Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
MIU MIU’S WOMEN’S TALES: FRAGMENTS FOR VENUS The last time director Alice Diop presented a film in Venice with Saint Omer in 2022 she won the Grand Jury Prize and with the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future award. She was also overwhelmed. ‘It actually took years to revisit that experience, and to digest it,’ she admits over tea and biscuits in the Baglioni Hotel, perched on the Grand Canal. She returned to the Venice Film Festival to serve on the First Film jury, but this year she presents her short film, Fragments for Venus as part of Miu Miu’s twice a year Women’s Tales strand. ‘This film is as important as SaintOmer. I don’t see a difference between short films, feature films, etcetera. But the stakes are lower in that this is a film that is going to live its life. It doesn’t have to make a big splash coming into the industry. So the only stress is really whether what I’ve put into the film will be heard. The moment you let your work go, there is a lot of anxiety and fear around that. I’m certainly not in the same state that I was in with Saint Omer, which I think I was actually in a state of disassociation going into that premiere. This time, I’m welcoming the pleasure and joy of presenting a film.’
Her film explores the way the Black female form has been portrayed in worlds of art throughout history, set to the powerful poem ‘Voyage of the Sable Venus’ by Robin Coste Lewis. As the stanzas list the titles of different works of art an actress (Saint Omer’s Kayije Kagame) wanders a gallery looking at the pieces. Later, the film tracks a young poet (Sephora Pondi) as she finds inspiration in the streets of Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. Both actors wear garments from Miu Miu, but that’s the only involvement the fashion house had in creating the project, says Diop, noting she’d been asked to participate numerous times but only found the time was right recently. ‘The only reason that I agreed to do this project is because there was absolutely no directive other than using some clothing from the latest Miu Miu collection. So it was an absolutely free commission. I had total freedom to create and think. It’s not enough for me to simply respond to a commission. To make a film, I need to be driven by an imperious necessity – a really strong desire. Eventually they came at a perfect moment where this film provided the ideal occasion to go further with things that I was reflecting on already.’
Diop worked with a translator, Nicholas Elliott, while on a residency in New York and it was he who found and translated Coste Lewis’ work for the writer/director. It was the title poem from her collection Voyage of the Sable Venus that particularly struck a chord. ‘It revisits the entire history of art and the construction of the gaze, and shows how the Black female body has been objectified and fetishised throughout that history. It’s a highly political poem and very experimental, but also very simple. And it truly was instrumental in inspiring this film which questions the representation of the Black female body, and of trying to use cinema as a way to repair the deformation of these images. Kayije’s beauty, her way of moving – in contrast to this great, classical, European art – creates meaning. And I hope it allows the viewer to see the way that we have been forced to accept a certain type of beauty, and exclude others. So to see her beauty in contrast with this art, interrogates the absence of certain beauties. As for Sephora Pondi, the power of her body, her beauty, her presence – it allows us to open up, and free the idea of the Venus, and to offer Sephora and all these women that we encounter in the streets of Brooklyn the opportunity to be Venuses.’
Diop has been instrumental in changing perceptions of Black women in cinema through Saint Omer – so does she feel more hopeful about the representation she is seeing in today’s art? ‘My expectation and my hope is that there will be more of us who have the means and the audience to revisit these deforming, secular visions. There aren’t many of us now. I would like for there to be more. For instance, at a major festival like the Venice Biennale, I’m not sure if there’s even one racialised filmmaker this year. There’s maybe more in the fine arts happening. Cinema still has a lot of work to do. So I’m not sure I would say that I’m confident. But, in any case, I’m hard at work, and I expect to be supported in my work by more colleagues – all of us driven by this collective effort.’ She’s currently working on a new secret project but she smiles enegmatically when asked what we might expect from it. ‘I am certainly at work, but it’s still too fragile to really talk about…’ she says as she disappears to get ready for her premiere.
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
Women’s Tales: Fragments for Venus premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival Alice Diop wears Miu Miu
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
Jude Law arrived on the Venice Lido to premiere his latest role as Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Olivier Assayas‘ taut political thriller The Wizard of the Kremlin and shook off suggestions that the modern-day ‘Tsar’ might not like his spot-on portrayal. He told the press. ‘I felt confident, in the hands of Olivier and the script, that this story was going to be told intelligently and with nuance and consideration. We weren’t looking for controversy for controversy’s sake.’
The film is based on Giuliano da Empoli’s 2022 bestselling book by the same name, and fictionally tracks Putin’s rise to power through the eyes of a theatre director-turned TV producer-turned spin doctor, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano). A created character based on real people surrounding Putin, Baranov relates his story to an American reporter visiting Moscow in 2019 (Jeffrey Wright), explaining the manipulation of Russian voters via vertical power and the background to world events (the Ukraine revolution, the sinking of the Kursk submarine, internet sabotage). Along the way Baranov betrays friends and lovers – including Tom Sturridge’s billionaire and Alicia Vikandar’s performance artist.
Law wears a wig and light prosthetics, and adopts the gait, expressions and mannerisms of Putin so that it’s difficult for audiences to tell the difference between historical footage and the actor. ‘The tricky side to me was that the public face we see gives very, very little away. There has been a term for him and that is ‘the man without a face’. There’s a mask. Understandably, Olivier would want me to portray this or that in a scene with a certain emotion, and I felt the conflict of trying to show very little.’
After The Wizard of the Kremlin premiere where the film received a 12 minute standing ovation, the actor was back to his open, real self as Greg Williams joined him on a boat heading to the AmfAR gala. At the event Law presented director Julian Schnabel with a tribute award of inspiration.
The Wizard of the Kremlin premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival and will be released at a future date Jude Law wears Brunello Cucinelli
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
History of Sound actor/producer Paul Mescal brings his period romance to Cannes as he reflects on masculinity and love.
When Paul Mescal last came to Cannes he was arriving off the back of hit TV show Normal People and wowed the festival with his delicate portrayal of a father in crisis in Aftersun in 2011. Now he’s bringing a film to the Croisette in the wake of All of UsStrangers and Gladiator II – and as a producer. Oliver Hermanus’ The History of Sound, based on Ben Shattock’s short story, follows music student Lionel (Mescal) who falls for fellow undergrad David (Josh O’Connor) and embarks on a folk song collecting expedition through 1919 rural New England.
The role is another nuanced role from Mescal who says that cinema is shifting from dated male stereotypes. ‘It’s ever shifting,’ he says. ‘I think maybe in cinema we’re moving away from the traditional, alpha, leading male characters. I don’t think the film is defining or attempting to redefine masculinity, I think it is being very subjective to the relationship between Lionel and David.’
He and O’Connor have followed a similar trajectory in their careers and knew each other before getting on set together, which only added to the actors’ ability to get into character and craft a heartbreaking love story. ‘We’ve known each other for about five years and we were definitely friendly so that foundation of safety and play was there, but that relationship really deepened in the three or four weeks we were filming. I felt very lucky that myself and Josh knew each other well enough to begin with but we had a canvas to keep painting on during the filming process.’
The journey to showing the film to audiences at Cannes has taken a number of years, with Mescal first reading the script at the age of 24, filming at 28 and presenting it in France at the age of 29. For the actor it’s been a rewarding experience to track a project from start to finish both in front of, and behind, the camera. And the end result is a feature that explores love without words. ‘What I found so moving about the screenplay is that it’s never really described in words, it’s described in actions and things you don’t see … That’s something I’ve learned in my own life, kindness is wildly underrated in romantic relationships and should be celebrated.’
The History of Sound premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival and is out in cinemas now Read our review here
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…
