brunettes make better psychos
Пока только на английском, но я постараюсь чуть позже перевести)
Source - part 1, part 2.
Katie McGrath arrives to our shoot wrapped in a hoodie with her long dark locks flowing loose (she is actually a natural blonde), mirrored shades and tight grey jeans with felt-covered wedged boots, iPod headphones wrapped around her neck. It’s a far cry from the ethereal dresses in which she spends much of her time for her role as Morgana, the conflicted, powerful sorceress in the BBC’s massively successful fantasy adventure Merlin, now filming its fourth series. It’s a role she doesn’t take lightly.
But first we need to discuss the small matter of working with Madonna on the pop queen’s second directorial outing (the first was Filth and Wisdom which recieved very mixed reviews on its release in 2008, disappearing quickly from the box office). This time around, things look set to be quite different.W.E. focuses on the affair between King Edward VIII and American divorcée Wallis Simpson while simultaneously telling the story of a contemporary romance between a married woman and a Russian security guard. Due to be premiered at the Venice Film Festival at the end of the summer, the movie is beginning to create quite a stir with sumptuous costumes created by Arianne Phillips, Madonna’s own stylist and costume designer for many of her tours, who received an Oscar nomination for costume ofWalk the Line and designed for Tom Ford’s A Single Man. Plus there is an all-star cast including Andrea Riseborough (Made in Dagenham, Brighton Rock), James D’Arcy (Manfield Park, Secret Diary of a Call Girl), Abbie Cornish, Oscar Issac and acting dynasty James and Lawrence Fox. No pressure then.
In it, McGrath has the small but significant role of the mistress that preceded Simpson, who made the divorcée’s first fateful introduction to the King.So what was it like, working for a female icon and self-confessed ‘ball-breaker’? “I was never the biggest Madonna fan growing up”, she admits, “had I been and met her I don’t think I would have been able to function because she walks into the room and it’s like ‘Oh my God, it’s Madonna, she is standing in front of me’. But she was actually really, really lovely, and nothing but nice to me, nothing but sweet. It was a fun set, and she was really up for it. Watching her work you can see she has got the best taste, the best eye. The whole movie looks stunning, and she hired great people to work with on it.
And far from being the difficult task master, McGrath found her directing style to be sympathectic to her craft. “She is very much a presence, she is quite respectful of actors and she would be having a laugh, she is very personable. She wants what she wants, and she gets what she wants but she is pretty relaxed, she knows everybody’s name and you really get the impression that she loves what she does. You have to have a huge amount pf respect for a woman like that, who doesn’t need to make a film but does it because she wants to and is going to do it brilliantly. You have to respect somebody who has already been the biggest recording artist but is like ‘okay I have done that, but what’s the next thing?’.”
As historical characters go, Wallis Simpson has perhaps not been the most tenderly portrayed. With a female director at the helm, and a woman who knows what it’s like to publicly vilified at that, should we expect to see a different side to Mrs Simpson? “It’s very much a female driven story,” McGrath explains, “it’s very sympathetic to Wallis, it’s another layer of a very vast story. Then you can decide for yourself who is the villian in the story. If nothing else, it will be a good movie.”
Getting time out of the filming schedule for Merlin is not easy task however and as one of the four main characters, and now one of the bad guys, Katie is in many of the scenes. “We do 13 hours of TV in eight months which is huge. And they are BBC hours, so they are proper full hours! You give up your life toMerlin. It’s worth it though.” There is some relief too, amist the toil. “This year is great because we have a group of knights so there are seven or eight very hot men wandering around and after lunch time they play football and they just have to take their tops off to play and you’re just going, you are such boys! Bless them, they are just like your brothers. You spend day-in and day-out with these beautiful men who are just like your brothers (she snaps her fingers), damn!”
It has been a whirlwind ascent for the twenty-seven-year-old. Born in Ashfort, County Wicklow, where her parents still live (her father works in IT and her mother, as well as bringing Katie and her two brothers up, worked occasionally for fashion designer Lainey Keogh), Katie went to school in Blackrock and managed to straddle both a country and city life. After finishing school she studied History at Trinity after which she dabbled in makeup artistry and fashion journalism. A stint working as a wardrobe assistant on The Tudorsled to a fateful intervention when several producers encourgaged her to try acting. She won a small role in series two (and also it is rumoured, the heart of Jonathan Rhys Meyers for a time) and from then quickly landed the role as Morgana in Merlin.
