Albert Nobbs Albert Nobbs, ALBERT NOBBS, RODRIGO GARCIA, Golden Globe Award, role, characters, film credits, John Banville, John Boorman, Julie Lynn, starring role, television, Simone Benmussa, Brendan Gleeson, Radha Mitchell, Harry Potter, Aaron Johnson, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, George Roy Hill, Kerry Washington, Margarethe Cammermeyer, Mia Wasikowska, Joe Layton, Directors' Fortnight, Neil Jordan, BBC comedy series, Florida Film Festival, European Film Academy, award nomination, Arlene Kelly, Sweet Emma Dear Bobe, Dublin Theatre Festival, television drama, Michael Cristofer, Franco Zeffirelli, Harvey Goldsmith, Winner Locarno Film Festival, Harold Prince, Irish actor, Fountain House, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Richard Pearce, Norma Desmond, Merchant Ivory, Stephen Frears, Jack Hofsiss, Stephen Herek, Royal National Theatre, Tony Awards, Richard Marquand, Fatal Attraction, Feature Film Commission, Christopher Walken, Barbet Schroeder, Joe, MAIN characters, National Association of Theatre Owners, Andrei Konchalovsky, International Mental Health Research Organization, Monica Rawling, Glenn Jordan, Rose Troche, Panthera Conservation Advisory Committee, Julian Morris, Danny Boyle, JOE Aaron Johnson, British independent film, Kristen Scott Thomas, Golden Globe nomination, Simon Wincer, Colin Farrell, RODRIGO GARCIA GABRIELLA PREKOP JOHN BANVILLE GLENN CLOSE, GLENN CLOSE, Bonnie Curtis, John Travolta, Golden Globe, Michael Vartan, John Lennon, Rhys Meyers, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, London Film Critics, London Film Critics Circle Awards, Elvis Presley, Belle Du Seigneur, London Film Critics Circle Award, RODRIGO GARCIA Rhys Meyers, YARRELL HOLLORAN CATHLEEN EMMY MARY GLENN CLOSE, INTERNATIONAL FILMFESTIVAL, Jane Campion, Maria Novaro, Antonia, John Mahoney, GLASTONBURY Festival, Abbie Cornish, feature film, Kelly & Victor, John Prine, Fanny Brawne, Doctor Copernicus, Irish Film and Television Awards, Irish Film and Television Academy, RODRIGO GARCIA ANTONIA CAMPBELL HUGHES, Tribeca Film Festival, Screen International, John Keats, Hungarian Television, National Film and Television School, Cannes Film Festival, television credits, 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, Heinrich von Kleist Game level design, BIOGRAPHY CLIPPINGS FILE, Six months in a leaky boat: the biosecurity of New Zealand forests, ORIENTALISM AND WESTERN FANS: A LOOK AT FANDOM SURROUNDING, Research Innovator, Preservice teachers' expectations about the first year of teaching, Silence in the classroom: Learning to talk about issues of race, Textbook of pathology, Accounting and the reproduction of race relations in Fiji: A discourse on race and accounting in colonial context ALBERT NOBBS EEN FILM VAN RODRIGO GARCIA WILD BUNCH HAARLEMMERDIJK 159 - 1013 KH – AMSTERDAM WWW.WILDBUNCH.NL [email protected] WILDBUNCHblx ALBERT NOBBS – RODRIGO GARCIA PROJECT SUMMARY EEN PRODUCTIE VAN CHRYSALIS FILMS, MOCKINGBIRD PICTURES, PARALLEL FILM PRODUCTIONS EN WESTEND FILMS LENGTE 114 MINUTEN GENRE DRAMA LAND VAN HERKOMST ENGELAND, IERLAND TAAL ENGELS FILMMAKER RODRIGO GARCIA RELEASEDATUM 8 MAART 2012 FESTIVALS / AWARDS INTERNATIONAL FILMFESTIVAL TORONTO – OFFICIËLE SELECTIE INTERNATIONAL FILMFESTIVAL TOKYO – WINNAAR BESTE ACTRICE INTERNATIONAL FILMFESTIVAL SAN SEBASTIAN – OFFICIËLE SELECTIE GENOMINEERD VOOR DRIE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS: *BESTE ACTRICE (GLENN CLOSE) *BESTE VROUWELIJKE BIJROL (MIA WASIKOWSKA) *BESTE SONG WEBSITE WWW.ALBERTNOBBS-THEMOVIE.COM KIJKWIJZER SYNOPSIS Ierland, 19de eeuw. Albert is een verlegen butler die al jaren met een geheim rondloopt. ‘Hij’ is eigenlijk een vrouw die als een man door het leven gaat om zo aan armoede en eenzaamheid te ontkomen. Alleen door iedereen te bedriegen kan Albert onafhankelijk en vrij zijn. Ze houdt hoop om ooit een normaal leven te kunnen leiden, maar voor nu is ze: Albert Nobbs. CAST ALBERT NOBBS GLENN CLOSE HELEN MIA WASIKOWSKA JOE AARON JOHNSON HUBERT JANET MCTEER MRS. BAKER PAULINE COLLINS POLLY BRENDA FRICKER VISCOUNT YARRELL JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS HOLLORAN BRENDAN GLEESON CATHLEEN BRONAGH GALLAGHER EMMY ANTONIA CAMPBELL HUGHES MARY MARIA DOYLE KENNEDY CREW DIRECTED BY RODRIGO GARCIA SCREENPLAY GABRIELLA PREKOP JOHN BANVILLE GLENN CLOSE PRODUCER BONNIE CURTIS JULIE LYNN ALAN MOLONEY ALBERT NOBBS – RODRIGO GARCIA PRODUCTION DESIGNER PATRICIZIA VON BRANDENSTEIN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY MICHAEL MCDONOUGH COSTUME PIERRE-YVES GAYRAUD MAKE-UP MATTHEW MUNGLE LYNN JOHNSTON EDITOR STEVEN WEISBERG CASTING AMY HUBBARD CASTING DIRECTOR PRISCILLA JOHN MUSIC BRYAN BYRNE ALBERT NOBBS – RODRIGO GARCIA PRODUCTION NOTES GLENN CLOSE’S CONNECTION to the character of Albert Nobbs stretches back almost three decades to her 1982 performance in Simone Benmussa’s theatrical interpretation of the short story, Albert Nobbs, by nineteenth century Irish author George Moore. ‘I think that Albert is one of the truly great characters, and the story, for all the basic simplicity, has this strange emotional power,’ begins Close, whose turn in the Off-Broadway production prompted rave reviews and scooped the actress an Obie Award. Even as Close’s career skyrocketed the character remained with her. ‘There’s something very deeply affecting about the life that Albert’s lived,’ the actress continues. ‘I felt like that from the very start with this character. I became very busy in my career but the story was always something that I believed would make a wonderful movie.’ Close has worked continuously on story ideas across the intervening years, developing a passionate attachment to the character of Nobbs; a woman living in nineteenth century Dublin whose bid to survive penury prompts her to disguise herself as a man. She secures a precious job at a reputable city hotel, Morrison’s. ‘Albert doesn’t want to end up in the poorhouse,’ explains Close. ‘At this time Ireland was extremely poor and around the corner from the hotel is abject poverty. She knows that without this job that’s where she could end up. And she knows people could get fired any day. There is a sense of fear among all the hotel workers.’ When the audience meets Albert, the character has played her role as a male servant in Morrison’s Hotel for so long that she has lost her own, true identity. ‘She wasn’t even told what her name was,’ Close says. ‘She’s an illegitimate child, raised by a woman who was paid to raise her and who never revealed her real name. I figured the woman was paid not to tell. The parents didn’t want to be bothered by this child ever again. So Albert starts off with a lack of identity and embeds herself in this hotel when she’s 14 years old. Hence she has no life tools; she’s lived in a hotel all of her life.’ The play in which Close starred in the early 1980s is based on the short story by George Moore although Benmussa’s version was very sparse, with parts of the story told via mime. Close, however, knew that the tale’s poignancy, tragedy and humour, the latter realised by a wonderful collection of characters that gather around the central location of Morrison’s Hotel, would fuel a film adaptation. ‘The initial play I did was very minimalist,’ concedes the actress. ‘The power of the story is like a simple glass of water,’ she continues. ‘Light reflects in a glass of water and it is actually a very complex thing. The story is quite simple but it touches on issues that are so powerful that everybody brings their own life and their own baggage to the story, and then takes away something, too. I am hoping it will be universally appealing. Hopefully other people will agree.’ CERTAINLY PRODUCERS Bonnie Curtis and Julie Lynn agreed, with Curtis responding to Close’s passion for, and knowledge of, the character and the story. ‘One of the elements that interested me as a producer was Glenn’s hands-on, nightly experience in the theatre with the story,’ Curtis explains. ‘Making this movie with Glenn made a lot of business sense to me.’ ALBERT NOBBS – RODRIGO GARCIA Curtis met Close on the 2005 comic drama The Chumbscrubber. ‘It was day two of her time on set,’ recalls Curtis, ‘and Glenn walked up to me, gave me a script, and said, “I must play this part on the big screen before I die.” She was looking me right in the eye and I said we should do it right there and then.’ Curtis laughs, ‘She suggested I might want to read it first.’ The producer read the script that very night, ‘and it got inside me in ways I didn’t even understand,’ she says, ‘and I knew it would be right. When someone like Glenn says that they must play a part before they die, you figure it’s a good character and script. Albert has that struggle for identity and purpose and yet she hasn’t been equipped with the tools to get there. I think that it is a really universal life experience.’ Fellow producer Julie Lynn concurs. ‘The story is about a woman who is naïve, and is in her own bubble of loneliness because she’s lived with her face hidden from the outside world for decades, as a means of survival and self-protection. When we first meet her, she has been separated emotionally from the rest of the world.’ With the character and story resonating across the years, Close has sought out the best people to help her realise her vision for a big-screen adaptation. At the turn of the 1990s, when she was shooting Meeting Venus with Hungarian director Istvan Szabo, Close handed him the story and received in return her very first treatment. By 2001 the actress, turned writer and producer, had a draft with which she was satisfied, and arrived in Ireland to scout locations. Among the buildings she found was Cabinteely House in southeast Dublin. Now, ten years on, the house is finally transformed into Morrison’s Hotel. Irish producer Alan Moloney explains, ‘Glenn suggested the main location. She had come here ten years ago and it’s a wonderful choice. We also shot at Portmarnock Beach, Dublin city centre, but most of the piece unfolds in Morrison’s. It really helps when Glenn Close is also your location scout!’ FROM HER FIRST scouting trip in 2001 through the start of production in 2011, Close refined and honed the script — most recently with input from acclaimed Irish writer John Banville who was introduced to her by friend and filmmaker Stephen Frears.