Film
London movie locations feature
Sabotage Times, April 2013
http://sabotagetimes.com/reportage/londons-secret-film-locations/
London The Modern Babylon film feature
Scout London, August 2012
http://www.scoutlondon.com/2012/08/03/london-the-movie/
Thomas Brodie Sangster interview
South London Press, September 2011
From Love Actually to Nowhere Boy, Thomas Brodie Sangster has had his fair share of high profile film roles, and many while still in his teens. The young Camberwell actor chats to DAN FROST about his impressive career to date
GROWING up in the public eye is a scenario that most of us will find bewilderingly hard to comprehend. Just imagine it - being in the spotlight through years of excruciating hormonal turbulence, through life's most awkward and self-conscious chapter... no wonder so many child stars end up turning to drugs and booze.
Thankfully, Thomas Brodie Sangster seems to have emerged from the storm of childhood fame with his feet on the ground and his head intact. The 21-year-old from Camberwell has been acting in TV and film since he was 11, and been a recognisable face since 13, when he starred as Liam Neeson's son in hit British comedy Love Actually. Since then he's had starring roles in Nanny McPhee, The Last Legion, Bright Star and as Paul McCartney in Nowhere Boy.
It's an impressive list for such a young actor. So it's heartening when he turns out to be a mild-mannered and grounded young man, without even a hint of arrogance, who speaks honestly about the pleasures and perils of growing up famous.
"It wasn't ever too bad - it's not like I was one of the Harry Potter guys," he says in a calm and well-spoken tone that never wavers throughout our interview. "I was always just the little kid from Love Actually, or the odd thing from TV or Nanny McPhee or something, so it was generally fine."
Didn't it ever get annoying or uncomfortable?
"At first it was very exciting - going out on the street and having complete strangers know you. But it can be a bit annoying when you're in a mood where you just want to gel into the background, when you don't want to be anyone in particular. People come up and they're always very nice, but you're just not quite in the right mood to be nice back."
He pauses for a second. "That sounds horrible, and I don't really mean it that way... I always try to be as enthusiastic as possible, because for them it can be exciting and you have to appreciate that."
A former pupil of St George's Primary School in Kennington, Sangster took his first showbiz steps when he was just 10-years-old, inspired by his parents who are both actors themselves.
"I didn't know I wanted to be an actor," he recalls. "I just saw them up on stage doing a low budget amateur production and thought that it looked like fun. It's only in the last few years - as I've continued to get jobs and be fairly successful - that I've thought that it could be a career."
But a career it most certainly is, and a healthy one at that. I ask Sangster about his recent schedule, and he tells me that the last few weeks alone included trips to Toronto and LA for different film projects. And then there's the show he's currently promoting, which just happens to be one of the biggest animated TV programmes in the world.
Thankfully, Thomas Brodie Sangster seems to have emerged from the storm of childhood fame with his feet on the ground and his head intact. The 21-year-old from Camberwell has been acting in TV and film since he was 11, and been a recognisable face since 13, when he starred as Liam Neeson's son in hit British comedy Love Actually. Since then he's had starring roles in Nanny McPhee, The Last Legion, Bright Star and as Paul McCartney in Nowhere Boy.
It's an impressive list for such a young actor. So it's heartening when he turns out to be a mild-mannered and grounded young man, without even a hint of arrogance, who speaks honestly about the pleasures and perils of growing up famous.
"It wasn't ever too bad - it's not like I was one of the Harry Potter guys," he says in a calm and well-spoken tone that never wavers throughout our interview. "I was always just the little kid from Love Actually, or the odd thing from TV or Nanny McPhee or something, so it was generally fine."
Didn't it ever get annoying or uncomfortable?
"At first it was very exciting - going out on the street and having complete strangers know you. But it can be a bit annoying when you're in a mood where you just want to gel into the background, when you don't want to be anyone in particular. People come up and they're always very nice, but you're just not quite in the right mood to be nice back."
