Several (late) articles
Olivia Williams: Kevin Costner taught me a lot about film-making
Hanna star Olivia Williams talks to Metro about her love for bears, reading Shakespeare with Joss Whedon and working with acting legend Kevin Costner.
Andrew Williams - 26th August, 2011
Isn’t Hanna - a film about a teenager going on a violent rampage - a bit inopportune in light of the recent rioting?
One feels she’s on the side of good rather than evil. She’s not nicking tellies and trainers. I don’t want to be trite about the social problems that make people take advantage of a smashed window to nick tellies. I’m a bit of a pinko lefty. I was around ten when Margaret Thatcher said: ‘There’s no such thing as society.’ Well done, Mags, this is the natural conclusion of your brilliant policy. Now there isn’t a society, she’s too doolally to know what she’s done.
You and Jason Flemyng make an unusual couple in the film, don’t you?
I think we make a very nice couple. We were a couple before when we were fresh young things out of drama school in an episode of a rather bad TV show called Beck.
Was it nice to catch up?
Jason Flemyng is one of the nicest people in the world, so it was lovely. I think it’s a very well-observed relationship of the kind of people who get together at Glastonbury and get pregnant by mistake.
This was a bit of a reunion for you, then?
Yes. I’ve been an actor for 22 years but it’s only recently I’ve shown up on set and known people I’ve worked with before. I get to be a bit of an old luvvie. I can say: ‘Do you remember when Freddie walked on in act two with his hat on back to front? How we laughed…’
Who have you learned the most from working with?
Kevin Costner directed the first film I was in and taught me the whole practical side of film-making. More recently, Roman Polanski taught me what the actor’s function is in a film. It was interesting because it turns out to be quite a small contribution. The directors of Cheek By Jowl theatre company - Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod - taught me about pure acting. I was in The Changeling, which became a thorough exercise in how to unlock a scene, how to see past what’s going on to the underlying drama.
You’re an expert on the spectacled bears of Bolivia - what’s your favourite bit of bear trivia?
I was present when it was proven that spectacled bears are not nocturnal. I was with my friend, Suzy, at the top of a mountain at night with a radio receiver waiting for signals of movement from a bear that was clearly asleep. Before then, people didn’t know if they were nocturnal or not. This bear and his mate, who we’d also radio collared, didn’t move all night, which suggested they were asleep and hence not nocturnal.
How did you get involved with the bears?
My friend, Suzy, studied the bears for her PhD. She asked all her friends if they wanted to visit and I was the least likely to since I was swanning around Hollywood at the time. I’m quite bloody-minded, so I thought: ‘I’ll show you,’ and I went. I made it 16,000ft up the mountain and stayed up there for three weeks. It was an amazing experience.
You were in cult writer/director Joss Whedon’s TV show Dollhouse. Were you perplexed by the twist at the end?
I didn’t understand what was going on most of the time. I had no idea but I loved his writing. Joss is a great one for studying you and uses bits of your personality in his characterisation so, as the series goes on, you become more like yourself. I started the series as an overdressed super bitch and ended it as a north London hippie.
Was that a nice experience?
It was amazing. He used to get everyone together to read Shakespeare plays in his garden on Sunday afternoons. I have this theory Gertrude from Hamlet has a drinking problem so I played her drunk, aided by Joss’s Californian chardonnay. The next week my character developed an alcohol problem on the show.
Hanna is out now on DVD.
source
Williams: Keira will be great [as] Anna
UK Press Association - Tue, Aug 30, 2011.
Olivia Williams has described her Anna Karenina co-star Keira Knightley as a "phenomenal actress".
The pair will appear together in the upcoming adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel which is directed by British filmmaker Joe Wright and which will star Aaron Johnson and Jude Law.
Olivia said Keira would have no problem taking on the challenging title role.
She added: "In some films you're on your own but in a Joe Wright film you're not on your own, it's a genuinely collaborative event and I think that she's a phenomenal actress with or without this incredible ensemble behind her."
