Author Topic: London Spy: Ben Whishaw, dreamy lover/genius Ed Holcroft and sage Jim Broadbent  (Read 571586 times)

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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LONDONSPYINTERVIEWINSWEDISH!


Interview in English from the Swedish--via GOOGLE translation--we hope!
(Tom Rob Smith's mother is from Sweden--and like Danny and Alex, boy oh boy, he DEFINITELY knows about Mother Issues! ::))




- Ben is absolutely outstanding, a genius. He has been spellbinding in individual scenes, so it was wonderful to write an entire television series directly for him.
- Ben är helt enastående, ett geni. Han hyllas ofta för att vara trollbindande i enskilda scener, så det var underbart att få skriva en hel tv-serie direkt till honom.





http://hn.se/nojekultur/tvradio/1.4615952-gaypar-i-spionthriller-av-tom-rob-smith
Gaypar i spionthriller av
Gay Couple in the spy thriller
by Tom Rob Smith

MARTIN ERLANDSSON
[email protected]
Published January 14, 2016


The successful author Tom Rob Smith's mother Barbro is from Gothenburg and he has written a
novel that was based on events in their former farm in Faurås in Falkenberg.
Photo: James Hopkirk

Succéförfattaren Tom Rob Smiths mamma Barbro är från Göteborg och han har tidigare skrivit en roman som
utgick från händelser på deras dåvarande gård i Faurås i Falkenberg. Foto: James Hopkirk




His latest novel, "The Farm" takes place near Falkenberg. Now, Tom Rob Smith current with the TV thriller "London Spy".
Hans senaste roman "Gården" utspelar sig nära Falkenberg. Nu är Tom Rob Smith aktuell med tv-thrillern "London spy".


- It's the first spy series ever with a gay protagonist, he says.
- Det är den första spionserien någonsin med en homosexuell huvudperson, berättar han.


On Sunday, Swedish viewers see the first episode of "London Spy" on SVT and learn how Danny meets the enigmatic Alex, who suddenly disappears and seems to have been living a double life.
På söndag visas första avsnittet av "London spy" i SVT och då får även de svenska tittarna se hur Danny blir ihop med den gåtfulle Alex, som plötsligt försvinner och verkar ha levt ett dubbelliv.


- I was interested when a murder begins about privacy and you do not recognize themselves. Danny loses not only his lover but also throughout their common love story, Tom Rob Smith says on the phone from Los Angeles.
- Jag var intresserad av när ett mord börjar handla om privatlivet och man inte känner igen sig. Danny förlorar inte bara sin älskare utan även hela deras gemensamma kärlekshistoria, svarar Tom Rob Smith i telefon från Los Angeles.


The screenwriter commutes between home in London and the US, as his partner, Ben [Stephenson] has become the director of a television company [Head of Television at J. J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company] there.
Manusförfattaren pendlar numera mellan hemmet i London och USA, eftersom hans partner Ben har blivit chef på ett tv-bolag där.


Tom writes on a new TV series and a thick book, but is currently working mostly with a screenplay based on his own powerful novel "Farm", which was based on a real event in Faurås outside Falkenberg: his Swedish mother's psychosis and delusions.
Tom skriver på en ny tv-serie och en tjock bok, men jobbar just nu mest med ett filmmanus baserat på den egna spänningsromanen "Gården", som byggde på en verklig händelse i Faurås utanför Falkenberg: hans svenska mammas psykos och vanföreställningar.


- I work with the production company Shine and it is important for us to film in Sweden with Swedish actors, but when it gets hard to know, said Tom, who was last in his mother's home country in connection with the Göteborg Book Fair 2014.
- Jag arbetar med produktionsbolaget Shine och det är viktigt för oss att filma i Sverige med svenska skådespelare, men när det blir är svårt att veta, säger Tom, som senast var i sin mammas hemland i samband med Bokmässan i Göteborg 2014.


