Olivia Colman Takes New Steps in 'Tyrannosaur'

How does an actor with well-established comedic chops turn in a shattering performance in one of the year's darkest, most disturbing films? Olivia Colman says she did it in "Tyrannosaur" by doing what's real for her characterwith the help of a pitch-perfect script. "I didn't go anywhere different for it," Colman says. "You just go to where you need to go to do her justice." Her work in this film by writer-director Paddy Considine was dubbed the breakout performance at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.One more breakout is coming her way, however. She more than holds our attention as Margaret Thatcher's daughter, Carol, opposite Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady."But in "Tyrannosaur," Colman plays Hannah, a Christian woman who works in a thrift shop and who holds out a literal and figurative hand to the damaged, raging Joseph (Peter Mullan). Yet Hannah bears her own scars, caused in large part by her marriage to the monstrous James (Eddie Marsan). The film began life as Considine's short; in the feature film he expands Hannah's role to show her background and develop her relationship with Joseph.Back Stage: How did you meet Paddy Considine, and how did he cast you in this project?Olivia Colman: We met on a film called "Hot Fuzz." We met the first day of our rehearsals. I knew Paddy was coming, and I was so excited to meet Paddy Considine. And he came up the stairs, and I opened the door for him, and he said, "After you," and I went, "Oh, no, no, after you." And he says that at that point he thought, "Oh, right, she's the one for my short film." I'm so pleased I held the door open for him.Back Stage: How much time did you have to prepare your character for the short?Colman: I didn't. I read the script, but then I had to fly to Glasgow and do my scenes just in one day, because I was in the middle of a job. The short went down very well. It won a BAFTA for best short. After that, people were saying, "I want to know what happens with these characters." And then it was just about four years between the short and the feature. Back Stage: If there was no back story for Hannah, did you make one up for her?Colman: Everything was on the page. She worked in this charity shop; she was the only person who extended a hand of friendship to this man who most people would have walked to the other side of the street away from. I didn't need to know an awful lot more about that. I know lots of actors might disagree with me, but to me I just did what was on the page. She was a lovely, warm person. And when you come to the feature, she just shows herself as a lovely, warm person. She doesn't show what's going on, anyway, in her back story. It's unveiled during the course of the film. But I think it's right that she doesn't show everybody, and that's what's more interesting. And the whole film is about challenging perceptions: You make snap decisions, snap judgments about people, and you're invariably wrong. Looking at the film after you've witnessed what Joseph's done, you can't believe you can feel so differently. But I don't think you need to demonstrate everything, because that's not what people do. They keep their secrets, and they keep them well.Back Stage: Any other research?Colman: I went to this charity called Refuge, in the U.K., which tries to help victims of domestic violence. I talked to women who work for the charitynot to any of the women, or men, they helpbecause I couldn't promise I wouldn't cry. So they gave me a case study to look at, which was so shockinga hundred times worse than anything you saw onscreenand that was enough. I'll never get rid of that now, the horrible images from that. That was enough to inform what I thought Hannah was.Back Stage: What was Paddy's set like? Formal? Funny?Colman: Informal and very, very safe, very friendly. They're all funny people: Paddy, Eddie, and Peter. All lovely, warm people who tell funny stories and joke with each other. Also the crew. When you're feeling exposed when you're doing something, you don't want to hear someone giggling 'cause they're doing a private joke over there. No one did that [on this film]. Everyone was completely committed.Back Stage: What kind of rehearsals did you have?Colman: We had one day that had been put aside, before we started the shoot. Paddy and Peter and I sitting. But it ended up we didn't really talk about the piece at all. We ended up going to the pub and having a drink. The characters were already so whole, so multifaceted, so complete on the page, I didn't want to talk about it. It feels like you're taking the lid off the pressure cooker. If I can feel it, it's all there; please don't make me say it before we have to do it. I told Paddy, "I'm really nervous about rehearsing for this; I don't want to." And he felt the same. Because I felt it so deeply, I would be sobbing during a rehearsal. He said, "No, don't say a word. Roughly when you get to that point, where do you think you might go? [The camera will] just follow you and make sure we get it." That was lovely. It was liberating. Back Stage: What did you learn about acting while working on this film?Colman: There's a certain feeling I have a bit more now, which is I do deserve to be here. I always thought, "I'm going to be found out." I couldn't have done "Iron Lady" three years ago. I did "Iron Lady" three years after this, and I thought, "It's all right; I can hold my own," after Paddy giving me confidence like that.Back Stage: What did you