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Forbes
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Kristin Scott Thomas On Her Directorial Debut ‘My Mother's Wedding' And Reclaiming Her Story: ‘It Is My Truth'
From L to R: Emily Beecham, Sienna Miller, Kristin Scott Thomas, Scarlett Johansson in 'My Mother's Wedding' Vertical Entertainment Kristin Scott Thomas recently made her directorial debut with My Mother's Wedding, in which she also stars, and which she co-wrote with her husband, writer and journalist John Micklethwait. It was also the occasion for the actor-turned-director to be reunited with her Horse Whisperer co-star Scarlett Johansson, who plays her elder daughter Katherine, a captain in the Royal Navy who comes back to her hometown in England for her mother's wedding. She is joined by her two sisters, Victoria, a famous actress and Georgina, a nurse, respectively portrayed by Sienna Miller and Emily Beecham. While Katherine and Victoria have the same father, Georgina was born from a second marriage. Their fathers were both navy pilots and died when they were very young, only a few years apart. This is a very personal story for Scott Thomas, who based so much of it on her own life. Her own father and stepfather died a few years apart, as they were both pilots in the Royal Navy. In her movie, Scott Thomas used hand-drawn animation as flashbacks when Johansson's character recalls the days her father and stepfather died. 'Memory is a very interesting thing, because people can be in the same room, something will happen, and each person will remember it differently, as we all know. I wanted to create an atmosphere that was slightly unreal and unreachable, you can't quite get a hold of it. So I thought that animation would be a very clever way to do it and keep the memory slightly out of reach. So, the father doesn't have any eyes, he's not quite real yet. He remains a kind of mystery to these girls, but Scarlett's character, Katherine, is the one who is the holder of the images, as I was the holder of the images, because I was the one who was old enough to remember my father,'' said Scott Thomas. She added: 'In fact, the memories that we see, these sections of memories, these are all my memories as a child. So, everything that you will see is what I remember of my father and my stepfather's death. Watching the news, when my stepfather went missing, that's all true. Apart from the location because it wasn't Bosnia because I'm slightly older than that. But the heart in it is all very personal, it is my truth.' Writer, Director, Actor Kristin Scott Thomas in 'My Mother's Wedding' Vertical Entertainment When a movie is so close and so personal to a writer and director's life, can the version of their own story that is being acted in front of the camera, unveil new layers of truth and a new point of view they didn't have before? Scott Thomas said, 'Well, that's what's so interesting. You can write something, in your imagination and voice, you can imagine how something is gonna go, and an actor will turn up, we have amazing actresses, and they will just take it somewhere else, and it's so interesting to see how that happens. Sometimes they wanna take it to a place, that you don't think is the right place, and you have to bring it back, and because they're all extraordinary, they're able to do that very easily. And sometimes they'll show you something that you had never thought about and it's an absolute revelation.' She added: 'So it was really thrilling, certainly for me it was a huge privilege to watch these people work, because when you're an actor and you're acting with them, you can't watch them because you're busy. But watching them from behind the camera, you just see this incredible talent, and it is such an honor to be able to watch that. Now as an actor, I feel enriched by this experience of directing, because I understand more how my colleagues and my co-actors in the scene are able to do what they do. I'm pretty impressed now. I was quite blasé about talent before. Now I see how it sort of all works.' Even though it was an enriching experience, directing and acting for the first time in her own movie proved to be quite difficult for The English Patient star. I asked Scott Thomas what she learned about herself as an actor directing other actors. She said, 'When I was acting in this movie, I found it very, very difficult. That was really hard, really, really hard, because you have to be wearing two hats at the same time. So what I would do is, when I would watch the scene back, I would put my hand over the bit of the screen when I was on it and when I didn't want to see me, so I could concentrate on the others. Because as an actor, I'm sort of drawn to critique my own performance and I didn't want to critique as an actor, I wanted to critique as a whole, in a whole scene with all the other people. So it got quite complicated, it certainly made me a more sympathetic actress on set. I now understand much more why you have to do it again, why this isn't gonna work, and why they want certain tone taken down, or augmented or whatever.' 