Simon Brew Apr 27, 2017
How do you go about directing an episode of Doctor Who? We chat to Lawrence Gough, director of series 10's The Pilot and Smile to find out.
The first two episodes of the current Doctor Who run, The Pilot and Smile, were both directed by the same man. That man is Lawrence Gough, who comes to Doctor Who for the first time, having built up an impressive collection of TV credits following his low-budget horror feature, Salvage. In between the transmission of The Pilot and Smile, he chatted to us about his work on the show…
I’ve just been watching footage of you receiving a film award from Sean Connery back in 2009!
Yes! God, yes.
That was a Trailblazers award from the Edinburgh Film Festival eight years ago, and since then, you seem to have had quite a journey. Can you take us through it?
Yeah!
How do you go about directing an episode of Doctor Who? We chat to Lawrence Gough, director of series 10's The Pilot and Smile to find out.
The first two episodes of the current Doctor Who run, The Pilot and Smile, were both directed by the same man. That man is Lawrence Gough, who comes to Doctor Who for the first time, having built up an impressive collection of TV credits following his low-budget horror feature, Salvage. In between the transmission of The Pilot and Smile, he chatted to us about his work on the show…
I’ve just been watching footage of you receiving a film award from Sean Connery back in 2009!
Yes! God, yes.
That was a Trailblazers award from the Edinburgh Film Festival eight years ago, and since then, you seem to have had quite a journey. Can you take us through it?
Yeah!
- 4/25/2017
- Den of Geek
HBO and Starz garnered three nominations each as the American Society of Cinematographers announced its TV nominees for the Asc Awards today. Winners will be announced at the 28th Asc Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography set for February 1 at Hollywood & Highland Ray Dolby Ballroom. Here are the noms: One-Hour Episodic Television Series Steven Bernstein, Asc for Starz Network’s Magic City (“The Sins of the Father”) David Franco for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire (“Erlkönig”) Jonathan Freeman, Asc for HBO’s Game of Thrones (“Valar Dohaeris”) Pierre Gill, Csc for Showtime’s The Borgias (“The Purge”) David Greene, Csc for The CW’s Beauty And the Beast (“Tough Love”) Anette Haellmigk for HBO’s Game Of Thrones (“Kissed by Fire”) Kramer Morgenthau, Asc for Fox’s Sleepy Hollow (“Pilot”) Ousama Rawi, Bsc, Csc for NBC’s Dracula (“The Blood is the Life”) Half-Hour Episodic Series Peter Levy, Acs, Asc for...
- 11/20/2013
- by THE DEADLINE TEAM
- Deadline TV
Calendar Girls
This review was written for the festival screening of "Calendar Girls".
In 1997's "The Full Monty", it was a bunch of down-and-out lads in the urban blight of Sheffield who danced naked because they were unemployed. In "Calendar Girls", it's a group of middle-aged ladies who get their kit off in beautiful rural Yorkshire.
Far from the ranks of the unemployed, they're industrious members of the Women's Institute. These doughty women of a certain age pose in the nude not because they're broke, but to raise money for leukemia research. It's a real-life story adapted into a grown-up comedy that is warm, winning and sexy. Call it "The Full Auntie".
With a rich mix of characters, emotions and reactions that all couples will recognize, and a clever nod to the younger generation, "Calendar Girls" has universal wit and wisdom that should make it a crowd-pleaser everywhere. The film opens here Sept. 5 and in North America on Dec. 19.
The aunts, mothers, wives and widows who make up the "Calendar Girls" are played by a roster of fine British performers who, along with the actors who play the long-suffering men in their lives, combine for an enchanting ensemble performance. Helen Mirren (Chris) and Julie Walters (Annie) play the best-pal ringleaders of the more spirited members of the Women's Institute in the picturesque village of Knapely on the Yorkshire dales. Easygoing Chris is not past submitting a ready-made cake from Marks & Spencer in the baking competition at the annual fete, but sober Annie usually provides the brakes for her wilder schemes. When Annie's husband dies of leukemia, however, Chris' notion of a WI nude calendar captures her imagination.
The real-life calendar ladies did end up becoming famous, going on "The Tonight Show"and raising thousands for charity, and the film follows all of that. But the rest is fiction, and clever stuff it is. Producers Nick Barton and Suzanne Mackie, writers Juliette Towhidi and Tim Firth and director Nigel Cole have combined to develop a fable rooted in character and firm plot development.
In many ways, "Calendar Girls" is a better movie than "The Full Monty" because it doesn't just take a moment in time and freeze it the way the earlier movie did. For the lads in Sheffield, nothing much was going to change after they stripped off, whereas you have the sense that things will never be quite the same in the village of Knapely -- and for the better.