He pauses for a second. "That sounds horrible, and I don't really mean it that way... I always try to be as enthusiastic as possible, because for them it can be exciting and you have to appreciate that."
A former pupil of St George's Primary School in Kennington, Sangster took his first showbiz steps when he was just 10-years-old, inspired by his parents who are both actors themselves.
"I didn't know I wanted to be an actor," he recalls. "I just saw them up on stage doing a low budget amateur production and thought that it looked like fun. It's only in the last few years - as I've continued to get jobs and be fairly successful - that I've thought that it could be a career."
But a career it most certainly is, and a healthy one at that. I ask Sangster about his recent schedule, and he tells me that the last few weeks alone included trips to Toronto and LA for different film projects. And then there's the show he's currently promoting, which just happens to be one of the biggest animated TV programmes in the world.
If you don't have kids and/or the Disney Channel, it's possible you won't be up on the phenomenon that is Phineas And Ferb. But this truly massive kids cartoon has been breaking broadcasting records over in the States, where you can't walk into a toy store without tripping over its merchandising.
Sangster provides the voice of Ferb, one of the two eponymous brothers who each episode find imaginative new ways to amuse themselves during the summer holidays - entering the 2nd Dimension is the adventure featured in the new TV movie which airs in the UK this evening (Friday).
As well as being popular among kids, the show has also won its fair share of adult fans. And it has a reputation for attracting guest appearances from numerous A-listers (among others, David Beckham, Ben Stiller, Michael Douglas and Jamie Oliver).
As someone with neither kids or a Disney Channel subscription, I admit to Sangster that I was surprised to discover just how popular the show has become.
"It surprises me as well," he says candidly. "I think it's down to the fact that it's a simple little cartoon at the heart of it - it's not super CGI - and it has a storyline that is also simple, with good morals, about two kids making the most of every day. And it's also very funny."
Though most of the cast are based in the US, Sangster voices the rather taciturn Ferb in a Soho studio, often at a totally different time to the other actors. No doubt, it's an odd way of working (he will sometimes have to record a line without really knowing its context), but Sangster is an actor who enjoys a challenge.
He tells me about his last two roles. One involved playing a wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy victim, the other an Irish cancer victim (for which he had to shave his head and eyebrows). He also learnt to play the guitar left handed (he's right handed) in order to play a teenage Paul McCartney in Sam Taylor Wood's celebrated Nowhere Boy.
One of his biggest challenges nearly came when he was cast as Tintin in the forthcoming motion-capture blockbuster from Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. In what I assume must have been a terrible disappointment, he had to leave the project due to scheduling difficulties when filming was delayed.
I ask him how he dealt with this - is he trained just to shrug it off, accepting that's just the way the industry works?
"Well t hat's exactly how you have to think, though at the time it's quite hard to force yourself to think like that," he admits. "Working with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, with this new motion capture technology would have been fantastic, so yes, I was obviously disappointed it couldn't work out.
" But you do just have to move on, because that is just the way it works. Other things come along and you just have to move on the next thing."
If Thomas Brodie Sangster's career to date is anything to go by, there should always be a next thing.
Phineas And Ferb: Across The 2nd Dimension airs on Disney Channel UK this evening at 6pm, and on Disney XD at 5.30pm on October 6.
Sangster provides the voice of Ferb, one of the two eponymous brothers who each episode find imaginative new ways to amuse themselves during the summer holidays - entering the 2nd Dimension is the adventure featured in the new TV movie which airs in the UK this evening (Friday).
As well as being popular among kids, the show has also won its fair share of adult fans. And it has a reputation for attracting guest appearances from numerous A-listers (among others, David Beckham, Ben Stiller, Michael Douglas and Jamie Oliver).
As someone with neither kids or a Disney Channel subscription, I admit to Sangster that I was surprised to discover just how popular the show has become.
