How historic Ealing Studios is hoping to regain ground with £20m revamp

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Co-owner of west London studios tells of dunking Victoria Beckham, industry upheavals and 25-year labour of love The first time film-maker Barnaby Thompson visited Ealing Studios it was to shoot Victoria Beckham, who at the time was better known globally as Posh Spice , being unceremoniously plunged underwater. “It was 1997, we were making Spice World and there was a sequence where Posh Spice got thrown into the Thames,” says Thompson, whose film credits include Wayne’s World, the remake of St Trinian’s and an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. “We have a tank at Ealing so we shot Posh being thrown into the tank. It was the first time I had been on that hallowed ground.” Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/rsEzjnB via IFTTT
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‘I’ve failed, badly – and I’m good with it’: James McAvoy on class, comfort and carnage

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He says that acting is a gamble – but is a dead cert to terrify audiences with new film Speak No Evil. The Scottish actor talks about marriage, therapy – and why Ken Loach would never cast him

He is a funny character, James McAvoy. I meet him in one of those fancy Soho hotels where the cast of films that are about to be massive assemble so they can all be interviewed on the same day. And McAvoy’s new psychological thriller, Speak No Evil, will be massive. A remake of the 2022 Danish original, it is just as terrifying, with one difference.

McAvoy, 45, is personable and urbane. He is wearing a suit, but looks like a guy who changes into cargo shorts as soon as he gets home. “I’m really lucky in a lot of ways, mainly that my granny’s all over me,” he says. “I’ve definitely got a large dose of what she has.” His parents divorced when he was 11, and his mother was ill, so he went to live with his grandparents in Drumchapel, Glasgow. Later, considering class, he describes his childhood tangentially, talking about why Ken Loach would never cast him. “I’m too much of an actor. And I’m, like: ‘I grew up on the council estate you shot half your films on!’ But I’m too much of an actor.”

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