Latest news with #ThePresent
Daily Mail
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Cate Blanchett's co-star Richard Roxburgh reveals how she made 'a complete idiot of herself' on set
Cate Blanchett 's long-time co-star Richard Roxburgh has cheekily revealed she will happily 'make a complete idiot of herself' when on set. The 63-year-old Australian actor recently discussed his experiences working with Cate on the A Life of Greatness podcast. 'Cate is incredibly brave. She is so happy to make a complete idiot of herself. She will do things in the rehearsal room,' Richard began. 'I remember we were doing a play at the Sydney Theatre Company. She would do things on the rehearsal floor. 'You just think "Oh my God". Totally shameless and unguarded.' His remarks coincide with Cate's reputation for being a bold actress who works extremely hard to get into character. Richard has co-starred in three movies with Cate, including the 1997 drama film Oscar and Lucinda, and also appeared on stage with her in several productions. In 2017, they were co-stars in the Broadway show The Present, which is an adaption of an Anton Chekhov play, adapted by Cate's husband Andrew Upton. The pair celebrated their time together on the show with the unveiling of their caricatures at the world-famous Sardi's Restaurant in New York City. It follows reports that Cate has plans to retire from showbusiness, after decades in the industry. The Oscar-winning actress, 55, hesitated about her job title during a recent interview with Radio Times and explained: 'It's because I'm giving up [acting]. My family roll their eyes every time I say it, but I mean it. I am serious.' The Melbourne-born actress insisted she still had 'a lot of things I want to do with my life'. The Little Fish star, who recently starred in an adaptation of Chekov's The Seagull at the Barbican, London, did not give a time frame for her departure from the entertainment industry. But it is not the first time that she has threatened to quit her career despite international acclaim. Cate told Vanity Fair in 2023 that she has often toyed with the idea of walking away from her acting work. She said: 'It's not occasional — it's continual. On a daily or weekly basis, for sure. 'It's a love affair, isn't it? So you do fall in and out of love with it, and you have to be seduced back into it.' Despite her latest declaration, the Lord of the Rings star recently featured in her first radio play on Radio 4, in a 90-minute monologue titled The Fever. Written by Wallace Shawn, Cate played an unnamed traveller who fell ill in a foreign country riven by civil war. The mother-of-four explained why she had chosen to embark on her first audio radio project. She told the Radio Times: 'I'm obsessed with the psychological space that is the interior of people's cars. Often the most profound and intense and memorable conversations I have with my children are in the car.' 'That special space was where my 16-year-old encountered Desert Island Discs and now he's completely obsessed with it, and, because the school run is quite long, it's where I listen to long-form radio drama.'
Los Angeles Times
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In ‘The Teacher,' a Palestinian educator becomes a beacon of dignity for his students
During a seemingly normal school day, Basem (Saleh Bakri), a dedicated West Bank educator with hypnotizing eyes, encourages his student Yacoub (Mahmoud Bakri) to get back on track with his studies and to 'regain control of his life.' But whatever autonomy the young man can re-assert seems futile in the face of the Israeli occupation that hinders any sense of normalcy. Yacoub's aspirations for a future have been replaced by anger, all-consuming and warranted after spending two years in prison. That conflicting, burning sentiment of wishing to move forward despite constantly being reminded that your existence is devalued propels Farah Nabulsi's feature debut 'The Teacher,' even as it occasionally stumbles through its more melodramatic aspects. Nabulsi's Oscar-nominated 2020 short film 'The Present' chronicled a Palestinian father's negotiation through a dehumanizing Israeli checkpoint along with his young daughter. (Bakri also played the protagonist in that bite-size indictment.) Within the first few minutes of 'The Teacher,' Yacoub winds up dead at the hands of an Israeli settler, leaving his younger teenage brother Adam (Muhammad Abed Elrahman) behind. Yacoub's defiance seems to transfer directly into Adam, whose worldview has been upended. 'The Teacher' was shot on location in the West Bank and the arid landscapes and homes captured by cinematographer Gilles Porte feel true to Palestinian life, making for an arresting visual statement. Nabulsi, unfortunately, muddles the story with multiple subplots, some inelegant acting and contrived English-language dialogue. There's Lisa (Imogen Poots), a well meaning NGO worker who becomes romantically involved with Basem, and the Cohens, a Jewish couple whose American-born IDF soldier son has been kidnapped in pursuit of liberating imprisoned Palestinians. Basem is secretly part of this operation. These add-ons make 'The Teacher' unfocused on its way to a larger geopolitical picture. What remains consistent through all the tangents, though, is Bakri's performance as Basem, radiating a sturdy tranquility, not the kind that comes naturally but an inner peace he forces himself to exude in order to save lives, his own and those of young men like Adam. If he surrenders to the fury that undoubtedly courses through him, then his personal suffering (revealed in flashbacks) would be in vain. The core of 'The Teacher' is Basem's relationship with his pupil, a surrogate child he must protect. Halfway through the film, Basem and Adam share a grief-stricken embrace after the boy threatens to hurt his brother's killer. From a wide shot, Nabulsi and editor Mike Pike cut to Adam's desperate hands on Basem's back. The intensity with which the teen hugs his teacher, a father figure, helps a viewer comprehend the depth of the sorrow, imbuing 'The Teacher' with a moving potency. But what can you teach someone when their daily reality is so painful? When they must stand simmering in rage as their home is demolished? What purpose can a teacher serve in the face of these agonizing circumstances? Plenty. That spirit-crushing feeling of powerlessness is what director Nabulsi aims to fend off, admittedly through not always effective narrative means, but with emotional sincerity nonetheless. Basem's concern is not whether these boys learn a single word of English, but his presence — the everyday reliability that he will be there regardless of how little strength they may have left — is resistance incarnate. Among the ruins, the most important school assignment left is to live despite it all.
