Paul Brannigan: 'The Angels' Share' screenings

Indie Films Fernie wraps up season with The Angels’ Share

Indie Films Fernie (IFF) is wrapping another season of unique and independent movies with The Angels’ Share. The Scottish comedy-drama tells the story of a young Glaswegian father determined to turn over a new leaf.
IFF is proud to present the award-winning, bittersweet comedy as the final movie of the season. The Angels’ Share will play Monday, 7 p.m., at the Vogue Theatre.
IFF will return for a new season of independent film in September.
Tickets: Members – Adult $9, Youth $8, Standard – Adult, $10, Youth $9.
Read more at The Free Press


From This Is Somerset:

Film showcases tale of new dad
The Langport Community Cinema is showcasing the story of a man who tries to better himself after narrowly escaping jail.
The Angel's Share tells the tale of new dad Robbie, played by Paul Brannigan.
He vows to turn over a new leaf after a visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives.
The cinema club is showing the film at the Great Bow Wharf, Bow Street, on Friday, April 26, at 7.30pm.
Tickets cost £5. For further details visit www.langport communitycinema.co.uk.

Source: This Is Somerset

Paul Brannigan Interview - Under The Skin & The Angels' Share

Paul Brannigan chats about working with Scarlett Johansson in Under The Skin, being nominated for a BIFA for Ken Loach's The Angels' Share & upcoming film with Dexter Fletcher Sunshine on Leith.



Paul Brannigan has also appeared in documentaries Born To Lose, on Polmont Prison & Scottish drama River City.
Source: YouTube

Siobhan Reilly

Actress Siobhan Reilly who is up for a Scottish Bafta for The Angel's Share

From the Daily Record, 11 November:
Angels' Share star is up for Scottish Bafta but still works as teacher
Down to earth Siobhan Reilly will next week combine teaching her primary class and attending the British Academy Scotland Awards where she has been nominated for her role in the Ken Loach film.

ANGELS' SHARE star and Bafta nominee Siobhan Reilly yesterday looked forward to a busy week – teaching her primary class.
But, as well as planning lessons for her school pupils, she has also got to attend the British Academy Scotland Awards – the Scottish Baftas – where she has been nominated for her role in Ken Loach’s award-winning film.
Siobhan, 29, has been nominated for the best film actor/actress alongside her co-star Paul Brannigan and James Cosmo for Citadel.
Win or lose, it’s going to make for an interesting day at Petersburn Primary School in Airdrie, where pupils and colleagues are wishing her well.
She said: “The kids know. I think a lot of parents have watched it first and showed them little sections which I have been in where there is not much swearing or they have seen the trailer. So everyone has seen some bit of it.
“It was funny. One of the boys said to his mum, ‘I recognise her face, I don’t know where I know her from.’
“I had been teaching him for three months. Then somebody at school told him and he said to me, ‘Miss Riley, are you in a film?’
“The kids love it. They are really excited by it and I keep them up-to-date with all the gossip and awards and things. The staff as well – they are so supportive.
“The kids and teachers have brought in their copies of the DVD so I can sign them. Maybe we can do an auction at the Christmas fair and make some money for the school.”
The Angels’ Share – which won the Great Scot Entertainment Award – was directed by Loach and written by Scots writer Paul Laverty.

The cast of Paul Laverty, Siobhan Reilly, William Ruane and Jasmin Riggins

It follows the story of Robbie – played by Brannigan – who vows to turn over a new leaf following the birth of his son to girlfriend Leonie, played by Siobhan.
A visit to a whisky distillery inspire an audacious plan to get the cash for a new start.
The film has won critical acclaim and has propelled Siobhan, who had previously appeared in The Bill and films such as The Clan, back into acting after taking two years out to train as a teacher.
She said: “I’ve trained as an actor and a teacher. My first degree was in acting at what was then the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.
“I acted for a few years, then went back and did a post-grad degree in teaching at Glasgow University.
“I’d just finished my probation year as a teacher when I heard about The Angels’ Share.
“It was like a nice jigsaw, all fitting together.”
Siobhan is looking forward to teaming up with her co-stars again, including fellow nominee Brannigan, whose tough upbringing in the east end of Glasgow with drug addict parents has made headlines since the film was released.
She said: “All the cast were lovely and that’s where Ken is really clever – he matches personalities.
“Working with Paul, we just had a really good bond, a good connection, and I think it came across on camera.

