 |
| |
|
Anya Taylor-Joy, Romola Garai & Alex Hassell Among Stars In ‘The Miniaturist’ Adaptation For BBC One, Masterpiece
Anya Taylor-Joy, Romola Garai and Alex Hassell have been set to star in BBC One and Masterpiece’s period thriller The Miniaturist, based on the best-selling novel by Jessie Burton. They’ll be joined in the three-part series, which is currently filming, by Paapa Essiedu (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake) and Emily Berrington (Humans).
Fleming and Sylvia scribe John Brownlow pens the series while Guillem Morales directs. Story is set in 1686, when 18-year-old Nella Oortman (Taylor Joy) knocks at the door of a grand house in the wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam. Full of hopes and dreams, she has come from the country to begin a new life as the wife of wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt (Hassell). Instead, she’s met by his cold sister Marin (Garai) and their servants (Squires, Essiedu) and quickly realizes that nothing is as it seems. When Brandt finally appears, he presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet that is a miniature replica of their home which is to be furnished by an elusive Miniaturist, whose tiny creations mirror what is happening within the house in unexpected ways and Nella soon realizes the escalating dangers that await them all.
The Miniaturist is produced by The Forge for BBC and co-produced with Masterpiece. Gethin Scourfield produces. Exec producers are Kate Sinclair and George Faber for The Forge, Elizabeth Kilgarriff for the BBC and Rebecca Eaton for Masterpiece. Filming is taking place in Holland and the UK and the 3×60 series is expected to transmit later this year. All3Media handles international distribution.
“From the moment I read The Miniaturist in manuscript, I knew in my gut it was something truly unique – an exquisite mix of another world with the resonances of our own, not to mention characters to die for,” said Sinclair.
“I couldn’t be happier to tell this amazing and atmospheric story with such a wonderful group of people,” said Taylor-Joy. “I immediately fell in love with Nella’s resilience and am so looking forward to telling her story and helping to bring this magical book to life.”
Burton added: “This is an adventure for my book that I never dreamed possible and I’m so happy that The Miniaturist is in such capable and creative hands. The assembled cast is perfect to the vision I had in my mind’s eye in every way and I know they’ll make magic.”
Taylor-Joy starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s box office and breakout hit Split for Universal and also Thoroughbred for Focus Features. The in-demand actress also recently finished shooting thriller Marrowbone for Lionsgate.
Garai is known for her role in Oscar-winning pic Atonement as well as 2015’s title Suffragette and TV series The Hours. Hassell’s credits include Anonymous and Cold Mountain and he can next be seen in George Clooney’s Suburbicon.
Source: Deadline Hollywood
   
   
GALLERY LINK
Photoshoots & Portraits > Photoshoots from 2017 > Session #10 – W #2
Saying in a pistachio-green embroidered Dior gown, her hair sprayed egg-yolk yellow, and her dark eyes flashing, the actress Anya Taylor-Joy brings to mind a punk version of Hamlet’s Ophelia—just before her tragic watery end.
“Bella! Divina!” cheers the photographer Paolo Roversi, as Taylor-Joy’s ethereal image appears on the digital screen. The gown, from Maria Grazia Chiuri’s debut couture collection for the French house, is one of many that the 20-year-old will don over the course of the next few hours, slipping effortlessly in and out of them, much the way she does the characters she embodies.
“This is playtime,” she says as she glides among the racks in between shots. “I can morph from one person to another really quickly. I have to think about what I can convey in a single picture.”
Taylor-Joy studied ballet but had no formal drama training; with her taut physique and unconventional beauty, she exudes the magnetic power of a silent movie star. “Look at those eyes!” exclaims Roversi moments later, as Taylor-Joy does her best Marilyn Monroe, singing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” while posing in a Chanel silver-sequined column topped with a cloud of tulle. “I love how ambiguous they are.”
Taylor-Joy’s otherworldliness is especially beguiling onscreen. In 2015’s The Witch, she played a tormented teenager in 17th-century New England whose family is torn apart after one of her brothers disappears. She followed that up with Morgan, appearing as a mesmerizingly violent cyborg struggling to come to terms with her human side. And in Split, M. Night Shyamalan’s disturbing thriller about a girl abducted by a man with multiple personalities, Taylor-Joy conveyed with simmering intensity not just the terror of being held captive but also the strength of mind needed to escape.
