Author Topic: London Spy: Ben Whishaw, dreamy lover/genius Ed Holcroft and sage Jim Broadbent  (Read 571594 times)

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
Not your BLUE, but this is new....



http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2016/1/22/ray-liotta-surprises-same-sex-kiss-j-los-new-show

SHADES OF BLUE
Ray Liotta Surprises
With Same-Sex Kiss
on J. Lo's New Show

The veteran actor known mostly for his masculine roles surprised viewers
on last night's episode of the Jennifer Lopez-led NBC drama Shades of Blue





BY RAFFY ERMAC
JANUARY 22 2016 12:34 PM EST



Last night’s episode of the NBC cop drama Shades of Blue (which stars pop music icon Jennifer Lopez in the lead role) had a few big surprises for its viewers, the biggest one being a completely unexpected same-sex kiss between two main characters.

Ray Liotta (who plays Lopez’s corrupt New York Police Department colleague Matt Wozniak) shared an on-screen kiss with costar Michael Esper (who plays a fellow cop named Donnie Pomp) despite already being married to a woman. The queer plot line in Shades of Blue comes as a pleasant surprise from the show’s creators, especially considering the usual heteronormativity and masculinity that is so typical of crime dramas.

The idea to make Liotta’s character bisexual came as a spur-of-the moment thing during the writing of the script, reports film and television news site The Wrap.

“I never envisioned him as a gay character but I was writing a scene between him and Donnie Pomp, the two heavies, and it was, to be honest, a really fucking boring scene between two macho guys explaining things to each other,” Shades of Blue creator and executive producer Adi Hasak told The Wrap. “The characters had no vulnerability, especially the character of Wozniak. So he just leaned forward, and I had the two men share a kiss. Once that happened, the character of Wozniak was really born.”






The Wrap also reports that Liotta knew of Wozniak’s bisexuality before he committed to the role and that the kiss was originally intended to be featured in the pilot episode of the series.

“Ray can do no wrong by me,” Hasak continued. “Wozniak is not defined by being a macho character who’s also gay. This is the beginning of unraveling several levels of the psyche of this character.”


Also see:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shades_of_Blue_(TV_series)
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Sophia

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,574
  • Your elbows, try to lick them
 Darn. That look so hot. I can feel the passion all the way to Sweden. Thanks John.

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
Darn. That look so hot. I can feel the passion all the way to Sweden. Thanks John.


Hi Sophia! Hope you are well! Warm and sunny today, some people (not me!) in (yes!) t-shirts today--fingers crossed!!  8)

"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
Ok, back to London Spy's Blue,
which is rife and rich with blue allusions:

London Spy
Episode 3
"Blue"




  

(Scottie's house. It is raining. Scottie is sadly staring out the window.
After just learning the horrifying discovery that Danny, unbelievably, is HIV seropositive,
Danny is desperate and crying; he has realized what has been done to him.)









Danny (Ben Whishaw): When they took--my blood at the police station,
they must have injected me at the same time.











Danny: The--the virus can't--can't survive outside the body. They must have, um--
They must have kept it heated?
And I, I, I, I know that--it takes more than six weeks for it to show up on the test and--
it wasn't that long ago but they must have--I don't know, I don't know how they did it. I--
(He sighs.)
But they did it! They did it.
(He sniffs and then sobs.)
Scottie--you have to believe me! Please. Please!
 








Scottie (Jim Broadbent): I remember taking you to hospital--all those years ago.
There was a chance you'd been infected. We barely knew each other.
You were so young. More child than adult.
I made you promise never to take a risk like that again.


Danny: Scottie, I swear!

Scottie: You promised. You promised me.

Danny: I never broke that promise. I swear to you!
If you don't believe me, I don't have anyone else, Scottie, I don't have anyone else!
You have to believe.


Scottie: I believe you. I knew you were a young man who'd make a lot of mistakes.
But never the same one twice. I believe you.
I believe they deliberately infected you. Not to kill you, obviously.
With medication, you'll live a long and normal life.
They did it to discredit you.
They'll say you took risks with your own health.
You were reckless--and irresponsible.
Perhaps they'll even say that you infected Alex.