Siobhan connected with co-star Paul Brannigan

“It is great getting to go to things like the Baftas because we all get together again and have a good laugh. There were more shenanigans offset than there was on camera.”The Angels’ Share also took Siobhan to the Cannes Film Festival, where it was given a rousing reception by critics and film fans alike.
She said: “Cannes was amazing and at the première the audience gave us a 10-minute standing ovation.
“I said to Ken, ‘These people are really nice’. And he said, ‘If they hadn’t liked it, they would have booed us out the door’.”
Siobhan has been working as a supply teacher since shooting finished and fitting in auditions and filming elsewhere, which has included a role in an upcoming episode of River City.
She said: “I have been teaching for the last year-and-a-half. At the moment, I am doing supply but I am also working on River City. So I was teaching Monday, at River City Tuesday, teaching Wednesday, Thursday, then back at River City on Friday – that’s been my week.
“I try to shuffle the two careers. At the minute, it is going well because supply work can be really flexible but it is like two different worlds.”
Siobhan is delighted with her Bafta nomination and wants to continue both careers for as long as possible.
She said: “It feels like an honour to be nominated and I am chuffed.
“Acting is a great job and I would love to do as much as possible but I do enjoy teaching. It keeps you in touch with real life. Whatever is meant to happen will happen.”

• The British Academy Scotland Awards are on Sunday (18 Nov). See www.bafta.org/scotland

Source (including photos): Daily Record 

Paul Brannigan

Angel star turns monster for East End kids
Angels’ Share star, Paul Brannigan, became Frankenstein’s monster for the night for kids in the East End of Glasgow.
It was part of a week of activities run by PEEK which included making masks and candle holders, a scary trip to Edinburgh Dungeon and cycling in Aberfoyle as well as a Hallowe’en party.
More than 200 people attended the Hallowe’en Ghost Walk and Monsters Ball at Reidvale Neighbourhood Centre last weekend.
Paul, who played Robbie in Ken Loach’s Scottish film The Angels’ Share, helped out and his young son also joined in, dressed as batman.
Michaela Munro, from PEEK, said: “It was a huge success, it was amazing to see the children get involved. The evening was terrifyingly terrific. We hope everyone had a spectacular evening.
“We would like to thank everyone who came and especially all those who helped.”
Read more at All Media Scotland


Paul Brannigan receives Scottish BAFTA nomination
Paul Brannigan has been nominated for the Scottish BAFTA for Best Actor for his performance in Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share.

Paul leads the film as Robbie, a young ex-con hoping to make a new life for himself and his young family by starting out in the whiskey industry. The film won the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival.

Since shooting The Angels’ Share, Paul has gone on to appear in Jonathan Glazer’s new feature Under the Skin alongside Scarlet Johansson and feature in the Scottish continuing drama River City. He's currently shooting Dexter Fletcher’s new Proclaimers film Sunshine on Leith, in which he plays wounded soldier named Ronnie.

The Scottish BAFTA awards will be held in Glasgow on the 18th November 2012.
Source: Curtis Brown 

Paul Brannigan: 'The Angels' Share'

From a life of drugs on a tough housing estate to sharing a love scene with Scarlett Johansson - Britain's unlikely new movie star