learn watching Streep?Colman: She has a very strong work ethic. There is no ego; there's no vanity; there's no place for that. That's why she is so extraordinarily good at what she does. I don't want to? see the working behind a performance. To be; that's it. And to feel it. And laying on extra stuffI don't enjoy watching that. She takes what she needs to, to make that person real. People would have paid to sit there and watch her in the flesh doing it. And she was amazing, and you completely forgot that underneath the prosthetics she looked different. She became the person.Back Stage: In "Tyrannosaur," what was the most difficult scene for you?Colman: The one I was always terrified of, from the moment I got the script, was Hannah's breakdown. I was scared of doing it justice. I didn't want to let Paddy down. And he shot us chronologically, which was brilliant. Because he's an actor, he knows how important that is. So the whole journey, you've already done it. It makes your job very easy. There was [another] scene which didn't make it to the final cut. I think we all felt it wasn't working. Paddy kept trying. And then I traveled home for the weekend. And Paddy called me and said, "We're going to reshoot that scene." And I was so upset that I hadn't done it right, I've let him down, he'd taken the gamble. And then he says, "It wasn't you. I was saying all the wrong things, and I was directing it wrong." Which is sweet of him.Back Stage: And the one scene you wouldn't mind reshooting?Colman: The scenes I found hardest were the scenes that were re-creating the short. It was weirdit was like an echo. We did it four years previously, and I was trying to make it? fresh again now, but I could still kind of hear my own voice. I found those the hardest, which is why I wouldn't want to shoot them again, 'cause it would just get worse.Back Stage: What was your worst audition ever?Colman: It was for the Donmar [Warehouse, in London]. I was going to be meeting [casting director and creative associate] Anne McNulty, and I was so excited. Quite early on [in my career]. Wanted to be taken on by my agent. And the script had a lot of mention of camera shot things. And it was for the part of a whore. So I had a short skirt and tried to look as whorish as I couldor as I could bear. Got there, took my coat off, and she looked at me and said, "What do you think of the script?" And I said, "Oh, it's good." And she still looked puzzled. And then she said, "Should we have a little read?" And it wasn't the script that I'd been sent. It was for the part of a nun. We did laugh about it, but it was humiliating. And I didn't get that part.Back Stage: That's because the casting director had no imagination. By Dany Margolies December 30, 2011 Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman. PHOTO CREDIT Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images How does an actor with well-established comedic chops turn in a shattering performance in one of the year's darkest, most disturbing films? Olivia Colman says she did it in "Tyrannosaur" by doing what's real for her characterwith the help of a pitch-perfect script. "I didn't go anywhere different for it," Colman says. "You just go to where you need to go to do her justice." Her work in this film by writer-director Paddy Considine was dubbed the breakout performance at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.One more breakout is coming her way, however. She more than holds our attention as Margaret Thatcher's daughter, Carol, opposite Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady."But in "Tyrannosaur," Colman plays Hannah, a Christian woman who works in a thrift shop and who holds out a literal and figurative hand to the damaged, raging Joseph (Peter Mullan). Yet Hannah bears her own scars, caused in large part by her marriage to the monstrous James (Eddie Marsan). The film began life as Considine's short; in the feature film he expands Hannah's role to show her background and develop her relationship with Joseph.Back Stage: How did you meet Paddy Considine, and how did he cast you in this project?Olivia Colman: We met on a film called "Hot Fuzz." We met the first day of our rehearsals. I knew Paddy was coming, and I was so excited to meet Paddy Considine. And he came up the stairs, and I opened the door for him, and he said, "After you," and I went, "Oh, no, no, after you." And he says that at that point he thought, "Oh, right, she's the one for my short film." I'm so pleased I held the door open for him.Back Stage: How much time did you have to prepare your character for the short?Colman: I didn't. I read the script, but then I had to fly to Glasgow and do my scenes just in one day, because I was in the middle of a job. The short went down very well. It won a BAFTA for best short. After that, people were saying, "I want to know what happens with these characters." And then it was just about four years between the short and the feature. Back Stage: If there was no back story for Hannah, did you make one up for her?Colman: Everything was on the page. She worked in this charity shop; she was the only person who extended a hand of friendship to this man who most people would have walked to the other side of the street away from. I didn't need to know an awful lot more about that. I know lots of actors might disagree with me, but to me I just did what was on the page. She was a lovely, warm person. And when you come to the feature, she just shows herself as a lovely, warm person. She doesn't show what's going