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Q&A: Kristin Scott Thomas On Becoming A Glam Warrior for ‘Only God Forgives’

August 3, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Sitting at the Mandarin Oriental in Manhattan wearing an emerald green Lanvin frock, her stocking feet tucked under her, Kristin Scott Thomas is a little in shock about the previous interviewer’s question: what did “Only God Forgives” mean?

Viewers coming into the new film expecting “Drive 2” – the 2011 art-house smash that was the previous collaboration between Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn and Canadian matinee idol Ryan Gosling – are in for a shock. What they get instead is a bloody Bangkok-set revenge drama with an Asian martial arts kick.

Rarely have we seen this elegant actress go so far out on a limb. To play Crystal, the murderous mamma of Ryan Gosling’s Bangkok black marketer, the actress underwent a massive makeover: nail extensions, a brash blond wig and a brassy American accent.

As Crystal, Scott Thomas is the fire in the belly of the movie, a force of nature in an artificial world. And, Scott Thomas, 53, politely admits, that although she finds her film “extraordinarily beautiful to look at,” it’s also “very, very, very frightening and extremely disturbing.” She added, with a bit of her character’s directness, “I’ll tell you, when you leave the cinema, I don’t know if you’re meant to, but it makes you feel grubby.”

Was it fun stepping into Crystal, this mama tiger in tight pants?

KST: What was fun was the bluff of Kristin being transformed physically into that person.

How did you decide the walk, the hair, the costume?

KST: The walk is done because of the heels and the platforms, and the wooden shoes, and that kind of dink, dink, dink that they make. Here’s the backstory: I did a photo shoot about a year previous to meeting Nicolas where I was doing a variety of characters. One was a man, one was Amy Winehouse, and one was Donatella Versace.

For Versace, I had this long, blonde wig, and a short skirt, masses of jewelry, and nails out to here. Basically I looked like Crystal. They took me out on the street in Paris to photograph me, like fake paparazzi shots. And I was astounded by the reaction from people around me. Men, particularly, were incredibly, unbelievably aggressive.

Aggressive like…?

KST: They just wanted to possess me. One man tried to chat me up. I just brushed him off. Then he came back a second time and pulled me. We’re talking about a really nice Parisian street outside Yves Saint Laurent, and other men were shouting very dirty things at me. Women were cowering. Women were frightened and men got really aggressive. After 15 minutes, I couldn’t stand any more of it, I had to go in. And everyone else was killing themselves laughing, because it’s so funny.

Was it funny because it differed so radically from our image of Kristin Scott Thomas?

KST: It’s so not me. It was amusing to see all these people reacting to this huge, great disguise that I’m in. But I was also really shaken by them because it occurred to me that there are women in the world who do it on purpose to get that kind of reaction. And, in the morning, when you’re applying your fake eyelashes, or you’re having your nails done, or you’re getting your fake tan done, and you’re having your extensions put in, you know that that’s what you’re courting.

You’re courting that kind of power, aggressiveness, or whatever it is, whichever side you take. And that, to me, seemed, was, is totally alien. I’m the sort of person who wants to be admired, but elegant. I don’t want to be somebody who’s creating a fight.

Related: ‘Only God Forgives’ Premiere

You’re more Armani than Versace?

KST: It’s not even a question about clothing. It suddenly occurred to me that these women were dressing for battle, and there was some kind of power over men thing going on. Even though they appear to be objects of a sexual thing, actually they’re the ones calling the shots. And I thought that was a good way of getting into this character. I really didn’t know where to begin, especially when Crystal changed from English to American. Then I was totally flummoxed again.

Why did that change happen?

KST: It happened because the actor who was going to play the part of the younger son, Julian, pulled out to go do another project. Ryan Gosling stepped in, and Nicolas didn’t want Ryan to do an English accent. So I had to become American. I didn’t know how to get into that, because the things that I’d seen about these matriarch drug baronesses, whatever you call them, they tend to be Latin American. And I can’t do that. So I’ve got to go another way, so that way was this kind of blond glamorpuss.

