Ewan McGregor: 'Hebrides – Islands on the Edge' preview

Islanders to get preview of Hebrides narrated by Ewan McGregor

Island residents are to get a preview peek of the forthcoming BBC series, Hebrides – Islands on the Edge.
The series, which has already been acclaimed by narrator Ewan McGregor as “one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen”, is due to be broadcast on BBC One Scotland in May.
But BBC Scotland has arranged a special Screen Machine tour of an episode to be screened in Barra, South Uist, North Uist, Benbecula, Harris and Skye during April.
There will also be a further cinema screening in Oban on April 18 along with a Q & A session with acclaimed filmmakers Nigel Pope (Big Cat Diary) and Doug Anderson (Frozen Planet) who are part of the production team on Hebrides.
Read more at Stornoway Gazette

Douglas Henshall: 'Shetland' previews, trailer, and interview

Shetland starts on Sunday 9 March at 9pm on BBC1

Shetland previews

• From the Radio Times:

Douglas Henshall, Steven Robertson and Gemma Chan in BBC1's Shetland - see a trailer and photos

Crime drama Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall, Steven Roberston and Alison O'Donnell, is based on the bestselling novel Red Bones by Ann Cleeves.Starting on Sunday 9 March on BBC1, the two-part story follows police detective Jimmy Perez as he investigates a murder on his native Shetland islands.

Douglas Henshall stars as Perez alongside a host of recognisable faces including Being Human's Steven Roberson and Doctor Who/Sherlock actress Gemma Chan – plus Monarch of the Glen alumni Lewis Howden, Lindy Whiteford and Alexander Morton.

The atmospheric drama kicks off when an archaeologist discovers a mysterious set of human remains – and continues as an elderly woman is shot dead at her home.
The thriller has been likened to popular Scandinavian dramas. Executive producer Elaine Collins said: "Influenced by both mainland Scotland and Scandinavia, but with very much its own identity, Shetland is a location like no other. The uniqueness and sense of place make it an ideal setting for traditional British crime drama with a unique twist."
Christopher Aird, Head of Drama at BBC Scotland added: "A truly atmospheric murder mystery, Shetland has a unique tone and will be a real treat for fans of crime drama on BBC1. The Shetland Isles are a very special place, they are extremely remote – further away from Glasgow than London. And an island setting is perfect for a murder mystery; it is like a pressure cooker – you know one of the characters must be the murderer..."

Watch the trailer:

Source (including photo and trailer): Radio Times

• From The Guardian: 

Shetland is like a cross between McWallander and Midsomer Murdurrs

A moss-faced local glares at DI Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall) over a pint of Old Exposition. "We're all connected on Shetland, in one way or another," she says. She's no' wrong. Shetland, or at least the Shetland of Shetland (Sunday, 9pm, BBC1), is a rum old place, a wind-blasted wilderness seething with ancient family feuds, sheep, buried secrets, accents, overly eyebrowed yokels and, inevitably, murdurr most foul.
A two-part procedural based, as the opening credits whisper, "ON THE BOOK RED BONES BY ANN CLEEVES", Shetland starts with an old woman getting shot in the gilet. While Perez (a knob) investigates, islanders with complexions like dead bread stand glumly at kitchen sinks in knitwear that speaks of long nights and minor livestock displacement. There are spats over land rights, inheritances and empty crofts, but most of the grumbles appear to centre on the islands' atrocious mobile coverage, which invariably plays up at times of mild peril. "Nae signal," grumps Perez in his minging roll-neck as witnesses trudge around holding their phones like kites and saying things like "… grandmother … dinnae understand … dead … " and "… umph … ib … urgent … LANDLINE".
The tone lumbers between brooding glum-swept noir (McWallander) and rural teatime potboiler (Midsomer Murdurrs). There are extras from The Hoots Mon's Guide To Scotland and a soundtrack composed of depressed pipes and sporran runoff. And yet! Beneath the kilt twitches a rudimentary nub of wit. Henshall gives good roll-neck ("I can still roll over the bonnet of a car if I need to"). Sidekick Tosh wears braces because she "disnae want Scottish teeth". But then somebody says, "People say Shetlanders discovered the double agent and meted out their own brutal form of justice," and all hope crumbles like a bombed cliff. 