'My Mother's Wedding' Vertical Entertainment Scott Thomas is no stranger to working with actors-turned-directors, from Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer , to Sydney Pollack in Random Hearts , so I asked her if directing her own movie and acting in it gave her a new perspective on those earlier experiences. She said, 'Oh yes. I was much, much younger when I worked with them. But I've worked with a lot of actors-directors, I found them to be very generous to work with, as directors. And sometimes I'd get nervous when they were acting and I now understand why, because it is so hard to act for yourself, it's very, very difficult! But I really do enjoy acting with somebody who understands how it works, and it isn't just a question of lifting your chin or scrunching your eyebrows together, it comes from a much more different place. And directors who understand how to unravel a scene to get what you're really trying to say and to get to the heart of something, that's always very useful.'' Over the years, Scott Thomas spent a lot of time responding to the press often referring to her life and childhood as tragic. This was a narrative she was very much looking forward to reclaiming in her movie. In one scene of My Mother's Wedding , Miller's character is invited to a talk-show, where she is labeled as a victim and as a tragic story. I asked the actress how important it was for her to write this scene in the movie and if it was a way to claim ownership of her own life and childhood. James Fleet and Kristin Scott Thomas in 'My Mother's Wedding' Vertical Entertainment She said, 'I felt it was important to underline that, yes. One of my favorite lines in the film, when the character played by Thibault de Montalembert, 'Le Grand Fromage' says, 'You're such a tragic family!' l'm like 'I'm sorry, what?' So that always makes me laugh!' She added: 'To be labelled as a tragic childhood is quite upsetting, actually. I really enjoyed my childhood. Yes, there are terrible things that happened, but you kind of climb over those terrible things, they become, it sounds very brusque and quite cruel to say, but it's character forming, it makes you who you are. You know, I've learnt to become very resilient, and in fact the loss, the knowledge of death at such an unnaturally young age, and the repetition of death, at an unnaturally young age, gave me a kind of engine, a motor and a battery for being able to play these characters, that have touched a lot of people, whether it's Fiona in Four Weddings and a Funeral , or it's The English Patient. These are all people who have a kind of secret sadness to them, which I was able to conjure up quite easily, because that was part of my makeup. Now, luckily, thank goodness, at this ripe old age, I have now managed to let that go, and move on to these things. But for a very long time, it was a motor of mine.'
Toronto Sun
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Sun
Stow your tray tables and brace for comedy in ‘Fight or Flight'
Published May 09, 2025 • 3 minute read Josh Hartnett stars in "Fight or Flight." MUST CREDIT: Csaba Aknay/Vertical Entertainment Photo by Csaba Aknay/Vertical Entertainme / Csaba Aknay/Vertical Entertainme Some actors are best left to weather outside until they've properly aged, like firewood or a good Scotch. (Humphrey Bogart being the ideal example.) Josh Hartnett was something of an It Boy at the turn of the millennium, with lead roles in 'The Virgin Suicides,' 'Pearl Harbor,' 'Black Hawk Down' and more. Then, like with many It Boys, his career cooled. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Two decades on, Hartnett's in his mid-40s and popping up again, as a serial-killer dad in M. Night Shyamalan's 'Trap' (2024) and, this week, in the ratty, fizzy action comedy 'Fight or Flight.' An actor who once seemed a passable carbon copy of the young Tommy Lee Jones has apparently decided he has little left to lose, and it's made him … interesting. He's grumpier, wearier, wilier. He's having FUN. 'Fight or Flight' gives Hartnett ample room to play. An unrepentant B-movie with a Grade A concept – the star plays a former Secret Service agent who has to find and arrest an unknown terrorist on a plane full of assassins – the film takes what could have been grim going in the hands of, say, Steven Seagal and gives it an antic, often hilarious spin. Yes, it's violent in arcs and spurts of increasing absurdity, but the frenetic pace, slaphappy fight choreography and committed performances keep 'Fight or Flight' teetering on the edge of farce. If the John Wick movies were played for laughs, they might look something like this. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Hartnett's Lucas Reyes is bottle-blond, burned-out and washed-up in Thailand when the movie opens, but he's the only one on the ground when his higher-ups in America need someone to catch the Ghost, a brilliant international hacker-terrorist who's boarding a red-eye to San Francisco. The Ghost's identity is unknown, so he could be anybody on the plane, but Lucas's job, once he sobers up from his latest bender, is to find the terrorist and bring him in alive. Unfortunately, the Ghost has a $10 million bounty on his head and a travel itinerary that just went public on the dark web, which means that some, or most or all of the agent's fellow passengers aren't tourists on their way to the City by the Bay. Josh Hartnett and Charithra Chandran in 'Fight or Flight.' Photo by Csaba Aknay / Vertical Entertainme Helmed by James Madigan, a second-unit director moving up to the big chair, from a screenplay by Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona, 'Fight or Flight' is high-spirited junk, too full of itself at times but mostly content to work out every last variation on a theme: How do you kill someone on an airplane? The assassins come in baroque waves and are dispatched in the same manner, from a pompous actor-hitman (Marko Zaror) to a lady 'apex predator' (Nóra Trokán) to Chinese gangsters and Italian mobsters and a lot of hulking guys played by actors named Tíbor and Gábor and István. (The movie was filmed in Hungary.) This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Not everyone on the plane is out for blood. The flight crew includes an officious prat (Hughie O'Donnell), an OCD newbie (Danny Ashok) and Isha (Charithra Chandran of TV's 'Bridgerton' and 'Alex Rider'), who becomes Lucas's ally, social conscience and impromptu medic. The Ghost has a few ringers on the flight, as well, including a trio of lady samurai because – well, just because. Believable? Not in the least. Enjoyable? Surprisingly so, once you hop on the wavelength of giddy, exhausted overkill along with Hartnett's increasingly woozy hero. 