‘It feels deeply human’: Andor’s Genevieve O’Reilly on turning a tiny Star Wars role into one of its biggest

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In 2005, O’Reilly joined the Star Wars galaxy as the younger version of Rebel leader Mon Mothma. Now in Andor, the Irish-Australian actor gets her turn in the spotlight “I swear I got the job because I was the palest person in Sydney,” Genevieve O’Reilly says of the fateful day, more than 20 years ago, when she took a meeting with a casting agent for Star Wars. At the turn of the millennium, the newly opened Fox Studios was luring major productions to Australia; from Moulin Rouge to the Matrix trilogy, it wasn’t unusual to see a recent Nida graduate or sun-kissed soap star filling out a scene behind a Hollywood A-lister. O’Reilly, who was born in Dublin, but grew up in Adelaide then moved to Sydney to study acting, was one among many. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/C9IYcDr via IFTTT
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‘I’m monomaniacal, I get slightly obsessive’: actor Tobias Menzies on tennis, moon landings and people watching

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Tobias Menzies has always relished a challenge, whether it’s playing Prince Philip, or a New York therapist – or just keeping up with Brad Pitt

As a child, the British actor Tobias Menzies was a talented junior tennis player. At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, he decided to see if he could get his game back. He joined his local club in north London and started hitting, mostly on his own with a machine firing balls at him, at least a couple of times a week: for the first six months, he only struck forehands; then he did a similar stint on his backhand. Two years on, Menzies has finally felt ready to contest matches, mainly against the club pro.

“When I started playing again, I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to do my 10,000 hours, I’m going to start again,’” says the 49-year-old Menzies, referring to the principle, popularised by the writer Malcolm Gladwell, that it takes that amount of time to achieve expertise in any field. “I’m monomaniacal, I get slightly obsessive. I don’t get bored by hitting forehands for six months, that’s just how my brain is.”

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