News and updates on the work of Scottish actors around the world.
The Toronto International Film Festival announced (via Awards Daily) part of its 2010 line-up this morning. Robert Redford's The Conspirator (starring James McAvoy) will have its world premiere at the festival's gala program and Mike Mills' Beginners (starring Ewan McGregor) will have its world premiere at the special presentation program. The 35th annual film festival runs from September 9 and September 19. The festival will announce more titles in the coming weeks and you can head on over to indieWIRE for the complete list from today's announcement. 
The Venice International Film Festival announced earlier today that Julie Taymor's adaptation of The Tempest (which stars Alan Cumming) will close the the festival on September 11. The Tempest is scheduled to open in December and the festival runs from September 1 to September 11.
The story centers around a reluctant hero who must face the dark parts of his past and choose between avenging his family’ murder or helping to free people who have long faced abuse. Bentley will star as the problem plagued hero while Szohr will play a cunning temptress with Ramsey cast as the heroine. Macfadyen will play a tribal leader and Sands will be the nemesis of the film. Mo-Sun will be producing and directing the film based upon a script he developed himself. [Daemon's Movies]
"Have I ever been the shy retiring type?" he ponders. "Never. Not since the day I was born," he replies, triumphantly. "When I came out of my mother the doctor had to slap me to get me to shut up. At school the teachers let me get away with murder because I was able to talk my way out of anything."
"The first day I set foot on Wisteria Lane I remembered when I was that little boy who'd moved from Glasgow at nine years old and was taken on a vacation to Universal Studios in California. I was driven around what would become Wisteria Lane, which was then the road where they filmed The Munsters and various Doris Day movies, all the same houses are still there. And so for me as an adult to stand on that street knowing that I was there as a boy, dreaming that one day I would be involved in this business, well that was a really weird sensation. [Tim Randall]
“Game of Thrones” is a new original HBO series based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling novels. In a world where summers span decades and winters can last a lifetime, the Westeros crown comes with a price. Betrayal, lust, intrigue and supernatural forces shake the four corners of the Kingdom, from the scheming south and the savage eastern lands, to the frozen north and the ancient Wall that protects the realm from the darkness beyond. Kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars and noble men vie for power in the bloody struggle for the Iron Throne.
There hasn't been too much news on The Last Word lately, but a brief article over at Deadline suggests that the film might have been renamed Perfect Sense. Director, David Mackenzie is reportedly still editing the film which stars Ewan McGregor as a chef. It's also listed under its new name over at IMDb, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the information is accurate. The project is a love story set in a city where people are slowly losing their sensory perception. No official release date has been announced. 
Holy crackers! Mrs F is pregnant. How did that happen? ...oh yeah I know how. Another Ferguson arrives in 2011. The world trembles.
Brian Cox will star alongside James Franco, Frieda Pinto, John Lithgow, and Andy Serkis in Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Apes - a reboot of Planet of the Apes. The film is an "origin story set in present day San Francisco, where man's own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy." Shooting will start sometime this year for a June 24, 2011 release date. 
"I didn't believe it was going to happen. My jet lag is why I didn't pay more attention. The show is such a nice group of people and other actors have already emailed me. The creators of the show have emailed me and my husband. You get a big outpouring of warm fuzziness all around you," says Cumming.
Better yet, Cumming starts off the second season of the show as a series regular. And he knows "absolutely nothing" about what's coming up on Wife. "We start shooting next week and we don't have the scripts yet. I would probably spill the beans very easily," he says. [Donna Freydkin]
SVU executive producer Neal Baer, a fan of Lost, tells me he cast Ian because he is "a sharp, smart leader and very charismatic."
Could Ian finally help Detective Benson (Mariska Hargitay) get over her long romantic dry spell? (Her last lover was Kurt Moss, played by Bill Pullman, way back in 2008!) "There might be some flirtation," Baer says. "Erik meets Olivia when he comes to someone's aid. And then we'll see how it goes. Olivia is devoted to her job and knows that comes first." [William Keck]
As such, some of the questions going into September 23 are:
* How have Meredith and Derek bounced back from her miscarrying the little life that was inside of her for so sadly short a time?
* Where do things stand between Cristina and Owen? Yang entered the Season 6 finale not knowing where her man stood, only to see him pronounce her “the woman I love” during a harrowing moment. Has Hunt been backing up his words with actions? Is Teddy once and for all surgically excised from the mix?
* Lexie, poor Lexie: Has she given Alex the hook, seeing as his thoughts were all about Izzie as his life hung in the balance in the finale? Do she and Mark – who impetuously popped the question the week before the gunman crisis – have any chance at a second chance?
* Will Izzie return to Seattle, only to reveal that she is now married to Dr. Preston Burke?
* Is Arizona truly at peace with the notion of her and Callie mothering “10 babies on a beach in Spain”?
* Where stands Bailey’s nascent romance with gasman Ben – if only since Jason George is now shooting the Shonda Rhimes-produced midseason series, ‘Off The Map’?
* Was Webber empowered by his bit of bravado, where he stared down the shooter? Did that defining moment solidify his seat “on the wagon”?
* Now that Jesse Williams and Sarah Drew have been promoted to series regulars, how will Jackson and April fit into the SGH tapestry? Are their respective crushes (Cristina, Derek) behind them… or might there be unfinished business? [Matt Webb Mitovich]
Why did you do the Percy Jackson film?
The director Chris Columbus sent me a letter saying: ‘I really see you as being part of this, I’m a fan of your stuff.’ In this business you’re so used to rejection it’s very flattering when someone says they want to work with you. I’ve also never done a family film before and I’ve got kids aged seven and nine so it was nice for them to be able to see something I’ve done.
What films did you like when you were a child?
Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Star Wars, ET especially. Something about that story broke my heart as a boy and really made me want to become an actor.
How’s Grey’s Anatomy going?
It’s still one of the top dramas in America and doesn’t show any signs of losing popularity. It’s nice to know your job isn’t going anywhere for a little while.
John will be a guest on This Morning on Thursday, July 15 on ITV1 in the UK. He will be on to promote the upcoming second season of Tonight's the Night. This Morning airs from 10:30am to 12:30pm. 
Two men - one in his twenties, the other nearer forty, both intensely focused on the task at hand - line the inside of a transit van with plastic. Shopping, they buy a drill, a mattress and other supplies. In a small flat they assemble a bed for the mattress and staple foam insulation and board to the walls and windows of a bedroom. Then, their meticulous preparations complete, they kidnap a young woman. They drag her from the street into the back of the van and, with a bag over her head and ball gag in her mouth, take her back to the flat, tying her to the bed in the room they have converted into a prison cell.
The kidnappers are Danny (Martin Compston) and Vic (Eddie Marsan), two ex-cons planning to make a mint on the ransom for the young woman. The younger, nervier of the two, Danny defers to the more experienced Vic, who acts with a steely conviction. Their hostage is Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton), daughter of a rich businessman, chosen by Vic and Danny as their passport to a better life. Terrified and immobile at first, it soon becomes clear that Alice isn't about to let her captors use her as capital without a fight. As determined to escape as Vic and Danny are to succeed, Alice enters into a battle of wills which strains the already fractious relationship between the two men. As the deadline for the exchange draws nearer, all three are brought close to breaking point, with Vic and Danny's foolproof plan descending into a desperate struggle for survival.
A taut, emotionally intense thriller, the debut feature from writer-director J. Blakeson eschews genre convention, generating tension from the sexual and psychological ties that bind captive to captors. [ComingSoon.net]