Paul Brannigan's life story could make a Hollywood film on its own

Both his parents were ­heroin addicts and he started taking drugs at 11.
He was expelled from school at 14, sent to jail over a gun battle at 17, and there’s a scar on his face from a knife fight with his own brother.
So how do you go from there to ­becoming a Hollywood actor sharing a love scene with Scarlett Johansson?
Ask Paul Brannigan... it’s his life story.
It’s certainly a long way from his gritty Glasgow council estate to the glamour of the Cannes Film Festival.
And 25-year-old Paul could have been forgiven for pinching himself as he was mobbed by A-list stars at his film’s première in the glitzy French resort.
But the dad of one is learning to take this sort of thing in his stride since he was plucked from a life of deprivation and crime to star in The Angels’ Share.
A huge critical success, it has already been hailed as the new Full Monty. And Paul’s natural acting talent has impressed the industry’s top names. So much so that the former jailbird has just finished filming steamy love scenes with Holly­wood star Scarlett Johansson for a new sci-fi movie.
The gorgeous actress plays a man-eating alien who tries to seduce Paul’s character.
“At first I was really nervous to meet her but she’s nice and laid back, she made me feel relaxed and confident,” he ­reveals. “She was fantastic and down to earth. She was asking me about my wee kid and my background. And she gave me some nice ­comments about my timing which boosted my confidence.
“I play a happy guy who’s out on the pull. I’m chatting Scarlett up and she seduces me.”
Paul may even have even used his own chat-up lines on film.
“I can’t actually remember because I was a wee bit p***ed at the time! We were having a drink ­together. We had the script and then you just fling in the odd line yourself. Y’know, ‘You have beautiful eyes’. It was great fun but to be honest I get more starstruck with my football team Glasgow Celtic.”
It’s a typically down-to-earth ­approach from a man who just months ago was still trapped in a life of drugs, crime and violence.
So when it came to playing ­Robbie in The Angels’ Share, a lad in trouble with the law who is determined to make his life better for the sake of his new-born son, he had plenty to draw on.
“Robbie’s story is very similar to my past. I was like Robbie, like many young kids growing up, there’s millions of ­Robbies out there.
“Like any other boy from Glasgow I was involved in gangs and alcohol and taking drugs. Just a rough, rough life.
Read more (with photos) at The Mirror 

Sunday Mail 2012 Great Scot awards

The entertainment category was won by feel-good film The Angels’ Share, which scooped the Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival. It was written by Paul Laverty, directed by Ken Loach and stars Paul Brannigan.
Source: Daily Record
 

English director Ken Loach reveals how he loves filming Scotland's working class stars

The man behind The Angels' Share and Sweet Sixteen says he wants to make one final film in his 'second home'
He’s the Englishman who has been a voice for the plight of Scotland’s working class in six of our best movies.
But the 76-year-old Ken Loach is finding it harder and harder to make movies and wishes his American counterpart Woody Allen, who is the same age, would stop so that he can retire too.
But the softly spoken director hopes he can make at least one more film in his “second home”. He said: “I hope there’s another Scottish film. It’s always possible but I’m not sure how many are left in me.
“Directing is a young man’s job really. I wish Woody Allen would stop and then I could stop.
“But I enjoy making films. I like to keep out of trouble and off the streets.”
Ken, from Nuneaton, Warwickshire may be best known for the film Kes but in Scotland, he is loved for his gritty portrayal of real life and for discovering talent, often using real people rather than actors for key roles.
Robert Carlyle, who’d then appeared in Taggart and The Bill, starred in his 1991 film Riff-Raff, as did Peter Mullan, whose harrowing portrayal of a recovering alcoholic in 1998’s My Name is Joe won him the best actor award at that year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Loach then discovered former footballer Martin Compston as the star of his 2002 film Sweet Sixteen. He also gave a role to Gary Maitland in the film and used him again in this year’s The Angels’ Share. Sweet Sixteen also gave William Ruane and Annmarie Fulton their big break, both going on to River City.
William has worked with Ken a further three times – appearing in 2005 film Tickets (which also featured Compston and Maitland and saw three directors creating interlocking stories about different groups of people on a train to Rome), his Irish movie The Wind That Shakes the Barley, and The Angels’ Share.
The director’s 2004 Scots film Ae Fond Kiss gave Atta Yaqub his shot at stardom. And Ken’s latest discovery is Paul Brannigan, the star of The Angels’ Share.
But try to pat Ken on the back, for not only making films in Scotland but giving us some of our finest actors, and he tries to dodge it by wishing he could give more people the opportunity that being in a film can bring.
His most recent star Paul, for example, has been in jail and had to deal with both parents being heroin addicts.
The fledging actor has even claimed that Ken saved his life by giving him the role.
Ken, who has been making socially conscious films since 1966’s television play Cathy Come Home and the 1969 film Kes, said: “There are many people we would like to have had in The Angels’ Share and we just didn’t have the parts.
“Paul is a bright lad and he would have found a way but the sad thing is that people need a stroke of luck out of the blue, which making a film is. And you can never plan for that.
“So many kids just won’t get that and will fail and not do as well as they could. That is in the hundred thousands through Scotland and the rest of Europe. It’s a real tragedy.
“There are people that are growing up with no secure financial future and no chance of bringing up a family in any kind of security, not even finding a place to live.
“Every day they are talking about cutting their benefits, cutting jobs, cutting this and that. It’s shocking that we have allowed it to happen.
“Not that the Tories are vicious. They are vicious. That’s their class. What is shocking is that the people who should represent working people have allowed them to happen without any fight. Of all the main things, that makes me the most angry.”
Read more at Daily Record 