“Casey taught me to value being quiet,” she says of her character in the film. “A lot of the acting was based on stage direction rather than dialogue, so I really discovered how much I could communicate with my face.” Casey, she adds, “is an outsider with a deep internal wall. She stores information.”
Up next is Thoroughbred, playwright Cory Finley’s first feature film, which premiered to great acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Taylor-Joy is Lily, a girl of much privilege and few morals who teams up with a friend to lure an outcast into killing her stepfather. “Lily is a toxic character, but more by nurture than nature—she has been warped that way,” says Taylor-Joy, almost apologetically, as she wraps herself in a white terrycloth robe and tucks into her lunch of salad and focaccia. “The biggest challenge is playing an awful human being and keeping the audience on your side despite that.”
Finley was impressed by Taylor-Joy’s maturity. “With Thoroughbred, we were trying to walk a very narrow tonal line, and to make a film that was both an honest portrait of two characters and a satirical black comedy,” he says. “So much of the film rides on Anya’s role. She had to be sympathetic and frightening, sometimes at the same time. The role was physically and emotionally demanding, and she was able to go to dark places but to snap out of them quickly.”
One easily senses how deeply Taylor-Joy is able to delve into the psyches of the emotionally complex women she has taken on in her short career. “She’s pure and open internally, and that’s why she’s riveting,” says Shyamalan. “The thing she wants to do more than anything is protect her characters. Filming Split, I would say, ‘You have to defend Casey more,’ and she would tear up.” Taylor-Joy describes herself as “very porous” to the personalities of other people, both real and fictional, and recalls how, as a child, she was just as happy hanging out with her real friends as with imaginary ones. “I would go off into the woods and play out seven different characters. I think I was purging emotions, and by putting them into a story, I felt lighter. I do feel things so intensely.” Off camera, though, Taylor-Joy is upbeat and effervescent; she can go from a posh English accent to Eliza Doolittle cockney to a Valley girl drawl in seconds.
The youngest of six siblings, Taylor-Joy had a peripatetic upbringing—her Argentinean-Scottish father was a powerboat racer, and her English-Spanish mother worked in photography and design. She was born in Miami and spent her early childhood in Buenos Aires; the family moved to London when she was 6. Nowadays, she shuttles between London and New York, and says that the itinerant life has always suited her just fine. “My mother has a video of me at age 7 declaring, ‘I’m going to be an actor,’ ” Taylor-Joy says with a smile. “She asks me, ‘Are you going to drama school?’ and I reply that I’m going to be in the right place at the right time. Thank God it happened.”
Indeed, she was hanging out in Central London when Sarah Doukas (who discovered, among others, Kate Moss) spotted her and promptly signed her to her modeling agency, Storm. Taylor-Joy dropped out of school at age 16 and, while on a photo shoot, met the Irish actor Allen Leech (aka Tom Branson, the chauffeur on Downton Abbey); after hearing her deliver an impromptu reading from the Seamus Heaney book she was carrying, Leech introduced her to his agent. Within four years, she was nominated for a BAFTA Rising Star Award, the British equivalent of the Oscars, and named Breakthrough Actor at the Gotham Independent Film Awards.
Back at the W shoot, three assistants are holding Taylor-Joy aloft as she slowly disappears into a frothy sea of Giambattista Valli lime-green silk tulle. Suddenly, she stiffens her upper body and assumes a slightly mad, intoxicated expression. The entire studio is transfixed. “I go into a meditative state in front the camera, and I feel I’m speaking to it,” she explains later. “That might sound strange. I’m always surprised by how many close-ups there are of me after filming. I’m not aware of the lens.”
I venture that it’s clear she knows a thing or two about the transformative power of clothes. “Growing up, I was a real tomboy, and I was not aware of fashion,” Taylor-Joy says. “I wore my brothers’ clothes and whatever my mom bought me. I rarely looked in the mirror.” Modeling, and acting, changed all that. “When I had my first fitting, it frightened me because I felt so unlike me. I didn’t know how to wrap myself around the idea of looking beautiful. Now, I relish the idea of getting dressed up.” She pauses, recalling a certain featherlight Valentino chiffon confection that she had slipped out of moments before. “Wearing an incandescent dress feels peaceful, like magic,” she says, before adding, unnecessarily, “I’ve always loved make-believe.”
Source: W Magazine
Anya Taylor-Joy In Talks To Join Kristin Scott Thomas’ Directorial Debut ‘The Sea Change’ – Berlin
EXCLUSIVE: Anya Taylor-Joy is in talks to join Kristin Scott Thomas’ directorial debut The Sea Change, which Rocket Science is shopping to buyers at the European Film Market.