It's a triumph that there is nothing sniggering or preachy in a film that deals with breaching conventions of decorum and explores how the bonds of marriage and friendship can be tested by acts of freedom and encounters with fame.
The gags will mostly travel well, though only British viewers will truly appreciate a line delivered by one of the husbands over breakfast when he looks up from the country's most hidebound and illiberal newspaper: "You're nude in the Telegraph, dear."
Mirren and Walters play against type very well, with the "Gosford Park" star shedding her often dour screen presence for a lighthearted and captivating performance and the animated star of "Educating Rita" showing a calmer more complex side. They will each be in the running when awards season comes around.
Penelope Wilton is also standout as a devoted wife who discovers that her husband is having an affair, and John Alderton is excellent in the small but crucial role of Annie's dying husband.
Cinematographer Ashley Rowe captures both the beauty and aching loneliness of the Yorkshire countryside and lights the Southern California sequences to heighten the glare of sudden and transitory fame. Patrick Doyle's typically melodic score cannily plays to the landscape of the ladies' minds rather than the cliche of their rural English environment.
CALENDAR GIRLS
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures presents a Harbour Pictures production
Credits:
Director: Nigel Cole
Screenwriters: Juliette Towhidi, Tim Firth
Producers: Nick Barton, Suzanne Mackie
Music: Patrick Doyle
Editor: Michael Parker
Director of photography: Ashley Rowe
Production designer: Martin Childs
Costume designer: Frances Tempest
Cast:
Chris: Helen Mirren
Annie: Julie Walters
Ruth: Penelope Wilton
Jessie: Annette Crosbie
Celia: Celia Imrie
Cora: Linda Bassett
Kathy: Georgie Glen
May: Angela Curran
Trudy: Rosalind March
Rod: Ciaran Hinds
John: John Alderton
Lawrence: Philip Glenister
Jem: John-Paul McLeod
Marie: Geraldine James
Gaz: Marc Pickering
Eddie: George Costigan
Richard: Graham Crowden
Frank: John Fortune
Danny: John Sharian...
In 1997's "The Full Monty", it was a bunch of down-and-out lads in the urban blight of Sheffield who danced naked because they were unemployed. In "Calendar Girls", it's a group of middle-aged ladies who get their kit off in beautiful rural Yorkshire.
Far from the ranks of the unemployed, they're industrious members of the Women's Institute. These doughty women of a certain age pose in the nude not because they're broke, but to raise money for leukemia research. It's a real-life story adapted into a grown-up comedy that is warm, winning and sexy. Call it "The Full Auntie".
With a rich mix of characters, emotions and reactions that all couples will recognize, and a clever nod to the younger generation, "Calendar Girls" has universal wit and wisdom that should make it a crowd-pleaser everywhere. The film opens here Sept. 5 and in North America on Dec. 19.
The aunts, mothers, wives and widows who make up the "Calendar Girls" are played by a roster of fine British performers who, along with the actors who play the long-suffering men in their lives, combine for an enchanting ensemble performance. Helen Mirren (Chris) and Julie Walters (Annie) play the best-pal ringleaders of the more spirited members of the Women's Institute in the picturesque village of Knapely on the Yorkshire dales. Easygoing Chris is not past submitting a ready-made cake from Marks & Spencer in the baking competition at the annual fete, but sober Annie usually provides the brakes for her wilder schemes. When Annie's husband dies of leukemia, however, Chris' notion of a WI nude calendar captures her imagination.
The real-life calendar ladies did end up becoming famous, going on "The Tonight Show"and raising thousands for charity, and the film follows all of that. But the rest is fiction, and clever stuff it is. Producers Nick Barton and Suzanne Mackie, writers Juliette Towhidi and Tim Firth and director Nigel Cole have combined to develop a fable rooted in character and firm plot development.
In many ways, "Calendar Girls" is a better movie than "The Full Monty" because it doesn't just take a moment in time and freeze it the way the earlier movie did. For the lads in Sheffield, nothing much was going to change after they stripped off, whereas you have the sense that things will never be quite the same in the village of Knapely -- and for the better.
It's a triumph that there is nothing sniggering or preachy in a film that deals with breaching conventions of decorum and explores how the bonds of marriage and friendship can be tested by acts of freedom and encounters with fame.
The gags will mostly travel well, though only British viewers will truly appreciate a line delivered by one of the husbands over breakfast when he looks up from the country's most hidebound and illiberal newspaper: "You're nude in the Telegraph, dear."
