Andrea Riseborough was sitting on the terrace of the fabled Excelsior Hotel on the Venice Lido on Wednesday and nobody noticed.Twenty-four hours later, she was on the red carpet with Madonna, and this time the world sat up and paid attention.
Riseborough, who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, is a sensation in Madonna’s great love story W.E. about the romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII.
Andrea plays Mrs Simpson, who later became the Duchess of Windsor, and it’s one of those career-changing roles. I predict her days of being able to sit on the Excelsior terrace unrecognised are over.
Yet Riseborough’s success is due, in part, to a chameleon-like ability to transform herself that she has always possessed.
Watching an early screening of the film the other day I had the strangest sensation that I was seeing the real Mrs Simpson mixing cocktails. Andrea can crawl under the skin of the person she’s portraying.
And when she played the young Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk To Finchley, she made us believe she was the real Iron Lady. It’s a rare gift.
But filming W.E. sometimes left her feeling ‘heartbroken’.
‘I hadn’t realised how lonely Wallis Simpson was and how empty her life became when she was in exile with the Duke of Windsor,’ she told me on that empty terrace.
That comes through in Madonna’s film. All those pugs, those frocks, those gems, that mountain of embroidered linen, all those houses . .. they were substitutes.
She knew that was how it was going to be the moment the King told her he would abdicate. ‘I will have to be with him always and always and always,’ she wrote to her Aunt Bessie in a moment of pure despair.
Seeing the film a second time I felt that even the irritating modern-day parallel love story involving Abbie Cornish and Oscar Isaac works — most of the time — because of the passion of the actors and, it must be said, their director.
I still think that ten minutes could be carefully edited out and everyone would be happier.
But the score is superb. Abel Korzeniowski composed most of it with a couple of haunting piano pieces by Yann Tiersen.
And I think W.E. is likely to garner Andrea some best actress award heat — and possibly some awards interest for Madonna, too.
The film opens in the UK in January, but it will have a special gala at the BFI London Film Festival next month.
Billie Piper is trying something a bit different for her next big role on stage.
She will play a security guard — she’s probably hired one or two of them over the years — in Neil LaBute’s startling play Reasons To Be Pretty.
The drama begins on November 10 at the Almeida Theatre, with Michael Attenborough directing.
Along with Billie, it also stars Kieran Bew, Sian Brooke and Tom Burke, and is part of a series of dramas from LaBute about the way we look and other people’s reactions to our appearance.
I saw a production of Reasons To Be Pretty in New York a couple of seasons back and much of the play’s heat revolves around one, really rather mundane, word — and how it can be used to devastating effect.
The word in question is ‘regular’, and it is extraordinary to observe the misery it causes.
LaBute is one of the most provocative playwrights around and this play has some stinging moments.
Anthony Hopkins, who is rumoured to be a possible contender to play Alfred Lambert, the patriarch of Jonathan Franzen’s landmark novel The Corrections.
I must stress, to all the Franzen fans out there, that this is only a rumour at the moment, but I gather director and screen writer Noah Baumbach has been adapting Franzen’s work as a possible drama series for HBO, which means that if it happens it will appear on Sky Atlantic in the UK.
It’s very early days, though, and I also hear whispers that Donald Sutherland would like the role of Alfred, who lives with his wife Enid in the Midwest.
They have three children — two sons and a daughter — all with complicated lives.
Once upon a time Stephen Daldry was going to direct a film version using a screenplay by David Hare. This was back in 2001 and at the time, Daldry wanted Paul Newman or Gene Hackman.
Hopkins may not end up doing it, but it is good that the project is still being discussed and worked on.
Gary Oldman, who stars as George Smiley in the brilliant big-screen version of John le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He told me that he thought this year was ‘the year of Tom Hardy’.
‘Not only is he in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with me [Hardy, pictured in the film, right] but he’s done the new Batman — and I play a Chicago gangster in The Wettest County, and Tom’s in that, too. I can’t get away from him!’ he joked.
‘It’s fun when you get to work with good young actors who are coming up,’ he added. There’s some top talent in Tinker.’
The film screens at the Venice Film Festival next week and opens soon in the UK through new distributor StudioCanal.
Darren Aronofsky, who directed Natalie Portman to an Oscar for Black Swan. Darren told me he is looking for a star actor, aged around 35, to play Noah in a movie called Noah’s Ark. I had heard about the project but figured it was some science-fiction picture.
‘No! It’s the animals, the ark, the floods and Noah with his long beard,’ the film-maker explained.
He, meanwhile, was all dressed up in Gucci (pictured) in his role as president of the Venice Film Festival jury.
Michael Fassbender, who has two movies here in Venice. He plays Carl Jung in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, opposite Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen (as Sigmund Freud).