“I got the job on Sunday and moved to London on Tuesday,” she recalls. “And by the following Monday I was on set.” As far as beginnings go, she couldn’t have been greener. On her first day, she was told to hit her mark and find her light, none of which she understood. “Everyone else had gone to drama school and I was very conscious that they had made all their mistakes in school whereas I was making all my mistakes on camera. I had no clue what I was doing.” A baptism of fire ensued but luckily the novice actress was too consumed to take it all in. And then it hit her.
“That’s when I started to freak out. It took a while to realise. Then, quite gradually, the show started to get popular (it was sold to the US in its first season), you slowly realise all the territories it’s being brough into, you start to see it and what it can be.” “When I first got the job,” she continues, “I didn’t imagine beyond my first day and then the second day and the third day and here we are four years later. Now I get to work with five brilliant directors per series, the crème de la creme of British actors come in just to do a turn for a week. You get to work with Charles Dance, Emilia Fox plays my sister, you are never going to get an education like working with people like that. Then you get the next young bright things (Holliday Grainger, who plays Lucrezia in Neil Jordan’s epic TV drama The Borgias cut her teeth on the first series ofMerlin), Asa Butterfield who played Mordred on the show is now doing Martin Scorsese’s new movie.”
She is well aware of how good fortune has played a part in her success. “Had I ever thought I would succeed, I would probably never have done it. I never thought I would get any offers, i never thought it was possible, I never thought I would do it and then would have to settle down and get a proper job. I was so lucky, and now I can not imagine doing something else.” “It never was like a real career choice,” she concludes “I didn’t know anyone who was an actor, it seemed so far away from a life. Then all of a sudden I worked crew on a film set and it did seem possible, I could see other doing it. I get freaked out sometimes if I think about if I hadn’t done it because I can’t imagine being as happy doing something else. I would probably spend the rest of my life figuring out that this was what I was supposed to do.”
Moving to London had its challenges in terms of dealing with the initial isolation that followed. “I am very lucky I have a few really good friends now in London but it has taken some years to build them up. At first, any time anyone asked me out for coffee I was like, ‘brilliant, let’s do it! Can we go now?’ I was so hungry for company. I used to be very shy, I was very lonley at first. London can be hard.”
Does she find men are intimidated by her profile? “I don’t get recognised so I can’t use the intimidating thing as an excuse for being single. But you have to work at your personal life, summon up the energy, go dancing. Unfortunately i have two older brothers and they are crap at introducing me to men. Completely useless. But honestly right now I don’t know when I’d have time, one day when I have a life. You have to be very focused.”
With her first lead under her belt, playing Jules Daly in a rags to riches story Christmas at Castlebury Hall filmed this year in Romania (where she got to play opposite Roger Moore, “he is such a gentleman, still flirts with his wife, like teenagers”) she is happy just to keep working and learning for the moment. As far as a direction in her career, there are a few other actors whose wise career choices she really admires, and ones she would to work with still. Brendon Gleeson being one. “I love that [he] used to be a teacher. You are doing it because you love it and you want to do it. He is a testament to that drive,” Sam Rockwell and Alison Jenny run close behind. “I love what Rachel Weisz has done too,” she adds “she’s done it intelligently. She’s done the blockbusters, she’s done the indie films, she’s got family, she’s got kids, she has a life as well as having a career.”
You can see qualities of a Weisz in her, with her alabaster skin and flowing dark locks, but when she talks and particularly laughs, it is Keira Knightley who is the closest comparison, someone she cites with admiration. “I really respect Keira Knightley. You never see her out, she is very low key, she has her own life, she doesn’t need to do theatre but she does it because she wants to. People have been gunning for her and she still does it and you have got to respect that. She is young, she doesn’t need to ever work again, she is not doing the next big Disney movie because she has done it, she is doing something different and challenging. So I really respect her and what she does, and she gets better every time. I also respect my mates, the ones that aren’t there yet. They are going into auditions and getting told no and keeping going and I don’t know if I’d be that strong.”
