Latest news with #TheWayBack
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Domhnall Gleeson relishing villain role in Echo Valley
Domhnall Gleeson has said he is relishing his role as villain Jackie Lawson in the acclaimed new thriller Echo Valley, coming to Apple TV+ on Friday 13 June. Gleeson stars opposite Julianne Moore, Sydney Sweeney, and Fiona Shaw in the "gripping tale of love, sacrifice, and survival". Watch: The trailer for Echo Valley Speaking at the film's European premiere at BFI Southbank in London on Tuesday, Gleeson said: "It was a chance to do a totally different sort of character. He's very threatening in a very unusual sort of way. "[It was] a chance to work with Julianne and Sydney and our fantastic director Michael [Pearce (Beast)]. And the script was amazing. Brad [Ingelsby (Mare of Easttown, The Way Back ], who wrote the script, is fantastic. Across the board, [it was] an incredible opportunity, and I loved it." David Obzud, the Chief of the Easttown Police Department in Eastown Township, Pennsylvania, who worked on True Detective and Mare of Easttown, was a technical advisor on Echo Valley, and Gleeson also saluted him on the red carpet. "Brad [Ingelsby], the writer, had worked with Chief Dave, who's chief of police, on the script. And so, I went on a sort of... it wasn't a ride-along, but he brought me around a few neighbourhoods to try and get some research done. I found that really interesting, and [he] talked me through some case files and stuff like that, and [I] looked at a lot of videos. "It was fun. It was fun trying to make the character real, because he could just be a typical bad guy, but it was nice to make him real." Echo Valley is on Apple TV+ from Friday.
San Francisco Chronicle
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘The Accountant 2' review: Sequel delivers smarter action, sillier fun and Ben Affleck's best role in years
'The Accountant 2' is a rarity. It's a sequel that blows by the respectable original, evolving into something simultaneously smarter and sillier, more grounded and much more fun. Ben Affleck is back — finally, in his best role in years (along with his 2020 turn in 'The Way Back') — as Christian Wolff, an awkward, high-functioning autistic bean counter for bad guys who is secretly a super-killer. He and his estranged brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal), a slick and successful assassin, reunite when Chris is summoned to help investigate the murder of a former U.S. Treasury agent he used to feed tips to on crimes. The plot is a bit murky, but it involves a Los Angeles human-trafficking ring, a missing boy and a female assassin (Oakland native Daniella Pineda). Chris' sort-of ally from the first film, law-and-order U.S. Treasury Deputy Director Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) reluctantly seeks his savant-level assistance to untangle the mess. One sign of the film's intelligence, by the way, is Marybeth's principled objection to the brothers' extrajudicial approach to investigation. (The violence, by the way, is excellent.) Remarkably, the far-superior sequel is by writer Bill Dubuque and director Gavin O'Connor, the same guys who worked on the 2016 original. That film was enjoyable, but it feels as if every tweak they've made for the new one works — even some that could have gone too far, like when the plot fully stops for an extended brotherly bonding sequence. The closest current analogy would be the 'Reacher' Prime Video series, which was a grim, unintended parody of machismo its first season and a lightened-up, whacked-out joyride in its second. Here, the filmmakers deftly pick their spots to lean into character comedy, and 'Accountant 2' is all the better for it. Affleck and Bernthal's portrayals are miles ahead of where they were in the first film. Bernthal seems to benefit from revisiting roles years later, as evident in his convincing return as The Punisher in the current ' Daredevil: Born Again ' series. This time around, Braxton is informed by fraternal warmth and goofiness. The brothers' relationship feels settled into, and it's a pleasure to watch. When Braxton is about to invite some women into their motel room, he admonishes the stiff Chris, 'Just go stand over there. Don't be scary.' Affleck's Chris is much more detailed and lived in now. Before, physical and vocal inconsistencies could pop out, but the Berkeley-born actor is in the groove here. There's increased precision in Chris' neurodivergent behaviors and vocal mannerisms (perhaps credit is due to the film's neurodiversity consultant, 'Autism: The Musical' star Elaine Hall). Affleck appears more relaxed, so the character is more alive. That pays off throughout, as when hyper-efficient Chris navigates the perils of speed dating, occasionally remembering to crank his face into a smile or deploying 'smooth' patter such as, 'Eventually, this body will be a corpse.' Then, when we've nearly forgotten this is an action movie, we're brutally reminded what Chris and Braxton do so well. The action sequences are some of the best so far this year. Hats off to stunt coordinator Fernando 'Fern' Funan Chien and tactical advisor Tyler Grey. And the fights aren't just good for camera; they convey character. There's also the delightful introduction of a major element this review will leave audiences to discover, but let's just say it would be a certain secretary of Health and Human Services' worst nightmare. Not for nothing, the film happens to be releasing at the end of Autism Awareness Month. More of Chris' super-detective skills would have been appreciated, and the opening feels chaotic, but those are quibbles with so many other enjoyable elements packed in. The convoluted plot will leave viewers with some unanswered questions, should they pull at its threads, but it's a good bet they'll likely leave well enough alone after being so entertained. 'Accountant 2' lays solid groundwork for another sequel. Let's just hope it doesn't take another nine years. Michael Ordoña is a freelance writer.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ben Affleck shares the secret to his best performance: 'You need to be able to be free to be bad'