The Angels' Share

Release Date: 15 November 2012

Starring Paul Brannigan, John Henshaw, Gary Maitland.
Directed by Ken Loach.
Classification: MA15+, 105 mins.
Official Site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcQIvmR21VU
Country: UK, France.

Robbie, a young father facing prison, is determined to give his newborn son a better life – but he must first turn his own life around. Veteran director Ken Loach (Kes, Sweet Sixteen, The Wind that Shakes the Barley) creates an appealing comedy out of the challenges and opportunities that Robbie faces in meeting up with three other unemployed former criminals and from discovering he has a fine nose for whisky.
Source: State Cinema

DVD: The Angels' Share (15)(review)

"You're just a wee thug," claims a distraught mother about Robbie (Paul Brannigan), a scrawny Glaswegian who is desperate to escape his bleak environment for his baby son, and his caring girlfriend.

Thankfully, John Henshaw's compassionate community service supervisor is on hand to help, instilling in Robbie a passion for whisky. It turns out the scallywag has a nose for it. The Angel's Share begins as a tale of grinding poverty and savagery before becoming a much softer, more palatable, Ealing-style comedy caper.
Source: Independent

Gary Maitland: 'The Angels' Share' review

The Angels’ Share: DVD Review

After winning the prestigious Jury Prize at Cannes back in May, Ken Loach’s heart-warming and very funny tale of redemption and second chances is finally released on DVD this week.

Opening with the expertly cast Gary Maitland’s Albert drunkenly fooling around near an oncoming train, Loach’s pitch perfect Scottish film establishes the dark humour and rather endearing stupidity that lies ahead, while introducing us to the people whose journey we are about to join in the court docks.

After hearing what each of the gang is charged with, we are introduced to our main protagonist, Robbie (Paul Brannigan), who narrowly escapes a hefty custodial sentence due to the new leaf he has turned after learning he is to become a father and because of the very positive influence girlfriend Leonie (Siobhan Reilly) has had on his life.

Due to ongoing family feuds that now simply honour tradition, Robbie is beaten up in a hospital stairwell when merely trying to visit Leonie in labour, but after meeting community service volunteer, Harry (John Henshaw), he finds both friend and father figure. Tasked with looking after the reprobates, Harry develops more than just a paternal liking to the group, taking them to a distillery on his day off. And, while most of the lads are more interested in their tour guide’s shapely figure than the whisky around them, Robbie starts to realise he has quite the nose for it.
When Leonie hands Robbie an ultimatum regarding his future with his son after a shocking but very effective flashback encounter with a boy he attacked, Harry offers him a lifeline with a trip to a whisky meeting in Edinburgh – but he ends up with a little more company than he bargained for. With the dim Albert, often reckless Rhino (William Ruane) and kleptomaniac Mo (Jasmin Riggins) inviting themselves along, Robbie’s talent for blind tasting is truly proven and attracts the attention of serious whisky enthusiast, Thaddeus (Roger Allam).