As far as breaking into Hollywood goes, she is fortunate to not have to do endless rounds of meets and greets, yet. “There is no pressure because I am under contract, I am not really looking for work, I am just going out there [LA] having a laugh, seeing some friends, drinking some margaritas, saying hello. I don’t know how much I will enjoy it when I have to get a job out of it!” Either way, she is determined to do it her own way. “I don’t know if I can do the whole cute pretty thing, where it’s like (adopts an American 90210 twang) ‘Oh my gawd!’ It’s more like ‘How’s it going, do you want some tea?’ I would rather make it as myself.”
She is well aware too, that the current crop of Irish leading women have yet to make their mark the way their male counterparts have. “We have load of amazing Irish actors but we need the new Maureen O’Hara. It is time for the women to step in. Jenn Murry, Amy Huberman, they are all brilliant. You are afraid you will make the wrong choices. At the end of the day you can only do what you think is right, listen to the best advice you can get and take the plunge. Courage of your convictions. If you made the wrong choice it was only because you made the right choice for yourself. I look back on each series and go ‘Oh God, what was I thinking’ but I think if you get better every year, it shows that at least you are addressing your mistakes and learning from them. That’s all I want from each job, that I am improving each time and keep going till I am like Maureen O’Haea at 90 going ‘it’s still better than the last one!’”
UPD: обнаружила, что, когда выкладывала статью, потерялся махонький, но очень интересный кусочек))
Topshop: “I’m a normal girl. I love the high street”
Dr Hauschka: “It’s Dr Hauschka all the way for me. The Rose Day Cream is wonderful”
Dolls boutique (Dublin): “The owner, Petria Lenehan, has a great eye, and her own label is beautiful; elegant but quirky”
Ray Ban
Lainey Keogh: “When I am feeling really crap I put on one of her pieces I feel elegant and comfy.”
La Roche Posey Factor 50: “I wear it all day, every day”
Source - part 1, part 2.
Katie McGrath arrives to our shoot wrapped in a hoodie with her long dark locks flowing loose (she is actually a natural blonde), mirrored shades and tight grey jeans with felt-covered wedged boots, iPod headphones wrapped around her neck. It’s a far cry from the ethereal dresses in which she spends much of her time for her role as Morgana, the conflicted, powerful sorceress in the BBC’s massively successful fantasy adventure Merlin, now filming its fourth series. It’s a role she doesn’t take lightly.
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“She is one of those female archetypal roles; Helen Mirren’s played her (in the Irish filmed Excalibur); Helena Bonham-Carter has played her (in the 1998 mini TV series also called Merlin); so many people have, you do feel a responsibility because a lot of people who know the legends feel very strongly about her role. You want to get it right. there are so many examples of very strong females throughout history, she has always been it. But what’s nice about the way she is portrayed in Merlin is that she is anot an out-and-out-bad-guy. And this [the fourth] series is a depature, it’s much more grown up and it’s much darker, more ‘filmic’, it’s very challenging. It’s teen tough, but brilliant. Physically they have made her in to this goth Jessica Rabbit so she has great costumes. The stunts are great too, you get to all these weird skills that I will never need to know for my real life. I will never need to know how to sword fight, but I can do it!” But first we need to discuss the small matter of working with Madonna on the pop queen’s second directorial outing (the first was Filth and Wisdom which recieved very mixed reviews on its release in 2008, disappearing quickly from the box office). This time around, things look set to be quite different.W.E. focuses on the affair between King Edward VIII and American divorcée Wallis Simpson while simultaneously telling the story of a contemporary romance between a married woman and a Russian security guard. Due to be premiered at the Venice Film Festival at the end of the summer, the movie is beginning to create quite a stir with sumptuous costumes created by Arianne Phillips, Madonna’s own stylist and costume designer for many of her tours, who received an Oscar nomination for costume ofWalk the Line and designed for Tom Ford’s A Single Man. Plus there is an all-star cast including Andrea Riseborough (Made in Dagenham, Brighton Rock), James D’Arcy (Manfield Park, Secret Diary of a Call Girl), Abbie Cornish, Oscar Issac and acting dynasty James and Lawrence Fox. No pressure then.
