BEGINNERS
EEN FILM VAN
MIKE MILLS
WILD BUNCH HAARLEMMERDIJK 159 - 1013 KH – AMSTERDAM WWW.WILDBUNCH.NL [email protected] WILDBUNCHblx BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
PROJECT SUMMARY
EEN PRODUCTIE VAN FOCUS FEATURES INTERNATIONAL TAAL ENGELS LENGTE 104 MINUTEN GENRE DRAMA LAND VAN HERKOMST ENGELAND FILMMAKER MIKE MILLS HOOFDROLLEN EWAN MC GREGOR CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER MÉLANIE LAURENT RELEASEDATUM 13 OKTOBER 2011 FESTIVALS TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILMFESTIVAL
KIJKWIJZER
SYNOPSIS Oliver heeft er na enkele teleurstellende relaties en een heleboel ex-vriendinnen inmiddels wel genoeg van. Wanneer zijn 75-jarige vader uit de kast komt en met volle teugen van zijn nieuwe leven geniet, wordt het er voor Oliver niet echt makkelijker op. Eenzaamheid ligt op de loer, maar dan ontmoet hij de betoverende Anna.
CAST OLIVER EWAN MCGREGOR HAL CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER ANNA MÉLANIE LAURENT ANDY GORAN VISNJIC YOUNG OLIVER KEEGAN BOOS ARTHUR COSMO
CREW WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY MIKE MILLS PRODUCED BY LESLIE URDANG, DEAN VANECH, MIRANDA de PENCIER JAY VAN HOY, LARS KNUDSEN FRAN GIBLIN CO-PRODUCERS GEOFF LINVILLE DIRECTOR OF KASPER TUXEN PHOTOGRAPHY PRODUCTION DESIGNER SHANE VALENTINO FILM EDITOR OLIVIER BUGGE COUTTÉ COSTUME DESIGNER JENNIFER JOHNSON ROGER NEILL, MUSIC BY DAVID PALMER, BRIAN REITZELL MUSIC SUPERVISOR ROBIN URDANG CASTING BY COURTNEY BRIGHT and NICOLE DANIELS
BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
BEGINNERS started when my father came out of the closet. He was 75 years old, and had been married to my mother for 45 years. His hunger to completely change his life was confusing, painful, very funny, and deeply inspiring. Change, honesty, and openness can happen when it seems least likely. Even as he passed away 5 years later to cancer he was energized, reaching out; he wasn’t in any way finished.
This script was developed with the belief that something this personal can become universal. The concrete details of my father’s life, the real struggles, and all the real humor gave the film an authenticity that I hope will make it more powerful and more emotional for all kinds of people. The historical sections of the script connect these characters to our larger shared history.
The basic action is like a two-way street: Hal is teaching Oliver how to love Anna, and Oliver's love with Anna is showing him things he never understood about Hal. Hal's story is very modernist, the obstacles are big and external: 1950s conservatism, homophobia, old age, and cancer. Oliver and Anna are post-1960s children and their love story is truly contemporary. Their obstacles are internal; they are haunted by the contracts, compromises, and the hidden sadness, of their parents. To Hal, hiding his real sexuality behind the mask of a traditional marriage was acceptable and necessary to combat the external obstacles of his historical moment. To Oliver, the negatives of this agreement - its toll on love, and the abandoning of what’s true for his parents – are unbearable. Ultimately, Hal teaches Oliver how to undo the locks and lies that he himself created.
The experience I'm most trying to communicate with BEGINNERS is that of an adventure. The feeling of breaking something open. While this film has illness and death, it’s about beginnings, change, and how deeply funny life can be in its most serious moments. While this story is specific, I did not approach it as a “small” film, and definitely not a “quirky” film or even an “indie” film. I only get to tell this story once, so I wanted it to be bighearted, for a big audience, progressive and innovative, and like my father – deeply wanting to connect with people.
I wrote letters to Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer asking them to be in the movie. On the following page are a little from each of those letters. BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
[TO CHRISTOPHER;]
Having hidden from the gay world for his whole life, he was at 75, like a teenager: anxious and excited to join, naive about all the cues of gay culture, and very susceptible to the emotional upheavals of new love. While he was very shy as a young person, and he was deferring and self- sacrificing through his adult life, he exposed himself to risk over and over at the end – he risked by coming out to me, my sisters and his friends; by trying to catch up with the contemporary gay social scene; and, most of all, by falling in love. While his illness came only five years later, he’d tire all of us out with all the things he wanted to do.
