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London Spy: Ben Whishaw, dreamy lover/genius Ed Holcroft and sage Jim Broadbent
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: southendmd on February 29, 2016, 05:58:58 pm ---
I must say that Edward looks mighty fine in whiskers.
--- End quote ---
I agree.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: southendmd on February 29, 2016, 05:58:58 pm ---I must say that Edward looks mighty fine in whiskers.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on February 29, 2016, 09:24:09 pm ---I agree.
--- End quote ---
We ALL agree!
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://dujour.com/culture/edward-holcroft-london-spy/
Q&A:
Edward Holcroft
The London Spy star on how acting can be like--espionage
Written by Adam Rathe
London Spy is less Spectre than it is unexpected. In the new drama—imported from the U.K. by BBC America and premiering January 21—it’s more so the private life of the titular secret agent Alex (played by Wolf Hall’s Edward Holcroft) and not his on-the-clock adventures that drives the drama. Indeed, it’s a chance meeting with Danny (Ben Whishaw’s somewhat reformed party boy) that seems, more than injury or intrigue, to throw him for a loop. Of course, with a career like Alex’s there’s really no such thing as a dull day at the office.
Here, Holcroft—on a break from rehearsals of Les Liaisons Dangereuse at London’s Donmar Warehouse—explains how the series drew him in and why he’d make an excellent spy… if he isn’t one already.
The first episode of London Spy calls to mind some real-life events, like when the body of a British spy was found in 2010 in a bag at his apartment. What kind of real-life research did you do to play this complicated, guarded character?
I didn’t talk to anyone who had been a spy. I didn’t try only because I assumed that anyone who would have been worth talking to wouldn’t talk to me! Otherwise they wouldn’t be very good at their job. For me, Alex’s story isn’t really about being a spy, but is about finding a relationship with some truth in it. As far as what was going on in his life as a spy and what that consists of, I did a little bit of research—as much as anyone can do, I guess—and used my imagination.
Well, part of him being a spy is that he’s a tough character to get to know. What about that appealed to you as an actor?
He is very strange! There was a certain air of mystery to him that I found absolutely intriguing. I think the less you know about someone, the more intriguing they are. Also, I found his loneliness and his real desire to have friends to be something that I was very drawn to. I’m not sure why, probably because it’s not like me at all. He’s very different than me, so there were a lot of things that I wanted to know about.
Right, he doesn’t have an exciting, James Bond-style life.
Exactly. I think the glitch of spy stories that we know, like the James Bonds and the Jason Bournes can be that they’re all so glamorous when actually I don’t think that sort of exists in contemporary espionage. The majority of spies, real spies, are people who don’t share much information with anyone really in their life, they’re on their own. I think the realness of that that I saw in the script, the sort of rawness of what actually goes on, was refreshing. It was original. It was something that I hadn’t seen in stories before.
Knowing that Alex’s personal life is more difficult at times than his professional life, what does the first season hold for him?
The real driver of the story is the relationship between him and Ben Whishaw’s character, Danny. It begins with the chance meeting of these two men, who are both looking for a way out of their own worlds and they fall in love. It’s through this relationship that Alex is motivated to make a discovery that puts him and Danny both in terrible danger. I think that probably is the most I can say.
Are you yourself at all spy-like? Would it be a viable option for a second career?
I’d like to think I could keep a secret. I think actors would make great spies, because there’s a certain element of loneliness in being an actor; it kind of can be a lonely occupation. You can be very isolated. Would I be a very good spy? I don’t know. Maybe I am one. Maybe I’m just not telling you.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Writer Tom Rob Smith says Danny doesn’t just lose his lover, he loses their love story: “Their love story is attacked by various prejudices and stereotypes, and Danny has to fight those."
https://www.yahoo.com/tv/london-spy-edward-holcroft-ben-whishaw-bbc-america-143336553.html
INTERVIEWS
'London Spy' Star Edward Holcroft
Previews BBC America’s New Thriller
By Mandi Bierly
Deputy Editor, Yahoo TV
January 20, 2016
London Spy, the new five-part miniseries premiering Jan. 21 on BBC America, wrapped its run on BBC2 last month just in time to make multiple Best of 2015 lists in the UK. But don’t Google those, or the fan art inspired by the love story turned spy thriller from bestselling author Tom Rob Smith (Child 44). This is one ending you don’t want spoiled. We can, however, set up the beginning.
The story starts when Danny (Ben Whishaw), a romantic who’s survived a promiscuous, drug-fueled youth, meets Alex (Edward Holcroft), a man as stiff and separate as the white button-down shirts in his closet. “He is living in a very closed world, a very lonely world,” Holcroft tells Yahoo TV, “and he is desperately fighting to find some form of connection with someone — a connection that he’s never had, a connection he has constantly stifled because he’s gay and he has put his work first.“
As you see in the exclusive clip above from early in their relationship, Danny also feels he’s found something that’s eluded him. But too soon, it’s taken away: Alex is discovered dead under suspicious circumstances. After Danny learns that the man he thought was an investment banker actually worked for MI6, he sets out to uncover the truth about Alex’s past and his murder (if he was murdered).