Olivia, who worked with Joe on the action thriller Hanna, said she was delighted to be collaborating with him again.
"This movie and this role carries the weight of history behind it and I really believe Joe's the man for the job. I think he said, 'I'm sick of realism'. He's not looking to turn Anna Karenina into a kitchen sink drama.
"There is a grandiosity to it and I think our understanding of the time and the mores and how people had to behave, it's important that there's a huge monolith of society and convention she has to smash through and doing mumbling, naturalistic performances would be unrealistic for that."
Hanna is out on DVD now.
source
Dakota Fanning's UK accent praised
First Posted: 9/9/11 11:19 GMT Updated: 9/9/11 11:19 GMT
PRESS ASSOCIATION -- Dakota Fanning coped "very well" with her English accent in new film Now Is Good, her co-star Olivia Williams has said.
The US star plays a terminally ill girl who makes a list of things she wants to do before dying, with Williams and In America's Paddy Considine playing her parents.
And Fanning's on-screen mum insisted the starlet's estuary English accent was up to scratch.
"Dakota did very well, she got an accent coach - there's a big business in accent coaching these days," Williams said.
"(Accents) just aren't a big deal, it's part of the job. It's a shame that people find it so distracting."
The Hanna star went on: "We do amazing levels of suspension of disbelief when we go to the theatre and even watch a movie, and yet if someone's accent is just a little bit off it snaps people out of their suspension of disbelief. It's very strange that people log onto that instead of that someone's flying. I just wish it weren't so, because there are lots of extraordinary performances being discounted at the first fence on the basis of something really trivial."
Brunette Williams donned a blonde wig for Now Is Good - and was surprised at how the change made her feel.
"It was a bit of a release, I've always been dark-haired and I've never had the courage to go blonde, so it was really fun just to whack on a wig and see what happened," she said.
"I don't know whether I became a bit more sort of animated and flirty or people treated me in a way that was more animated and flirty but I suppose blondes do have more fun."
source
Hanna star Olivia Williams talks to Metro about her love for bears, reading Shakespeare with Joss Whedon and working with acting legend Kevin Costner.
Andrew Williams - 26th August, 2011
Isn’t Hanna - a film about a teenager going on a violent rampage - a bit inopportune in light of the recent rioting?
One feels she’s on the side of good rather than evil. She’s not nicking tellies and trainers. I don’t want to be trite about the social problems that make people take advantage of a smashed window to nick tellies. I’m a bit of a pinko lefty. I was around ten when Margaret Thatcher said: ‘There’s no such thing as society.’ Well done, Mags, this is the natural conclusion of your brilliant policy. Now there isn’t a society, she’s too doolally to know what she’s done.
You and Jason Flemyng make an unusual couple in the film, don’t you?
I think we make a very nice couple. We were a couple before when we were fresh young things out of drama school in an episode of a rather bad TV show called Beck.
Was it nice to catch up?
Jason Flemyng is one of the nicest people in the world, so it was lovely. I think it’s a very well-observed relationship of the kind of people who get together at Glastonbury and get pregnant by mistake.
This was a bit of a reunion for you, then?
Yes. I’ve been an actor for 22 years but it’s only recently I’ve shown up on set and known people I’ve worked with before. I get to be a bit of an old luvvie. I can say: ‘Do you remember when Freddie walked on in act two with his hat on back to front? How we laughed…’
Who have you learned the most from working with?
Kevin Costner directed the first film I was in and taught me the whole practical side of film-making. More recently, Roman Polanski taught me what the actor’s function is in a film. It was interesting because it turns out to be quite a small contribution. The directors of Cheek By Jowl theatre company - Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod - taught me about pure acting. I was in The Changeling, which became a thorough exercise in how to unlock a scene, how to see past what’s going on to the underlying drama.
You’re an expert on the spectacled bears of Bolivia - what’s your favourite bit of bear trivia?