I have tried to make a portrait of him that is filled with love but not sentimental or afraid to show his selfishness. I do not seek to create a replica of my father, but a version of his desires and problems that is real for you and me and the other actors as we make this story real for an audience. As a director, I’m never locked into the words that I’ve written, or my preconceptions about a character or a scene. I believe in the energy of the moment and being surprised. I plan to rehearse for two weeks, and in general I’m trying to create an atmosphere of play and exploration, where we get to nuanced moments that none of us could have predicted.
[TO EWAN;]
When each of my parents passed the grief wasn’t all downward and heavy. There was sort of an explosion in me, an overwhelming feeling that life is quickly rolling by. All that I wanted but haven’t tasted became crucial. For me, this was to find someone, and to finally stay with someone. So, I couldn’t sleep, I needed to do everything right away, I was funnier, and meaner, I took more risks, and I was willing and able to change.
-- Mike Mills 02/2011
BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
ONLY TIME
“When my Mom passed away, there suddenly was this new person, this new Dad.”
That’s how it was, and that’s how it felt, for writer/director Mike Mills. Before there was a movie, there were those real-life events. His recently widowed 75-year old father had an announcement to make to his son; in whatever time he had left on this earth, the elder Mills wanted to live as an out homosexual man.
“He just started living this explosive new life,” marvels Mills. “He became more emotionally alive than I’d ever seen him.”
Mills looked on with surprise and admiration as his father dove head first into the gay culture of Santa Barbara. The elder Mills dressed, acted, and lived as a man at least 20 years younger than he in fact was.
“I had so many gay friends and teachers that I admired,” says Mills. “So coming out was, I’d say, less of an issue for me than it was for him. But his gayness, this side of him, was still something mysterious to me. I found myself asking, who is my Dad? I wanted to know more. And then he was diagnosed with cancer.”
As much as one might expect the disease to slow Mills’ father down, the effect was just the opposite. His father maintained what was already an active social calendar – actually hosting more parties than before; continued to see his trainer; and maintained a strict health regime. Mills senior remained aggressively positive, all but repudiating the illness that would kill him.
“He told me that when they got married, my Mom took off her Jewish badge and he took off his gay badge,” remembers Mills. “When he said that, it was like a light going off in my head. I said ‘I’m writing about that.’ As it was happening, it just felt so big and real. I felt I had something to report.”
Five months after his father’s passing, Mills sat down to write, motivated at how crucial it was to capture that emotional state of “a kind of a fireworks-y exhilaration. Our time here is short. It’s going to be gone fast.
“You must voice it all. Whatever you’re afraid of. Whatever you haven’t done. Whatever you haven’t been honest about. Whatever you haven’t really bitten into. I felt like it was the only time to do it. I don’t know if I would have been able to write BEGINNERS if I hadn’t been in mourning.”
Mills reflects, “For me a lot of grief is like running in the dark in a forest, sprinting forward, trying to get to something. I hope that’s what we captured in the movie, this mad grab for life.”
MEETING IN THE MIDDLE
Over the course of developing the script for BEGINNERS, many things changed, shifting in and out of focus – but one aspect remained constant; Mike Mills knew he was telling two stories, not one.
One thread follows father and son – Hal and Oliver Fields – as they come to grips with Hal’s new identity and illness; the second balances Oliver’s emotional regrouping from Hal’s death and his burgeoning relationship with Anna, a vivacious French actress. BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
Mills remarks, “I always thought of it as two stories. When someone you love has just died, the past is such a river running through you. It’s not a containable set of memories as much as it’s waves of conversation that are still alive in you. You’re always feeling it, processing and running it over in your head. I never imagined the ‘past’ as flashbacks. It was always going to play out as a simultaneous, completely contained storyline.”
Ewan McGregor had been sent the completed script but had not yet read it. So the first the actor actually heard about the project was while sharing a ski lift with Mills’ agent at the Sundance Film Festival – who seized the moment, pitching the actor the project while the lift moved slowly up the slopes. As soon as he got home, McGregor plowed through the script, read Mills’ personal note to him, and within a week was meeting with the writer/director.
“I immediately took to Mike,” McGregor recalls. “He is quite open, emotionally, and I’m a bit like that. It felt like we’d known each other for a long time.
“I’d seen his previous film, Thumbsucker, and liked it a lot. But once he sent me some of his shorts, art and graphics, videos and commercials, I realized that I was familiar with his work without having known so.”
As they discussed the project’s unique structure, Mills and McGregor came to the same conclusion; the two stories should be shot separately, back-to-back in continuity, to ensure dual layers of emotional honesty. This was key because McGregor is the only actor in both stories, as Oliver carries the experiences of one into the other. “It was so helpful to me,” notes the actor. “Playing scenes where Oliver was entering into the relationship with Anna, I could remember back to the scenes I’d filmed of Oliver with his father Hal.