on, anyway, in her back story. It's unveiled during the course of the film. But I think it's right that she doesn't show everybody, and that's what's more interesting. And the whole film is about challenging perceptions: You make snap decisions, snap judgments about people, and you're invariably wrong. Looking at the film after you've witnessed what Joseph's done, you can't believe you can feel so differently. But I don't think you need to demonstrate everything, because that's not what people do. They keep their secrets, and they keep them well.Back Stage: Any other research?Colman: I went to this charity called Refuge, in the U.K., which tries to help victims of domestic violence. I talked to women who work for the charitynot to any of the women, or men, they helpbecause I couldn't promise I wouldn't cry. So they gave me a case study to look at, which was so shockinga hundred times worse than anything you saw onscreenand that was enough. I'll never get rid of that now, the horrible images from that. That was enough to inform what I thought Hannah was.Back Stage: What was Paddy's set like? Formal? Funny?Colman: Informal and very, very safe, very friendly. They're all funny people: Paddy, Eddie, and Peter. All lovely, warm people who tell funny stories and joke with each other. Also the crew. When you're feeling exposed when you're doing something, you don't want to hear someone giggling 'cause they're doing a private joke over there. No one did that [on this film]. Everyone was completely committed.Back Stage: What kind of rehearsals did you have?Colman: We had one day that had been put aside, before we started the shoot. Paddy and Peter and I sitting. But it ended up we didn't really talk about the piece at all. We ended up going to the pub and having a drink. The characters were already so whole, so multifaceted, so complete on the page, I didn't want to talk about it. It feels like you're taking the lid off the pressure cooker. If I can feel it, it's all there; please don't make me say it before we have to do it. I told Paddy, "I'm really nervous about rehearsing for this; I don't want to." And he felt the same. Because I felt it so deeply, I would be sobbing during a rehearsal. He said, "No, don't say a word. Roughly when you get to that point, where do you think you might go? [The camera will] just follow you and make sure we get it." That was lovely. It was liberating. Back Stage: What did you learn about acting while working on this film?Colman: There's a certain feeling I have a bit more now, which is I do deserve to be here. I always thought, "I'm going to be found out." I couldn't have done "Iron Lady" three years ago. I did "Iron Lady" three years after this, and I thought, "It's all right; I can hold my own," after Paddy giving me confidence like that.Back Stage: What did you learn watching Streep?Colman: She has a very strong work ethic. There is no ego; there's no vanity; there's no place for that. That's why she is so extraordinarily good at what she does. I don't want to? see the working behind a performance. To be; that's it. And to feel it. And laying on extra stuffI don't enjoy watching that. She takes what she needs to, to make that person real. People would have paid to sit there and watch her in the flesh doing it. And she was amazing, and you completely forgot that underneath the prosthetics she looked different. She became the person.Back Stage: In "Tyrannosaur," what was the most difficult scene for you?Colman: The one I was always terrified of, from the moment I got the script, was Hannah's breakdown. I was scared of doing it justice. I didn't want to let Paddy down. And he shot us chronologically, which was brilliant. Because he's an actor, he knows how important that is. So the whole journey, you've already done it. It makes your job very easy. There was [another] scene which didn't make it to the final cut. I think we all felt it wasn't working. Paddy kept trying. And then I traveled home for the weekend. And Paddy called me and said, "We're going to reshoot that scene." And I was so upset that I hadn't done it right, I've let him down, he'd taken the gamble. And then he says, "It wasn't you. I was saying all the wrong things, and I was directing it wrong." Which is sweet of him.Back Stage: And the one scene you wouldn't mind reshooting?Colman: The scenes I found hardest were the scenes that were re-creating the short. It was weirdit was like an echo. We did it four years previously, and I was trying to make it? fresh again now, but I could still kind of hear my own voice. I found those the hardest, which is why I wouldn't want to shoot them again, 'cause it would just get worse.Back Stage: What was your worst audition ever?Colman: It was for the Donmar [Warehouse, in London]. I was going to be meeting [casting director and creative associate] Anne McNulty, and I was so excited. Quite early on [in my career]. Wanted to be taken on by my agent. And the script had a lot of mention of camera shot things. And it was for the part of a whore. So I had a short skirt and tried to look as whorish as I couldor as I could bear. Got there, took my coat off, and she looked at me and said, "What do you think of the script?" And I said, "Oh, it's good." And she still looked puzzled. And then she said, "Should we have a little read?" And it wasn't the script that I'd been sent. It was for the part of a nun. We did laugh about it, but it was humiliating. And I didn't get that part.Back Stage: That's because the casting director had no imagination.