Ben Affleck knows what his best performance is, and it's not his most famous one. It's not Batman or Daredevil, nor his turn in the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting or Argo. It's not even the brilliant and socially awkward Christian Wolff, who he's played twice as of the April 25 release of The Accountant 2. 'I don't think I can do it any better than I did in The Way Back,' Affleck told Yahoo Entertainment. In the 2020 movie, he plays an alcoholic construction worker who returns to the high school basketball team he once dominated as its star years ago to become the coach. He credited Gavin O'Connor, who directed him in The Way Back and both Accountant movies, with helping him pull that off. 'It was a ... time in my life that was quite sensitive and tender and vulnerable,' Affleck explained. 'Gavin was enormously accommodating and sensitive to it, and creates this space [so] I was able to come in and do something that was really meaningful to me as an actor.' The key to that performance, he said, was having the freedom to make mistakes. 'You need to be able to be free to be bad to do something really good. You need to take big swings,' Affleck said. 'You need to be able to try things where you go, 'Whoa! That was horrible!' And know that the director's not going to be like, 'In a way, that might be great!' Part of the reason he wanted to work on The Accountant 2 is that he felt like there was more of his character's story to tell. It didn't hurt that the film's director is genuinely one of his favorite collaborators. 'The sensitive care and attention that he pays to all the performances in his movies — I like to think I do the same thing, it's certainly what I aspire to,' Affleck said of O'Connor. O'Connor told Yahoo Entertainment something Affleck told him during one of their earlier collaborations that has stuck with him: They have the 'same taste.' 'We have a similar aesthetic [and] approach to making movies [with] regard to coming from character,' O'Connor said. 'If you watch The Accountant — both movies — then you look at The Way Back ... it's such a different character. But [we're] once again finding humor, finding life, finding ... the humanity of the character.' Nearly a decade has passed between the two Accountant movies, so Affleck's autistic, math-loving action hero character has changed and grown as much as the actor has. But something consistent about Affleck's performance still stuck out to O'Connor. 'Playing a genius, which Christian is — he has a one in a trillion brain — I think for an actor, you can fall into the trap of trying to show off. It's really easy to want to be show-offy when you play a genius! And he never does,' O'Connor said. 'It's always coming from a truthful, honest behavioral place ... I think it's Ben's instinct as an actor.' In the same room for their interview, Affleck and O'Connor couldn't resist lauding each other — especially for this movie that took so long to make. 'I just love him as a person. I love him as an actor,' O'Connor said of Affleck. 'You find a partner that you feel like you work well with, just on a selfish level. I want to hitch my wagon to this guy,' Affleck said of O'Connor. Affleck is frequently effusive about his favorite collaborators. His bromance with Matt Damon, his costar and Oscar-winning cowriter of Good Will Hunting, frequently makes headlines. Together, the longtime pals co-founded Artists Equity, the production company behind The Accountant 2 as well as 2024's Apple TV+ film The Instigators starring Damon and Casey Affleck and the upcoming Jennifer Lopez-led Kiss of the Spider Woman. To Affleck, he's not just investing in projects he and Damon believe in — they 'take advantage of the art of others.' '[The Accountant 2] was one where I think Artists Equity was just lucky to be in a situation where it could step in and facilitate and unclog the dams that were preventing what I thought was an obvious thing,' he said. 'It was investing in the art of others kind of, because you're taking a risk, whereas I felt like, 'Gosh, this just seems obvious.'' He added that he felt 'fortunate that the entity we built was able to facilitate so we could do the very few key strategic things that needed to be done to finally catalyze this thing.' Affleck once again credited O'Connor, as well as the film's writer, Bill Dubuque, 'who spent years putting together a story, writing a script [and] rewriting a script.' 'I wouldn't want to write for Gavin, I'll tell you that right now! No offense!' Affleck laughed. 'I can only do like, seven or eight drafts before I start to lose my mind.' is in theaters April 25.