Mirren and Walters play against type very well, with the "Gosford Park" star shedding her often dour screen presence for a lighthearted and captivating performance and the animated star of "Educating Rita" showing a calmer more complex side. They will each be in the running when awards season comes around.
Penelope Wilton is also standout as a devoted wife who discovers that her husband is having an affair, and John Alderton is excellent in the small but crucial role of Annie's dying husband.
Cinematographer Ashley Rowe captures both the beauty and aching loneliness of the Yorkshire countryside and lights the Southern California sequences to heighten the glare of sudden and transitory fame. Patrick Doyle's typically melodic score cannily plays to the landscape of the ladies' minds rather than the cliche of their rural English environment.
CALENDAR GIRLS
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures presents a Harbour Pictures production
Credits:
Director: Nigel Cole
Screenwriters: Juliette Towhidi, Tim Firth
Producers: Nick Barton, Suzanne Mackie
Music: Patrick Doyle
Editor: Michael Parker
Director of photography: Ashley Rowe
Production designer: Martin Childs
Costume designer: Frances Tempest
Cast:
Chris: Helen Mirren
Annie: Julie Walters
Ruth: Penelope Wilton
Jessie: Annette Crosbie
Celia: Celia Imrie
Cora: Linda Bassett
Kathy: Georgie Glen
May: Angela Curran
Trudy: Rosalind March
Rod: Ciaran Hinds
John: John Alderton
Lawrence: Philip Glenister
Jem: John-Paul McLeod
Marie: Geraldine James
Gaz: Marc Pickering
Eddie: George Costigan
Richard: Graham Crowden
Frank: John Fortune
Danny: John Sharian...
- 1/5/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'Bedrooms & Hallways'
Caught somewhere between sex farce and romantic comedy, Rose Troche's "Bedrooms & Hallways" slyly peeks in both places to explore the modern male psyche. Although this British film's outlook is predominantly gay, it has a sure instinct for human foibles no matter what one's sexual identity is.
A lighthearted entry in this year's Outfest in Los Angeles, the film will be released by First Run Features in the United States, where its themes will undoubtedly limit its playability to gay audiences.
In her second film, Troche, the director of the 1994 lesbian romantic comedy "Go Fish", takes satiric digs at what it means to be male in the final days of the 20th century. Her targets include bonding rituals, group therapy, sexual-identity confusion and the insatiable need to commingle risk with romance.
Not that women don't figure prominently in Troche's story. But the females mostly stand aside in bemused wonder, alternately appalled and amazed at the muddle these men manage to get into as they struggle to make sense of their lives.
The film focuses on three flatmates -- two gay men and one straight woman. Darren (Tom Hollander) has taken up with a real estate agent, whose biggest attraction is a set of keys to other people's houses where they carry on high-risk liaisons when no one (they hope) is at home.
Leo (Kevin McKidd), however, is in enough of a mess that a straight co-worker suggests he join a "New Man" therapy group. This group, led by New Age guru Keith (the irrepressible Simon Callow), goes in for such rituals as passing the "honesty stone" and sitting in ersatz Eskimo igloos where everyone gets in touch with his inner self by grasping a harpoon.
It is while the honesty stone gets passed that Darren admits he is attracted to another group member, Brendan (James Purefoy). Startled but flattered, Brendan is in the process of extricating himself from a long-term relationship with his girlfriend and business partner (Jennifer Ehle).
This confession causes no less than two members of the group to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side of the sexual equation. That leads to the mental meltdown of a homophobic member of the "New Man" group.
These intertwining stories in Robert Farrar's script play out in ways that are not always predictable and often quite funny. Farrar has created likable blokes for his characters, although none is especially compelling.
The film's gay sensibilities serve to give a curious ambiguousness to all its male characters, even those ostensibly straight. The film also seems to labor under the now-discredited belief that gayness is a matter of choice rather than genetics.
But the film is too weightless to bear much psychological scrutiny. Its players roam a fanciful patch of London where worries about anything other than one's love life are banished.
Cinematographer Ashley Rowe and production designer Richard Bridgland do an excellent job of bringing the viewer into its London milieu without the cloying slickness of a film such as "Notting Hill".
BEDROOMS & HALLWAYS
First Run Features
Bedrooms & Hallways Prods. Ltd.