In it, McGrath has the small but significant role of the mistress that preceded Simpson, who made the divorcée’s first fateful introduction to the King.So what was it like, working for a female icon and self-confessed ‘ball-breaker’? “I was never the biggest Madonna fan growing up”, she admits, “had I been and met her I don’t think I would have been able to function because she walks into the room and it’s like ‘Oh my God, it’s Madonna, she is standing in front of me’. But she was actually really, really lovely, and nothing but nice to me, nothing but sweet. It was a fun set, and she was really up for it. Watching her work you can see she has got the best taste, the best eye. The whole movie looks stunning, and she hired great people to work with on it.
And far from being the difficult task master, McGrath found her directing style to be sympathectic to her craft. “She is very much a presence, she is quite respectful of actors and she would be having a laugh, she is very personable. She wants what she wants, and she gets what she wants but she is pretty relaxed, she knows everybody’s name and you really get the impression that she loves what she does. You have to have a huge amount pf respect for a woman like that, who doesn’t need to make a film but does it because she wants to and is going to do it brilliantly. You have to respect somebody who has already been the biggest recording artist but is like ‘okay I have done that, but what’s the next thing?’.”
As historical characters go, Wallis Simpson has perhaps not been the most tenderly portrayed. With a female director at the helm, and a woman who knows what it’s like to publicly vilified at that, should we expect to see a different side to Mrs Simpson? “It’s very much a female driven story,” McGrath explains, “it’s very sympathetic to Wallis, it’s another layer of a very vast story. Then you can decide for yourself who is the villian in the story. If nothing else, it will be a good movie.”
Getting time out of the filming schedule for Merlin is not easy task however and as one of the four main characters, and now one of the bad guys, Katie is in many of the scenes. “We do 13 hours of TV in eight months which is huge. And they are BBC hours, so they are proper full hours! You give up your life toMerlin. It’s worth it though.” There is some relief too, amist the toil. “This year is great because we have a group of knights so there are seven or eight very hot men wandering around and after lunch time they play football and they just have to take their tops off to play and you’re just going, you are such boys! Bless them, they are just like your brothers. You spend day-in and day-out with these beautiful men who are just like your brothers (she snaps her fingers), damn!”
It has been a whirlwind ascent for the twenty-seven-year-old. Born in Ashfort, County Wicklow, where her parents still live (her father works in IT and her mother, as well as bringing Katie and her two brothers up, worked occasionally for fashion designer Lainey Keogh), Katie went to school in Blackrock and managed to straddle both a country and city life. After finishing school she studied History at Trinity after which she dabbled in makeup artistry and fashion journalism. A stint working as a wardrobe assistant on The Tudorsled to a fateful intervention when several producers encourgaged her to try acting. She won a small role in series two (and also it is rumoured, the heart of Jonathan Rhys Meyers for a time) and from then quickly landed the role as Morgana in Merlin.
“I got the job on Sunday and moved to London on Tuesday,” she recalls. “And by the following Monday I was on set.” As far as beginnings go, she couldn’t have been greener. On her first day, she was told to hit her mark and find her light, none of which she understood. “Everyone else had gone to drama school and I was very conscious that they had made all their mistakes in school whereas I was making all my mistakes on camera. I had no clue what I was doing.” A baptism of fire ensued but luckily the novice actress was too consumed to take it all in. And then it hit her.
“That’s when I started to freak out. It took a while to realise. Then, quite gradually, the show started to get popular (it was sold to the US in its first season), you slowly realise all the territories it’s being brough into, you start to see it and what it can be.” “When I first got the job,” she continues, “I didn’t imagine beyond my first day and then the second day and the third day and here we are four years later. Now I get to work with five brilliant directors per series, the crème de la creme of British actors come in just to do a turn for a week. You get to work with Charles Dance, Emilia Fox plays my sister, you are never going to get an education like working with people like that. Then you get the next young bright things (Holliday Grainger, who plays Lucrezia in Neil Jordan’s epic TV drama The Borgias cut her teeth on the first series ofMerlin), Asa Butterfield who played Mordred on the show is now doing Martin Scorsese’s new movie.”
She is well aware of how good fortune has played a part in her success. “Had I ever thought I would succeed, I would probably never have done it. I never thought I would get any offers, i never thought it was possible, I never thought I would do it and then would have to settle down and get a proper job. I was so lucky, and now I can not imagine doing something else.” “It never was like a real career choice,” she concludes “I didn’t know anyone who was an actor, it seemed so far away from a life. Then all of a sudden I worked crew on a film set and it did seem possible, I could see other doing it. I get freaked out sometimes if I think about if I hadn’t done it because I can’t imagine being as happy doing something else. I would probably spend the rest of my life figuring out that this was what I was supposed to do.”