The Closer's Jon Tenney to go to HBO's Newsroom

Jon Tenney In The Nearer to The Newsroom, Jon Tenney is adhering with cable. The actor will guest-star in producer Aaron Sorkin's approaching new Cinemax series, formally entitled The Newsroom, in regards to a imaginary cable news network, TVLine reviews. He'll play Wade, the boyfriend from the cable news show's executive producer, performed by Emily Mortimer. Jane Fonda to call shots on Aaron Sorkin's new Cinemax series As formerly introduced, Shaun Daniels will have an anchor in the network, while Mike Waterston will mind in the newsroom staff which includes Alison Pill, John Gallagher, Junior., Olivia Munn, Dev Patel and Thomas Sadoski. Oscar champion Jane Fonda was lately introduced to experience Leona Lansing, the network's parent company Boss who's more worried about the company aspects compared to confirming side. Tenney performed Fritz Howard, the husband of Kyra Sedgwick's character on TNT's The Closer, along with a love interest for Sally Field's character on Siblings & Siblings.

Unaware Reunion! Alicia Silverstone Moving (Using the Homies) to Suburgatory

Alicia Silverstone Check it, Unaware fans! Alicia Silverstone is joining Suburgatory for any multi-episode arc which will reunite her with former on-screen co-star Jeremy Sisto, TVLine reviews. Silverstone, 35, will have Eden, a potential love interest for Sisto's character, George (and ideas thought she was still being saving herself for Luke Perry!). Although Eden's arrival may spell good stuff for George's sex life, her unusual profession may cause tension for George and Best friend Noah (Alan Tudyk). As though! Suburgatory boss on George and Dallas: Can they or will not they? Silverstone and Sisto notoriously performed Bronson Alcott Students Cher and Elton within the 1995 Amy Heckerling classic. This can mark their first project together since Unaware, and Silverstone's first TV role since she starred on NBC's short-resided romantic comedy Miss Match in 2003. Are you currently excited with this Unaware reunion? The other Unaware cast people would you like to see proceed to Suburgatory?