I was present when it was proven that spectacled bears are not nocturnal. I was with my friend, Suzy, at the top of a mountain at night with a radio receiver waiting for signals of movement from a bear that was clearly asleep. Before then, people didn’t know if they were nocturnal or not. This bear and his mate, who we’d also radio collared, didn’t move all night, which suggested they were asleep and hence not nocturnal.
How did you get involved with the bears?
My friend, Suzy, studied the bears for her PhD. She asked all her friends if they wanted to visit and I was the least likely to since I was swanning around Hollywood at the time. I’m quite bloody-minded, so I thought: ‘I’ll show you,’ and I went. I made it 16,000ft up the mountain and stayed up there for three weeks. It was an amazing experience.
You were in cult writer/director Joss Whedon’s TV show Dollhouse. Were you perplexed by the twist at the end?
I didn’t understand what was going on most of the time. I had no idea but I loved his writing. Joss is a great one for studying you and uses bits of your personality in his characterisation so, as the series goes on, you become more like yourself. I started the series as an overdressed super bitch and ended it as a north London hippie.
Was that a nice experience?
It was amazing. He used to get everyone together to read Shakespeare plays in his garden on Sunday afternoons. I have this theory Gertrude from Hamlet has a drinking problem so I played her drunk, aided by Joss’s Californian chardonnay. The next week my character developed an alcohol problem on the show.
Hanna is out now on DVD.
source
Williams: Keira will be great [as] Anna
UK Press Association - Tue, Aug 30, 2011.
Olivia Williams has described her Anna Karenina co-star Keira Knightley as a "phenomenal actress".
The pair will appear together in the upcoming adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel which is directed by British filmmaker Joe Wright and which will star Aaron Johnson and Jude Law.
Olivia said Keira would have no problem taking on the challenging title role.
She added: "In some films you're on your own but in a Joe Wright film you're not on your own, it's a genuinely collaborative event and I think that she's a phenomenal actress with or without this incredible ensemble behind her."
Olivia, who worked with Joe on the action thriller Hanna, said she was delighted to be collaborating with him again.
"This movie and this role carries the weight of history behind it and I really believe Joe's the man for the job. I think he said, 'I'm sick of realism'. He's not looking to turn Anna Karenina into a kitchen sink drama.
"There is a grandiosity to it and I think our understanding of the time and the mores and how people had to behave, it's important that there's a huge monolith of society and convention she has to smash through and doing mumbling, naturalistic performances would be unrealistic for that."
Hanna is out on DVD now.
source
Dakota Fanning's UK accent praised
First Posted: 9/9/11 11:19 GMT Updated: 9/9/11 11:19 GMT
PRESS ASSOCIATION -- Dakota Fanning coped "very well" with her English accent in new film Now Is Good, her co-star Olivia Williams has said.
The US star plays a terminally ill girl who makes a list of things she wants to do before dying, with Williams and In America's Paddy Considine playing her parents.
And Fanning's on-screen mum insisted the starlet's estuary English accent was up to scratch.
"Dakota did very well, she got an accent coach - there's a big business in accent coaching these days," Williams said.
"(Accents) just aren't a big deal, it's part of the job. It's a shame that people find it so distracting."
The Hanna star went on: "We do amazing levels of suspension of disbelief when we go to the theatre and even watch a movie, and yet if someone's accent is just a little bit off it snaps people out of their suspension of disbelief. It's very strange that people log onto that instead of that someone's flying. I just wish it weren't so, because there are lots of extraordinary performances being discounted at the first fence on the basis of something really trivial."
Brunette Williams donned a blonde wig for Now Is Good - and was surprised at how the change made her feel.
"It was a bit of a release, I've always been dark-haired and I've never had the courage to go blonde, so it was really fun just to whack on a wig and see what happened," she said.
"I don't know whether I became a bit more sort of animated and flirty or people treated me in a way that was more animated and flirty but I suppose blondes do have more fun."
source