"It surprises me as well," he says candidly. "I think it's down to the fact that it's a simple little cartoon at the heart of it - it's not super CGI - and it has a storyline that is also simple, with good morals, about two kids making the most of every day. And it's also very funny."
Though most of the cast are based in the US, Sangster voices the rather taciturn Ferb in a Soho studio, often at a totally different time to the other actors. No doubt, it's an odd way of working (he will sometimes have to record a line without really knowing its context), but Sangster is an actor who enjoys a challenge.
He tells me about his last two roles. One involved playing a wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy victim, the other an Irish cancer victim (for which he had to shave his head and eyebrows). He also learnt to play the guitar left handed (he's right handed) in order to play a teenage Paul McCartney in Sam Taylor Wood's celebrated Nowhere Boy.
One of his biggest challenges nearly came when he was cast as Tintin in the forthcoming motion-capture blockbuster from Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. In what I assume must have been a terrible disappointment, he had to leave the project due to scheduling difficulties when filming was delayed.
I ask him how he dealt with this - is he trained just to shrug it off, accepting that's just the way the industry works?
"Well t hat's exactly how you have to think, though at the time it's quite hard to force yourself to think like that," he admits. "Working with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, with this new motion capture technology would have been fantastic, so yes, I was obviously disappointed it couldn't work out.
" But you do just have to move on, because that is just the way it works. Other things come along and you just have to move on the next thing."
If Thomas Brodie Sangster's career to date is anything to go by, there should always be a next thing.
Phineas And Ferb: Across The 2nd Dimension airs on Disney Channel UK this evening at 6pm, and on Disney XD at 5.30pm on October 6.
Empire Big Screen preview
South London Press, August 2011
Organised by popular movie mag Empire, this new film festival at The O2 is a fanboy fantasy come true
Daniel Craig in Cowboys And Aliens, (c) Paramount Pictures
EMPIRE is not a magazine for serious high-brow cinephiles. Anyone who has ever picked up a copy will know that the monthly film mag is a loud, colourful and fun product, aimed at a mainstream audience who like their movies in precisely the same way: loud, colourful and fun.
This Empire-organised film festival is geared accordingly, with a raft of mega Hollywood previews, classic cult screenings, a few high-profile premieres and some important fanboy box ticking - namely horror, comic book and Star Wars related events.
Things kick off big with the premiere of Jon 'Iron Man' Favreau's latest blockbuster, Cowboys And Aliens, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford (no doubt the premise is absurd but early buzz is really positive). And then it's off on an impressive three day binge of Hollywood past, present and future.
Among the exciting advance screenings to choose from are Fright Night (a Colin Farrell vampire vehicle), The Change-Up (a role-swapping comedy with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman), The Guard (a hotly-anticipated new Irish comedy starring Brendan Gleeson), The Help (a weepy adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's best-selling 2009 novel) and the remake of Conan The Barbarian - in 3D (oh yes they have).
There will also be screenings of classics ranging from Clerks to Apocalypse Now, Stand By Me to Don't Look Know, plus the entire Pixar back catalogue screened back-to-back through the weekend.
And then you get to the special events. Be it masterclasses with industry experts, discussion panels, workshops or Q&As, Big Screen is packed with fascinating insights into the craft of filmmaking.
Star Wars fans will be able to travel behind the scenes of the films through never-before-seen footage, while quizzing members of Industrial Light And Magic (George Lucas' visual effects company) about their groundbreaking work.
There will be an open X Factor-style script pitching event for wannabe filmmakers, plus special effects make-up demos, a chance to meet some of the cute animals to have starred in hit movies, a film journalism workshop and Q&As with the likes of Roland Emmerich, David Tennant, Nicolas Roeg, Joe Cornish and Gareth Edwards.
And there's so much more besides. It all adds up to a great event for film fans young and old, packing more blockbuster kicks than a Jackie Chan double bill.
Empire Big Screen runs from August 12-14. The O2, Peninsula Square, North Greenwich SE10 0AX. £35-£65 per day. Visit www.empirebigscreen.com.