Read more at The Guardian

• From This is Bristol:

Murder mystery set in stunning Scottish setting

Influenced by both mainland Scotland and Scandinavia, the Shetland Islands is a location like no other. For award-winning writer Anne Cleeves, the uniqueness and sense of place made it an ideal setting for her novel Red Bones, a traditional British crime drama with a unique twist.
Cleeves' work has been adapted into this two-part drama being shown on consecutive nights, with Douglas Henshall assuming the role of detective Jimmy Perez, a native Shetlander and widower who has decided to return home with his step-daughter so she can be near her biological father.
Needless to say, it's not too long before his professional skills are called upon when a young archaeologist discovers a set of human remains that could be more recent than may be considered appropriate.
Suspicions are reinforced when a local woman is shot dead on the same site.
Henshall's Scottish accent is, of course, entirely genuine, though he was born in urban Glasgow rather than the rural splendours of Shetland. "Sometimes I wonder if people really know where it is or what it's like, what the people are like and what goes on there. It's worth taking a look at Shetland and you'll discover it's a truly beautiful place."

Full report at This is Bristol

• From The Express:

Northern Star

THE Shetland Islands are as far north as you get within the United Kingdom. They are actually closer to Norway than to Scotland.
"Shetland is so far of the coast of Scotland that during national weather forecasts on TV, they have put it in its own separate box because the map does not stretch far enough north!" says Douglas Henshall, the Scotish star of Shetland, a new two–part detective drama set on the wild, isolated archipelago.
Shetland's extreme remoteness helps to create a wonderfully atmospheric setting.
Adapted by David Kane (The Field Of Blood, Taggart) from the best–selling books by Ann Cleeves, this murder mystery is set against the breathtaking backdrop of the rugged islands.
The central character is Detective Jimmy Perez (played by Douglas), a native Shetlander who has come back home after many years away. Recently widowed and looking after his young stepdaughter, Jimmy boasts a wry sense of humour and the idealistic aim of preserving his adored island as he remembers it from his youth.
When an archaeologist uncovers a set of human remains and an old woman is shot dead soon afterwards, Jimmy's investigation unearths a feud between two families whose long–running and biter enmity has split the tight–knit island community.
Elaine Collins, the executive producer of Shetland, explains just why this isolated, windswept location works so well as a setting for drama.
"It's the same as shows like The Killing or Wallander. I love to watch dramas like that. They are set in places that do not feel like here," she says.
"It's very appealing to us as viewers to be taken out of our own world. It's like listening to great music or looking at a painting. We want to escape from what we are dealing with on a daily basis and lose ourselves in this diferent realm."
Douglas, 47, who has also starred in Primeval, Doors Open and The Silence, underscores that crime on such a sparsely populated island has deeper resonance than it would in a big city.
"In a small community, murder takes on even greater signifcance because you know everyone – one half of the island is related to the other," he explains.
"This crime totally shocks the community. Everyone is suspicious of everyone else because people are so intertwined and families' histories with each other become more important.

In a small community, murder takes on even greater signifcance because you know everyone

Douglas Henshall

"It's one of those places where, regardless of how self–conscious or shy or reclusive you are, you just have to mix in and put in the efort to be part of the community. You have to communicate with other people. Community really maters."

 Read more at The Express

• TV Choice Magazine has an interview with Douglas Henshall here 

Douglas Henshall: 'Doors Open' interview, forthcoming appearance

'Doors Open' preview


Ian Rankin on the TV adaptation of ‘Doors Open’
Ian Rankin is a happy man. We are in one of his favourite pubs. From our position in the snug of Bennets Bar in Tollcross we are watching the filming of Doors Open, ITV’s adaptation of his bestseller of the same name, which stars Douglas Henshall and Stephen Fry.