Read also: Psychosis gave the idea to the thriller in Falkenberg
Läs också: Psykosen gav idé till thriller i Falkenberg


- We were supposed to go there during the Christmas and New Year, but then I was busy in New York, so we have had to postpone until our big family trip a little. But we are planning to buy a new summer house somewhere in Sweden.
- Vi hade tänkt åka dit under jul- och nyår, men då var jag upptagen i New York, så vi har fått skjuta fram vår stora familjeresa lite. Men vi planerar att köpa ett nytt sommarhus någonstans i Sverige.


A Swedish reference is by the way 18 minutes into the fifth and final episode of "London Spy" when Danny visiting *[Alex's parents] and pouring milk in coffee from a china cow.
En svensk referens finns förresten 18 minuter in i femte och sista avsnittet av "London spy", när Danny besöker Alex föräldrar och häller mjölk i kaffet ur en porslinskossa.



*NOTE: Sorry, Swedish Writer!
Danny is visiting his OWN long estranged (and hideous!) parents when he suddenly
pours all the milk from the cow pitcher and overflows his cup into the saucer.



   





- Yes, it must have been from Sweden, I got the idea because we do not have those in England, but it was unconsciously, explains Tom.
- Ja, det måste ha varit från Sverige jag fick den idén, eftersom vi inte har sådana i England, men det var omedvetet, förklarar Tom.


"London Spy" is linked to the Britons who spied for the Soviet Union during the 1940s.
"London spy" har en koppling till de britter som spionerade för Sovjetunionen under 1940-talet.


- Yes, but it is important that the character Scottie (British actor Jim Broadbent), unlike the real Guy Burgess, is not a traitor. Some gay men were spies at that time because they were born in exclusion. If their orientation was revealed they were sacked and shame coated ['shame coated'?], so they were looking for a country where they were persecuted, and it was offered in Russia.
- Ja, men det är viktigt att rollfiguren Scottie, till skillnad från den verklige Guy Burgess, inte är en förrädare. Vissa homosexuella män blev spioner på den tiden för att de föddes i ett utanförskap. Om deras läggning avslöjades blev de avskedade och skambelagda, så de letade efter ett land där de inte förföljdes och det erbjöds i Ryssland.


With Scottie, one feels Tom Rob Smith gives the innocent gay suspects redress.
Genom Scottie känns det som om Tom Rob Smith ger de oskyldigt misstänkta upprättelse.


- [It was long thought that, in] intelligence, homosexuals were unreliable in nature and this is not true. What I like Scottie is that he is loyal to his nation, although he undergoes a horrible period of extortion and other things.
- Länge sa underrättelsetjänsten att homosexuella var opålitliga till sin natur och det är förstås inte sant. Det jag gillar med Scottie är att han är lojal med sin nation trots att han genomgår en hemsk period med utpressning och annat.


Scottie played by veteran Jim Broadbent, but the entire television series carried by lead actor Ben Whishaw, known from the TV series The Hour and Q in the new James Bond films.
Scottie spelas av veteranen Jim Broadbent, men hela tv-serien bärs upp av huvudrollsinnehavaren Ben Whishaw, känd bland annat från tv-serien The Hour och som Q i de nya James Bond-filmerna.


- Ben is absolutely outstanding, a genius. He has been spellbinding in individual scenes, so it was wonderful to write an entire television series directly for him.
- Ben är helt enastående, ett geni. Han hyllas ofta för att vara trollbindande i enskilda scener, så det var underbart att få skriva en hel tv-serie direkt till honom.


Some British newspapers mentioned that [Ben happens to be homosexual, and] now portrays a character who is also gay, but it does not matter?
Några brittiska tidningar nämnde att han som homosexuell nu gestaltar en karaktär som också är gay, men det spelar väl ingen roll?


- No, we just wanted the best actor and a strong chemistry together with Edward Holcroft, who is great as Alex. It is not at all about someone's sexuality. Since I am glad that the series became a big hit with the mainstream audience, it has never made a similar thriller with a gay protagonist before, says Tom Rob Smith and continues:
- Nej, vi ville bara ha den bästa skådespelaren och en stark kemi ihop med Edward Holcroft, som är jättebra som Alex. Det handlar inte alls om någons sexualitet. Sedan är jag glad över att serien blev en stor hit hos mainstreampubliken, för det har aldrig gjorts en liknande thriller med en homosexuell huvudperson förut, berättar Tom Rob Smith och fortsätter:


- I thought of the relationship, it is easier to lie about the press and chose a gay couple, which can be associated with drugs and sex toys and more. Readers have fewer stereotypes regarding love between a man and a woman.