This Empire-organised film festival is geared accordingly, with a raft of mega Hollywood previews, classic cult screenings, a few high-profile premieres and some important fanboy box ticking - namely horror, comic book and Star Wars related events.
Things kick off big with the premiere of Jon 'Iron Man' Favreau's latest blockbuster, Cowboys And Aliens, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford (no doubt the premise is absurd but early buzz is really positive). And then it's off on an impressive three day binge of Hollywood past, present and future.
Among the exciting advance screenings to choose from are Fright Night (a Colin Farrell vampire vehicle), The Change-Up (a role-swapping comedy with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman), The Guard (a hotly-anticipated new Irish comedy starring Brendan Gleeson), The Help (a weepy adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's best-selling 2009 novel) and the remake of Conan The Barbarian - in 3D (oh yes they have).
There will also be screenings of classics ranging from Clerks to Apocalypse Now, Stand By Me to Don't Look Know, plus the entire Pixar back catalogue screened back-to-back through the weekend.
And then you get to the special events. Be it masterclasses with industry experts, discussion panels, workshops or Q&As, Big Screen is packed with fascinating insights into the craft of filmmaking.
Star Wars fans will be able to travel behind the scenes of the films through never-before-seen footage, while quizzing members of Industrial Light And Magic (George Lucas' visual effects company) about their groundbreaking work.
There will be an open X Factor-style script pitching event for wannabe filmmakers, plus special effects make-up demos, a chance to meet some of the cute animals to have starred in hit movies, a film journalism workshop and Q&As with the likes of Roland Emmerich, David Tennant, Nicolas Roeg, Joe Cornish and Gareth Edwards.
And there's so much more besides. It all adds up to a great event for film fans young and old, packing more blockbuster kicks than a Jackie Chan double bill.
Empire Big Screen runs from August 12-14. The O2, Peninsula Square, North Greenwich SE10 0AX. £35-£65 per day. Visit www.empirebigscreen.com.
Joe Cornish interview
South London Press, May 2011
Aliens are invading South London and we've only hoodies to help us. That's the premise behind
Attack The Block, the new film from comedian-turned-director Joe Cornish. DAN FROST meets him.
Attack The Block, the new film from comedian-turned-director Joe Cornish. DAN FROST meets him.
WHEN Joe Cornish was growing up in Stockwell and Brixton, he would spend much of his time at the cinema, fixated by the classic action adventure movies that so defined the 1980s. It was in South London that he saw films like ET and Gremlins - where extraordinary, extra-terrestrial events invade ordinary residential neighbourhoods. And like thousands of kids of the Spielberg and Lucas generation, he fantasised about the same kind of extraordinary, extra-terrestrial events visiting his own neighbourhood.
It was also in South London, several decades later, that Joe Cornish was mugged. An event of depressing familiarity, it was just as you might imagine - young, scared-looking kids, who probably lived spitting distance from his front door, robbing him of his phone and wallet, and thereby rocking his long-held sense of safety in his neighbourhood.
But it was this event, combined with the cinematic fantasies of his youth, that inspired the 42-year-old's debut feature film, Attack The Block, which is released today. Centring around an alien invasion of a Stockwell housing estate, it's an exciting, scary and often humorous genre movie that pits an army of grizzly space monsters with rabid temperaments and savage neon teeth against just the kind of local resistance they might expect to find on a socially deprived inner city housing estate: drug-dealing, knife-wielding, street crime-committing hoodies. If nothing else, it's very South London.
"The whole movie stems from the fact that I grew up in Stockwell and Brixton and that I absolutely love that area," explains Cornish. "I've lived there my whole life, and in that entire time nothing bad ever happened to me. And then suddenly it did. It wasn't even that bad - I got a new phone the next day, I cancelled my cards in moments, the kids that did it were scared and they weren't violent - but it was the first thing that had ever happened to make me distrust my neighbourhood.
