationships were warm backstage where Greg Williams captured the festivities.
The mood was celebratory as guests flooded from the Tattinger champagne receptions on all levels of the RFH into the auditorium and found their seats – as well as their colleagues and category competition. Pamela Anderson and Demi Moore hugged and chatted front of stage while Timothée Chalamet (who’d skipped the red carpet) caught up with newlyweds Soairse Ronan and Jack Lowdon. Chalamet’s girlfriend, Kyle Jenner, talked at length with his A Complete Unknown co-star, Monica Barbaro, while Cythia Erivo and Ariane Grande whispered to each other as they held hands.
This year’s ceremony was presided over by David Tennant, who opened the show with a spirited rendition of The Proclaimers’ ‘I’m gonna be (500 Miles)’ and joked that the runner up of the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest was sitting on the front row with his Jenner lookalike date.
Backstage, the atmosphere was convivial as Edward Berger’s Conclave took home four awards (best picture, outstanding British film, adapted screenplay and editing) and Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist won the quartet of best director, leading actor, cinematography and score. They were expected triumphs along with best supporting actress, an emotional Zoë Saldana for Emilia Perez, and supporting actor in an absent Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain.
Jack Lowden and Soairse RonanAdrian Brody and Pamela AndersonCynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande
Saldana was still tearful as she came off stage after her win – her second trip to the podium after presenting Outstanding debut with Selena Gomez to Kneecap writer-director Rich Peppiatt who joked he was in a ‘lovely sandwich’ as the actresses escorted him down the backstage steps for photographs. Aardman’s Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl also picked up two awards that seemed uncontested in the categories of best animation and children and family film. Directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham juggled their clay models with their BAFTA as they exited the stage.
Ralph Fiennes and Isabella RosselliniWarick Davis and Mark HamillZoë SaldañaDavid Jonsson
Surprises came with the best actor category which pundits had thought might have gone to Ralph Fiennes on home turf but was awarded to The Brutalist’s Adrian Brody. He joked that he was ‘signing his life away’ as he signed papers allowing him to take his BAFTA mask home, before he returned to stand by a monitor to watch who won best actress. Demi Moore has had an unbeatable run during awards season for her work in The Substance, but BAFTA voted for Anora breakout – and Hollywood Authentic’s current cover star – Mikey Madison. When she arrived backstage, Brody high-fived her and the two chatted as they waited for Best Picture to be announced. Both actors’ films were nominated and both nodded and applauded when that gong went to Conclave. As the Conclave team arrived backstage, Madison congratulated them before pausing to huddle in a corner to call her delighted parents in LA.
Celia Imrie and Naomi AckieLeo WoodallChiwetel EjioforJaques Audiard
There was a Harry Potter and Star Wars reunion when Warwick Davis received his BAFTA fellowship from Potter veteran, Tom Felton. ‘You deserve it so thoroughly,’ Felton told Warwick, who played Filius Flitwick to his Malfoy, as the two hugged and exchanged news. Waiting in the wings to present best picture, Mark Hamill joined the duo – congratulating his Star Wars co-star on his achievement and kneeling for photos.
Once the ceremony was over, the catch-ups and selfies began downstairs over dinner where oversized themed lampshades loomed over a supper of vegan caviar, roast chicken and popcorn-strawberry cheesecake. Zoe Saldana and Warwick Davis chatted with their BAFTAs in hand, Kylie Jenner slipped on a jacket to talk to tablemates on the A Complete Unknown table while Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo took Wicked group snaps.
Adrian Brody
Despite a tragic fire at Chiltern Firehouse disrupting plans at the last minute, the Netflix after-party remained the post-awards place to be – moving with 48-hours notice to The Twenty-Two in Mayfair. Downstairs, Zoë Saldana and her husband hung out with Anna Kendrick as well as Demi Moore and her daughter, Scout. Jared Leto rubbed shoulders with Sophie Wilde, Colman Domingo and Ncuti Gatwa in the buzzy red lounge. Upstairs, Malachi Kirby caught up with his A Thousand Blows co-star Francis Lovehall while Orlando Bloom danced and Camilla Cabello moved among the revellers…
Mikey Madison
WINNERS:
Best Film – Conclave
Outstanding British Film – Conclave
Best Director – Brady Corbet(The Brutalist)
Outstanding Debut By By British Writer, Director Or Producer – Kneecap
Film Not In The English Language – Emilia Pérez
Best Documentary – Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Best Animated Film – Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Best Original Screenplay – A Real Pain
Best Adapted Screenplay – Conclave
Best Leading Actress – Mikey Madison(Anona)
Best Leading Actor – Adrien Brody (The Brutalist)
Best Supporting Actress – Zoe Saldaña(Emilia Pérez)
Best Supporting Actor – Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Best Casting – Anora
Best Cinematography – The Brutalist
Best Editing – Conclave
Best Costume – Wicked
Best Original Score – The Brutalist (Daniel Blumberg)
Best Production Design – Wicked
Best Sound – Dune: Part Two
Best Visual Effects – Dune: Part Two
Best British Short Film – Rock, Paper, Scissors
EE Rising Star – David Jonsson
Photographs by Greg Williams Words by Jane Crowther