With newfound faith that he is able to make something of himself away from Glasgow, Robbie takes Albert, Rhino and Mo with him on a whisky pilgrimage to the opening and consequent auction of the very rare Malt Mill. But of course, this is done in their own unique way, hitchhiking for part of the way on a bus full of nuns and wearing kilts so they don’t look like Neds in their usual tracksuits or like they’re going to court in suits. Although this, along with the use of The Proclaimers’ 500 Miles may seem to stereotype, Loach ensures it suits the silly and infectious nature of their travels.

It is to the central fours’ credit that the film works so well, delivering Paul Laverty’s screenplay with carefree ease and letting us feel part of their jokes while still feeling as if we are peeking in on private conversations. The magic and effortlessness between this group is what makes The Angels’ Share so entertaining, but Paul Brannigan’s vulnerable and affecting breakout performance as Robbie is the film’s true revelation, guaranteeing he is someone you incessantly root for.

The Angels’ Share may have its fair amount of emotion and heartbreak, but it’s primarily about the importance of family, friends and second chances. With no expected, elongated third act, everything is wrapped up in a perfect fashion to deliver a thoroughly entertaining and thought provoking film about getting out and doing something with your life, even when everyone and everything seems to be against you.

(4/5)

September 27, 2012 By Emma Thrower

Source: Hey U Guys

Movie star Gary Maitland goes back to picking up trash Cannes

Angels’ Share star Gary Maitland swapped the red carpet of Cannes for red bin bags as he went back to his day job yesterday (Friday). Just two weeks ago Gary, 28, was rubbing shoulders with celebs at the French film festival showing of the award-winning Ken Loach flick.

But yesterday, he clocked on at 7.30am for a shift on a council refuse lorry.

Gary, who has been a bin man for ten years, might give up his £16,000-a-year job — but only if he gets the right movie offer.

At the council depot in Rutherglen, near Glasgow, Gary said: “We are all mates here, and I have my bit to do like anyone else — being in a movie doesn’t change that. But I am on the look-out for an agent. Obviously if the right part came up I would do it.

“But for the time being I’m happy doing what I’m doing. I’ve been here 10 years. It’s part of my life.”

Gary was spotted by director Loach in 2002, who cast him in hit movie Sweet Sixteen with Martin Compston.

Three years later he appeared in another Loach movie, Tickets, but kept up the job he’s had with South Lanarkshire Council since leaving school.

Gary, of Hamilton, hadn’t expected any more acting work until Loach’s casting director Kathleen Crawford contacted him on Facebook.

He said: “I got this message out of the blue asking if I was the same Gary Maitland that appeared in Sweet Sixteen and Tickets.

“I gave her my new mobile number and I did a couple of auditions and got the part. I had no idea it would be such a big role.”  

The Angels’ Share follows Robbie, played by Glasgow-born actor Paul Brannigan, a desperate dad who tries to turn his life around with a whisky heist with the help of pals, including Albert, played by Gary.

The film, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, was shot on location in Glasgow.

Gary, who did a Higher in drama, said an acting career would be a dream come true.

He said: “It would be great to work with Ken again. But I would like to work with someone else as well for the experience, “I would go to River City if they asked me. I’ve always been into drama — to be a full-time actor would be a dream for me.”

Gary is set to join up with Loach again for a promotional tour for the movie next month.

He said: “My bosses have been great, letting me take unpaid leave during filming and letting me take holiday for the promotional tour.”

Workmate Kevin Kennedy, 31, from Hamilton, said: “I went to see the film with the missus. It was brilliant. Gary’s the same guy he’s always been, he does his bit at work.” Gary added: “I get a bit of banter from the lads but nothing has changed.”

Source: TheScottish Sun

Also reported by The Daily Record

Gary Maitland with the cast of The Angels' Share