“There is a convergence that makes BEGINNERS very rich and complex. It’s a film about losing, about accepting – in this case, accepting your father for who he really is, accepting the fact that someone who is living life to the fullest is going to die, and then coming to terms with such a loss while falling in love.”
For the role of Hal Fields, Mills had his heart set on an actor who possessed the gravitas, wit, and charm to command every scene he was in – and who would be keenly felt and missed in his absence. Christopher Plummer had read the script, and Mills was quick to follow up with a personal note to Plummer. The Academy Award nominee’s commitment to the role came nearly as swiftly as McGregor’s had.
The writer/director found that both actors did harbor initial reservations about how someone who had lived through the events that inspired the story might respond to their interpretations of the characters inspired by real people. To that end, there were also candid discussions about whether creative constraints would be placed upon the actors. To the contrary; Mills made clear to McGregor and Plummer that he was counting on them to bring a collaborative spirit to the project.
Both actors wanted to get closer to the emotional truths by taking on aspects of Mills and his late father. Mills remarks, “Before he died, my Dad wrote a new version of Jesus’ death. I gave it to Christopher – and he had his own ideas of how it should be written, to make it sharper. You might think I would find that to be sacrilege – but I told him to go for it, to write something that he feels strongly about, that has his authorship; this way, our story becomes a public story, not a private story.” Mills also encouraged Plummer to infuse his performance with plenty of the actor’s own personality.
BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
McGregor asked Mills to record the script’s dialogue in order for the actor to capture the cadences of his voice and how he would express himself. Once these recordings were internalized and fully absorbed, McGregor was encouraged by Mills “not to limit himself.”
A key component of Mills’ vision for the project was to make the audience question the line between autobiography and fiction – to root around between the way things really happened and the way we choose to remember them.
“None of my conversations with Christopher and Ewan had the tenor of ‘Here’s how we did things,’ or ‘Here’s how it was,” clarifies Mills. “It was more like, ‘Here are these verbs and actions that my Dad and I experienced. Go live them out now in a way that’s real for you, so it will be real for an audience. Take away all the proper nouns and let it be your thing.’”
Accordingly, McGregor “didn’t feel like I had to play Mike, as such. I asked him to record the script for me, but I was not doing an impersonation of him. He wasn’t encouraging me to, either; he wanted for me to find who Oliver is. Physically, sometimes, I’d do something and think, ‘Oh, that’s a bit like Mike…’”
Given that his character of Oliver is an artist, McGregor knew that he did have to closely physically emulate Mills’ illustrative style. For hours at a time, the two sat side-by-side in Mills’ studio; the filmmaker would start a drawing, and then hand it over to the actor to finish. Although many of Oliver’s illustrations in the film were executed by Mills, just as many were either reproduced or completed by McGregor.
For the film’s romance to coalesce on-screen, the filmmakers needed an actress who could play an actress who could go a long way towards filling the void left by Hal’s absence. Mills remarks, “Anna shares a certain amount of Oliver’s generational uncertainties – and also gives the narrative a vital shot of life, energy, and complication.”
Mélanie Laurent, one of France’s busiest actresses, was keen to add to her repertoire and so had been studying English months before filming even began. The chance to practice what she had learned was one of the draws of BEGINNERS, but “I really chose *to do+ the script because of the story, which moved me,” says Laurent. So much so, that she e-mailed Mills to lobby for the role after reading the script and then – at his request – conceived and submitted “something cool and different” on video which encompassed Laurent acting out parts of the script.
She adds, “As for the character, I’d played quite serious parts in my recent films in France, and I was happy to get to play someone more fun, more light. Also, after Inglourious Basterds, it was hard to find the right American project to do and I wanted to do an independent movie rather than a big movie.
“Even though she’s an actress making movies, Anna is actually not that close to me; I feel that, compared to hers, my life is easier. On this set, things were so free for the actors. Every day, Mike and I would discuss what was going on in Anna’s head.”
The role of Anna was arguably more open to interpretation than those of Hal and Oliver Fields – since Anna is the screenwriter’s invention, and has/had no direct correlation to a person in Mills’ life. To anyone who is quick to assume that Anna has/had some basis in Mills’ real-life wife – performance artist/musician/actress/writer/director Miranda July – the director reveals that, instead, “Anna is another incarnation of me. All of her emotional underpinnings – her issues – are on my turf.”
BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
Mills wanted to strengthen the bonds between his actors in ways both external and internal; as part of a week of rehearsals, he brought McGregor and Laurent to the Magic Mountain theme park ride(s). This allowed them to all to have a shared experience and build a rapport. During filming, Mills would often evoke the exhilaration and queasiness – emotional and otherwise – of rollercoasters and/or love by simply saying to the duo, “Magic Mountain.”
In addition to downtown Los Angeles’ historic Millennium Biltmore Hotel, the production spanned Los Angeles locations in Silverlake and Griffith Park, among others. The books-shopping scene for father and son was filmed on location at The Cosmopolitan Book Shop, “which is filled with treasures you didn’t’ know you were looking for,” enthuses Mills.
For Oliver’s spontaneous visit to Manhattan, Mills traveled to NYC with McGregor and convened a small filmmaking unit rather than try to have one distinctive city “play” another. The many scenes between Anna and Oliver in and around her suite at the Biltmore Hotel were filmed at the hotel over the course of a week, as a self-contained part of the shoot – adding to the levels of intimacy and displacement for the actors.
“Oliver and Anna’s relationship in BEGINNERS is not exactly a Hollywood ‘romantic comedy love story,’” notes McGregor. “It’s quite real and visceral – hot and cold, off and on, and as complicated as a true love story would be.
“I’ll never forget my time with Mélanie in the Biltmore. I must say that by the time we moved on from that hotel room, Mélanie’s and my brains were melting all over the place.”
McGregor’s heart melted for his costar – Cosmo, the quiet, soulful Jack Russell terrier cast as Arthur, the dog whom Mills refers to as Oliver’s “co-passenger” in the story. “He’s so gorgeous,” enthuses McGregor. “I loved working with Cosmo. It’s tough, though, because you develop a bond with this wee dog, and then you have to say goodbye.”
Cosmo transformed himself for the role, in that his all-white fur was painted with brown spots. Head animal trainer Mathilde de Cagny, who had nurtured another Jack Russell terrier, Moose, in his role as Eddie through all 11 seasons of the television series Frasier, had Cosmo ready for his close-ups – and then some. For, as a lifelong lover of dogs, Mills early on conceived key scenes in the film where Oliver and Arthur would converse via subtitles.
Mills remarks, “Having shared my life with an actual Jack Russell terrier that belonged to my father, the idea that a dog would ‘say’ a line like ‘Tell her the darkness is about to drown us unless something drastic happens right now’ just seemed both right and appropriate for the story I wanted to tell. The writer/director and the actors spent a great deal of time discussing what it meant to talk to the dog – not in a “cute” way, or even as an animal – but more as if conversing with another person.
Of conversing with his fellow actor Plummer, McGregor reports, “Christopher is fantastic to work with. I supposed I had certain assumptions about him being ‘old school,’ and how much he would play around with things. But when it comes to acting, he’s completely in the scene with you and works with you in a very contemporary way that a lot of younger actors could learn from. I learned a lot from him, for sure.
“Among my favorite scenes are the ones where Hal is ailing and the group of older gay men has gathered around him. We could all feel the wonderful spirit of emotional openness and support.” McGregor reflects, “Christopher moved me to tears a lot – and he and I also laughed a lot, because he tells great stories!” BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
HISTORY WITHOUT END
The finished film of BEGINNERS is, as Mike Mills sees it, an intimate tale wrapped up in a larger statement of how we perceive history. Thus the motivation for the film’s graffiti motif, in which Oliver tags concrete walls in black Krylon with phrases documenting seemingly banal events.
“Everything that flashes across the screen in the historical montage sequences is relating our intimate emotional lives to larger waves of history, our shared culture,” explains Mills. “When Oliver spray-paints ‘Britney Spears Most Googled 2003,’ that is a real cultural indicator, and not just a humorous aside; it’s a statement about a particular time.”
Complementing the film’s exploration of autobiography and fiction, the bridge between history and memory is a choice avenue for the filmmaker. As Mills clarifies, “The ‘present’ storyline in the film of Oliver with Anna is in fact a period piece – taking place in 2003 – which makes it susceptible to revision in memory.
“So the film is hopefully asking, what is real, anyway? Are these memories real, or did I get them wrong? Do these historical facts help tell us what was real? Or is it more just, what is or what was possible at a certain time.”
Of his father, Mills reflects, “I lived with a man whose biography was somewhat fictionalized – a performance of sorts. He had to hide deep, personal, intimate things. He had to learn ‘a role,’ study it and then re-enact it almost all his life.
“I sought to explore constructions – social constructions, historical constructions – that were part of my family history. Why, in 1955, my parents chose to get married even though they knew my Dad was gay. In my head, I had so many conversations with him about the choices he made. I had these conversations not as a son, but as the author of the story – and that caused a lot of my perspectives to shift. It made me become more of his ally and peer than his son.”
