“Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist” takes the cake for sweet, “Ghost Town” dominates for downright funny, and “Passchendaele” and “Miracle at St. Anna” offer extreme wartime brutality.
Still, if you’re looking for the edge on edge, then “RocknRolla” is the one to see after Day One of the
33rd Toronto International Film Festival.
I mean, even sweet, sexy Thandie Newton talks the talk about Guy Ritchie’s down and dirty action comedy. Just don’t dare call her lovely.
Newton began after someone uses the term to describe her appearance on the same interview podium with co-stars Gerard Butler and Idris Elba. “I had an agent once who was really wound up because whenever they were doing conference calls, she was always the only woman with a bunch of men and always the introduction to the call would be, 'OK, so we've got Gerry on the phone, we've got Idris on the phone, we've got so and so on the phone and the lovely Carol.' She thought, 'Why am I the lovely Carol?'
“So, thank you for commenting on how good I look, but why are women always the ones called fucking lovely?"
The woman who portrays Condoleeza Rice in Oliver Stone’s upcoming “W,” was joking, of course. Regardless, the tone of the quip is not unlike the smart and conniving accountant she plays among the characters of double-crossing, double-dealing men trying to make headway in Ritchie’s ever-crowded London crime arena.
“Funnily enough, the thing that I found slightly challenging about doing this film was that, because there was the air of spontaneity -- and Guy liked you to come up with new ideas, fresh ideas and try out new stuff on the set -- I found that I just wanted to swear all the time because it's a Guy Ritchie film."
"Even though I'm speaking in a very clipped English accent, fuck would just come out all the time. Guy was like, 'No! Cut. Thandie, no swearing. You're not allowed to swear.'"
“It was a good idea actually because it makes her much less accessible. I think that you have to feel quite loose to swear and that was a bit of a challenge. Everyone else got to.”
Especially Butler, who plays a member of band of thieves called “The Wild Bunch.”
“There was a scene with Idris, and I watched it with a couple of people and they just raved on about it.” Butler recalled. “They said, 'That's the funniest scene ever.' But I noticed that I said fuck in every single sentence. I thought, 'Are you kidding me?' Every time I spoke I was like, 'Fuck. What the fuck? Fuck this. Fuck.' I learned a few acting lessons in that one, but in actual fact I think it does make the scene funnier.”
By the way, Mrs. Ritchie, that chanteuse named Madonna, did not attend Thursday night’s North American premiere, where her writer/director husband was joined on the red carpet by Newton, Butler, Elba, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jeremy Piven, newcomer Toby Kebbell and producers Joel Silver and Susan (Mrs. Robert) Downey.
Earlier, though, Ritchie was asked if he ever considered his bride for the role eventually taken by Newton and if the couple might ever work together again. “I didn't think about casting my wife in this movie,” Ritchie said, “ and I don't know is the answer to the other question.”
“RocknRolla” is not expected to open in wide release until late October, but remember to keep joining us here for more reports from the Toronto fest, which runs through Sept. 13.
John M. Urbancich
**Read more articles by John Urbancich**
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