Actor tells reporter ‘this is a one-in-a-trillion episode’, in first remarks since fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on film set
In his first public comments since accidentally fatally shooting the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of a film, Rust, in New Mexico earlier this month, Alec Baldwin said on Saturday: “She was my friend.”
The actor spoke to BackGrid, a “global celebrity news agency”, in Vermont, where he was photographed having lunch with his wife.
Continue reading...A role in the sci-fi epic Dune has transformed the young actor into a bona fide leading man – but not one from the old Hollywood mould
In September, the Met Gala in New York – Anna Wintour’s annual fusion of fundraising gala and celebrity parade – redesigned itself for generation Z. Instagram sponsored the event, Justin Bieber was its headline performer, and four young whippersnappers were enlisted as co-chairs: singer Billie Eilish, tennis player Naomi Osaka, poet Amanda Gorman and – the elder statesman of the quartet at 25 – Timothée Chalamet.
Chalamet turned up, typically tousle-haired and puppy-eyed, in an outfit of two halves. Up top, a cropped, snugly tailored satin tuxedo jacket by avant-garde designer Haider Ackermann, complete with cummerbund and blingy brooches. Below, a pair of baggy cream jogging bottoms, tucked into white socks and Converse trainers. Half princely film star, half kid at play: it’s a look that encapsulates the persona of the biggest, most hysterically obsessed-over teen idol to emerge from the movies since the heyday of Twilight.
Continue reading...At 93, the Merchant Ivory director – and oldest ever Oscar winner – reflects on enduring love, delighting in his sexuality and defying film-making expectations
James Ivory’s movies revel in the elegance of the swan and simultaneously show how frantically its feet are paddling beneath the water. In the films for which he is best known – 1985’s A Room With a View, 1987’s Maurice, 1992’s Howards End and 1993’s The Remains of the Day, a fraction of his output – we see the effort put into making those rooms look so beautiful; the human cost of controlling your emotions. Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis) pretending to clean his spectacles after Lucy (Helena Bonham Carter) breaks their engagement in A Room With a View; Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) looking at Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson) as she takes the book out of his hand: Ivory knows that an ocean of emotions can be contained in the smallest gesture.
Ivory, 93, spends most of his time in his 6,000-sq ft home in the Hudson Valley, but when he’s in Manhattan, he stays in the Upper East Side apartment he’s had for the past half-century. He shared it with his partner, Ismail Merchant, who produced his movies, while Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who wrote most of them, lived downstairs. But Merchant died in 2005 and Jhabvala died in 2013, so now it is just Ivory on his own. When he welcomes me inside on an unseasonably warm October day, he is chipper and bright: “This weather is wonderful, it’s like Los Angeles,” he smiles. He is, as usual, very busy.
Continue reading...Permanencia Voluntaria has rescued hundreds of films and is seeking to challenge attitudes towards its legacy
From demons, ghosts and vampires to Martians, mad scientists and spurned lovers, the heroes and heroines of 20th-century Mexican popular cinema faced more than their share of enemies.
Few foes, however, have proved quite as formidable as the combined adversaries of time, critical snottiness and oblivion – not to mention the odd earthquake.
Continue reading...After three decades on the stage and screen, the star is still worrying about where his next job will come from. Meanwhile, at home, he frets about letting down his family
Mark Strong has a good face for villainy – spare and inscrutable, with thin lips and “eyes like tunnels”, as Arthur Miller might have put it. On camera, he gives a sort of fractional disclosure, expressions altering in tiny increments, so that watching him perform is often an exercise in judging how much good can reasonably be seen in the bad. He specialises in antiheroes and authority figures, from gangsters (Kick-Ass, The Long Firm) to heads of intelligence (The Imitation Game, Body of Lies, Zero Dark Thirty). His latest incarnation – as a surgeon who operates in the criminal underground in the TV drama Temple, now in its second series – melds these roles as he crosses and recrosses the line between conscientious and cruel.
Although highly regarded for his work across stage, film and TV, Strong is not a big winner of awards (though he earned an Olivier for his outstanding portrayal of Eddie Carbone in Miller’s A View from the Bridge in 2015). He comes across as somehow outside the system. He is reputable rather than starry, plays parts rather than leads and has retained the air of a jobbing actor. Surely at 58, after 30 years of nearly constant work and more than 100 screen credits, with a voice so sonorous and distinctive it draws you to the depths, he deserves a bigger breakthrough. Is he frustrated by the lack of leading parts?