Buzz Feed
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
After Admitting He Feels Like A 'Poster Child' For 'Actor Alcoholism,' Ben Affleck Explained Why He Wishes He'd Kept His Sobriety 'Anonymous'
Content warning: This post discusses alcoholism. It's no secret that Ben Affleck has struggled with alcohol misuse throughout his career. He first visited a rehab facility in 2001. According to the New York Times, he sought treatment for alcohol addiction on subsequent occasions in 2017 and again in 2018 following his divorce from Jennifer Garner. Since then, he's had to navigate sobriety in the spotlight, which has unfortunately involved addressing relapse speculation on more than one occasion. And now, after previously expressing frustrations over becoming 'one of the poster boys for actor alcoholism,' Ben elaborated on the downsides of his sobriety being public knowledge. During a new interview with GQ, Ben recalled drawing from his personal experiences while playing an alcoholic in The Way Back. The 2020 film was shot when he was newly sober, and looking back, Ben said he didn't mind his sobriety being a talking point at the time — although he doesn't love how his relationship with alcohol remains a big part of his public identity today. 'I didn't have any ambitions to be the national spokesman for recovering alcoholics,' he said. 'And not because I have any shame with it or anything. I just find that, I've been sober for more than five years, it's just not something that is at the forefront of my mind. It's not the central preoccupation of my life.' Ben has talked openly about his alcoholism, but, as is the case for many celebrities, it wasn't his choice to have the world let in on his personal struggles. In light of this, he said: 'If I could have, I would've kept the fact that I'm sober anonymous.' 'I think it works better that way. And I didn't ask for that to become something people knew about. But I can't complain about it either,' he said, as he expressed gratitude for where he is today. 'I understood doing this job and doing this life, if something happened like that, people were going to know about it, and they did. And I have arrived at a place where I think of that experience as part of my life in authentically grateful ways, whereas I didn't think such a thing was possible before. So that sort of is what it is.' This is not the first time Ben has opened up about the complications of navigating his health publicly. Discussing his recovery during a 2023 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, the Gone Girl star said bluntly: 'You don't need to be anybody's poster child. You don't need to fucking tell anybody. That's why there's two words on the front of the book. They're just as important, both of them: Alcoholics Anonymous. It's always anonymous.'
Telegraph
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Peter Weir on Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe: ‘Talent and trouble often seem to share the same space'
Peter Weir, 80, is arguably Australia's greatest ever film-maker. Yet he only turned in two films this century – the stupendous Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), which received 10 Oscar nominations, and the comparatively little-seen prisoner-of-war escape drama The Way Back (2010) – before he retired from directing at the relatively early age of 66. This year, Picnic at Hanging Rock, the astonishing, enigmatic film that put Weir on the map, celebrates its 50th anniversary. Adapted from Joan Lindsay's 1967 novel about three sylphlike schoolgirls who vanish into the bowels of a volcanic outcrop in central Victoria on Valentine's Day in 1900, like gossamer into thin air, it launched a career of questing verve, with hardly a dud in the mix. Weir followed the Australian war masterpiece Gallipoli (1981) with The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), before his high-quality work for a range of Hollywood studios produced Witness (1985), The Mosquito Coast (1986), Dead Poets Society (1989), Green Card (1990), Fearless (1993), and The Truman Show (1998). He would notch up six Oscar nominations in the process, and was given an honorary award in 2022. In 2006, Weir couldn't see eye-to-eye with Johnny Depp or Warner Bros in preparing Shantaram, a Bombay-set adventure about a heroin-addict bank robber, so he quit the film (eventually made as a TV series with Charlie Hunnam in 2022) and, after one last roll of the dice with The Way Back, film-making itself. Here, from his home in Sydney, he looks back on the film that made his name. Picnic at Hanging Rock is often mistaken for a true story. Following Joan Lindsay's novel, did you consciously want to give the tale the quality of a national myth? Following the film's release, many people assumed it was true. It all comes from Joan's prologue – 'Whether this is fact or fiction, my readers must decide for themselves...' I loved that statement and felt it added to the veil of mystery surrounding the story. Joan would never discuss the matter, but this was no advertising ploy. The story as presented is not true, but its inspiration/origin – who