The actress, who’s a BAFTA Rising Star nominee this year, will join Scott Thomas in the film based on Elizabeth Jane Howard’s acclaimed novel of the same name. Mark Strong is also in talks to star alongside Scott Thomas.
Rocket Science is handling worldwide sales for the pic, which it launched to buyers this week in Berlin. Rebecca Lenkiewicz adapted the novel for the screen and Barnaby Thompson produces for Fragile Films. Principal photography is scheduled to begin later this year in the UK and Europe.
Story follows a group of people who re-evaluate loss, love and human connection when they find themselves together on a remote Greek island. Emmanuel (Strong) is a successful London playwright married to the complex and witty Lillian (Scott Thomas) for many years, but their marriage is in crisis, a crisis overcome by the arrival of a curious and outspoken young girl (Taylor-Joy). Their relationship is thrown into perspective when her life is thrown upside down.
Taylor-Joy is starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s box office and breakout hit Split, for Universal, and also Thoroughbred for Focus Features. The in-demand actress is in post-production on thriller Marrowbone for Lionsgate.
Rocket Science, which was launched by industry sales veteran Thorsten Schumacher last year, has a robust Berlin slate including the Taika Waititi and Mark Gustafson-directed Bubbles and Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum, starring Matthew McConaughey. Additional projects include David Lowery’s The Old Man And The Gun, starring Robert Redford and Casey Affleck; Dominic Cooke’s film adaptation On Chesil Beach, starring Saoirse Ronan; and Judd Apatow’s Juliet, Naked.
Taylor-Joy is repped by CAA and Troika.
Source: Deadline Hollywood
The 20-year-old rising star talks The Witch, M. Night Shyamalan, and being BAFTA nominated
“I’m so hot blooded, I love the cold.” So starts our conversion. Tucked into the corner of this oversized London hotel room is Anya Taylor-Joy, cuddling a grey sofa pillow. A large window looking out onto the streets of Soho is wide open, letting in a chilly January breeze.
There are few 20-year-olds in the world who can boast a CV as impressive as Taylor-Joy’s: since debuting in critically acclaimed horror film The Witch in 2015, the actor has appeared in the Ridley Scott produced sci-fi slasher Morgan, Netflix’s Barack Obama biopic Barry, and now M Night Shyamalan’s Split.
Over the course of 18 minutes, we spoke about the latter thriller – in which she plays a young, kidnapped girl named Casey – along with the actor’s rise to fame and her reaction to being nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award alongside Tom Holland and Ruth Negga (unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to talk about her rumoured role in the upcoming X-Men films).
Hi Anya, what attracted you to Split?
I mean it’s Night and The Witch wasn’t out. It wasn’t even specified which character I was reading for. It could have been any one of the girls. When I met Night we had an interesting connection. I thought “you’re going to challenge me and I want to rise up to your expectation”. He’s a very specific person and one of my friends now – which is awesome – but as a director, he just really pushes you and I love that. The script was awesome. I read it all the way through – couldn’t finish it fast enough – then I had to go back to really get everything.
Was it intimidating meeting Shyamalan for the first time?
I love what I do so much and I have a very acute understanding of how I work as a person so if I’m afraid I shut down and can’t do anything. If I’m overwhelmed, I shut down and can’t do anything. I just can’t think about it that way. I just had to be Anya. I’m not meeting M Night Shyamalan, otherwise I’d freak out and die. I’m just meeting Night.
What aspects of your character, Casey, were the most interesting to play around with?
How silent she is. I was very aware that most of her sh*t is stage directions. I was wondering how much of that I can communicate with an audience just with my face, just with my eyes. It was a challenge and one I really wanted to play. And the manipulation aspect, that was very fun to modulate, because me and James [McAvoy, who plays her kidnapper] work quite similarly. We’re very playful and we bring a different energy to every take. And so, that’s really fun, to act with someone who is going to play with you and surprise you in that way. You get to experience things that come out of a place of impulsiveness.
Was it different on set to how you expected?
When I was cast, James hadn’t been cast, so I didn’t have anyone to envision in that role. Obviously, it would be a very different movie with anyone else in the role. James and I were very jokey and that was really good fun, because it’s very dark. He plays this predatory man who kidnaps young women, and every young woman knows that feeling of – not what it’s like to be kidnapped – but knows what it’s like to be with a man who makes you feel comfortable. He just made it so safe, so nice, so secure, a really nice environment. We were able to really open up and be super vulnerable because we were really safe.