- Jag tänkte på vilket förhållande det är lättast att ljuga om till pressen och valde ett gaypar, som kan förknippas med droger och sexleksaker med mera. Läsarna har färre stereotyper när det gäller kärlek mellan en man och en kvinna.


« Last Edit: January 17, 2017, 10:14:37 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 CellarDweller

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Lovin' all the pics here.  :)


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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"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

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Film_Institute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFI_Southbank




http://www.bfi.org.uk/flare



https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp
2016: BFI Flare turns 30
In 1986, the National Film Theatre ran a short season of nine LGBT films called ‘Gay’s Own Pictures.’ Now, 30 years later and with a couple of name changes along the way, BFI Flare has grown into one of the world’s most significant LGBT film festivals. To celebrate our forthcoming anniversary edition this March, we’re looking back at some of the defining films to have screened over the festival’s vibrant history. Up first: two classics of New Queer Cinema: Poison (1991) and The Watermelon Woman (1996). In February, we revisit two classic love stories from the 90s – in time for Valentine’s!


http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-flare-industry-programme-2016.pdf


The Makers
The Makers is a series of one-to-one interviews with filmmakers who have made
a major contribution to LGBT representation in the mainstream.



The Makers: Tom Rob Smith
Thursday 24 March, 3pm - Studio, BFI Southbank

Screenwriter Tom Rob Smith joins us to discuss the making of London Spy. At once a gay love story and a thrilling tale of mystery and international espionage, London Spy was one of the UK’s landmark television moments in 2015. The show tells the story of Danny (Ben Whishaw), who is drawn into a complex and dangerous game after the disappearance of his boy friend, Alex (Edward Holcroft). With a knockout supporting cast including Charlotte Rampling, Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter and Mark Gatiss, London Spy presents a modern view of the city, where chemsex and covert ops are both a daily reality. This event will explore the show’s resounding success, and what this means for the future of LGBT storytelling on television.  

Host: Jack Casey (BFI Flare)
« Last Edit: March 20, 2016, 03:56:54 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

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The Sense of an Ending (2017)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4827986/


Writing
Julian Barnes               (novel)
Nick Payne                  (adaptation)
Nick Payne                  (screenplay)




Directed by
Ritesh Batra   



Cast
Jim Broadbent             Tony Webster
Billy Howle                  Young Tony

Charlotte Rampling       Veronica Ford
Freya Mavor                 Young Veronica

Joe Alwyn                    Adrian Finn

Edward Holcroft           Jack Ford

Harriet Walter              Margaret
Michelle Dockery          Susie   

Nick Mohammed          Danny
Timothy Innes             Young Alex
   






Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on February 17, 2016, 09:17:54 pm topic=53215.msg674758#msg674758

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/edward-holcroft



CULTURE
SPY GAMES
EDWARD HOLCROFT
IN LONDON JANUARY 2016
By HALEY WEISS
Photography HANS NEUMANN
Published 02/04/16



(EXCERPT)

(....)

WEISS: You were able to work with Charlotte Rampling and Jim Broadbent again in The Sense of an Ending. Was filming more comfortable having known them from London Spy?

HOLCROFT: No, it was terrible.
[He is joking. See full interview posted above, page 9 http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,53215.msg674758.html#msg674758 ]

WEISS: Everything is terrible.

HOLCROFT: Everything is terrible! [laughs] I didn't actually have much to do with them in The Sense of an Ending. I know that they're in it, but my scenes weren't with them. But I did see Jim. Charlotte and Jim are kind of brilliant examples of not only very talented actors, but just such nice people. I can't begin to tell you. They're so unfazed by the industry side of it, they don't really have time for it, which is such an admirable quality when people are really talented. They don't buy in to some of the bullshit that comes with it. They have very quiet lives and they're great.

