Peter Mullan has joked he will "redefine" singing in his new film Sunshine On Leith.
The Scottish star will belt out some Proclaimers songs as he takes
the lead role in Dexter Fletcher's big-screen musical adaptation,
featuring Proclaimers hits including I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), I'm On My
Way and Letter From America.
"I'm going to redefine singing as you know it. My voice is so different - you'll never hear a singer quite like it," he said.
Read more at Belfast Telegraph (includes photo above)
Peter Mullan interview - 'Welcome To the Punch' UK premiere
Gritty actor Peter Mullan will belt out a string of Proclaimers hits in his latest movie role.
The Scots star shows his musical talent in Sunshine on Leith, which features classic tracks like I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).
And director Dexter Fletcher insists audiences are in for a treat. He
revealed: “Peter Mullan sings very well. People will be surprised.
“The man’s a great actor but he’s also a great singer.”
Jane Horrocks also stars in the film — dubbed Scotland’s answer to Mamma Mia — about two soldiers returning from Afghanistan.
TOP OF THE LAKE premières on March 18 at 9pm
All New 7-Part Original Series
Peter Mullan has worked
extensively in both film and television as an actor, director and
writer. He started directing films at age 19 before moving into acting,
making his theatre début in 1988 before moving to film and television.
His film credits include War Horse, Tyrannosaur, Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows, Neds, Children of Men, The Last Legion, Criminal, Young
Adam, Session 9, The Claim, Ordinary Decent Criminal, Miss Julie, My
Name is Joe, Trainspotting and Braveheart.
He recently completed filming in New Zealand for the Jane Campion
directed television series Top of the Lake. His other television work
includes The Fixer, Boy A, Shoe Box Zoo, Entering Blue Zone, Ruffian
Hearts and Rab C Nesbitt.
Throughout his career Peter has received numerous awards and
nominations. In 2011 he won a Sundance World Cinema Special Jury Prize
for his role in Tyrannosaur, the role also earned him a nomination for
Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards, 2011 also saw him
receive a nomination for Best British Actor at the London Critics
Awards. For his part of Mr Mcgill in Neds, he was awarded the World
Cinema Special Jury Prize for breakout performance. His brilliant
portrayal of an unemployed former alcoholic in My Name is Joe, earned
him the award for Best Actor at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, as well
as best actor at the Valladolid International Film Festival.
Peters is also a award winning writer and director, his films include
Orphans and The Magdalene Sisters, which won the European Union Media
Prize, the ALFS award for Best British Director and the Golden Lion at
the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for, amongst others, a Cesar
award, the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the BAFTAs,
the Best Screenplay BAFTA.
Top of the Lake
Jane Campion’s alternative TV miniseries heads to Sundance
The main event at January’s Sundance Film Festival may turn out not to be a movie at all, but Jane Campion’s six-part miniseries, “Top of the Lake.” Starring Elisabeth Moss and the Scottish actor Peter Mullan,
the layered drama will screen just once in Park City, on Sunday,
January 20, prior to airing on the Sundance Channel, which co-produced
it with the BBC.
Working on separate episodes, Campion shared the directing duties with Garth Davis. The series, co-written by Campion and Gerard Lee,
has been blurbed as follows: “’Top of the Lake’ is a powerful and
haunting mystery about the search for happiness in a paradise where
honest work is hard to find. Set in the remote mountains of New Zealand,
the story follows the disappearance of a twelve-year-old, five-months
pregnant, who was last seen standing chest deep in a frozen lake.
“Robin Griffin [Moss] is a gutsy but inexperienced detective called
in to investigate [the girl’s] case. During the investigation, she
collides with Matt Mitcham [Mullan], the missing girl’s father and local
drug lord. Robin will find this the case that tests her limits and
sends her on a journey of self-discovery.”
Holly Hunter (Campion’s “The Piano”), David Wenham (“The Lord of the Rings”) co-star. Lucy Lawless (“Xena,” “Spartacus”) appears in the first episode. It was photographed by Adam Arkapaw (the upcoming “Lore”).