Was it intimidating meeting Shyamalan for the first time?
I love what I do so much and I have a very acute understanding of how I work as a person so if I’m afraid I shut down and can’t do anything. If I’m overwhelmed, I shut down and can’t do anything. I just can’t think about it that way. I just had to be Anya. I’m not meeting M Night Shyamalan, otherwise I’d freak out and die. I’m just meeting Night.
What aspects of your character, Casey, were the most interesting to play around with?
How silent she is. I was very aware that most of her sh*t is stage directions. I was wondering how much of that I can communicate with an audience just with my face, just with my eyes. It was a challenge and one I really wanted to play. And the manipulation aspect, that was very fun to modulate, because me and James [McAvoy, who plays her kidnapper] work quite similarly. We’re very playful and we bring a different energy to every take. And so, that’s really fun, to act with someone who is going to play with you and surprise you in that way. You get to experience things that come out of a place of impulsiveness.
Was it different on set to how you expected?
When I was cast, James hadn’t been cast, so I didn’t have anyone to envision in that role. Obviously, it would be a very different movie with anyone else in the role. James and I were very jokey and that was really good fun, because it’s very dark. He plays this predatory man who kidnaps young women, and every young woman knows that feeling of – not what it’s like to be kidnapped – but knows what it’s like to be with a man who makes you feel comfortable. He just made it so safe, so nice, so secure, a really nice environment. We were able to really open up and be super vulnerable because we were really safe.
There were moments in the film loaded with humour. How was it playing this vulnerable character despite this?
I was there as Casey. Watching the film is really funny. James, Night and I have a very similar sense of humour so it’s very much our humour. As you’re shooting it, I was experiencing it through Casey, and Casey does not find this situation funny at all. There were maybe two scenes where I couldn’t hold it together and Night does not like that at all. He’s very serious with his work and he expects you to be serious too. But we got to a place of mental exhaustion where we couldn’t keep it together.
How did working on The Witch compare to Split?
I find it very difficult to compare any two projects because they’re all such different beasts. I’m growing up, I’m only 20 now. I’m a different person on each of these films because I’m growing very rapidly. The Witch was Rob[ert Eggers] and I finding our feet. He had never directed anything, I had never acted in anything. I didn’t know what a mark was. When he said “go and hit the mark” I was like “what am I hitting?” I was so enthralled and excited by everything I was doing and picking things up because I had to. How many things am I allowed to do? How many takes do we get? Am I allowed to do things differently? I was finding my way. For Split, I was going up against James and Betty Buckley, so you want to give as much as you can – especially against James when he’s giving me so much. He’s playing all these personalities. All the work is subtle. He is very big. Casey is incredibly internal, such an introvert, so I was concerned I wasn’t giving as much back as he was giving me.
How did you get involved with acting?
I don’t remember wanting anything different. I’ve really tried to pinpoint the moment I was like “this is me, this is what I want to dedicate my life to”. I just sort of knew. I got scouted for modelling on the street. I’m such a tomboy, still am. I just never thought about modelling before but I thought “ooh, interesting, similar world, perhaps it’s a way into something”. Then, I was on my third photo shoot ever and Adam Leech from Downton Abbey saw me reading poetry and asked me to recite some. He put me in contact with his agent and I got The Witch from there. It’s mad. And I know I’m incredibly lucky to be here and so glad it worked out this way otherwise I’d be a very unstable individual.
Where were you when you got scouted?
I was walking outside Harrods in London, and I was wearing heels for the first time. They were probably like “oh, little blonde girl in heels, interesting”.
How do you feel about the way everything is going?
Again, I know myself. If I thought about it, I’d freak the f**k out and you wouldn’t be able to get me out of the room, you’d have to prise my fingers from the door. I’m really lucky, and the pace at which everything is happening I think it’s a genuine giant blessing in disguise. I don’t have time to sit down and think “oh my god, what happened to my life?” I used to joke that I went to Sundance and never went home again. I went to Utah as this 18-year-old girl who had never made a movie. Not because it wasn’t any good but because when you make a tiny, little independent pure horror movie you don’t expect bright lights, big city. It was unprecedented and me and Robert got catapulted on a life sphere that we never thought was possible.
Where do you see yourself in five years time?