Continue reading...Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith star in a horror-thriller that takes a trip to the sleazy heart of London’s past
A trip to the dark heart of London’s unswinging 60s is what’s on offer in this entertaining, if uneven, film from screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns and director Edgar Wright, serving up a gorgeous soundtrack and some marvellous re-creations of sleazy Soho and the West End. There’s a tremendous image of the marquee for the 1965 Thunderball premiere in Coventry Street, and a show-stopping crane shot of Soho Square, apparently filmed from where the 20th Century Fox sign is now no longer to be found atop that company’s former premises.
Last Night in Soho is a doppelganger horror-thriller about a wide-eyed fashion student called Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) who has brought her mum’s old Dansette record player and Cilla Black and Petula Clark LPs up to London from Cornwall on the train. Eloise has a fetish for the lost innocent glamour of the 60s but, moping all alone in her manky bedsit, finds herself stricken with neon phantasms. Like a ghost from the future, Eloise dreams her way through a portal in time back into 60s London clubland, where she witnesses Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a blonde singer – exactly the kind of retro showbiz princess Eloise moonily idolises – who is being forced by her slick-haired manager Jack (Matt Smith) into having sex for money with creepy old men. Gradually, Eloise feels her identity merging with Sandie’s. Is she having a breakdown, or is this nightmare really happening?
Continue reading...Officers say Alec Baldwin is ‘active part’ of investigation but have yet to determine if they’ll bring charges against the actor or others
Officials confirmed on Wednesday that live bullets, including the round it is believed killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza, were found on the set of the movie Rust last week after actor Alec Baldwin fired a gun during a rehearsal – but no decisions have been made yet about any criminal charges.
“We believe that we have, in our possession, the firearm that was fired by Mr Baldwin. This is the firearm we believe discharged the bullet,” said Santa Fe’s county sheriff, Adan Mendoza, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Santa Fe county district attorney tells New York Times weapon Alec Baldwin fired was ‘legit’ antique gun
Criminal charges have not been ruled out in the fatal accidental shooting by Alec Baldwin on the Rust film set, the local district attorney handling the case has said in an interview.
Speaking with the New York Times on Tuesday, the Santa Fe county district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, also said it was incorrect to refer to the firearm used in the incident as a “prop gun”, as media reports have.
Continue reading...Richard Kelly’s unusual sci-fi drama made a star of Jake Gyllenhaal and introduced emo teens to a brave new world
Midway through Donnie Darko, a creative young English teacher played by Drew Barrymore repeats the old maxim – recycled over the years by linguists, scholars and writers including JRR Tolkien – that the simple, banal phrase “cellar door” is the most purely, pleasingly harmonious combination of words in the English language. There’s something to be said for that, but one wonders if writer-director Richard Kelly was offering a challenge to the claim by naming his protagonist Donnie Darko – an irresistible, perfectly ridiculous name for an ordinary suburban schoolboy that nonetheless encapsulates his fey, eccentric aura. His new girlfriend says the name aloud, lolling it like a mint in her mouth, before observing that it makes him sound like “some kind of superhero”. “What makes you think I’m not?” he replies, deadpan.
Well, what indeed. Kelly’s sci-fi-tinted tale of adolescent isolation came out six months before Spider-Man, the film that kick-started the now all-consuming superhero movie revival, and the two have more in common than you might initially assume: both are stories of an awkward teenage boy coming to terms with what appear to be otherworldly abilities, and assuming responsibility for the world around them. For plucky Peter Parker, that means standard-issue feats of derring-do and defeating evil; for downcast Donnie Darko, it means ending and altering the very timeline in which he exists, ultimately dying so that others may live. As superhero origin stories go, it doesn’t have much franchise potential: Donnie’s legend begins and ends in one fell swoop. But it has an eerie, enduring power: would that many comic-book heroes’ stories were so noble and haunting and finite.
Continue reading...Somber vigil charged with subdued rage over conditions that many lower-paid crew believe were linked to cinematographer’s death
A public vigil for the slain cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in Los Angeles on Sunday evening served both as an unofficial memorial event and an outlet for anger over working conditions in Hollywood that many lower-paid crew believe were linked to the 42-year old mother’s death.
Several hundred colleagues gathered outside the local union office for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) which represents workers on film and TV sets, who had been poised to go on strike to protest about pay, long hours and dangers on sets just days before Hutchins was fatally shot by Alec Baldwin on the New Mexico set of the desert western film Rust last week.
Continue reading...Joel Souza says actor was practising a scene at time of accidental shooting of Halyna Hutchins
Alec Baldwin was practising a scene that involved him pointing a gun “towards the camera lens” when it accidentally went off, killing his director of photography, according to a written statement by the film’s director.