What sounds on the surface a less perverse “Twin Peaks,” or a
mystical “CSI,” is likely to require trenchant feminist analysis given
the involvement of Campion, director of “An Angel at My Table,” “The
Portrait of a Lady,” and “In the Cut,” as well as “The Piano.”
During an onstage interview at the Cannes TV market Mipcom in
October, the Australian auteur noted that the series is thematically
interested in “post-menopausal” over-40 women. As the Hollywood Reporter
recorded it, “they are a ‘fascinating’ subset that no one is typically
interested in dwelling on, she explained. The women are a self-contained
counterpoint to the patriarchal structure surrounding them, and Holly
Hunter is the central figure in their encampment.”
“We’re trying to go against the police procedural aesthetic,”
co-writer Lee added. Campion said she was inspired to choose the
long-form TV format after watching “Deadwood,” “Mad Men” (in which Moss
plays Peggy Olson), and “The Killing.” She and Lee “determined there was
‘more freedom’ and ‘fewer restraints’ imposed upon creators nowadays in
TV than in film.” The chorus agreeing with her on this — and television
drama’s current supremacy over film drama — has grown exponentially in
2012.
Source: Blouin Artinfo
Gabriel Tate watches Peter Mullan lose his mind in Brighton in a new Channel 4 drama
★ ★ ★ ★
‘Empathy? Yes. Sympathy? Couldn’t give a
fuck.’
Peter Mullan’s disinclination to curry favour on behalf of the
people he portrays has paid rich dividends in a career studded with
troubled, troubling character roles, from ‘My Name is Joe’ to ‘Red
Riding’. Which is just as well in the case of four-part drama ‘The
Fear’, in which Mullan takes on self-professed ‘evil bastard’ Richie
Beckett. A Brighton gangster gone straight over a decade ago, Richie is
cultivating respectability by fronting the latest redevelopment bid for
the city’s derelict West Pier. But this fresh start comes under siege
from three directions: drug-dealing, people-traficking Albanians moving
in on his hard-won turf; his bickering sons, coke-addled liability Cal
(Paul Nicholls) and level-headed pragmatist Matty (Harry Lloyd); and –
the most inexorable threat of all – the aggressive onset of Alzheimer’s.
As a noirish thriller, ‘The Fear’ delivers.
There’s mystery: why the opening flashforward to a beachfront attempt on
a befuddled Richie’s life? And violence: lots of it, both physical and
emotional. And a truly seedy environment which wrenches the sordid side
of Brighton from the clutches of Graham Greene and casts it towards
Dante. This is hell-on-sea – even a unicyclist gets a kicking – and it’s
made all the worse by viewing it through the eyes of a man slowly
losing his sense of self. Indeed, it’s Mullan’s electrifying performance
that really makes it work as a character piece.
‘Richie’s a nasty son of a bitch who has made
a living out of people’s poverty and addictions,’ says Mullan. ‘What
intrigued us was bringing together a highly unsympathetic character with
a disease that… well, obviously one does feel for the sufferers.’ As a
scrapper, Richie’s instinctive response to his depening confusion is to
lash out – but his internal conflicts are no less striking.
Michael Samuels’s direction makes the most of
this, subjecting Mullan to some pretty unforgiving close-ups
throughout. If an actor could be Bafta-nominated for his eyes alone,
Mullan would be booking his seat for the ceremony next year. And his
brand of seething restraint (albeit punctuated by explosive violence)
brings similarly cagey and impressive performances from Nicholls, Lloyd
and a man usually more prone to arch over-elaboration, Richard E Grant
(as a face from Richie’s past). Like the city in which it’s set, ‘The
Fear’ is a drama with plenty of front. But it’s the action behind the
scenes that could make this unmissable.
‘'The Fear' airs nightly from Monday December 3 to Thursday December 6, 10pm, Channel 4.
