AUGUST 5 NEW SONGS10 YOU 2018 NEED TO HEAR BY TIFFANY BAKKER ORGET Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt, Kate McKinnon and Mila Kunis may just be the action heroes we need Fright now but didn’t know we deserved. “I think we should just be in every action film from now on,” yelps the energetic McKinnon, as Kunis cracks up — the pair laughs a lot — at a downtown New York hotel where they are promoting their PLUS new flick, The Spy Who Dumped Me. “I mean, Tom Cruise has got KEITH nothing on us. What can The Rock do that we can’t? URBAN “I think women should be the heroes in every action KEEPING movie.” True, McKinnon and Kunis YOUNG AT are an unexpected delight as HEART best mates caught up in an international espionage ring in The Spy Who Dumped Me, LADIES IN an action movie-meets- comedy-caper, which also BLACK stars Justin Theroux, Gillian ON SET FOR Anderson and Outlander favourite Sam Heughan. AN AUSSIE Saturday Night Live star McKinnon plays Morgan CLASSIC Freeman (yep, there’s a bad joke in there somewhere) an aspiring actor whose career is going so well the best she can hope for is a callback on a TV Why Mila Kunis and insurance ad gig, while Bad Moms star Kunis plays Audrey, Kate McKinnon are the a supermarket checkout operator who is utterly miserable after her often- action-comedy duo absent boyfriend, Drew (a perfectly smarmy Justin we need right now Theroux), dumps her via text. But as these things go, Power Drew is not your run-of-the- mill sleazeball, he’s actually a CIA secret agent sleazeball, and soon enough Audrey and Morgan find themselves hurtling from Vienna to Paris to Prague to Berlin, unwittingly caught up in the gigantic mess Drew has left behind. Throw in a ridiculously good-looking agent (Sam Heughan, surely COUPLE auditioning for James Bond here) who may or may not be on their side, a Russian assassin (Ivanna Sakhno) who seems to have taken a few cues from Killing Eve’s excellent Jodie Comer, and you have a movie that’s a bit like a sugar hit — great in the moment but leaves you feeling a tiny bit queasy later. / Continued Page 4 V1 - MHSE01Z01SU 2 HERALDSUN.COM.AU 4 SUNDAY, AUGUST 5, 2018 screenscene* FILM FEATURE HERALDSUN.COM.AU COVER STORY COUNTER MOVES Funny girls on a wild ride / From Page 1 ‘Oh, you think you’re funny’. “The comedic engine of the You don’t want the fake one.” thing is that it’s these two quite The two, who do have a normal, relatable people who genuinely easy chemistry on get sucked into this outlandish screen, had never crossed situation, so I just tried to paths before filming started. imagine what it would be like “No, we’d never met, but we if this happened to me, and I fell in love very quickly,” wouldn’t survive it,” grins recalls Kunis. “We didn’t have McKinnon. “I would to live in a weird campervan immediately out myself to with no electricity for it to everyone I spoke to, and I spark.” would break down crying in a Shooting in Europe had its bathroom somewhere.” challenges. “I wanted to “I’d survive it,” chimes in master the Hungarian Kunis, matter-of-factly. language, but it was a bridge “You definitely would,” too far,” cackles McKinnon. nods McKinnon. “I’d be dead Language, though, had in the first five minutes.” nothing on the persistent Cue more laughter. Outlander fans who infiltrated Stunts aside, The Spy Who the set. One morning, Kunis Dumped Me is at its best when was accosted by a Swedish fan McKinnon and Kunis are asking where Heughan was. simply riffing off each other. “She was like, I flew down Director Susanna Fogel here from Sweden and he was encouraged the pair to supposed to show up at our improvise; a diddle for the convention and he didn’t show sublime comedic talents of up,” remembers Kunis, raising McKinnon. “OK, I got to her eyebrows. “She was so throw a few things in there,” upset with me that Sam did LADIES’ CHOICES says McKinnon, sheepishly. not go to this convention. I “The script was perfect as it was like, ‘er, security’ …” VOLUPTUOUS Bringing a friend’s book to the screen has been a 20-year mission for Bruce Beresford, writes ANNETTE SHARP was but then you hire “Well, Jamie Fraser is a woman in a bathrobe somebody like Kate legend, let’s call a spade a and a headscarf, — “Model Gowns”. Strategically Miss Daisy, Mao’s Last Dancer, when you know your craft like McKinnon,” adds Kunis, “and spade,” continues McKinnon, worn 1950s style over placed fur stoles and wooden Puberty Blues, Breaker Morant he does. He’s a master.” you just let them be Kate a massive Outlander fan. an elaborate pinned- hat blocks dressed with and more than 30 other feature When the direction for McKinnon and then f--- the “God, Sam told me not to Aup hairstyle, stands alone impractical