Producers: Ceci Dempsey, Dorothy Berwin
Director: Rose Troche
Writer: Robert Farrar
Director of photography: Ashley Rowe
Production designer: Richard Bridgland
Music: Alfredo Troche
Costumes: Annie Symons
Editor: Chris Blunden
Color/stereo
Cast:
Leo: Kevin McKidd
Jeremy: Hugo Weaving
Sally: Jennifer Ehle
Keith: Simon Callow
Sybil: Harriet Walter
Darren: Tom Hollander
Angie: Julie Graham
Adam: Christopher Fulford
Brendan: James Purefoy
John: Paul Higgins
Running time -- 96 minutes
No MPAA rating...
A lighthearted entry in this year's Outfest in Los Angeles, the film will be released by First Run Features in the United States, where its themes will undoubtedly limit its playability to gay audiences.
In her second film, Troche, the director of the 1994 lesbian romantic comedy "Go Fish", takes satiric digs at what it means to be male in the final days of the 20th century. Her targets include bonding rituals, group therapy, sexual-identity confusion and the insatiable need to commingle risk with romance.
Not that women don't figure prominently in Troche's story. But the females mostly stand aside in bemused wonder, alternately appalled and amazed at the muddle these men manage to get into as they struggle to make sense of their lives.
The film focuses on three flatmates -- two gay men and one straight woman. Darren (Tom Hollander) has taken up with a real estate agent, whose biggest attraction is a set of keys to other people's houses where they carry on high-risk liaisons when no one (they hope) is at home.
Leo (Kevin McKidd), however, is in enough of a mess that a straight co-worker suggests he join a "New Man" therapy group. This group, led by New Age guru Keith (the irrepressible Simon Callow), goes in for such rituals as passing the "honesty stone" and sitting in ersatz Eskimo igloos where everyone gets in touch with his inner self by grasping a harpoon.
It is while the honesty stone gets passed that Darren admits he is attracted to another group member, Brendan (James Purefoy). Startled but flattered, Brendan is in the process of extricating himself from a long-term relationship with his girlfriend and business partner (Jennifer Ehle).
This confession causes no less than two members of the group to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side of the sexual equation. That leads to the mental meltdown of a homophobic member of the "New Man" group.
These intertwining stories in Robert Farrar's script play out in ways that are not always predictable and often quite funny. Farrar has created likable blokes for his characters, although none is especially compelling.
The film's gay sensibilities serve to give a curious ambiguousness to all its male characters, even those ostensibly straight. The film also seems to labor under the now-discredited belief that gayness is a matter of choice rather than genetics.
But the film is too weightless to bear much psychological scrutiny. Its players roam a fanciful patch of London where worries about anything other than one's love life are banished.
Cinematographer Ashley Rowe and production designer Richard Bridgland do an excellent job of bringing the viewer into its London milieu without the cloying slickness of a film such as "Notting Hill".
BEDROOMS & HALLWAYS
First Run Features
Bedrooms & Hallways Prods. Ltd.
Producers: Ceci Dempsey, Dorothy Berwin
Director: Rose Troche
Writer: Robert Farrar
Director of photography: Ashley Rowe
Production designer: Richard Bridgland
Music: Alfredo Troche
Costumes: Annie Symons
Editor: Chris Blunden
Color/stereo
Cast:
Leo: Kevin McKidd
Jeremy: Hugo Weaving
Sally: Jennifer Ehle
Keith: Simon Callow
Sybil: Harriet Walter
Darren: Tom Hollander
Angie: Julie Graham
Adam: Christopher Fulford
Brendan: James Purefoy
John: Paul Higgins
Running time -- 96 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 7/15/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'Governess'
"The Governess" will rule on the art house circuit. Starring Minnie Driver as a Sephardic Jew who masquerades as a gentile in order to secure employment, the 19th century period piece is a perceptive, jaunty entertainment that should win fine reviews for Sony Pictures Classics among critics and filmgoers.
Winner of the best first film and Kodak Vision Audience awards at the recent Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the narrative centers on Rosina (Driver), an adventurous young woman whose father is murdered and whose family plunged into debt. Headstrong and self-reliant, Rosina decides to make it on her own but does not see opportunity in her cloistered Sephardic Jewish family life. She has a playful spirit and wicked sense of humor and adopts the identity of Mary Blackchurch, journeying to a remote Scottish island to seek employment as a nanny.
In essence, "Mary" has landed in the far reaches of WASP culture, finding work with the Cavendish family. In movie lexicon, the clan might be described as grim and screwball: Mrs. Cavendish (Harriet Walter) is spacey and depressed; Mr. Cavendish (Tom Wilkinson) is detached and self-absorbed with his photography inventions; young daughter Clementina (Florence Hoath) is nasty and spoiled; and teenage son Henry Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a smarmy, decadence-inclined poseur. In short, they're quite a challenge for Mary's good humor and talent.