Cross My Mind casting update on IMDB
Cross My Mind
(2014)
Drama -
2014 (Germany)
Not yet released
An intense and erotic love is born out of loneliness and secret passion.
The woman is married. The young soldier is starting to recover. She is
not who he thinks she is. A film about the urgency of deceit and desire;
seeing and not seeing.
Storyline
It explores the lives of three lonely and damaged people, and the
lies each tell themselves and others in order to escape into a more
exciting and erotic world. This is also a film about the urgency of
deceit and desire in the midst of illicit love, set among the bleak and
haunting remnants of Glasgow's docks.
Director: Antonia Bird
Writers:Naomi Wallace,
Bruce McLeod
Stars:Kevin McKidd, Olivia Williams and Peter Mullan
The Joy of Six
A mixed selection of short films, featuring Judi Dench, Peter Mullan and direction from Romola Garai
Read a review by The List here
Swedish Sunset Song production
A new film based on one of Scotland’s classic novels will soon be in production – in Sweden. An adaptation of Sunset Song, the book by Mearns novelist Lewis Grassic Gibbon, will be filmed next year. Stars will include Peter Mullan, Agyness Deyn and Stuart Martin. Location scenes will be shot in the Mearns but most of the technical work on the movie will be done in Sweden.
Read more at Kincardineshire Observer
Another trailer for 'The Fear'
Channel 4's new 4-part drama series The Fear, starring Peter Mullan as a Brighton crime boss turned entrepreneur. A promising chronicle of the the disintegration of a criminal mind... Don't miss The FearPremière on Monday, December 3rd | 10pm | on Channel 4
Source:YouTube
PETER MULLAN: PLAYING RICHIE BECKETT
Glaswegian actor and director Peter Mullan is
known for his hard man roles in shows such as Red Riding and The Fixer.
However there was a much more personal reason for taking on his latest
gangster persona for Channel 4’s The Fear.
He says: “What grabbed me about it was that someone
with a very dark past and a very shady present should have to come to
terms with a disease that has claimed the lives of millions and caused
so many families to suffer.
“I
have lost a lot of my family to Alzheimer’s. Ritchie is a guy who quite
rightly you should not, nor ever should, sympathise with but who will
nevertheless demand a certain degree of empathy from the audience. To
understand that even bad people get diseases.
“As
far as I’m concerned he’s been a pretty bad boy to say the least. Based
on his previous actions, you would be more than justified in saying
he’s not a pleasant human being. So now he’s been diagnosed, his false
persona unravels and you get to see who he is and what is at the heart
of him.”
A word of warning.
This drama is not for everyone, with violence, gore and bad language.
If you don’t flinch from any of those, The Fear is a thought-provoking
idea that none of us is immune to Alzheimer’s, not even hard-men
gangsters. The challenge for actor Peter Mullan has been to make his
character sympathetic. Or has it?
One of our best character actors, Mullan is far from bothered about whether we like Richie Beckett or not.
He
says: “I don’t like the way some actors, when playing a nasty
character, will try to grab hold of something good about them. With
Richie there is nothing. Nothing at all redeeming.
“I
don’t think you would pity him. He’s just too unpleasant to pity. But
yeah, there are certain moments when I guess you may not dislike him as
much.
“I mean, you’re
looking at a guy who has been running a drug empire for years, he has
killed people to get to where he is and he wouldn’t think twice, in the
past, about the number of lives he has destroyed through the so-called
illegal product that he sells. No, I hope the audience wouldn’t pity him
because that would lead to sympathy and let him off the hook.”
In the four-part drama stripped across the week,
Mullan plays crime boss turned “entrepreneur” Richie, trying to fight
off both an attack on his commercial interests and a mind that seems to
be disintegrating.
Unbeknown
to him, he has a very aggressive form of Alzheimer’s. As Beckett’s dark
past becomes apparent, unresolved traumas echo the medical chaos that
engulfs him. Says Mullan: “Well, Richie sees himself as a businessman,
so called, but he is a gangster in reality, which I suppose some
businessmen are, at least in my book anyway!