Danny: No. He, he was--

Scottie: He was negative. But what will the test say?
The story of you two has been written. It was written many months ago.
A sordid tale--the details of which will leak out into the public sphere.
People will recoil.
Many will think you got what you deserved.
No one will campaign for answers. No one will demand justice.








Danny: These people--

Scottie: Yes.

Danny: They'd do anything.







Danny: These people--

Scottie: Yes.

Danny: They'd do anything.

Scottie: Yes.

Danny: I can't--

Scottie: No.

Danny: I loved him. I loved him very much. I can't fight them.

Scottie: A long time ago, I had a lover. He was an aspiring artist.
Quite promising. Extraordinarily beautiful.
1983. He was one of the first in London to fall ill.








Back then, it didn't even have a name.
There was no information. No leaflets. No warnings. No answers.
You'd watch the news and hear no mention of it. A secret plague.
I'd visit him as often as I could, with as much fresh fruit and vegetables as I could carry.










He'd been given a book on colour therapy.
In it, blue was described as having healing properties.
Blue... blue alone, was able to fight infections. Blue... blue alone, could save him.

Blue.














No doubt the idea appealed to his artistic sensibilities.
Back then, mysticism and magic stood in for medicine.
He wouldn't accept the fresh fruit and vegetables because they weren't blue.
But, since water was blue, he eventually agreed to take a bath.








I told him that he'd given up. He must fight.
He refused.
He said that I'd never faced the inevitability of defeat.
He was going to die. He was going to suffer, suffer terribly.
There was nothing he could do. There was nothing anyone could do.









He was right. On both counts. He did suffer terribly.
And I have never faced the inevitability of defeat.
It is impossible.
We will lose.
But we will fight.







« Last Edit: January 17, 2017, 10:25:15 pm by Aloysius J. Gleek »
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
LONDONSPYFANMERCH

Woah!
The Merch has arrived!  
:o


Now THIS one
I can USE!
Hope it gets
restocked soon!!
 :laugh:
« Last Edit: January 17, 2017, 10:26:06 pm by Aloysius J. Gleek »
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
« Last Edit: January 17, 2017, 10:27:00 pm by Aloysius J. Gleek »
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
LONDONSPYFANARTJOHAPPY!

I mean,
really,
THANK GOD!











WHEW!
Well, I hope so!
 :D
« Last Edit: March 06, 2016, 08:54:18 am by Aloysius J. Gleek »
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011


like an eagle in a dove-cote
aaron-symons: Ben Whishaw photographed by Blair Getz Mezibov for Esquire November 2015
anigram.tumblr.com


"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/film/news/a9101/ben-whishaw-if-i-had-a-career-plan-itd-stop-feeling-like-an-adventure/

CULTUREFILM
Ben Whishaw
"If I Had A Career Plan, It'd
Stop Feeling Like An Adventure"

Ben Whishaw has stolen scenes in five of the biggest films of the year,
including playing Q in a certain spy movie currently in cinemas.
For Esquire, he takes centre stage in winter’s most desirable overcoats


By Sam Parker | Photographs by Blair Getz Mezibov | Fashion by Catherine Hayward
NOV 11, 2015




When it comes time for the customary year-end lists of the biggest and best films of 2015, a good starting point will be Ben Whishaw’s filmography. In recent months, the Bedfordshire-born actor has appeared in – deep breath – Suffragette, Abi Morgan's all-star retelling of the women’s liberation movement; In the Heart of the Sea, a blockbuster from Ron Howard about the origins of Moby Dick; The Lobster, a bizarre and brilliant art house hit; The Danish Girl, a timely drama about a transgender pioneer; and finally, Spectre, the latest in a reasonably popular spy franchise and follow-up to the biggest British film of all time (he starred in that, too).