At the Television Critics Association’s recent press tour, Whishaw said his agent likened the tale to a kind of dark Alice in Wonderland. “Every episode, Danny is meeting a new set of people who very rarely are exactly what they appear to be,” Whishaw said. (The cast includes Oscar winner Jim Broadbent as Danny’s most trusted confidante, and Charlotte Rampling as the hardest nut to crack.)
As Smith said at TCA, Danny doesn’t just lose his lover, he loses their love story: “Their love story is attacked by various prejudices and stereotypes, and Danny has to fight those.”
It’s essential then that viewers invest in the relationship, and quickly, which meant casting was key. By the time Smith was penning episode 3, he realized he was writing Danny with Whishaw in mind and reached out to the actor (who he’d seen as Richard II in 2012′s Hollow Crown miniseries). Whishaw, seen most recently as In the Heart of the Sea’s Herman Melville and Spectre’s Q, helped further shape the emotionally-bare character and where the story was headed.
Holcroft — who’s currently playing Le Chevalier Danceny in a sold-out West End production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses that will be broadcast live into select theaters on Jan. 28 — recalls being sent a script on a Friday, and going in for the first of three or four auditions on Monday. “The first meeting, they were very spy-like themselves,” he says of producers. “They didn’t tell me anything, and I was definitely trying to guess where the story was going. I think what they were looking for was to find some truth to the relationship between Danny and Alex. On my second meeting, Ben was there, and we did some scenes together, and I think the main aim was to find that chemistry.”
It came easier than Holcroft, whose credits also include the 2014 film Kingsman: The Secret Service and the 2015 miniseries Wolf Hall, expected. “It was almost like our real-life friendship was developing as we were shooting the scenes, because we got on so well,” he says. What was challenging was making sure the audience had a window to connect with the inscrutable Alex. “To try and make people empathize with someone, but at the same time, show as little as possible,” he says. “That’s how Tom had written it and how they wanted it to be: They wanted him to be a mystery and to give off very little in his face and the way he expresses emotion. It was something that I had never done before.”
How did he do it? “I’m sure everyone’s different, but for me, when I first met Alex on the page, you find a sort of rhythm within yourself that fits the character and everything kind of pulls in around that,” he says. “You can’t force it. Some characters, it clicks very fast, and others, you have to be a bit more patient with. But they usually come.”
Patience is something U.S. viewers will have to exercise now. Asked if he had friends and family begging for spoilers after the miniseries’ UK run, he just laughs. “Of course. God, I mean, after the first episode, I had a hundred people texting me going, ‘Are you dead?’ I had to keep strong,” he says.
His response hasn’t changed: "Keep watching.”
London Spy premieres Thursday, Jan. 21 at 10 p.m. on BBC America.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
The Crucible on Broadway. First night of previews. Modern dress. (Well, not Puritan drag shown in the poster, that's for sure.) All members of the mixed cast (Brits/Irish/Americans) all use 'American' accents credibly well. There are issues--bit choppy beginning, and Philip Glass score a bit intrusive.
But--Ben as farmer John Proctor was amazing. When he first walked on--woah. Sexy as hell. No 'bedraggled fragile alien' vibe at all. Small, yes, but contained, compact, lithe, powerful. Lowering, bushy brows. Hot boots. Manly. The American accent was a revelation. It changes his voice--a young, clear tone that travels through the entire theater, cuts through the clutter of the Philip Glass murmuring and the much less distinctive voices of some of the other actors. Towards the end, when he is stripped and barefoot, nearly broken, torn and bloodied, the old Whishaw fragility has definitely reemerged, but as always, he is brave and truthful and believable.
Some standouts: Ciarán Hinds as the evil Deputy Governor Danforth, Bill Camp as Reverend Hale who discovers his own bravery and integrity, Brenda Wehle wonderful as Rebecca Nurse, Sophie Okonedo solid and affecting as Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor's wife. Tavi Gevinson (once a well-known precocious pre-teen fashion blogger) was extremely good as Mary Warren, the young girl who, for a time, stands against the other 'witches'.
Soairse Ronan has top billing (pictographically speaking, see posters, marquee and website) as Abigail Williams, but, like the other young 'ensorceled' girls, I didn't feel anything. True, because my seat at far far left in the Mezzanine meant she was invisible to me at certain points at the very beginning of the play. Perspective may have been lacking--don't know. But I'm going to try and go back for a second time, and change my seat. We shall see. But--oh dear, probably awful to say it--when I go back, it will really be to see Ben again, not Soairse. (Definitely awful to say it!)
All in all, I'm so glad I went--despite all the little sobs and soft sighs and burbles as I walked home. ::)
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