“He’s
recently realised that his behaviour is quite aberrant and through the
course of the series he discovers he has Alzheimer’s, which takes hold
in a concentrated period of time. It’s extreme.”
“Aberrant”
is not the word. In the first five minutes, he vents his anger on a
passing cyclist. Mullan shares some of his character’s feelings towards
the pedaling fraternity: “I have to say I really don’t like Brighton
[where it’s set] cyclists. They cycle too worthily.”
His
character though has more of a problem with foreign upstarts. “There is
a group of gangsters,” he says, “who have come over from Albania to try
to take over his patch.
“His
family have, on the one hand, to cope with his increasingly erratic
behaviour, but also disguise it at the same time because they don’t want
it known to the wider gangster community that he’s no longer in charge
of his faculties.”
All of
this troubling behaviour puts pressure on his relationship with his wife
and two sons. Says Mullan: “He becomes more aggressive, more emotional
and in a weird way, paradoxically, more open, more vulnerable than he’s
ever been before.
“So in
some respects it brings the family closer together but obviously in
other respects it rips them apart because his nature is to fight things.
“Instead of coping and
finding the support he needs to get through these things, his behaviour
becomes more and more violent and unpredictable. That obviously pushes
the family away.
Story:Richie Beckett, former gang boss turned respected
Brighton businessman, pledges money to help rebuild a pier. But Richie's
mind is in turmoil and the empire he runs with his sons is endangered
by a vicious Albanian gang.
Tony Soprano famously suffered panic attacks and had to see a shrink. In C4’s new hard-knuckle crime drama The Fear we have another gang boss whose mind is under assault.
But Richie Beckett’s turmoil is more serious and urgent, because just
when his Brighton-based empire is under siege from a gang of Albanian
psychos, Richie is starting to lose his identity.
He is suffering from some form of dementia or Alzheimer’s. This would be
alarming enough in the new role he has taken on as respectable local
businessman, but when his family and interests are suddenly under threat
from the vicious newcomers in town, this is calamitous.
Richie with sons Cal and Matty
Grisly killing Peter Mullan
is excellent as the fearsome family head, veering alarmingly between
menace and bewilderment. Harry Lloyd and Paul Nicholls are his sons,
Matty and Cal, who, along with their mother (Anastasia Hille) think
their father is on the booze again.
Cal, the eldest and a creep who revels in his dad’s notoriety, wants to
broker some deal with the family of Vajkal, the Albanian guvnor. But the
Albanians implicate him in the grisly murder of a prostitute he has
used, keeping her beheaded corpse as evidence to incriminate Cal if the
Becketts don’t fall into line.
Richie is therefore dragged into a meeting at the Albanians’ farmhouse
retreat. Irritable, sleepless, forgetful – Richie can’t even remember
battering a young man on the front in broad daylight – his presence at
the farmhouse is as sensible as juggling gelignite.
Cal (Paul Nicholls)
Peter Mullan is terrific as a gangster in decline The Fear is being shown over four consecutive nights and is a
bruising but riveting portrait of a criminal in decline, haunted by his
past and out of touch with the present. And it's a story with emotion,
as in the scene where Richie enters his wife's bedroom and asks if he
can lie with her. Amid his confusion and increasing aggression, he seeks
some feeling of closeness with his estranged wife.
Brighton is evocatively photographed as a lurid but at the same time
genteel backdrop, regency buildings juxtaposed with drag entertainers
and night-time revellers.
Writer Richard Cottan has created a rich thriller, though having
Richie’s wife buying a couple of paintings called Confusion 1 & 2
was not the most ingenious bit of symbolism.
Still, the opener sets up a drama full of tension and dread, setting in
motion what can only be a fearsome, tragic train of events.