It’s a hugely atmospheric boozer – all warming log fires, giant gilded mirrors, elegant wooden tracery, extensive single-malt whisky menus and tables inlaid with maps of Edinburgh. We are stationed next to a bookcase, where the first novel to catch my eye is – you’ve guessed it – Doors Open.
Looking dreamily into the middle distance, Rankin remembers how he found this place. “This was the first Edinburgh pub I drank in. I was sharing a flat with a mate from school who was studying architecture. His first project was about this pub. So we’d move in here every night and do research.”
As content as he is today, Rankin, 52, won’t be rushing to spend a lot more time on film sets. He is used to the solitary, but fairly straightforward process of writing – where it’s just one man and his word processor. So he has been taken aback by the sheer complexity of a big film production – which is more like a hundred people and a million gadgets.
Rankin, best known for his Rebus novels, says the filming process is a mystery to him. “Writing a book, I get no sense of just how difficult it is to organise a shoot. I did my first individual cameo yesterday. I played a man at an auction house chatting to Stephen Fry. I had to wear a suit. Luckily I have one that I wear to weddings and funerals, but it was still odd.
“Initially, the filming was quite exciting. But we ended up doing my scene about 15 times – and they never told us why we had to redo it. It was like being Charlie Watts who once said that being in the Rolling Stones was a case of playing for five years and hanging around for 45 years.”
Hanging around aside, Rankin is delighted that ITV have turned his novel into a TV drama, which will be broadcast on Boxing Day. His Rebus novels have already been made into a series of memorable TV films, starring John Hannah and then Ken Stott. So what is it about Rankin’s writing that lends itself so well to the small screen? Gina Carter, the executive producer of Doors Open, says plot has a lot to do with it. “Ian writes incredibly entertaining books. They’re real page-turners. You get completely engrossed in them. Also, Doors Open is about a victimless crime that doesn’t require any blood or death, which is a great part of its charm.”
Jon Finn, the producer of Doors Open, which is scripted by James Mavor and Sandi Toksvig, chimes in, “Ian’s work is a gift for any screenwriter. He has that quality that all great thriller writers have: you endlessly want to keep turning the pages. Reading his novels is like visiting an old friend.”
Doors Open tells the story of Mike Mackenzie (Henshall), a self-made millionaire who is bored by his cosseted lifestyle. When he learns that the love of his life, Laura Stanton (Lenora Critchlow from Being Human) – an art expert who ditched him five years ago - has returned to Edinburgh, he hatches a plot to win her back.
After a night drinking in their local – stand up Bennets Bar – Mike and his close friends, disgruntled art academic Professor Gissing (Fry) and disillusioned banker Allan Cruickshank (Kenneth Collard, The Borgias), plot and scheme how they will pull off an audacious crime.
They aim to con one of the most high-value targets in the country – a national bank’s priceless art collection which is hidden away from public view in a high-security vault.
The idea is to replace the invaluable works of art with undetectably exact forgeries. They intend to execute this fiendishly clever conceit on the one day of the year Edinburgh’s buildings of special interest are open, thanks to the “Doors Open” scheme. What could possibly go wrong?
Finn reveals that the production created its own counterfeit paintings for the drama. “In making the fakes, we stole bits from all over the place – in the style of Picasso. He had a saying that good art is a copy, great art is a steal. So we knocked off a genius.”
The conspirators in Doors Open view their act as “freeing” timeless works from their private seclusion. In the pub, Gissing rationalises their plan to his collaborators: “We’re not stealing. We’d be liberating them.”
“You mean like a heist?” Allan ripostes. “Like The Italian Job?”
“Yes, sort of,” Gissing rejoins. “But less Italian. And less jobby.”
Finn explains, “Most national galleries only display three per cent of their collection at any one time. They have so many spare Warhols lying around. The depositories are in inconspicuous suburban areas, so no one knows this stuff is just lying around there.”
So is there some moral justification for the plan? Rankin adds, “Gissing is exasperated by the way in which art is treated as a commodity by these institutions. They do not display these great works of art, but keep them as collateral.
“Banks own huge collections that are kept locked away out of public view. And the National Galleries north and south of the Border have more art than they can ever show. It’s very frustrating because it’s ours!”
It is not an entirely black and white issue, though. As Rankin says, “It’s quite complex. Are they freeing these works or are they greedy sods who just want to hold onto these works for themselves?”
Joining our table at Bennets Bar, Henshall takes up the theme.
“There’s not a great deal of logic to Mike’s plan. In a sober moment, you would say that it is illogical and stupid, but at that moment in the pub, it makes complete sense.