The director, Joel Souza, said he heard what “sounded like a whip and then a loud pop”. He said he saw the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins clutch her midriff and stumble backwards. Souza noticed that he himself was bleeding from the right shoulder.
Continue reading...The bust-up with Harvey Weinstein, Irvine Welsh’s verdict on the script (‘too effete’), the problem with the excrement scene … the cast and crew relive the making of the classic 1996 film
Continue reading...Friends and family pay tribute to the cinematographer as some attendees at vigil call for better safety protocols
Safety procedures on the New Mexico set of the movie Rust were under increasing scrutiny on Sunday as colleagues, friends and family paid tribute to the cinematographer shot dead by the actor Alec Baldwin in what appeared to be an accidental misfire.
A vigil for Halyna Hutchins, the 42-year-old director of photography killed after Baldwin was handed a loaded revolver by the western’s production crew, took place in Albuquerque attended by industry professionals including a number of Hollywood actors including Jon Hamm and John Slattery, who are filming projects nearby.
Continue reading...Rachael Stirling recalls her mother’s last months – and remembers her enormous sense of fun, whether pulling pranks on stage or dancing until dawn on her 80th birthday
When Ma found her cancer was malignant, all the theatres went dark.
“Normally, when one gets bad news like this, one becomes the focus of attention, but in a pandemic, no one gives a fuck!”
Continue reading...Text message warning of ‘super-unsafe’ conditions was later followed by a walkout by camera operators
A picture of chaos and concern on the set of Alec Baldwin’s new western, Rust, has emerged from fresh accounts of the lead-up to the fatal shooting during filming on Thursday.
Only days into the three-week production schedule, new reports suggest that a worker had been so worried about weapon safety he had sent a text message to his manager warning of “super-unsafe” conditions.
Continue reading...The actor’s turbulent life has rarely been out of the headlines. Now he faces a new crisis after a tragic accident on set
Alec Baldwin was the tough screen face of blue-collar America in the 1990s. And it suited him. His best early roles were gritty ones in brutal films such as Miami Blues, or the screen adaptation of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, where he gave a showstopping performance that won him many fans. Baldwin had the manner and look of an ordinary man who wanted to survive at all costs.
Now, in the saddest of media storms, following the accidental shooting of a colleague on the set of his latest movie, the actor will need every ounce of the self-preserving grit he once accessed so easily on film.
Continue reading...Assistant director who gave actor prop gun did not know it was loaded with live rounds, search warrant says
Alec Baldwin was handed a loaded weapon by an assistant director who indicated it was safe to use in the moments before the actor fatally shot a cinematographer, court records released on Friday show.
The assistant director did not know the prop gun was loaded with live rounds, according to a search warrant filed in a Santa Fe court.
Continue reading...As we reach the 20th anniversary of the magical British blockbusters, the real magic lies in the way its young stars have stayed on the rails – unlike many before them
There are many magical things about the Harry Potter film series, which marks its 20th anniversary this month with a re-release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps the most miraculous one, though, is that its three stars – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – are still alive, apparently content, and not noticeably addicted to class A drugs.
Each continued acting, occasionally even starring in bona fide hits: Radcliffe in The Woman in Black; Watson, who is also a UN women goodwill ambassador, in Beauty and the Beast. Grint, star of the M Night Shyamalan series Servant, also became a father last year – his partner is another former child actor, Georgia Groome of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging – and celebrated by joining Instagram. Even there, he has shown a characteristic level-headedness by posting a mere six times in 11 months.
Continue reading...Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins airlifted to hospital, where she died, while director Joel Souza also injured
Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on a movie set in an accident that killed the film’s director of photography and injured its director, authorities in New Mexico have said.
A statement from the Santa Fe Sheriff’s office said Baldwin, who is acting in and producing the film Rust, had fired the prop gun in an incident on Thursday.
Continue reading...The artist and film-maker remembers the pioneering documentary producer behind films such as RBG, The Square and An Inconvenient Truth, who has died aged 66
Diane has left. When someone close passes away, we feel that a part of ourselves left together with them. A part of our understanding of the world, a link in our interpersonal network, our previous value judgment and actions in the past have all been misplaced because of the passing of a close friend.
This sense of misplacement is sometimes very strong and clear, almost like the lack of a lit candle on the shore of a river or a pile of extinguished charcoal in cold weather. We cannot envisage it before people disappear from our life. When they do disappear, we suddenly become aware of the fact that the light and warmth, which vanished with their passing, are lost for ever. They are irreplaceable and will never return. No matter what happens in the future, whatever is lost is lost for ever.
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