Cast: Peter MullanRichie Bennett
Anastasia Hille Jo Beckett
Harry Lloyd Matty Beckett
Paul Nicholls Cal Beckett
Demosthenes Chrysan Vajkal
Dragos Bucur Marin
Shaban Arifi Davit
Julia Ragnarsson Zana
Danny Sapani Wes
Source (including photos): Crime Time Preview
Peter Mullan discussed 'The Fear'
In Channel 4's new
four-part drama series The Fear, Peter Mullan stars as crime boss turned
entrepreneur Richie Beckett, trying to fight off both an attack on his
commercial interests and a mind that seems to be disintegrating.
Unbeknown to him, he has a very aggressive form of Alzheimer's. As
Richie's dark past bleeds into the present, unresolved traumas that echo
the chaos threaten to engulf him.
Here, Mullan reveals a little more about the drama. Tell us about Richie...
Well, Richie sees himself as a business man, so
called, but he is a gangster in reality, which I suppose some business
men are, at least in my book anyway.
He's recently realised that his behaviour is quite
aberrant and through the course of the series he discovers he has
Alzheimer's - a very aggressive form of it which takes hold in a
concentrated period of time. It's extreme.
In the meantime, there is another group of gangsters
who have come over from Albania to try and take over his patch. And his
family have to, on the one hand cope with his increasingly erratic
behaviour, but also disguise it at the same time because they don't want
it known to the wider gangster community that he's no longer in charge
of his faculties.
Describe the effects on his relationship with his wife and sons?
He becomes more aggressive, more emotional and in a
weird way, paradoxically, more open, more vulnerable than he's ever been
before. And so in some respects it brings the family closer together -
but obviously in other respects it rips them apart because his nature
is to fight things. So he's fighting - in this case - the unfightable.
So instead of coping and finding the support he needs to get through
these things, his behaviour becomes more and more violent and
unpredictable. That obviously pushes the family away.
How does The Fear differ from other gangster dramas?
The thing that attracted me to it was the combination
of the two aspects - a gangster with Alzheimer's is interesting, to me.
A gangster TV series, I'm not interested in.
What grabbed me about it was that someone with a very
dark past and a very shady present should have to come to terms with a
disease that has claimed the lives of millions and caused so many
families to suffer. I have lost a lot of my family to Alzheimer's. So
the idea that he is a guy that quite rightly you should not - nor ever
should - sympathise with, but the nature of the illness demands a
certain degree of empathy - not sympathy - empathy, to understand that
even bad people get diseases. And as far as I'm concerned he's been a
pretty bad boy to say the least. His previous actions, well you would be
more than justified in saying he's not a pleasant human being. So now
he's been diagnosed, his false persona becomes unravelled and you get to
see who he is and what is at the heart of him.
Will audiences pity Richie?
I would hope empathise - I don't think you would pity
him. He's just too unpleasant to pity, but yeah there are certain
moments when I guess you may not dislike him as much. But I certainly
wouldn't sympathise with him. I mean, you're looking at a guy who has
been running a drug empire for years, he has killed people to get to
where he is and he wouldn't think twice - in the past - about the number
of lives he has destroyed through the so-called illegal product that he
sells. But no I hope they wouldn't pity him because that would lead to
sympathy and let him off the hook.
Channel4 trailer for The Fear starring Peter Mullan
Published on Nov 15, 2012 by James Brown
Channel4 cinema trailer for The Fear starring Peter Mullan.
Music is Colliders by Raffertie
Voice Over is Hermione Norris
Source: YouTube
EFD to distribute DNA's Proclaimers feature, now underway in Scotland
Entertainment Film Distributors has backed and will distribute Proclaimers musical, with Dexter Fletcher directing Peter Mullan and Jane Horrocks.
Anticipated DNA-Black Camel feature Sunshine on Leith, adapted by Stephen Greenhorn from his hit stage musical, is now underway in Scotland.
Dexter Fletcher (Wild Bill) will direct Peter Mullan, Jane Horrocks, George McKay, Kevin Guthrie, Antonia Thomas and Freya Mavor in the “feel-good contemporary musical”, which will feature music from the iconic band The Proclaimers.
Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich produce from DNA with Arabella Page Croft and Kieran Parker from Black Camel Pictures (Outpost). The film marks Macdonald’s first feature produced in Scotland since Trainspotting. Sunshine on Leith is financed by Entertainment Film Distributors, the BFI Film Fund and Creative Scotland, with Entertainment distributing in the UK.
Croft and Parker said: “Sunshine is a foot tapping feel good project that is blessed with terrific partners on its journey from script to screen. Stephen’s heartwarming script and The Proclaimer’s uplifting soundtrack allowed Black Camel to attract strong producing partners in DNA with the support of Entertainment, Creative Scotland and BFI. It’s a fantastic filmmaking opportunity for Black Camel and for Scotland.”
The film will shoot for six weeks in and around Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Identical twin brothers Charlie and Craig Reid of The Proclaimers have released nine albums since 1987 and are probably best known for hits I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), I’m On My Way and Letter from America.
Source: Screen Daily
Also reported byHollywood Reporter
'The Liability' on Blu-ray
Independent British distributors Revolver Entertainment have revealed that they are planning to bring to Blu-ray director Craig Viveiros' The Liability (2012), starring Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs), Peter Mullan (Tyrannosaur), Talulah Riley (Pride & Prejudice) and Jack O'Connell (Eden Lake). The preliminary release date set by the distributors is January 28th.
Grindstone Entertainment has the North American distribution rights for The Liability. However, the film will be released in the U.S. and Canada by Lionsgate Home Entertainment, which has a distribution deal with Grindstone Entertainment.
Official synopsis: When 19-year-old Adam agrees to do a day's driving for his mum's dodgy boyfriend Peter, it takes him on a 24-hour journey into a nightmarish world of murder, sex trafficking and revenge, in the company of aging hit man Roy.
Source: Blu-Ray.com
Empire exclusive: 'The Joy Of Six' trailer
It's not often we get the chance to dwell on short films in these parts, what with so many long ones to fixate on, so it's a rare joy to be able to debut this new trailer showing newbie filmmakers at work in the shorter form. As you know, we're also partial to the odd pun around here so The Joy Of Six ticks multiple boxes. Well, two boxes.
Click below to catch a glimpse of Romola Garai and Matthew Holness' directorial debuts, and Peter Mullan, Dame Judi Dench and Luke Treadaway on the other side of the camera.
Garai's 21-minute directorial debut Scrubber gives her the chance to step away from the trials and tribulations of Atonement, Glorious 39, King Lear and the like and let someone else (her Crimson Petal And The White co-star Amanda Hale) take the strain as a young mum with a strange obsession.
Holness's A Gun For George, meanwhile, should delight fans of his Marenghian alter egos. It sees Terry Finch, the creatively stymied author of The Reprisalizer and all-round loner, "looking for brutal revenge on the mean streets of East Kent".
There are also contributions from Douglas Hart (Long Distance Information), Will Jewell (Man In Fear), Dan Sully (The Ellington Kid) and Chris Foggin (Friend Request Pending) in this year's New British Cinema Quarterly short film initiative.
Aimed at "showcasing the best of British screen and directing talent", The Joy Of Six is distributed by Soda Pictures from Friday.
Film-makers go west to shoot Proclaimers movie
It is a big-screen movie set to propel the songs of The Proclaimers
to a whole new level. Cameras have started rolling on the cinematic
version of Sunshine on Leith, the stage musical about two soldiers
returning to Edinburgh after serving in Afghanistan.
But
despite the bulk of the story taking place in the capital’s famous
port, most of the shoot will be in Glasgow, where the film-makers are
based.
Veteran Glasgow actor Peter Mullan, Little Voice star Jane
Horrocks and Paul Brannigan, who shot to fame in The Angels’ Share
earlier this year, have all been cast in the film.