Moving to London had its challenges in terms of dealing with the initial isolation that followed. “I am very lucky I have a few really good friends now in London but it has taken some years to build them up. At first, any time anyone asked me out for coffee I was like, ‘brilliant, let’s do it! Can we go now?’ I was so hungry for company. I used to be very shy, I was very lonley at first. London can be hard.”
Does she find men are intimidated by her profile? “I don’t get recognised so I can’t use the intimidating thing as an excuse for being single. But you have to work at your personal life, summon up the energy, go dancing. Unfortunately i have two older brothers and they are crap at introducing me to men. Completely useless. But honestly right now I don’t know when I’d have time, one day when I have a life. You have to be very focused.”
With her first lead under her belt, playing Jules Daly in a rags to riches story Christmas at Castlebury Hall filmed this year in Romania (where she got to play opposite Roger Moore, “he is such a gentleman, still flirts with his wife, like teenagers”) she is happy just to keep working and learning for the moment. As far as a direction in her career, there are a few other actors whose wise career choices she really admires, and ones she would to work with still. Brendon Gleeson being one. “I love that [he] used to be a teacher. You are doing it because you love it and you want to do it. He is a testament to that drive,” Sam Rockwell and Alison Jenny run close behind. “I love what Rachel Weisz has done too,” she adds “she’s done it intelligently. She’s done the blockbusters, she’s done the indie films, she’s got family, she’s got kids, she has a life as well as having a career.”
You can see qualities of a Weisz in her, with her alabaster skin and flowing dark locks, but when she talks and particularly laughs, it is Keira Knightley who is the closest comparison, someone she cites with admiration. “I really respect Keira Knightley. You never see her out, she is very low key, she has her own life, she doesn’t need to do theatre but she does it because she wants to. People have been gunning for her and she still does it and you have got to respect that. She is young, she doesn’t need to ever work again, she is not doing the next big Disney movie because she has done it, she is doing something different and challenging. So I really respect her and what she does, and she gets better every time. I also respect my mates, the ones that aren’t there yet. They are going into auditions and getting told no and keeping going and I don’t know if I’d be that strong.”
As far as breaking into Hollywood goes, she is fortunate to not have to do endless rounds of meets and greets, yet. “There is no pressure because I am under contract, I am not really looking for work, I am just going out there [LA] having a laugh, seeing some friends, drinking some margaritas, saying hello. I don’t know how much I will enjoy it when I have to get a job out of it!” Either way, she is determined to do it her own way. “I don’t know if I can do the whole cute pretty thing, where it’s like (adopts an American 90210 twang) ‘Oh my gawd!’ It’s more like ‘How’s it going, do you want some tea?’ I would rather make it as myself.”
She is well aware too, that the current crop of Irish leading women have yet to make their mark the way their male counterparts have. “We have load of amazing Irish actors but we need the new Maureen O’Hara. It is time for the women to step in. Jenn Murry, Amy Huberman, they are all brilliant. You are afraid you will make the wrong choices. At the end of the day you can only do what you think is right, listen to the best advice you can get and take the plunge. Courage of your convictions. If you made the wrong choice it was only because you made the right choice for yourself. I look back on each series and go ‘Oh God, what was I thinking’ but I think if you get better every year, it shows that at least you are addressing your mistakes and learning from them. That’s all I want from each job, that I am improving each time and keep going till I am like Maureen O’Haea at 90 going ‘it’s still better than the last one!’”
UPD: обнаружила, что, когда выкладывала статью, потерялся махонький, но очень интересный кусочек))
FAVOURITE BRANDS
Topshop: “I’m a normal girl. I love the high street”
Dr Hauschka: “It’s Dr Hauschka all the way for me. The Rose Day Cream is wonderful”
Dolls boutique (Dublin): “The owner, Petria Lenehan, has a great eye, and her own label is beautiful; elegant but quirky”
Ray Ban
Lainey Keogh: “When I am feeling really crap I put on one of her pieces I feel elegant and comfy.”
La Roche Posey Factor 50: “I wear it all day, every day”
@темы: Katie:interviews, year:2011