Despite these seemingly weighty themes, BEGINNERS brims with humor – another quality that Mills always saw as being essential to the story. It’s one he’s long cherished overall. He offers, “To me, humor is one of the more positive, subversive, progressive tools we have with which to face life. It’s my internal anti-depressant. I certainly can’t imagine making a movie without it…
“My father valued it, too. He approached his illness with such surprising humor. I do think he would have loved coming out to the world through BEGINNERS; he would have seen it as keeping the party going – but with a larger invite list.” BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
ABOUT THE CREW
MIKE MILLS – Writer / Director
Mike Mills works as a filmmaker, graphic designer, and artist. As a filmmaker, he has completed a number of music videos, commercials, short films, documentaries and feature films. His short films have premiered at the Sundance, Oberhausen, Stockholm International, New Directors/New Films and Rotterdam film festivals.
He adapted and directed his first feature, Thumbsucker (2005), from Walter Kirn’s novel of the same name. The movie won awards at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals for lead actor Lou Taylor Pucci, and Mr. Mills was honored with the Guardian New Directors award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. His next feature as director was the documentary Does Your Soul Have a Cold? (2007).
In 1996, he and Roman Coppola co-founded The Directors Bureau (TDB), a multidisciplinary production company through which he has directed music videos for such bands as Air, Pulp, Everything but the Girl, Les Rythmes Digitales, Moby, Yoko Ono, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion; and commercials for such clients as Levi’s, Gap, Volkswagen, Adidas and Nike as part of their international campaigns.
As a graphic artist, Mr. Mills has designed album covers for such bands as Sonic Youth, The Beastie Boys, Boss Hog, and Buffalo Daughter; and has also done extensive work for companies such as X-girl, Marc Jacobs, and Supreme. He has had solo art shows at the Andrea Rosen Gallery (1996); Adam Bray Gallery in London (1997); The Alleged Gallery (1996, 2001, and 2004); The Collette Gallery (1998); and The Mu Museum in Holland (2004).
His work was featured in the “Beautiful Losers” exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati and at the Yerba Buena Center for Arts in San Francisco, as well as in Aaron Rose and Joshua Leonard’s documentary feature Beautiful Losers (2008). A monograph of his work, Mike Mills: Graphics Films, was published by Damiani in 2009.
Mr. Mills was born in Berkeley, California and graduated from Cooper Union.
BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
ABOUT THE CAST
EWAN MCGREGOR - Oliver
Ewan McGregor was born in Crieff, Scotland. He became enthralled with the world of acting from an early age, largely inspired by his actor uncle Denis Lawson’s work in George Lucas’ Star Wars – as well as its two sequels – and Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero.
Six months prior to graduating from London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Mr. McGregor was offered – and took – a role in the Dennis Potter-scripted musical comedy miniseries Lipstick on Your Collar, directed by Renny Rye. He next starred in the miniseries The Scarlet and the Black, directed by Ben Bolt. Beginning with Bill Forsyth’s Being Human, feature films followed. His starring role in Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave brought him the Hitchcock D’Argent Best Actor Award as well as a BAFTA (Scotland) Award nomination for Best Actor and an Empire Award. Mr. McGregor and Mr. Boyle’s second film together, Trainspotting, catapulted the actor to international fame. He won the BAFTA (Scotland) Award for Best Actor and a second Empire Award; and was cited as Best Actor by the London Film Critics Circle. He was voted the latter for his work in four 1996 movies; Trainspotting, Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book, Douglas McGrath’s Emma, and Mark Herman’s Brassed Off.
A guest role on the television series ER earned him an Emmy Award nomination. Continuing his film work, he reunited with Danny Boyle on A Life Less Ordinary, winning his third Empire Award; starred in Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine; played real-life Rogue Trader Nick Leeson in James Dearden’s film; and reteamed with Mark Herman for Little Voice, for which he shared a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination with his fellow actors. He realized his childhood dream by starring for George Lucas in the second Star Wars trilogy of The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.
Mr. McGregor earned a Golden Globe Award nomination, and his second London Film Critics Circle Award and fourth Empire Award, for his performance in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, which won 2 Academy Awards. His subsequent films included Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down; Pat Murphy’s Nora, in which he played James Joyce; David Mackenzie’s Young Adam, for which he received London Film Critics Circle and British Independent Film Award nominations and won his second BAFTA (Scotland) Award for Best Actor; Tim Burton’s Big Fish; Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream; Ron Howard’s Angels & Demons; Grant Heslov’s The Men Who Stare at Goats; and, opposite Jim Carrey, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s I Love You Phillip Morris. Mr. McGregor was most recently seen on-screen starring in the title role of Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer, for which he won the European Film Award for Best Actor.