The other part of the transformation is the way Crystal talks: she’s so blunt. In one scene, she’s dining with her younger son, played by Gosling, and she compares his most intimate body parts with that of his late brother.

KST: That scene was written much more subtly than that. And as the film progressed, we discovered that we’d got more and more down and dirty, and it just got coarser and coarser, and more and more visceral. I just suddenly thought I shouldn’t be sitting there hinting at things, I should just be saying them, because this isn’t a hinter, this woman. So we rewrote her dialog.

Related: Critic’s Pick: ‘Only God Forgives’

You set the tone early on, because Crystal makes a grand entrance to a posh Thai hotel and shreds the receptionist when that young woman says Crystal’s room isn’t ready.

KST: That was frightening to do, because I had to get that just right, because that was the first scene the viewer will see Crystal. It was also the first scene that we shot, because we shot in chronological order. I had to be just on it and it was the scariest scene to shoot. Usually, when you’re making a film, you kind of break into it, but no, this had to be absolutely on the dot from the beginning.

What was it like working with Ryan Gosling?

KST: When I started telling people about this movie, I didn’t know who Ryan Gosling was. I’d say there’s this guy called Ryan Gosling, he’s going to do it, and they’d go ‘Ryan Gosling,’ and they’d literally go white, and start trembling. All these women…it’s unbelievable.

I said, what, really, is he that famous? I don’t know who he was, and then of course I watched his work, and then I became a huge admirer of his work. But I still didn’t get the Ryan Gosling phenomenon. And it doesn’t seem like he does, either.

Ryan’s a totally wonderful actor, and he’s utterly invested and collaborative. But not in a kind of ass-y way, it’s just simple. He’s just there, and he’s doing his job.

And you shared deeply emotional, even sexual, scenes together.

KST: I don’t know whether they’re emotional. It’s kind of beyond emotion. We’re talking about something really raw and intense. It’s like lust, drive, impulses. There’s no heart in anything, no sentiment.

When my character goes and pleads with Julian, and says I love my son so much, it’s visceral. It’s all about her lust for revenge, and she’s prepared to spend the second child to get revenge for her firstborn. It’s totally senseless, and it’s the sort of thing that you wake up in a cold sweat about. You know, would my mother choose my sibling over me? It’s the thing of nightmares. This film is the thing of nightmares.

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV Tagged With: Drive, Interview, Kristin Scott Thomas, Nicolas W, Ryan Gosling, Yahoo! Movies

Yahoo! Exclusive: Albert Brooks in “Drive”

December 11, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Albert Brooks,Ryan Gosling,Carey Mulligan, Drive

Photo by FilmDistrict

 

Drive Star Albert Brooks Does a Bad, Bad Thing

Albert Brooks slays his way into becoming a best supporting actor contender for playing killer Bernie Rose in the gritty indie “Drive,” directed by Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn. Over the phone, we had a serious talk about the comedy of anger.

Thelma Adams: So, Albert, when did you put it in “Drive”?

Albert Brooks: I got a call that this Nicolas was in town for three days. They sent me the script, saying “Albert’s looking for an interesting bad guy and he should read this.” I knew Ryan Gosling was on board, and I had seen “Bronson” and I really liked it, and we did this weird little dance. “Why do you think you should do it?” he asked. I said, “You can use the same six people everyone uses. Then, everybody knows what’s going to happen. It’s always nice in the first 10 minutes when you don’t know what the character is going to do.” Read on at Yahoo! Movies “The Reel Breakdown.”

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Albert Brooks, Best Supporting Actor, Drive, Oscar 2011

Oscars 2012: Best Supporting Actor First Look

September 30, 2011 By Thelma 7 Comments

Albert Brooks,Drive,Best Supporting Actor,Oscars 2012,Carey Mulligan,Ryan Gosling

Brooks slays

This is a field that remains WIDE OPEN. I’ll toss out five of the usual suspects and then I’m going to dig around for some more names to bring them into the race. The oddball, the esoteric, the sexy: he’s the man outside the mold.