"So my reaction was two-fold: I wanted to investigate it and talk to similar kids and find out why one of my neighbours - and such a young kid as well - would think that was an acceptable thing to do; and it also made me think about all the movies I loved when I was growing up round here, and about the imaginative life of the kid that mugged me and what kids like that have in their environment to inspire them and let them escape the way I used to. All those movies from my youth were about suburban American kids coming across a little bit of fantasy, and I just wondered what kind of fantasy a kid who lives in the block down my road would have."
It was also in South London, several decades later, that Joe Cornish was mugged. An event of depressing familiarity, it was just as you might imagine - young, scared-looking kids, who probably lived spitting distance from his front door, robbing him of his phone and wallet, and thereby rocking his long-held sense of safety in his neighbourhood.
But it was this event, combined with the cinematic fantasies of his youth, that inspired the 42-year-old's debut feature film, Attack The Block, which is released today. Centring around an alien invasion of a Stockwell housing estate, it's an exciting, scary and often humorous genre movie that pits an army of grizzly space monsters with rabid temperaments and savage neon teeth against just the kind of local resistance they might expect to find on a socially deprived inner city housing estate: drug-dealing, knife-wielding, street crime-committing hoodies. If nothing else, it's very South London.
"The whole movie stems from the fact that I grew up in Stockwell and Brixton and that I absolutely love that area," explains Cornish. "I've lived there my whole life, and in that entire time nothing bad ever happened to me. And then suddenly it did. It wasn't even that bad - I got a new phone the next day, I cancelled my cards in moments, the kids that did it were scared and they weren't violent - but it was the first thing that had ever happened to make me distrust my neighbourhood.
"So my reaction was two-fold: I wanted to investigate it and talk to similar kids and find out why one of my neighbours - and such a young kid as well - would think that was an acceptable thing to do; and it also made me think about all the movies I loved when I was growing up round here, and about the imaginative life of the kid that mugged me and what kids like that have in their environment to inspire them and let them escape the way I used to. All those movies from my youth were about suburban American kids coming across a little bit of fantasy, and I just wondered what kind of fantasy a kid who lives in the block down my road would have."
Before long, Cornish was hatching an idea that would bless his beloved South London with a taste of the cinematic adventure he had dreamt of as a child. And not only that, it would also shake up the way cinema has presented the much-maligned hoodie to date. It might seem a little strange coming from a man mugged by similar kids, but Cornish set out to repair the hoodie screen image, taking them from petty criminals to saviours of mankind.
"As a film-goer, I was slightly shocked by the casualness with which certain brilliantly-made films have used kids like this - socially disadvantaged children - as a horror device. I just thought it was wrong," he explains.
"Then after the mugging I suddenly started to think about this arena where people had previously only made quite serious, often depressing social realist films, and to see that it could also be the setting for an action adventure sci-fi film - the vehicles, the language, the blocks that look like clapped-out spaceships, the cool ninja/bandit stuff that the kids wear - and I just thought 'wow, this is toolkit for a very different type of movie'."
And that's precisely what it is. With Shaun Of The Dead writer/director Edgar Wright acting as Executive Producer, obvious comparisons will be drawn with that piece of sublime genre-bending. But where Shaun was more comedy/horror, Attack The Block flips the balance towards horror/comedy, and is quite a different beast for it.
There are some hilarious lines, as you might expect. But fans of Adam and Joe - the comedy duo for which Cornish is most famous - will likely be surprised at just how scary the film can get. It's not Paranormal Activity by any means, but there are fearsome beasts and big jumps a-plenty, and it's a long way from the sweet and playful partnership with which Cornish made his name.
"As a film-goer, I was slightly shocked by the casualness with which certain brilliantly-made films have used kids like this - socially disadvantaged children - as a horror device. I just thought it was wrong," he explains.