WEISS: I read that you think it's important to maintain a certain air of mystery as an actor. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

HOLCROFT: I don't think it's a new concept. I should think most actors probably think this, but I know that when I watch actors, the actors who I know least about I buy into more because I can imagine them as the character. It's as simple as that. If you lead a very high profile life—and of course, it's easy to say this, and if you become incredibly famous because of your work some of that is unavoidable—but if you can do as much as you can to keep away from some of that limelight then you just help yourself when it comes to your work. You have a blank canvas, as it were, to work with, rather than people knowing a whole bunch about your life or what you get up to, what you had for breakfast. Everyone is different, and each to their own, as they say, but for me that's what I would like to try and establish.

(....)

LONDON SPY AIRS THURSDAYS ON BBC AMERICA AT 10PM ET.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2017, 10:44:21 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

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/books/Julian-Barness-Sense-of-an-Ending-Review.html

BOOKS OF THE TIMES

Life in Smoke and Mirrors
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
OCT. 16, 2011




If there is a single theme running throughout Julian Barnes’s work, from his 1985 masterpiece, “Flaubert’s Parrot,” to “A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters” (1989), “Love, Etc.,” and recent collections like “Pulse” (2011), it’s the elusiveness of truth, the subjectivity of memory, the relativity of all knowledge. While earlier books examined our limited ability to comprehend other people and other eras, his latest novel, “The Sense of an Ending” — which was shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize (the winner will be announced Tuesday) [It did win, 2011 JG] — looks at the ways in which people distort or tailor the past in an effort to mythologize their own lives.

Much as his talented contemporary Kazuo Ishiguro did in “The Remains of the Day,” Mr. Barnes has used the device of the unreliable narrator — borrowed, it would seem, in both cases, from Ford Madox Ford’s classic, “The Good Soldier” — to explicate this phenomenon. Like some of Mr. Barnes’s earlier works of fiction “The Sense of an Ending” (the title has been lifted from a work of literary theory by the critic Frank Kermode) is dense with philosophical ideas and more clever than emotionally satisfying. Still, it manages to create genuine suspense as a sort of psychological detective story. We not only want to find out how Mr. Barnes’s narrator, Tony Webster, has rewritten his own history — and discover what actually happened some 40 years ago — but also understand why he has needed to do so.

Tony, now in his 60s, has persuaded himself he’s “achieved a state of peaceableness, even peacefulness,” though he never had any of the great adventures he once dreamed about having as a boy who hoped life might resemble the books he loved. Tony’s account of his youth — delivered in the first half of the novel — emphasizes the awkwardness and repression he and his high school friends experienced when it came to girls: “But wasn’t this the ’60s? Yes, but only for some people, only in certain parts” of England.

At this point Tony’s reminiscences seem pretty straightforward. As Tony recalls it, he looked up to a new boy in his school named Adrian Finn as a “truth-seeker” and model of intellectual sophistication. The brilliant, Camus-reading Adrian went off to Cambridge, Tony to a less distinguished university, where he became involved with an enigmatic woman named Veronica Ford; after Tony and Veronica’s affair came to an abrupt end, Adrian wrote Tony asking for his permission to go out with Veronica. Then, suddenly, at 22, Adrian committed suicide, leaving a note about his philosophical decision to choose death over life.

As for Tony, he went on to work as an arts administrator, married a sensible woman named Margaret, had a daughter named Susie, and after a dozen years got an amicable divorce. He says he admires Adrian for having the courage to act on his convictions, whereas he, Tony, chose tidiness and safety: “I recycle; I clean and decorate my flat to keep up its value. I’ve made my will; and my dealings with my daughter, son-in-law, grandchildren and ex-wife are, if less than perfect, at least settled.”

This dull life, Mr. Barnes suggests, is rocked to its core when Tony receives a mysterious letter from a law firm informing him that one Sarah Ford — Veronica’s mother, it turns out, whom he met briefly one weekend decades ago — has left him something in her will: a bequest of £500 and, weirdly, Adrian’s diary, which somehow came into her possession. When Tony tries to take ownership of the diary, he learns that Veronica is reluctant to turn it over — all of which leads to a series of cryptic exchanges with Veronica that leave him questioning his own feelings about her, and, for that matter, the veracity of all that happened so many decades ago.

