The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Michelle Williams talks Marilyn, Matilda and musicals Posted: 25 Nov 2011 05:45 PM PST LOS ANGELES, Nov 26 — Michelle Williams takes on the iconic role of Marilyn Monroe in the indie film "My Week with Marilyn." Currently in cinemas, the film is based on Colin Clark's book of the same name and chronicles his time spent working with Monroe while she was in England shooting the romantic comedy "The Prince and the Showgirl" in 1956. Williams sat down with Reuters to talk about portraying Monroe, the film, shooting her current role of Glinda the good witch in Sam Raimi's "Oz: The Great and Powerful" and her six-year-old daughter Matilda with late actor Heath Ledger. Williams, who portrays Marilyn Monroe in the film 'My Week With Marilyn', poses at a screening of the movie during AFI Fest 2011 in Hollywood on November 6, 2011. — Reuters pic A: "I was interested in her, but then I kind of lost track of her over the last 10 years or so. I had a poster of her up in my room. It wasn't a picture of her as the icon, it was a picture of her looking like an ordinary joyful girl. So I definitely had some kind of connection. (Working on this film) reignited whatever initial, sort of, attraction I had to her when I was a teenager." Q: Did you do your own singing in the film? A: "Yes and my mother is going to be so excited when she sees this. She always wanted me to sing and dance. I had so much fun doing that!" Q: So doing a musical could be in the cards for you? A: "I would love to. What's so liberating about singing and dancing is that it turns your head off. You coast on this wave of muscle memory. You literally can't think while you're performing. There's a kind of transcendence to it. I think maybe that's why Marilyn was so especially talented at it. Her singing and dancing are unparalleled and her musical numbers are just breathtaking." Q: The film used many of the same locations in shooting "Prince and the Showgirl." Did that add to the production? A: "There was a lot of synchronicity. We shot in the actual Parkside house (that Marilyn lived in). My dressing room at Pinewood was Marilyn's actual dressing room. That was so special. The stage where she shot that song and dance number was the stage where I shot mine. So many of the props in our movie were in the original 'Prince and the Showgirl' movie." Q: Did it ever feel ghostly? A: "Well, it's all energy. And it's what you make of it. I like to make things out of nothing! (laughs) I like to spin things out of thin air, so that stuff works for me." Q: Did you wear wigs for the part, or grow out your hair? A: "I wore wigs, but I had to keep my hair really bleached underneath because it would show through the wigs. My eyebrows had to be dark and they were reshaped. You go through so many grotesque phases making movies (laughs). I never really feel quite like myself. I just feel like a mutant — always halfway in between some other person and myself. I don't know what belongs to me and what doesn't!" Q: After filming ended was it hard to let go of Marilyn? A: "I think when you work in a way that really gets under your skin, it's not an easy break. You make a little extra room for these people that you play and then they leave. You're left with this hollow space. I wish I could play her again." Q: Does your daughter Matilda come to set? A: "She comes with me everywhere." Q: How do you balance getting into character and then going home at the end of the day to be a mom? A: "What works for me is to have a commute from where we live to where I work. So that in the morning, I leave the house behind and walk clean and fresh into my professional life. And then the same thing on the way home. I find that a 20- or 30-minute commute makes a kind of passageway for me that I need." Q: You're currently shooting "Oz," playing Glinda. Matilda must love coming to that set. A: "It's the best thing professionally that's happened to us. It has brought her on board my work in a way that wasn't possible in a movie like 'Marilyn' or 'Blue Valentine.' On those, there was no space for a kid to come visit and be a kid. (With 'Oz') she comes every single day after school because it's like a playground. She says, 'There's only one good witch and it's my mom.' She's very excited about it." Q: It's interesting that you said the project was the best thing to happen professionally to "us" not "me." A: "Definitely. Every choice that I make is about how it's going to affect our life -- where it films, how long it is, what else is going on in her year, what's the last job I did, how much time I've had off in between, how much time we had to really deeply connect and how long can we sustain a period of time where I'm working. So when 'Oz' came along, it was very clear to me that it was the right decision for us." — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| ‘Mousetrap’ play enters 60th year with plan to expand Posted: 25 Nov 2011 05:22 PM PST LONDON, Nov 26 — The big mystery may be why it hasn't happened before, but Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" — the longest-running show in the world — will finally tour Britain in 2012 to mark its 60th birthday. The play's diamond jubilee falls on November 25, 2012, and yesterday as it enters its 60th year, organisers announced a series of events to celebrate the landmark. Yesterday's performance was the 24,587th, yet for all its popularity, the show's producer said he wanted more. "I'm very conscious that although we've had good houses for 60 years, the amount of people who've seen the show in London is about the same as a single show of 'Downton Abbey'," said Stephen Waley-Cohen, referring to the hit British drama on ITV which attracts up to 10 million viewers per episode. He added that other plays had enjoyed a new lease of life when they toured outside London. "I've been aware that tours of many shows have enhanced their performance in London if they have been done to very high standards, most recently 'Yes, Prime Minister' and 'Mamma Mia!'," Waley-Cohen told Reuters. "I believe a high-quality tour done as a major event will be good for London as well as for the 60 cities it visits." The murder mystery began life as a radio play broadcast in 1947 which was then turned by its author into a short story and later into a full play. Richard Attenborough and his wife Sheila Sim starred in the original 1952 production at The Ambassadors Theatre, and actors ever since have repeated his curtain speech urging audiences to keep the identity of the murderer to themselves. Asked to explain the secret of "The Mousetrap's" success, Waley-Cohen replied: "No one really knows, but I think it's two main things. One is the play is really good storytelling — it grabs your attention and holds your attention. "It's (also) got contemporary resonances in child abuse and a young woman who may or may not be what she seems to be, a young man who may or may not be what he seems to be, the sinister foreigner. "They may sound like caricatures, but Agatha Christie was much cleverer as a writer than that." As part of the 60th celebrations, "The Mousetrap" will tour Britain for the first time starting in September 2012 at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. It is expected to visit most of the country's main regional theatres during its run of up to 60 weeks and each star actor will perform for 12 weeks. Mousetrap Productions has licensed 60 productions of the play worldwide, and several countries will be seeing it for the first time. Mousetrap Theatre Projects, a leading theatre education charity, will also run a new writing project at 60 primary schools across London at which pupils will write their own short mysteries. A charity fee of 60 pence (RM3) per ticket will also be introduced to benefit charities working with young people and the arts. Waley-Cohen said "The Mousetrap", like many other top West End productions, has survived the financial crisis relatively well. West End box-office receipts hit a record high of £512 million in 2010, and he expected "somewhere close" to that figure in 2011. — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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