frothy brimless films, is watching a monitor with “action” finally comes, it comes script and see what happens.” watch it,” moans Kunis. “I’m outside the imposing Stage 6 sprays complete the scene along the movie’s director of not from Beresford but from As such, Kunis found going home to start watching building at Sydney’s Fox with a group of tidy ladies in photography, Peter James. first assistant director Charles herself wanting desperately to season one.” Studios. conservative black dresses. Having collaborated on 11 Rotherham, whose voice is a impress her co-star. And with that McKinnon “Are you lost?” asks the This is the ladies’ cocktail films together, the men don’t rich theatrical British boom. “I wanted her to think I was starts singing the Outlander woman, bringing a cigarette to frocks department of F.G. waste words and have, says one Beresford, 77, James, 71, and funny. Kate has these two very theme song as Kunis laughs. her lips, the moment of contact Goode’s, a fictional outlet that of the film’s producers, an Rotherham, who appears to be particular laughs — one that’s The door closes behind me, a perfect partnership of has “been serving the people of “unspoken language”. in his sixties, are the film’s “holy genuine and one that’s not as and Kunis is still laughing. matching cherry red lips and Sydney since 1895”. Beresford has been planning triptych”, explains Zitserman. genuine,” says Kunis. “I was so nails. It’s suddenly 1959 and this shoot since he optioned the The project is a highly happy that I got the genuine The Spy Who Dumped Me As I start to respond, I though it’s not possible, one can film rights to Madeleine St personal one for the director, so laugh because the other is like, opens Thursday recognise the woman. It’s almost detect the smell of John’s book, The Women In he’s taking no chances with it. British actor Julia Ormond. burning light filaments, floor Black, with producer, co-writer He has surrounded himself with My impromptu envoy directs wax, plastics and flowery and friend Sue Milliken — the best cast and crew, among SCENE Editor James Wigney Contact us (03) 9292 2589, [email protected] Advertising 1300 398 151 Our cover me inside to director Bruce perfume of the period. producer of three other them American editor Mark Beresford’s set for hisHERALDSUN.COM.AU new Actors Rachael Taylor, Beresford films — in 1994. Warner, who was nominated for movie, Ladies In Black. Alison McGirr and the film’s “Bruce is immaculate,” an Oscar for his work on The set is a duck-egg blue leading lady, 17-year-old Allanah Zitserman, the film’s Beresford’s 1989 hit, Driving suite of rooms filled with plastic ingenue Angourie Rice — three co-producer, tells me later. “He Miss Daisy. mannequins wearing vintage of the women referenced in the is meticulously planned. I’ve Beresford and novelist St gowns of lilac, burnished pink film’s title — stand patiently never seen anybody work like John met at Sydney University and dark blue taffeta. One wall awaiting instruction from the this. He walks in here, everyone in the late 1950s when St John’s is lined with racks of sensible film’s acclaimed director. knows what he wants. He story, about a middle-class PLEASE DOKATE MCKINNON (LEFT) AND MILA KUNIS IN THE mid-century shoes. To the right Ormond will soon join them. communicates it beautifully Australian girl who takes a SPY WHO DUMPED ME hangs a large sign making a Australian film legend across the crew, and he moves summer job at a department NOT TOUCH promise it could be hard to keep Beresford, director of Driving like a pro. That’s what happens store, is set. WEEKLYSCENEPAGES PLANNER HIGHLIGHTS PLENTY TO DO, SEE, WATCH & HEAR AROUND TOWN heraldsun.com.au/goingout AWAITING FORMATS SO THE PAGE CAN BE TEMPLATED THANKS. EXHIBITION ART CONCERT CHOIR OF DRINKING CENTRAL CONCERT MOJU JUJU MARKET CHELTENHAM OF SCIENCE HARD KNOCKS BEER DISTRICT Local singer Mojo Juju (above) is ROTARY UNDERCOVER Behold, a croissant (above). The This is for a fantastic cause. Everyone needs to blow off having a moment. Through the Some markets hibernate for the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute’s Conductor Jonathon Welch steam and a fine way to do that telling of her family history and winter. Not this one. Find plants, EVENT MELBOURNE GUITAR SHOW annual exhibition presents (above) will host two fundraiser is blowing the froth off brews her savage experiences, this jewellery, crystal, antiques, See the Triple M Finale Jam with Jack Jones, Brett Garsed, stunning images/videos by concerts: Street Requiem and from Brewmanity, Hop Nation, indigenous Australian Filipino clothes, tools, free-range eggs James Ryan, Shannon Bourne and Charlie Bedford (above left).