In other words, a succession of critical and commercial hits that would make all but the world’s A-list consider sacking their agents in a fit of envy. So, we ask the 35-year-old over coffee in a London restaurant, quite a career-defining year for you, then?

“I guess so,” Whishaw says, brushing a few strands of unruly black hair from his eyes, reclining in his chair, glancing out at rain-splattered Piccadilly. “But then I don’t really have a grand ‘career plan’ for myself. I think if I did, it would stop feeling like an adventure. I would stop being fascinated by all these things I have found myself doing, things I never thought I’d find myself doing.”

Thoughtful, polite and unaffected – he’s one of those actors who finds his modest level of fame a bemusing by-product of his job, rather than the point of it – Whishaw would probably be the last to elaborate on these experiences, so allow us.

He has kissed his Oscar-winning peer Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl (“We’d met before for a beer, which doesn’t make it any less peculiar, to be honest”), read all of Moby Dick and perfected an American accent to play Herman Melville in In the Heart of the Sea (“a posh New England one, which is the easiest”), and, of course, returned as Q to swap quips with Daniel Craig in Spectre, an inspired bit of casting with, we point out, the unfortunate side-effect of ruling him out of ever playing 007 himself: “I don’t think that was very likely anyway,” he replies dryly.

Keeping with the Bond theme, next up Whishaw plays Danny, a Londoner who falls for a secret agent in new BBC miniseries London Spy.

“Danny reminds me of a lot of people I know, of how easy it is when you’re young and living in the capital to lose your way and feel directionless,” he says.

It is in part a love story, though Whishaw promises the drama, written by Child 44 author Tom Rob Smith, “has a lot of twists and surprises, and nothing is quite what it appears.”

Despite professing to dislike clothes shopping, it is noted that during his Esquire shoot, Whishaw took a particular shine to a pair of double-pleated Giorgio Armani trousers. How does he approach style in general?

“I do like wearing a lot of black,” he deadpans, nodding at today’s ensemble of skinny black jeans and a casual, you might even say faintly natty, black shirt.

“I am quite fussy about colour, so I stick to a small palette. A little red, some blue, maybe a khaki green. And I try to always have at least one leather jacket and a big trench coat. Oh, and I’ve developed a love for a good pair of shoes – like these,” he says, lifting a leg to reveal a pair of well-polished Church’s oxford lace-ups (black, of course). “I went through a long phase of just wearing Vans and having wet feet all the time. But I had to get out of that habit now I am in my mid-thirties. Some things start to be a no-go, don’t they?”

In 2016, Whishaw is heading to Broadway for a 20-week run playing John Proctor, the doomed lead in Arthur Miller’s witch-hunt classic, The Crucible.

“It’s more nerve-wracking than being on set,” he says of theatre. “But it’s always more pleasure than pain. The best piece of advice I ever got was from [director] Jane Campion. She told me: ‘Stop trying so hard’. I am still trying to live that way.”


London Spy airs on BBC2 on Mondays




































"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
An Obvious Allusion, I Guess.



The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David (1793)





Marat in the Bath and Charlotte Corday by Edvard Munch














No doubt the idea appealed to his artistic sensibilities.
Back then, mysticism and magic stood in for medicine.
He wouldn't accept the fresh fruit and vegetables because they weren't blue.
But, since water was blue, he eventually agreed to take a bath.








I told him that he'd given up. He must fight.
He refused.
He said that I'd never faced the inevitability of defeat.
He was going to die. He was going to suffer, suffer terribly.
There was nothing he could do. There was nothing anyone could do.








He was right. On both counts. He did suffer terribly.
And I have never faced the inevitability of defeat.
It is impossible.
We will lose.
But we will fight.







(Sometime later, Alex is in the filled bathtub, seemingly exhausted and sad.
Danny is still fully dressed, shoes off, sitting on the floor of the bathroom next to the tub.
Alex slowly slips under the still water, eyes open, and Danny gently touches his chest.)
















ALEX: Had you guessed?

« Last Edit: January 17, 2017, 10:30:10 pm by Aloysius J. Gleek »
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"