I just want to see what life’s going to throw my way. So far, it’s been very unexpected. I’m kinda on a rollercoaster and want to enjoy that. I’m so lucky that I can genuinely say every film I do I love the f**k out of, I love it so much. I would follow my directors to the end of the earth. I’m so lucky because I know some of these directors and [they are now] some of my closest friends. When you share something that intimate with someone, our emotional babies. We were saying “this is my art, this is my passion. I’m putting it in your hands because I trust you”. It’s such a beautiful thing. I guess I just want to keep going and look back in 5 years and feel good about my choices.
Who are your role models?
I remember the first time I saw Kirsten Dunst in Jumanji. I’d never seen a kid in a movie before who wasn’t much older than me. I thought “maybe I can do that, that’s interesting”. She was also in Interview with the Vampire, and I was like “you can get even darker and be in movies and still be little! That’s amazing”. Now, it’s Tilda Swinton. It’s been Tilda Swinton for a long time. I think she’s just such an artist. She really follows her artistic integrity. She really doesn’t give a f**k what other people think. At least that’s my projection onto her. I don’t know her, and I’m really nervous to meet her because she might think I’m a stalker because I’ve mentioned her so much.
What have you got coming up that you’re most excited about?
I’m excited to see the movies I’ve been working on. They’ve been so close together, I just want to actually see the f**king movie. I’ve got one going to Sundance called Thoroughbred, which I’m really excited about because Sundance is such a magical place for me and I’m going back with Olivia Cooke who was also there the same year she was with Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. So we’re kinda going back which is exciting. There’s another film, Marrowbone, which we filmed in Spain. It was the time of my life. We were staying in this castle and we could communicate with each other through the walls, it was very summer camp vibes.
Do you feel like you’re missing out on other experiences people your age are having?
No. I never fit in with people my own age. I grew up around adults. I was separated from everyone in my age group by a sheet of glass. I found my place in movies. I have fun, I have a great time. I’m a true professional and take my job very very seriously but I need an outlet. I found my tribe, I found my people and we have a lot fun.
What do you do for downtime?
I haven’t had any of that yet. It sounds really boring but I act for fun. I don’t see it as a job. I’m never more at peace than when I’m in a scene and I get the opportunity to act with these f**king world renowned actors. It’s amazing. I write a lot too. My world is changing so quickly so it really helps to sit down and write a poem. Something neat and concise and wrapped up in a bow. Or write a song about it. I find it very meditative.
What does the BAFTA nomination mean to you?
It feels so surreal to be acting. I really see myself as an artist, and to be an artist and to be able to make art – that sounds terrifying to me. I don’t think I’m strong enough to deal with that but when people allow me to do that it’s unreal. Then you add on top of that that people are recognising me for that, I would never ever, it’s so out of the realm of possibility for me. So, it’s really exciting, I’m overwhelmed and it’s so great to be in the company of such great actors. I can’t wait to meet them. I just love so many of their individual performances. Like, Laia Costa in Victoria is amazing, it blew me away. I’m excited just to fangirl.
Split is in UK cinemas now
Source: Independent UK
Fellow rising star nominee Taylor-Joy had her breakout in her debut film role, 2016’s indie hit The Witch, but is soon set to appear alongside James McAvoy — a rising star winner himself in 2006 — in M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller Split.
“I can’t quite put into words how it feels to be in the company of such talent, past and present,” the 20-year-old said. “All my love and gratitude.”
Taylor-Joy is joined in the nominees list by another indie breakthrough, Hedges, currently seen in Kenneth Lonergan’s Oscar-tipped Manchester by the Sea. Hedges, who first made his mark in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, recently wrapped on Greta Gerwig’s directional debut, Lady Bird, alongside Saoirse Ronan and Tracy Letts, and Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
“It’s really exciting to be recognized for an award that has nominated many of my favorite actors over the years,” he said. “I’ve always been enamored with English culture and have dreamed of living in England, so this nomination is particularly meaningful for me.”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
A young Barack Obama, known to his friends as “Barry,” arrives in New York City in the fall of 1981 to begin his junior year at Columbia University. In a crime-ridden and racially charged environment, Barry finds himself pulled between various social spheres and struggles to maintain a series of increasingly strained relationships with his Kansas-born mother, his estranged Kenyan father, and his classmates.Barry is the story of a young man grappling with those same issues that his country, and arguably the world, are still coming to terms with 35 years later. Only on Netflix December 16.
|
|