English actor
Dexter Fletcher, who has chosen the project for his second directing
role after the release of Wild Bill earlier this year, was in Leith
yesterday as filming got under way in various locations around the Shore
area.
The film – set to a host of The Proclaimers’ best-known
hits from their 25-year career – is already being tipped as Scotland’s
answer to Mamma Mia.
However, sources close to the production said
the vast majority of the six-week shoot – which will feature more than
100 dancers for some scenes – will be based in Glasgow, with less than a
week’s filming in the capital. An insider said: “A huge effort has gone
into finding locations in Glasgow which look like they could be Leith.
“A few locations around Edinburgh are being used to make it seem authentic, but most of the shoot will stay in Glasgow.”
The
stage musical, written by Stephen Greenhorn, creator of River City, was
a huge hit after it was first staged at Dundee Rep theatre five years
ago.
The film is being produced by award-winning film-maker Andrew
Macdonald, who shot to fame in the 1990s with two Edinburgh-set films
Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. However, as with Sunshine on Leith,
most filming in those productions went ahead in Glasgow to keep costs
down.
Details of Sunshine on Leith first emerged earlier this year
when it was announced that Black Camel Pictures – a firm set up by
husband and wife team Arabella Page Croft and Kieran Parker – had the
rights to adapt the stage show.
Caroline Parkinson, director of
creative development at Creative Scotland, which is backing the film
along with the BBC, said: “We’re delighted to see the realisation of
this exciting film and proud to have supported its development and
production though our investment in Black Camel Pictures.
“It
features a wealth of Scottish talent from writers, actors, craft and
technical crew, not to mention showcasing the musical talent of The
Proclaimers.”
Source: Scotsman
Also reported by Deadline
Drama to screen on British TV
A star-studded drama series shot in Queenstown [New Zealand] looks set for its
first international screening soon - and early reports promise a dark
tale of drug lords, rape and murder.
Top of the Lake was shot in and around Queenstown,
Glenorchy and Paradise from February to May. The six-episode series was
directed by Kiwi Oscar-winning director Jane Campion and produced by
Emile Sherman, who also won an Oscar for helming production on The King's Speech.
The series stars Mad Men beauty Elizabeth Moss, Holly Hunter and character actors Peter Mullan and David Wenham.
An interview at Cannes with Campion and co-writer Gerard Lee reveals
the mystery-detective story revolves around the disappearance of a
pregnant 12-year-old.
Campion, who owns a property in Glenorchy, said the story was "set
in a landscape I know very well" and began with a central character,
Tui, being pregnant at 12 and walking into the depths of a lake.
This "inciting incident" compelled the Elizabeth Moss character, a detective visiting the area, to become involved.
The location was very important to the series, Campion said.
"It's a mind-blowingly spectacular wild location that viewers would have never seen before," Lee said.
A partial trailer for the series has been posted on the BBC 2 website, which says the series will be screening soon.
Rebus
clocked up 25 years as a best-seller this week — making it one of the world's
most successful long-running detective series.
The first
book in the grisly murder collection, Knots And Crosses, was originally
published in March 1987 and has gone on to sell millions of copies across the
globe. The
hard-drinking tec has made author Ian Rankin a literary star as the 17 Rebus
novels catapulted him from a penniless writer to a multi-millionaire in just
over a decade. The books have been such a hit they were turned into a
blockbuster TV series, starring first John Hannah and then Ken Stott.
STV last
year confirmed the hit show, which pulled in eight million viewers, WILL make a
comeback despite it being nearly five years since it was last on air. But a
replacement for rugged Stott will need to be found as the actor is contracted
for two years of filming The Hobbit in New Zealand.
Scottish
actors such as Peter Mullan, Brian Cox and Bill Paterson have all been touted
to play the chain-smoking cop.
Last night
an TV source said: "Rebus will be back on our screens at some point, it's
a hugely successful brand and did incredibly well in the ratings. After
Taggart and The Bill were both axed, there's now a huge gap in the
market."