He will soon be seen in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire; David Mackenzie’s Perfect Sense, which world- premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival; Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible, with Naomi Watts; and Lasse Hallström’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, opposite Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas.
His theatre credits include starring as Sky Masterson in the 2005 Dommar Warehouse staging of Guys and Dolls; as Iago in the Donmar’s 2007 revival of Othello; and in What the Butler Saw, for the Salisbury Playhouse.
At the 2008 Empire Awards, Mr. McGregor was honored with the Icon Award for Achievement.
BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER - Hal
Christopher Plummer has long been one of the most respected actors in both theatre and film. In 2008, Alfred A. Knopf published his self-written memoir, In Spite of Myself, which became one of the most acclaimed autobiographies of recent years. He has also written for the stage, television, and the concert hall.
Raised in Montreal, Mr. Plummer began his professional career on stage and radio in both French and English. Legendary actress/director Eva Le Gallienne brought him to New York for his stage debut in 1954, and he has since starred in celebrated productions on Broadway, in Canada, and on London’s West End.
He has won two Tony Awards, for the musical Cyrano and for the play Barrymore, and been nominated seven times further (most recently for King Lear and Inherit the Wind). He has also been honored with three Drama Desk Awards and the National Arts Club Medal.
As a former leading member of the Royal National Theatre under Lord Laurence Olivier and the Royal Shakespeare Company under Sir Peter Hall, Mr. Plummer won London’s Evening Standard Award for Best Actor in Becket. Additionally, he led Canada’s Stratford Festival in its formative years under Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Langham.
His first film was Sidney Lumet’s Stage Struck, with Henry Fonda and Susan Strasberg. His notable movies since then have included John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King, in which he portrayed author Rudyard Kipling; Anthony Mann’s The Fall of The Roman Empire; Guy Hamilton’s Battle of Britain; Sergei Bondarchuk’s Waterloo; Nicholas Ray’s Wind Across the Everglades; Robert Mulligan’s Inside Daisy Clover; Robert Wise’s Academy Award-winning The Sound of Music, opposite Julie Andrews; Blake Edwards’ The Return of the Pink Panther, with Peter Sellers; Daryl Duke’s The Silent Partner; Bob Clark’s Murder by Decree, in which he played Sherlock Holmes and for which he won the Genie Award (Canada’s Oscar equivalent) for Best Actor; Jeannot Szwarc’s Somewhere in Time, with Christopher Reeve; Nicholas Meyer’s Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; Spike Lee’s Malcolm X and Inside Man; Taylor Hackford’s Dolores Claiborne; Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, in the title role; Ron Howard’s Academy Award-winning A Beautiful Mind; Atom Egoyan’s Ararat; Douglas McGrath’s Nicholas Nickleby; Jon Turteltaub’s National Treasure; Gary David Goldberg’s Must Love Dogs; Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana; Terrence Malick’s The New World; Michael Schroeder’s Man in the Chair, for which Mr. Plummer was named Best Actor at the Palm Beach International Film Festival; and Michael Mann’s The Insider, as Mike Wallace. The latter portrayal earned him the National Society of Film Critics, Boston Society of Film Critics, and Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards for Best Supporting Actor.
His voiceover work in feature films includes three notable recent animated movies; Pete Docter and Bob Peterson’s Academy Award-winning Up; Shane Acker’s 9, also for Focus Features; and My Dog Tulip, as author J.R. Ackerley, whose novel was adapted by the movie’s writer/directors Paul and Sandra Fierlinger.
Mr. Plummer has won two Emmy Awards; these came for his voiceover and narration work on the Madeline series, based on the classic children’s books, and for his performance in the miniseries The Moneychangers, directed by Boris Sagal. Additional Emmy nominations have included ones for Daryl Duke’s classic miniseries The Thorn Birds and Philip Saville’s telefilm Hamlet at Elsinore, in the title role. His numerous other television appearances range from a live performance of Ernest Thompson’s On Golden Pond, opposite Julie Andrews, to Franco Zeffirelli’s acclaimed miniseries Jesus of Nazareth. BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
He was the first performer to receive the Jason Robards Award, in memory of his great friend. He has also been honored with the Edwin Booth Award and the Sir John Gielgud Quill Award. In 1968, sanctioned by Elizabeth II, he was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada (an honorary knighthood).
An Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts at Juilliard, Mr. Plummer also received the Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 1986, he was inducted into the Theatre’s Hall of Fame and in 2000 to Canada’s Walk of Fame. In 2002, he was honored by the National Board of Review with the Career Achievement Award.