“It may be stupid, but there’s also a lot of nobility in his quest. So much of the best art is hidden away in cellars and not shown to the public. It’s not bought by people who love art – it’s merely purchased as an investment. But great art should be for the people and seen by the people. I hope that viewers will be rooting for Mike. He’s a very sympathetic character.”
Henshall says the cast had a great time getting dressed up for the heist.
“We went for retro disguises. So I looked like someone from a 1970s Norwegian rock band, and Kenneth looked like the Portuguese rep for Nandos.”
Of course the other major character in Doors Open is Edinburgh. 47-year-old Henshall, dapper with his swept-back blond hair, white shirt and immaculately cut black overcoat, says, “The producers were determined to shoot here – they didn’t want to film anywhere else.
“Edinburgh is so specific looking, and it’s such a photogenic place. 2000 years of history have gone into this city. If you’re a director of photography, Edinburgh is a dream because the light is amazing and everywhere you look, there is a great shot. I’m not nationalistic in any way, shape or form, but I’m absolutely delighted it’s being filmed here. I can’t imagine it being shot anywhere else.”
The actor, well-known for his roles in Primeval, Collision, The Silence and The Secret of Crickley Hall, adds that Bennets Bar is the ideal location for the drama’s crucial planning scene. “There are so few bars like this nowadays. Everything is an O’B*llocks fake Irish pub. It’s nice to find somewhere like this with genuine character.”
Finn agrees, “Edinburgh is the most distinctive city in the UK.
“You can’t fling a camera at it without it looking fantastic. It’s a city built around monuments. The buildings are spectacular, and the hills give it layers. In places, it’s like an Escher drawing – one road going this way and one road going that way.”
Carter adds, “Edinburgh is so filmic. It’s a very rare combination of elements. You have both a massive castle and rolling hills in the city centre. You don’t get that in Oxford Street in London. Also, Ian writes about Edinburgh so beautifully.”
In his novels, Rankin has certainly always been fascinated by the duality of Edinburgh, and Doors Open gives him another chance to explore that. “In the crime novels, I’m always talking about the underbelly of Edinburgh,” he says. “This book allowed me to talk about the other Edinburgh, the Edinburgh in which self-made millionaires go to auction houses for something to do. There are not many self-made millionaires in my crime novels.”
Expanding on the concept of the city’s ambiguity, he says, “Structurally, Edinburgh is Jekyll and Hyde. It’s a city of haves and have-nots. Are the tourists seeing the real Edinburgh or what the city fathers want them to see?”
He believes that Edinburgh is a constant source of inspiration to writers, “The city continues to surprise. So many authors are writing about it because it shows so many different facets to us all. If I’d made sense of Edinburgh, I’d have stopped writing about it by now.
“But I’m always finding new things to talk about. Every time you think you’ve done it, something else comes along like the Parliament, the financial crisis or 
the trams. I have a love-hate thing with Edinburgh. But I have no interest in writing about London. I’ve never found a place I want to write about more than Edinburgh.”
Another element that makes Doors Open so watchable is that it pivots on a heist. Carter says, “There is a certain caper-ish element to a heist that we all enjoy. Look at films like The Italian Job, Ocean’s Eleven or The Ladykillers.
“Also, you can’t do a heist on your own because that’s just robbery.
So a heist will inevitably involve lots of different people. That makes it engaging because you’re following all these different characters. It’s a terrific ensemble vehicle. Heist dramas are thrillers, chases, ‘will they, won’t they?’s and big set pieces all rolled into one. They tick all the boxes for great entertainment.”
Finn says that the characters have gelled so well in Doors Open that he could envisage a further life for them. “I’d love to do another drama with these characters. It would be great fun. What could they do next? How about breaking into Fort Knox like Goldfinger?”
Henshall lives in London these days, but he has relished working in Scotland on Doors Open. It has also given him the chance to catch up with his beloved St Mirren.
“We’re the only team that have ever sacked Sir Alex Ferguson,” he says. “That sums up our history in one easy sentence. Our victories are always hard won, and therefore much more enjoyed. It’s usually us and someone else very bad fighting relegation – which adds a certain drama to the season. That’s better than mid-table mediocrity. Who wants that?”
Doors Open used a real-life Glasgow repository to film the key heist sequence, a factor that invests the production with extra verisimilitude. Carter recalls, “We shot in the Museums Resource Centre, where three national collections are stored. Everything is there, from 19th century masterpieces to modern sculptures and African art. There are also racks and racks of great Scottish paintings. It’s stunning. But as you can imagine, there were a lot of security guards keeping their eyes on us all the time when we were filming there.”
Henshall says with genuine awe, “I didn’t know places like that existed. But great collections can’t show all their work all the time, and it has to be kept somewhere. These wonderful paintings just appeared from drawers. There was a wee Renoir in there that I was particularly fond of.”
A pause and a wry grin. “But I think they might have missed it.”