'Fight or Flight' juggles not only chain saws but also ice axes, small in-flight butter knives, a clarinet wielded with lethal force, and a vial of toad venom that briefly causes Lucas and the movie as a whole to hallucinate pretty fireworks where other characters see geysers of blood. On its way to an ending that's both preposterous and the only logical way out, the filmmakers broker the notion that not ALL international hacker-terrorists might be bad people, and that some of the shadowy figures who move between the worlds of national intelligence and Silicon Valley might be measurably worse. But that's taking 'Fight or Flight' more seriously than it deserves. 'How much more f—ed up can this get before it qualifies as f—ed up?' someone asks here. The answer: a lot. – – – Ty Burr is the author of the movie recommendation newsletter Ty Burr's Watch List at – – – RATING: Three stars Read More Toronto & GTA Columnists NBA NFL Ontario
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Good Day Atlanta viewer information: March 5, 2025
Atlanta - "In The Lost Lands": Superstar wrestler-turned-actor Dave Bautista says he's channeling his "inner Clint Eastwood" in the new epic fantasy "In the Lost Lands," opening in theaters on Friday. Directed by "Resident Evil" filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson and based on a short story by author George R.R. Martin (whose books inspired the hit show "Game of Thrones"), "In the Lost Lands" tells the story of witch Gray Alys (played by "The Fifth Element" star Milla Jovovich), who's forced to journey through a dark and dangerous landscape alongside Bautista's sharpshooting drifter. Says Anderson of the film's obvious Western influence, "When I read 'In The Lost Lands,' it was two things. One, it was an adult fairy tale; it's got a story that tells you, 'Be careful what you wish for.' But then, also, I felt that the story really followed a lot of tropes of the Western." Adds Bautista, "When I started reading [the character] Boyce, I was like, 'He's a cowboy; this is a Western.' That was the way I approached it. That was the way I thought of the whole film, you know? He's a gunslinger." For Jovovich, meanwhile, the key to finding Gray Alys was less Old West and more Ancient Greece. "I've always been a huge fan of mythology," says the actress. "And, for me, Gray Alys really represented a mythological creature come to life. "In the Lost Lands" opens in theaters nationwide on Friday, March 7 from Vertical Entertainment; to hear more from the film's director and stars, click the video player in this article. Jennifer Coolidge stars in the dark comedy "Riff Raff": Fresh off a pair of Emmy wins for her scene-stealing work in the HBO Original Series "The White Lotus," Jennifer Coolidge returns in another ensemble project filled with twisted relationships and uncovered family secrets. Coolidge stars in the dark comedy "Riff Raff" from Roadside Attractions, alongside a powerhouse cast including Ed Harris, Gabrielle Union, Pete Davidson, and Bill Murray. Coolidge plays Ruth, the foul-mouthed ex-wife of an ex-criminal (Harris) — and while most of her lines are outrageous (and unrepeatable on a news website), the actress says audiences aren't even hearing the worst of it! "There was a very, very filthy line in this movie," says Coolidge. "It was such a funny moment, but incredibly crude. And I was like, 'Oh, are we going to do it?' And I don't know how they decided, or did I decide I couldn't do it, whatever…but now I have regrets. Because it really crossed the line, and I think we should have maybe left it in. But, you know, it was filthy. Filthy." "Riff Raff" is playing in theaters nationwide now. Author Lawrence Cappello discusses his book "On Privacy": Most of us have seen news reports about workplace surveillance, cyberstalking, ransomware attacks, and facial recognition and ignore them willfully, but know deep down that our privacy is disappearing in the face of wondrous technological marvels. It is never too late to protect your own privacy, even for those who don't want to live off the grid without cell phones or internet access. Casting Call with Tess Hammock: There are films and TV shows that are looking for extras and leads. There are also career opportunities with big brands. Tess Hammock has all the information. Kelli Ferrell, the new cast member of "Real Housewives of Atlanta," gives a preview of the upcoming season: Ferrell grew up with a passion for both food and fashion. She moved to Atlanta in 2013 to pursue a degree and career in fashion merchandising and design, but went on to create Nana's Chicken & Waffles in 2016 (after manifesting it on her vision board). Kelli will get candid about family, her divorce, business and more on the new season of the popular Bravo show. Tune in this Sunday at 8 on Bravo. Eggless brunch with Lazy Dog Restaurant: Chef Daryl Webb from the Peachtree Corners location stopped by the Good Day kitchen to make his Mountain Berry Pancakes. To find their hours of operations and their menu, click here.