To what degree has Tony deluded us — and himself — with his simplistic account of the love triangle among himself, Veronica and Adrian? Has he romanticized Adrian’s suicide, or has Adrian himself used philosophy as a rationalization for an act motivated by darker, more desperate impulses? Is Veronica to blame for Adrian’s death, or is she some sort of victim?

In raising these questions Mr. Barnes has Tony survey the receding vistas of his life, raising many of the same issues — regarding age, time and mortality — that he’s explored with more heartfelt emotion in recent books like “Pulse” and “The Lemon Table” (2004). In the end there is something vaguely condescending about the author’s portrait of Tony, who is presented as such a myopic and passive-aggressive twit that the reader finds it hard not to be annoyed with him. Mr. Barnes also concludes Tony’s story with a violent twist that feels more like a narrative contrivance than an inevitable revealing.

Mr. Barnes does an agile job, however, of unpeeling the onion layers of his hero’s life while showing how Tony has sliced and diced his past in order to create a self he can live with. In doing so Mr. Barnes underscores the ways people try to erase or edit their youthful follies and disappointments, converting actual events into anecdotes, and those anecdotes into a narrative.

“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age,” Tony says, “when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING
A Novel
By Julian Barnes
163 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $23.95.




Julian Barnes

"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

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LONDONSPYFANARTJO  http://j000000.tumblr.com


Look at what a beautiful job Jo the artist did in realizing this 'washing-up' sequence in Jo's London Spy comic. (Look! Alex has Santa socks matching Danny's Rudolf the Reindeer socks!) How inventive--everything is just so amazing!

http://j000000.tumblr.com/post/139732178271/i-got-a-cold-last-week-but-i-finally-finish-the




 28th January 2016                                                                        21st February 2016
     
It’s a sweet short story about Danny teaching Alex how to play poker cards, with a twist…only 12 pages HAHA!!
Jo





And here are Danny's famous Reindeer socks shown during the 'Clubland' sequence in Episode 3, "Blue".






How dangerously dapper!


« Last Edit: January 17, 2017, 10:15:59 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 CellarDweller

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  • A city boy's mentality, with a cowboy's soul.
Oh, that comic is cute! 


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"


The actor has gone blond for his return to Broadway, as Rodolpho in A View From the Bridge.
http://www.out.com/theater-dance/2015/11/19/russell-tovey-juggling-broadway-and-looking

Oh ... my. ...

Guess I'm going to have to do a search for pics of "Russell Tovey shirtless."

 :laugh:

He's gay, you say?
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Oh ... my. ...

Guess I'm going to have to do a search for pics of "Russell Tovey shirtless."

 :laugh:



You'll find quite a lot to keep you--busy!  ::) ;D    



He's gay, you say?



Oh, my sainted aunt, YES. Famously so in the UK! He was actually out to himself and friends when he was 16, but when he told his parents at 18, It Did Not Go Well. (The father said he wished he knew it earlier so he could have Russell "fixed". With, say, hormone injections. Anyway, by the time his son became famous (in "The History Boys" around 22-23 years old) the father got over it. Funny how that happens. (Too bad for the gay sons who do NOT get famous.)

Anyway, lots of people didn't really know Tovey was gay because he just has a very 'blokey' affect. (Like his character 'Rudge' in "The History Boys" or his character 'Steve' in the British TV series "Him & Her"--4 seasons: 2010-2013.) However, by the time he got the part in HBO series "Looking", well--EVERYBODY knew he was gay, gay, GAY!

He doesn't only do shirtless, by the way--this scene from the very hetero "Him & Her" was QUITE, uhm, WARMLY RECEIVED by the audience! (Can you IMAGINE showing this to an American audience? ("Show me your bum. Now wiggle it.")  Omg. I can't EVEN.



[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj0lZ2lqR8A[/youtube]







(That would be TOTALLY Ok on American television in prime time, right? Of course it would!   ::) ::) ::) )


By the way, Russell isn't ALWAYS naked--sometimes he's ALMOST clothed--









See?? Totally modest--and definitely SFW!!!  :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
"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"