Doors Open is on STV on Boxing Day at 9pm.

Source (including photo): Scotsman


Douglas Henshall to judge The Frank Deasy Award to develop Scottish drama-writing talent

Acclaimed Scottish actor Douglas Henshall will join the judging panel on this year’s Frank Deasy Award 2012-13, an initiative to develop television writing talent in Scotland in conjunction with BBC Scotland, BBC Writersroom and Creative Scotland.

Henshall, who will star in BBC Scotland’s new two-part crime drama Shetland later this year, will be joined on the judging panel by Edinburgh playwright and director Zinnie Harris alongside Christopher Aird, Head of Drama, BBC Scotland; Kate Rowland, BBC Creative Director, New Writing; and Laura Mackenzie Stuart, Portfolio Manager, Creative Scotland.

Designed to inspire, develop and celebrate writing talent in Scotland, the Frank Deasy Award was named in honour of the Emmy-award winning writer whose credits include Prime Suspect – The Final Act, Looking After Jo-Jo, Real Men and The Passion. Deasy died in 2009.

Douglas Henshall (Shetland, The Secret of Crickley Hall, The Kidnap Diaries) says: “Writers are so crucial to drama – without them people like me are out of work – so to be involved in this award is an honour. After all, writers are the past, present and future for drama.”

Read more at BBC Media Centre

Peter Mullan - Preview: The Fear

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.

Source (including video): Time Out

Peter Mullan

The Fear starring Peter Mullan Ch4 PREVIEW

Red alert for Richie Beckett (Peter Mullan) in The Fear. Pics: C4

Rating: ★★★★ 

Channel 4: starts Monday, 3 December, 10pm  

Eyeball to eyeball with the Albanians

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 Mullan Richie 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.

Source (including photo): Channel 4


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

Tony Curran: 'Defiance' news, updates, and interviews

‘Defiance’ set tour: exploring the new world with the cast and filmmakers
SyFy’s new series Defiance débuts on television next April, but it’s starting to feel much closer after I had a chance to do a set visit earlier this week, which revealed a lot about the show and how executive producer Kevin Murphy and his team are making this alien world come alive on Earth. 

The series, which is set in the not-too-distant future, follows life in the town of Defiance, formerly known as St. Louis, a number of years after a war with aliens races, collectively known as Votans, has left our planet partially terraformed into something not quite Earth-like, and not hospitable to the aliens either. 

Forced to come here after their own solar system was destroyed, the aliens have no other option but to find a way to live with the humans now, and humanity finds itself on a planet that barely looks like home, with new troubles facing them in all directions. 

Now, normally, when you’re invited onto any set, the word of the day is “discretion”. Media can’t tweet spoilers, we can’t post photos or videos ahead of the show’s release, and we’re told that we can’t just shoot everything we see on set. 

Thanks to the great people of SyFy though, the plan for the press tour was to open the doors of Defiance and show off what’s coming from this killer-looking series, which is also being prepared simultaneously as a massive multiplayer game. 

On set, the press cohort was treated to breakfast before we were broken into groups to tour the space. My group was lucky enough to be led by Murphy himself, who explained the sets and spaces, and answered just about every question we could think to ask.

The cast on set for our visit included Grant Bowler (playing Jeb Nolan), Tony Curran (Datak Tarr), Graham Greene (Rafe McCawley), Julie Benz (Amanda Rosewater), Mia Kirshner (Kenya), Jaime Murray (Stahma Tarr), and Stephanie Leonidas (Irisa), who all discussed what it was like filming this unique series and the challenges adapting to the languages, and preparing for the roles.

Read more at The Gate (includes extensive photo gallery) 


The cast of Defiance discuss their roles, alien languages, and answer questions
Published on Oct 16, 2012 by scifistorm
Featuring (from left to right) Graham Greene, Tony Curran, Mia Kirshner, Jaime Murray, Stephanie Leonidas, Julie Benz, and Grant Bowler. Mostly offscreen to the right are Syfy's Mark Stern and producer and showrunner Kevin Murphy.

Defiance - Part 1 of cast discussion

Source: YouTube 
 
Defiance - Part 2 of cast discussion
 
Source: YouTube
 
Teaser clip http://moviehole.net/201258793domhemingway

A day on the set of Defiance 
A very detailed set report, with photos and videos, by Doc at Sci-Fi Storm
Read it here at Sci-Fi Storm 

Making of Defiance Chapter 3: Writing, Cinematography & Music 
It takes a village to make Defiance. An exclusive look at the team who are bringing Defiance from imagination to reality. 
Get More Defiance: 
Facebook: http://facebook.com/Defiance 
Twitter: http://twitter.com/defianceworld 

See Syfy's Defiance being born in revealing new preview video 
April 2013 can't come soon enough, because that's when Defiance will launch as both a dramatic TV series from Syfy and an immersive MMO designed by Trion Worlds. And to what Defiance has in store for us, check out a new behind-the-scenes video focused on how the writing, cinematography and music will come together to create a new sci-fi universe. 

From the mind of Farscape creator Rockne S. O'Bannon, and with a cast that includes Mia Kirshner (24), Jaime Murray (Dexter), Tony Curran (The Pillars of the Earth), Stephanie Leonidas (MirrorMask), Julie Benz (Angel) and Grant Bowler (True Blood), Defiance will chronicle the world-changing events on Earth as seven alien races begin to move in on the planet ... and the war that ensues when negotiations don't go so well. 

But because Defiance is an interactive experience, viewers will be able to go inside the universe to make their own choices, blending videogame action with dramatic television. Check out the new video for an insider's look at the world of Defiance. 
Source: Blastr