At once an insightful character study and a shrewd, anthropological depiction of the friction and challenges encountered when people of different religious cultures come together, the challenging, intelligent work from screenwriter-director Sandra Goldbacher illuminates as much as it entertains. Down to generics, "The Governess" is a fish-out-of-water story, but its intelligence and ornately woven themes distinguish it from the form's usual superficial nature.
The performances are particularly astute, especially Driver as the spirited Rosina. It's a splendid, regal performance, conveying both decency and vulnerability. Similarly, Wilkinson is superb as the preoccupied inventor, a cold-appearing man who is frightened and isolated beneath his serious veneer. Walter wins our sympathies as the daffy lady of the house who in a very real sense is a prisoner. Rhys Meyers is well-cast as the churlish son, while Hoath is aptly cantankerous as the spoiled daughter.
Under Goldbacher's solid, measured guidance, technical contributions are first-rate, with special praise to DP Ashley Rowe's grand cinematic scopings and production designer Sarah Greenwood's mood-drenched interiors.
THE GOVERNESS
Sony Pictures Classics
Producer: Sarah Curtis
Screenwriter-director: Sandra Goldbacher
Executive producer: Sally Hibbin
Director of photography: Ashley Rowe
Production designer: Sarah Greenwood
Editor: Isabel Lorente
Costume designer: Caroline Harris
Casting director: Michelle Guish
Music: Edward Shearmur
Sound: Danny Hambrook
Color/stereo
Cast:
Rosina: Minnie Driver
Mr. Cavendish: Tom Wilkinson
Clementina: Florence Hoath
Henry: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Mrs. Cavendish: Harriet Walter
Lily Milk: Arlene Cockburn
Rebecca: Emma Bird
Benjamin: Adam Levy
Aunt Sofka: The Countess Koulinskyi
Running time -- 114 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Winner of the best first film and Kodak Vision Audience awards at the recent Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the narrative centers on Rosina (Driver), an adventurous young woman whose father is murdered and whose family plunged into debt. Headstrong and self-reliant, Rosina decides to make it on her own but does not see opportunity in her cloistered Sephardic Jewish family life. She has a playful spirit and wicked sense of humor and adopts the identity of Mary Blackchurch, journeying to a remote Scottish island to seek employment as a nanny.
In essence, "Mary" has landed in the far reaches of WASP culture, finding work with the Cavendish family. In movie lexicon, the clan might be described as grim and screwball: Mrs. Cavendish (Harriet Walter) is spacey and depressed; Mr. Cavendish (Tom Wilkinson) is detached and self-absorbed with his photography inventions; young daughter Clementina (Florence Hoath) is nasty and spoiled; and teenage son Henry Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a smarmy, decadence-inclined poseur. In short, they're quite a challenge for Mary's good humor and talent.
At once an insightful character study and a shrewd, anthropological depiction of the friction and challenges encountered when people of different religious cultures come together, the challenging, intelligent work from screenwriter-director Sandra Goldbacher illuminates as much as it entertains. Down to generics, "The Governess" is a fish-out-of-water story, but its intelligence and ornately woven themes distinguish it from the form's usual superficial nature.
The performances are particularly astute, especially Driver as the spirited Rosina. It's a splendid, regal performance, conveying both decency and vulnerability. Similarly, Wilkinson is superb as the preoccupied inventor, a cold-appearing man who is frightened and isolated beneath his serious veneer. Walter wins our sympathies as the daffy lady of the house who in a very real sense is a prisoner. Rhys Meyers is well-cast as the churlish son, while Hoath is aptly cantankerous as the spoiled daughter.
Under Goldbacher's solid, measured guidance, technical contributions are first-rate, with special praise to DP Ashley Rowe's grand cinematic scopings and production designer Sarah Greenwood's mood-drenched interiors.
THE GOVERNESS
Sony Pictures Classics
Producer: Sarah Curtis
Screenwriter-director: Sandra Goldbacher
Executive producer: Sally Hibbin
Director of photography: Ashley Rowe
Production designer: Sarah Greenwood
Editor: Isabel Lorente
Costume designer: Caroline Harris
Casting director: Michelle Guish
Music: Edward Shearmur
Sound: Danny Hambrook
Color/stereo
Cast:
Rosina: Minnie Driver
Mr. Cavendish: Tom Wilkinson
Clementina: Florence Hoath
Henry: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Mrs. Cavendish: Harriet Walter
Lily Milk: Arlene Cockburn
Rebecca: Emma Bird
Benjamin: Adam Levy
Aunt Sofka: The Countess Koulinskyi
Running time -- 114 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 7/29/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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