"Then after the mugging I suddenly started to think about this arena where people had previously only made quite serious, often depressing social realist films, and to see that it could also be the setting for an action adventure sci-fi film - the vehicles, the language, the blocks that look like clapped-out spaceships, the cool ninja/bandit stuff that the kids wear - and I just thought 'wow, this is toolkit for a very different type of movie'."
And that's precisely what it is. With Shaun Of The Dead writer/director Edgar Wright acting as Executive Producer, obvious comparisons will be drawn with that piece of sublime genre-bending. But where Shaun was more comedy/horror, Attack The Block flips the balance towards horror/comedy, and is quite a different beast for it.
There are some hilarious lines, as you might expect. But fans of Adam and Joe - the comedy duo for which Cornish is most famous - will likely be surprised at just how scary the film can get. It's not Paranormal Activity by any means, but there are fearsome beasts and big jumps a-plenty, and it's a long way from the sweet and playful partnership with which Cornish made his name.
The South London we see is a gloriously stylised vision, in which the estates tower and glow like futuristic beacons of an American metropolis. It is certainly the fondest film to be set south of the river for some time, and you can't help but applaud Cornish's stereotype-challenging vision - it feels as much of an achievement to convert the Aylesbury Estate in Elephant & Castle into a thrilling sci-fi playground as it is to make convincing heroes of the capital's most demonised residents.
"Yes, it's a love letter to South London," Cornish confirms. "And it was really important to me to portray the estates in that way. They were built in a spirit of massive optimism after the Second World War, and they were seen as these amazingly optimistic, futuristic, aspirational places.
"But in the last 40 or 50 years they've become these downbeat symbols of social programmes that have failed. I wanted to bring back that futuristic vibe. The idea was to make these blocks look like the Nostromo [Alien] or the Nakatomi Plaza [Die Hard] - one of those big monolithic movie spaces where you come to know the geography a little."
This sense of space is one of the film's greatest strengths. Another is the pitch-perfect authenticity of the dialogue. Cornish spent a long time visiting South London youth groups, discussing the plot with young people, asking how they would respond to certain situations and intently recording the youthful slang and conversation.
Some of the lines in the film are taken verbatim from youth club discussions, and Cornish even feels that "to a degree, it's co-written by me, the cast and South London youth".
It's a nice way of looking at it, and you get the feeling that Cornish sees the film as a gift to South London youth - including the very kind that mugged him. At least they, unlike him, will be able to grow up with a cinematic vision of extraordinary, extra-terrestrial events happening in their neighbourhood. And who knows, the misbehaving minority might even think twice about mugging people after seeing it...now that would be a happy ending.
Attack The Block is on general release from May 13. Visit http://attacktheblock.com/ for information.
"Yes, it's a love letter to South London," Cornish confirms. "And it was really important to me to portray the estates in that way. They were built in a spirit of massive optimism after the Second World War, and they were seen as these amazingly optimistic, futuristic, aspirational places.
"But in the last 40 or 50 years they've become these downbeat symbols of social programmes that have failed. I wanted to bring back that futuristic vibe. The idea was to make these blocks look like the Nostromo [Alien] or the Nakatomi Plaza [Die Hard] - one of those big monolithic movie spaces where you come to know the geography a little."
This sense of space is one of the film's greatest strengths. Another is the pitch-perfect authenticity of the dialogue. Cornish spent a long time visiting South London youth groups, discussing the plot with young people, asking how they would respond to certain situations and intently recording the youthful slang and conversation.
Some of the lines in the film are taken verbatim from youth club discussions, and Cornish even feels that "to a degree, it's co-written by me, the cast and South London youth".
It's a nice way of looking at it, and you get the feeling that Cornish sees the film as a gift to South London youth - including the very kind that mugged him. At least they, unlike him, will be able to grow up with a cinematic vision of extraordinary, extra-terrestrial events happening in their neighbourhood. And who knows, the misbehaving minority might even think twice about mugging people after seeing it...now that would be a happy ending.
Attack The Block is on general release from May 13. Visit http://attacktheblock.com/ for information.