  1. Christopher Plummer, Beginners
  2. Albert Brooks, Drive
  3. Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method
  4. Nick Nolte, Warrior
  5. David Thewlis, Warhorse

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Albert Brooks, Best Supporting Actor, Christopher Plummer, Drive, Nick Nolte, Oscars 2012, Viggo Mortensen

The Hairy Eyeball: Make-under mistakes

September 21, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Machine Gun Preacher,Michelle Monaghan,Gerard Butler,Oscar 2012

Breck Girl Monaghan as born-again backwoods ex-stripper

Just saw Machine Gun Preacher last night. Make-under alert! Michelle Monaghan does not have 1990’s biker-chick, ex-stripper, found God, living in rural Penn hair. Those streaks! That shine!

I worried. Was this constant finding fault with beautiful hair in actresses in gritty roles becoming my personal obsession? Did I expect every one to resemble Charlize Theron in Monster?

And then I saw that Allure writer Kate Sullivan had picked up my prob with Carey Mulligan’s hair in Drive and spun it into a beauty blog where she asks: Has Great Hair Ever Taken You out of a Movie? Definitely!

Drive, Ryan Gosling,Albert Brooks,Carey Mulligan

Mulligan, $500 haircut

 

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV Tagged With: Allure, Carey Mulligan, Charlize Theron, Drive, Entertainment, Kate Sullivan, Machine Gun Preacher, Michelle Monaghan, Monster, Movie Beauty, Movies

Drive, she said

September 19, 2011 By Thelma 1 Comment

Drive, Ryan Gosling,Albert Brooks,Carey Mulligan

Mulligan, $500 haircut

I’m all about the Gosling. I loved the first ten minutes of Drive, which made $11M at the box office this weekend for its brand of arthouse adrenaline. Cool. Steve McQueen. Silent with speed. A stoic stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway man. Hard as nails, soft as Velveeta. I get it. And I wanted to love it.

And then enter Carey Mulligan as Irene, exsqueeze me, a Denny’s waitress with a kid. And a husband in prison. Living in a squat downtown motel suitable for Charles Bukowski. No offense to Mulligan, but she’s so miscast –so dewy not dingy. It’s a reflection of the filmmakers’ enormous blind spot that they think no one will notice, or care.

Irene’s blond highlights and bob alone would cost $500. And what’s she doing with that thug Standard (Oscar Isaac) for a husband? He’s in prison and runs with a gang. She says they met at a party, and I had to wonder where was the party? Oxbridge? When Gosling’s Driver takes her and her kid for a spin on the L.A. River, she reacts with a level of joy that borders on the autistic spectrum, as if she’s an alien experiencing her first day in a human body.

Perhaps it only goes back to what the actress Patricia Arquette said to me before her career revival on Medium: men cast women on the basis of fuckability. Mulligan is new meat.

At least that’s an explanation. Because, for me, once Mulligan as swoony love object appears on the scene, the toughster movie deflates like a flat tire. She’s the elephant in the room, Dumbo’s mom goes slumming.

At least, in Drive, with Albert Brooks playing against type as a Hollywood producer turned murderous mobster, the inversion works. Nemo’s Dad always had a dark, moody, anti-social side that makes Brooks’ sudden violence seem cartoony but vaguely plausible.

Mulligan has no such plausibility. She’s perfectly cast for The Great Gatsby remake, but here she comes across as Driving Miss Daisy Buchanan.

 

 

Filed Under: Criticism, Essay, Movies & TV Tagged With: Albert Brooks, Carey Mulligan, Drive, Oscar Isaac, Patricia Arquette, Ryan Gosling, The Great Gatsby

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