For his portrayal opposite Helen Mirren of novelist Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station, written and directed by Michael Hoffman, Mr. Plummer received Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Spirit Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.
He stars with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in David Fincher’s globally anticipated The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, due out in December 2011.
MÉLANIE LAURENT - Anna
Already well-known for her screen work in her native France, Mélanie Laurent came to the attention of the world film community in 2009 through her portrayal of Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. With her fellow actors from the film, she shared the Screen Actors Guild Awards’ top film honor of the ensemble prize. Ms. Laurent was also an Empire Award nominee and earned Best Actress citations from the Online Film Critics Society as well as the Austin Film Critics Association.
Her other film credits include Jennifer Devoldère’s Jusqu’à toi and Et Soudain Tout le Monde me Manque, the latter with Michel Blanc; Jérôme Le Gris’ Requiem pour une tueuse; Rose Bosch’s La rafle (The Roundup); Radu Mihaileanu’s Le Concert (The Concert); Cédric Anger’s Le tueur; Cédric Klapisch’s Paris; Rachid Bouchareb’s award-winning Indigènes (a.k.a. Days of Glory); Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped; Michel Blanc’s Embrassez qui vous voudrez; Frédéric Auburtin and Gérard Depardieu’s The Bridge; Laurent Dussaux’ telefilm Route de nuit; and Philippe Lioret’s Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas, for which she won a César Award (France’s Oscars equivalent) and a Lumiere Award. She has also been honored with the prestigious Prix Romy Schneider.
Ms. Laurent wrote and directed the short films À ses pieds and De moins en moins; the latter was showcased at the Cannes International Film Festival. She is currently directing and starring in the feature Les Adoptés, from her original screenplay, opposite Denis Menochet.
GORAN VISNJIC - Andy
Croatian-born actor Goran Visnjic has earned acclaim in theatre, on television, and on the silver screen.
He began his career starring in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, at the celebrated Dubrovnik Summer Theatre Festival in Croatia. His portrayal of the title character earned him the coveted Orlando Award.
Mr. Visnjic later became known worldwide for his role as Dr. Luka Kovac on the television series ER, which he starred in for nine years. With his fellow actors from the show, he was twice nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Awards’ top television honor of the ensemble prize. His other television appearances include the miniseries Spartacus, in the title role, directed by Robert Dornhelm; John BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
Kent Harrison’s telefilm The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler; the U.K. miniseries The Deep; the Croatian miniseries Duga mračna nod (Long Dark Night); and, most recently, a guest-starring arc on the series Leverage.
His breakout movie role was in Michael Winterbottom’s Welcome to Sarajevo. Among his other screen credits are Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s The Deep End, opposite Tilda Swinton; in voiceover, Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha’s blockbuster Ice Age; John Dahl’s Rounders; Griffin Dunne’s Practical Magic; Lisa Krueger’s Committed; Rob Bowman’s Elektra; Mimi Leder’s The Peacemaker; Sandra Nettelbeck’s Helen, opposite Ashley Judd; and Nick Willing’s Close Your Eyes (a.k.a. Doctor Sleep), for which Mr. Visnjic was named Best Actor at the Paris Film Festival.
Mr. Visnjic will next be seen on-screen in David Fincher’s eagerly awaited The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
COSMO - Arthur
A Jack Russell terrier, Cosmo made his movie debut in the lead role of Friday in Thor Freudenthal’s hit comedy Hotel for Dogs, opposite Emma Roberts. He has subsequently appeared in Steve Carr’s smash Paul Blart: Mall Cop, with Kevin James; and starred in Beginners.
Cosmo will be 9 years old in 2011. He was rescued a few years ago by Beginners head animal trainer Mathilde de Cagny from a Southern California shelter, and resides with Ms. de Cagny and her family.
BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
Q&A WITH CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER “Hal’s story appealed to my imagination;”
Q: You have worked with scarcely a letup in films, television, and theater for decades. What was it about BEGINNERS that spoke to you, that made you want to be part of it?
Christopher Plummer: Well, first of all, it was something totally different; a character that I hadn’t played before.
Q: Although, you had played a gay man in [the 1980 telefilm] The Shadow Box.
CP: Yes, though it’s different for Hal [in BEGINNERS+; he’s known about it, but he’s kept it within himself. He’s kept it private.
I like portraying diverse people, and always have; I try to be as versatile as I can on the screen, and on stage. I thought, here’s a fascinating character – and what an absolutely enchanting take on his coming clean at that old age of his, in his 70s; not old to me, but, old to most people. I thought, what a funny, charming, and touching way of depicting his discoveries and his realizations.