It’s about sexual abuse and psychiatry and has some potent things to say about both. And then he appears in Steve McQueen’s Shame, alongside Carey Mulligan; I’ll be watching that one on Sunday.
Riseborough, who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, is a sensation in Madonna’s great love story W.E. about the romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII.
A star is born: Actress Andrea Riseborough with W.E. writer and director Madonna
Yet Riseborough’s success is due, in part, to a chameleon-like ability to transform herself that she has always possessed.
Watching an early screening of the film the other day I had the strangest sensation that I was seeing the real Mrs Simpson mixing cocktails. Andrea can crawl under the skin of the person she’s portraying.
And when she played the young Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk To Finchley, she made us believe she was the real Iron Lady. It’s a rare gift.
Red carpet line-up: Madonna with her W.E cast at the film's premiere in Venice
Overnight sensation: Andrea Riseborough, pictured here with Madonna, became instantly recognisable after the film's screening
‘I hadn’t realised how lonely Wallis Simpson was and how empty her life became when she was in exile with the Duke of Windsor,’ she told me on that empty terrace.
That comes through in Madonna’s film. All those pugs, those frocks, those gems, that mountain of embroidered linen, all those houses . .. they were substitutes.
She knew that was how it was going to be the moment the King told her he would abdicate. ‘I will have to be with him always and always and always,’ she wrote to her Aunt Bessie in a moment of pure despair.
Gowning glory: The two women adjust their show-stopping dresses as they take their place on the red carpet
I still think that ten minutes could be carefully edited out and everyone would be happier.
But the score is superb. Abel Korzeniowski composed most of it with a couple of haunting piano pieces by Yann Tiersen.
And I think W.E. is likely to garner Andrea some best actress award heat — and possibly some awards interest for Madonna, too.
The film opens in the UK in January, but it will have a special gala at the BFI London Film Festival next month.
Pretty strong stuff
Reasons To Be Pretty: Billie Piper will play a security guard in the production
She will play a security guard — she’s probably hired one or two of them over the years — in Neil LaBute’s startling play Reasons To Be Pretty.
The drama begins on November 10 at the Almeida Theatre, with Michael Attenborough directing.
Along with Billie, it also stars Kieran Bew, Sian Brooke and Tom Burke, and is part of a series of dramas from LaBute about the way we look and other people’s reactions to our appearance.
I saw a production of Reasons To Be Pretty in New York a couple of seasons back and much of the play’s heat revolves around one, really rather mundane, word — and how it can be used to devastating effect.
The word in question is ‘regular’, and it is extraordinary to observe the misery it causes.
LaBute is one of the most provocative playwrights around and this play has some stinging moments.
Watch out for...
The year of Tom Hardy: The actor is in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Gary Oldman
I must stress, to all the Franzen fans out there, that this is only a rumour at the moment, but I gather director and screen writer Noah Baumbach has been adapting Franzen’s work as a possible drama series for HBO, which means that if it happens it will appear on Sky Atlantic in the UK.
It’s very early days, though, and I also hear whispers that Donald Sutherland would like the role of Alfred, who lives with his wife Enid in the Midwest.
They have three children — two sons and a daughter — all with complicated lives.
Once upon a time Stephen Daldry was going to direct a film version using a screenplay by David Hare. This was back in 2001 and at the time, Daldry wanted Paul Newman or Gene Hackman.
Hopkins may not end up doing it, but it is good that the project is still being discussed and worked on.
Gary Oldman, who stars as George Smiley in the brilliant big-screen version of John le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He told me that he thought this year was ‘the year of Tom Hardy’.
‘Not only is he in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with me [Hardy, pictured in the film, right] but he’s done the new Batman — and I play a Chicago gangster in The Wettest County, and Tom’s in that, too. I can’t get away from him!’ he joked.
All dressed up: Darren Aronofsky arriving at the Venice Film Festival
The film screens at the Venice Film Festival next week and opens soon in the UK through new distributor StudioCanal.
Darren Aronofsky, who directed Natalie Portman to an Oscar for Black Swan. Darren told me he is looking for a star actor, aged around 35, to play Noah in a movie called Noah’s Ark. I had heard about the project but figured it was some science-fiction picture.
‘No! It’s the animals, the ark, the floods and Noah with his long beard,’ the film-maker explained.
He, meanwhile, was all dressed up in Gucci (pictured) in his role as president of the Venice Film Festival jury.
Michael Fassbender, who has two movies here in Venice. He plays Carl Jung in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, opposite Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen (as Sigmund Freud).
It’s about sexual abuse and psychiatry and has some potent things to say about both. And then he appears in Steve McQueen’s Shame, alongside Carey Mulligan; I’ll be watching that one on Sunday.
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