The Ladykillers

An Edward Snape for Fiery Angel in colaboration with Stage Entertainment U.K., Fiery Dragons, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Olympus Theatricals, Studiocanal and Jason Haigh-Ellery presentation of the play in 2 functions by Graham Linehan in the film script by William Rose & by special arrangement with Studiocanal. Directed by Sean Foley. Professor MarcusPeter Capaldi Mrs. WilberforceMarcia Warren Major CourtneyJames Fleet Louis HarveyBen Burns One-RoundClive Rowe Harry RobinsonStephen Wight Constable MacdonaldHarry Peacock Mrs. Jane TromleytonBeverley WalkingConsidering that classic movies are immediately open to watch within the privacy of a person's home for substantially under a fistful of dollars, there actually is no reason for faithfully turning them into costly-to-see plays. Except, that's, once the stage version is really as smartly reinvented as "The Ladykillers." Graham Linehan's sharp script re-imagines the 1955 horror-comedy movie as enchantingly knowing farce. Equipped with Michael Taylor's laugh-inducing design and pleased acting, the show warrants a significantly longer existence expectancy compared to its criminal figures, who arrived at wonderfully sticky finishes. The mechanics of Alexander Mackendrick's Ealing comedy stay the same. Will still be the storyplot of the ramshackle number of crooks who, getting planned to take advantage of a burglar van at King's Mix Station, transfer to preparation mode if you take up accommodations in the home of little old lady Mrs. Wilberforce (Maria Warren) underneath the guise to be people of the string quintet. Everything goes based on plan. They can work the unwitting Mrs. Wilberforce to their plot, however when she finally tumbles for their dastardly deed, she's consumed by indignation. In order to stop her likely to police, they decide they are going to need to meet the play's title. Unlkie the Coen Siblings, who coarsened everything for his or her less-than-effective screen moving, Linehan's change is basically among tone. It's as though he's taken the fabric and moved up a register in to the sensibility of "Arsenic and Old Lace." Rather than harmful the fabric, it raises it. Better yet, such as the stage version of "The 39 Steps" (still running in the western world Finish after 5 years) it welcomes the crowd in around the joke. This is an invitation immediately lapped up. The key is mainly: By helping cover their uneasy creepiness, along with uproarious comedy. That much is signaled in the opening scene, by which we are brought to the higgledy-piggledy home alongside the railway. Within the to begin several visual coups, the sweet house-front wheels round to show a teetering pile of rooms at ocean-sick angles with furniture that shudders and shakes alarmingly whenever a train thunders back and forth from the station. That amount of detailed exaggeration boosts laughs in the get-go, and it is shown within the playing. Professor Marcus, who masterminds the escapade, was performed on the watch's screen with a ghoulish Alec Guinness. He's changed by preening Peter Capaldi, clearly convinced that he's the Napoleon of crime, only taller and comically unhinged. Having a sweep of his forever trailing scarf, he introduces his ill-assorted cohorts. More fully developed figures compared to the film, they are all given a diploma of idiosyncrasy highlighting on madness, which further helps you to in the stakes. Stephen Wight display a genuine gift for slapstick and making the most from props, particularly when they involves him popping uppers and downers, as well as his character's mania to clean. And although Ben Miller's character has got the fewest gags, he will get probably the most mileage from them like a Romanian hard-nut on the moving boil of barely contained fury. Helmer Foley, most widely known as you 1 / 2 of comedy duo The Best Size (whose "The Play Things I Authored" moved to Broadway), packs the experience with visual gags and good-humored stage business together with a homage towards the Marx Borthers, with all of five crooks revealed to become hiding within an improbably small cupboard. He's less proficient at punctuating the large moments. When among the character falls in the roof underneath the scream of the train whistle, as soon as is funny however the audience remains puzzled whether to laugh or applaud since the moment, unlike the smoothness, remains hanging with no proper "button" or finish being added. But although moments like this mean the ball is from time to time dropped, the show exudes comic confidence. In writing it appeared as if another lazy film-to-stage transfer. The gleefully silly production is wittier and altogether more enjoyable than anybody expected.Sets and costumes, Michael Taylor lighting, James Farncombe music and seem, Ben and Max Ringham effects, Scott Penrose production stage manager, Marcus Watson. Opened up, examined, 12 ,. 7, 2011. Running time: 2 Hrs, 15 MIN. Contact David Benedict at benedictdavid@mac.com

Vital Retreats into Smoke & Bone Daughter

Laini Taylor novel to start franchiseWith only one more Twilight film to go to, everyone's searching for the next large paranormal romance to lure the tweens as well as the moms as well as the grandmother into pan-generational emo family cinema activities. At Vital, the top of wish-list looks being Daughter Of Smoke And Bone, Laini Taylor's twisted kids' novel of angels and demons and forbidden love in Prague, the studio is settling to obtain for just about any reported six-figure sum.It, launched in September and intended since the first in the series, involves 17-year-old art student Karou, which has tats and knows kung-fu, and contains truly blue hair (i. e. she doesn't dye it: it evolves blue from her mind). Her background can be a mystery, and he or she remains adopted and elevated by demons - "Chimaera" - who every so often require her to consider errands through sites and collect teeth.Teeth.On one of these brilliant missions she encounters the angel Akiva, who's been designated with putting a stop and the illegal supernatural denture trade, but doesn't kill Karou because she reminds him of his lost love. In addition to their burgeoning affair coincides while using appearance throughout Prague from the black-hands symbol, heralding a war involving the cosmic forces of fine and evil.The book's first lines are "Not such a long time ago, an angel together with a demon fell for one another. It did not finish well." It will less than emerge like Preacher though.Large-canvas stuff then, but grounded in the medieval romance. Which is what spurred Paramount's interest. Deadline think that the studio was ready to fight for your property, due to its "chance of large-scale, visual effects-driven fantasy that could communicate with a young audience", in addition to its potential expansion to franchise size.It doesn't appear as if the sale is extremely done, but it's firmly available. We'll make you stay released. The novel is presently accessible within the Uk in hardcover from Hodder and Stoughton.