knows? That's Joan's secret. I didn't aim to give it the quality of a national myth. I just aimed at making it work as a film! A mystery without a solution was both the power of the piece and its inherent danger, at least as a movie. Could you give a sense of the casting process? From Dominic Guard, who had already starred in Joseph Losey's 1971 film The Go-Between, to 19-year-old Anne-Louise Lambert, making her debut as Miranda, there's such a range of acting experience on screen. The young girls who auditioned seemed too sophisticated, even at 15 or 16 years old. At least, as far as Sydney and Melbourne went. It was in Adelaide, in South Australia, where those who auditioned seemed closer to young ladies of an earlier era. If you cast accurately, half the job is done. This was the case with Anne-Louise Lambert. After her disappearance, I missed her so much from the cut, I added dream-like scenes that brought her back on screen. She embodied the spirit of that ethereal girl so completely, I said little to her, not wanting to break the spell. The Go-Between was a fine film, and the performance of the young Dominic Guard stayed with me. He was my first and only choice for his part. Rachel Roberts [who replaced the ailing Vivien Merchant as the headmistress, Mrs Appleyard] had little or no preparation time. We were already a couple of weeks in, shooting scenes involving the girls preparing for the picnic. They were so into the mood that Rachel found their intense stares of dislike thoroughly off-putting. When addressing them prior to their setting off, she asked for them to be removed from her eyeline, preferring to engage with a piece of gaffer tape stuck to a stand. Picnic at Hanging Rock is cited more than any other Australian film as something like colonialism's swansong, what with it being set in the first year of the 20th century, in the dying days of Victoria's reign. Do you think of it as a farewell, a good riddance? I thought it all pretty obvious and irresistible – the exclusive English school afloat on a sea of eucalyptus at the bottom of the world. An end and a beginning. Rich stuff. You have said that the atmosphere of Hanging Rock itself was quite oppressive. Have you ever returned? I went back some years ago and, like an old general returning to the scene of a great battle, wandered over the Rock retracing our steps. The shoot was certainly tough. Never enough time! Take the picnic scene. It should have taken half a day to shoot. We spent a week on it, because my director of photography, Russell Boyd, pointed out the light was perfect for one hour only – from 12 noon. So we'd break the set up after an hour, and trudge up the Rock for other scenes, day after day. How important was this film specifically in the evolution of your career? The film was successful enough to introduce me to the film world, at least in Europe. It was a risky project – whodunits have solutions; this one didn't. The fact that it worked encouraged me, apart from learning a lot about setting a mood. Is there anything about it you would change? No. I made my changes in the 1990s for the Director's Cut. I removed some 12 minutes from the film, something I'd wanted to do in 1975 for the world release. The film had opened successfully in Australia, but I saw how it could be improved. The investors were puzzled – 'You want to cut a hit film?' Unfortunately, they would not agree. The idea of an idyll or enclave that's more disturbing than we first realise recurs in your work, for instance in Witness, The Mosquito Coast, Dead Poets Society and The Truman Show. Is this a theme that helped guide you? I treated each film as a separate case, looking neither forward nor back. In other words, I served the story. Of course, my fingerprints are all over these films, but they were not about me. Which of your films gave you the most difficulty? Most difficult? Hmm... we had death threats when we were filming The Year of Living Dangerously in Manila. The then-president's wife, Imelda Marcos, loaned us the presidential guard, she was so anxious to have the film stay. Armed guards arrived at my hotel room door every morning to escort me to work. It was so tense. We pulled out and completed the film in Sydney. Mel Gibson. Russell Crowe. Gérard Depardieu. Robin Williams. Jim Carrey. Nearly Johnny Depp. Your leading men comprise quite a troubled bunch! Do you see any commonality in these performers? Talent and trouble often seem to share the same space! Of course, I don't see these famous names as you do. Observing the fusion of their own personal traits with those of the characters they were playing, plus the intensity of the experience – this is what I know and remember of them. You've said that you've entered the 'extinct' phase of your career, and that your energy gradually ebbed away. It's more that the unknowable muse, glorious electrifying inspiration – that's what ebbed away, and without that, no matter how fit I may be for my age, I can't make my kind of films. I had a good run. The timing was right, after several decades, for me to take a bow and leave the stage. Picnic at Hanging Rock is back in cinemas now