Of course, when I spoke with the author and director, Michael, then I realized that it was a true story from his own family. At first that kind of threw me a little bit; I thought, oh-oh, he’s going to be so loyal to his father that I can do nothing but disappoint. But, as it turned out, he was fantastic about it; he said, “No, don’t try to imitate my father.” I said, “I can’t; I didn’t know him.” *laughs]
He was very broad-minded, and very free-thinking about his own Dad. He had adored him, but he wasn’t rigid about my being close to his character at all. So there was a great deal of freedom involved in the playing of Hal.
Q: How else did the writer/director gain your trust? Through his letter to you?
CP: I liked him enormously from the start. He’s witty, a cultured man and extremely well-mannered – in this day and age, a very rare quality. Michael is comforting and comfortable to work with, and I think he’s going to be a wonderful dramatic director. Maybe that letter did seal it but I think that it was the story and the way it was written…
…and the fact that Ewan McGregor was on board. I admire Ewan as one of the rare actors of our time who underplays – he is, on the screen – and I wanted to work with him. He’s a pro, and it was extremely easy working together.
Q: Did Hal’s story – and Mike Mills’ real-life father’s comparable story – remind you of friends or colleagues who’d had a similar life epiphany and came out?
CP: No. One knows so many gay people, but Hal’s story appealed to my imagination; I don’t think any of us have known a lot of people who do that. To suddenly break out with all that honesty is quite extraordinary, at that age.
Q: Was it liberating for you to play out his self-liberation?
CP: It was nothing but fun! It was a joy, because he was having such joy himself.
BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
Q: You’ve portrayed any number of real-life people over the years, and an even greater number of fictional characters. This character splits the difference – being based on, though not exactly being, Mike’s father – how did you split the difference between fealty and dramatic license?
CP: A couple of times, I asked Michael questions about his father just to see into how Hal might have reacted. But I didn’t have to do that much, because it was all in the script; it was right there on the page.
Q: What approach did you and Mike work out overall – did he encourage you to take a lot of leeway, including during filming?
CP: I come prepared with a performance. We seemed to hit it off, so we didn’t have to go into long discussions. It was a lovely process, the whole experience.
Based on the script, I knew how to play it. My process of work is, I wouldn’t want to turn up on a set without knowing how I’m going to play the whole piece. I have it orchestrated in my mind, and if the director doesn’t agree with some of it, then we thrash it out. I always bring my performance with me.
Q: What about preparing with Ewan – did you do anything on the order of cooking dinner together? Did he ask you for anything like that?
CP: No. [laughs+ No. I’ve been in the business for almost 70 years. That sort of thing would drive me out of the profession. Ewan doesn’t burden his fellow artists with his problems, and neither do I. There’s so little mystery left in the world anyway, and particularly in our profession – which is built on mystery…I just don’t go around boring people with how I prepare. It’s my business.
Q: One scene that is so affecting is the scene of Hal alone at the club. You’re not even relating to the other actors, because Hal isn’t; he has the trepidation of being there alone, as the oldest person there, yet he’s enjoying taking it all in for the first time.
CP: Oh, yes. It’s a terribly touching scene, and it was one of the scenes that made me want to play the part.
Q: Given that this was an independent film, did you bring your own outfits to the set?
CP: Yes, I did bring some of my own clothes that I thought might be suitable for Hal. The wardrobe people were wonderful; I know they weren’t working for much money. None of us were, but we all had the same love and faith in the project.
Q: The old adage of not working with animals or children didn’t apply on this movie. Cosmo, the Jack Russell terrier playing Arthur, is a real scene-stealer –
CP: I made sure that I stole the scene.
Q: You wrested it right back from him.
CP: Absolutely. [laughs] He was great.
Q: You are a longtime dog owner and champion of them. Have you and your wife ever owned a Jack Russell, and if not has Cosmo spurred you to consider one?
BEGINNERS – MIKE MILLS
CP: No, and no; they’re far too aggressive, feisty, and intelligent for me.
Q: Were you at the Toronto Film Festival for the world premiere of BEGINNERS?
CP: Yes, but I had to leave in the middle of it because I was playing Prospero in The Tempest up at Stratford [, Ontario, onstage], and I had to go back for a performance. But I’d seen the movie before.
Q: What do you feel that Mike has gotten across, emotionally and aesthetically, which will hopefully impact audiences seeing the movie?
CP: I don’t see how they cannot like the movie; it’s very human. I should think it’ll work very well with audiences.
Q: Did playing Hal inspire you to take any chances that you hadn’t previously?
CP: Oh, but I live my life like that anyway.
Q: Taking chances?
CP: I hope so. Yeah.