Further reinforcing the seemingly impossible notion that this whole "Blade Runner 2" thing will actually happen, Deadline is reporting that Ridley Scott and Co. have hired screenwriter Michael Green ("Green Lantern," Steven Spielberg's "Robopocalypse") to craft the film's script. 

“Shadow Dancer,” directed by acclaimed filmmaker James Marsh (“Man on Wire,” “Project Nim”), is a thriller set around an act of betrayal within a tight-knit family in Northern Ireland during the 1990s. Collette McVeigh (Andrea Riseborough) is living in Belfast with her mother and hardliner IRA brothers. When she is arrested for her part in an aborted IRA bombing plot in London, an MI5 officer (Clive Owen) offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison or return to Belfast to spy on her own family. With her young son’s life in her hands, Collette chooses to place her trust in the MI5 and return home. When her brothers’ next secret operation is ambushed, suspicions of an informant are raised and Collette finds both herself and her family in grave danger. With informants working on both sides, Collette’s psychological and personal turmoil builds to a breaking point. The suspenseful thriller was written by Tom Bradby (based on his novel) and also stars Gillian Anderson, Domhall Gleeson, Brid Breenan, and Aidan Gillen.

 

Andrea Riseborough played Margaret Thatcher in “The Long Walk to Finchley,” the Duchess of Windsor in “W.E.,” and recently starred opposite Tom Cruise in “Oblivion.” She also appeared in the films “Made in Dagenham,” “Never Let Me Go,” “Brighton Rock,” and “Disconnect.” Later this year she’ll be starring with Alexander Skarsgard in “Hidden,” and with Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, and Naomi Watts in “Birdman.” She won a Best Actress award at the British Independent Film Awards for her performance in this film. I sat down with Riseborough in Los Angeles.

 

MSN Movies: You give such a magnificent performance in this film. Did you have to do a lot of research to immerse yourself in this tumultuous time in Northern Ireland?

 

Andrea Riseborough: Since I’m British, the situation in Northern Ireland was a huge part of my childhood. It was on the news every day without fail. But what I learned later is that  we were only hearing the tip of the iceberg. What we were being told was so censored and so biased, even the reports coming from great political journalists who I continue to admire, but who had their hands tied under the Thatcher government. Thatcher made many very ruthless decisions about Northern Ireland, in my opinion. I think most people would consider many of her actions quite inhumane.

 

I felt so tortured for your character and the decisions she is forced to make that involve her family and her own well-being.

 

We see this world through the eyes of a woman who is utterly convicted to a cause she believes to be politically just.  What I really love about this script is that it’s not some generic redemption story of a woman going the wrong way down the tracks and then realizing her mistakes and taking a big turn. It’s about somebody who will always have those beliefs and is trying to figure out how to live within that. And there are plenty of things that she’s lost along the way—she has some pretty big war wounds. To have borne a child and to have so few happy memories with him, that is so sad. In a way, she’s sacrificed not only herself but also her son for the cause, and she feels quite guilty about that. But she also sees the 85% unemployment and the people dying in hunger strikes, and so many people fighting for this cause without making any headway. I think that kind of frustration and hopelessness can drive people to desperate limits.

Bing: More on Andrea Riseborough | More on 'Shadow Dancer'

 

As I watched this film I found myself wondering if it could have been make 20 years ago. It didn’t spend a lot of time delineating between the “good guys” and “bad guys,” it was so much more complex than that which I really enjoyed.

 

I agree. And I’d love to see a film about this struggle from the other perspective, that would be so interesting. I think that it’s so important in every situation to try and understand the human condition from different perspectives. It’s hard to do when we’re all getting on with our daily lives and it seems so much easier to bracket a bunch of people who commit certain acts as criminals and to just to want to lock them up and not have anything change.

 

When I was growing up the intense violence of the era was on the nightly news. Now, because that situation has evolved, I fear that many Americans think there’s no longer any conflict in that part of the world. I’m wondering if your experience talking about the film has been different here versus in the UK where these issues are obviously more on people’s minds.

 

It’s interesting. To some extent maybe, but I think it really depends on the individual. You get fantastic questions in both countries where people have really been moved or are angry about some of the things they see. And then you get some ridiculous ones. I was doing an interview with someone recently and the first thing they said was, “So, ‘Shadow Dancer’—any funny stories from the set?”

 

Ouch.

 

I mean, if you were talking about a film set in Guantanamo Bay, would you say, “So, Guantanamo Bay—any funny stories from the set?” That level of ignorance is just unbelievable.

 

I recently saw a Lebanese film about a female suicide bomber and the person playing her was an Israeli Jewish woman because they couldn’t find an Arab woman willing to take on that part. At this point, is there any controversy that a British person is playing this Irish Republican character?

 

I recently traveled to Spaceport America in New Mexico to talk to Will and Jaden Smith about their new sci-fi film, “After Earth,” directed and co-written (with Gary Whitta) by M. Night Shyamalan. Did you know that Virgin Galactic is about to start offering sub-orbital spaceflights for paying customers at this very cool-looking spaceport? I haven’t managed a down payment yet for my flight—I believe the trips will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000! Oh well, think of the frequent flyer miles! I was thrilled to visit the state-of-the-art facility which seems to be in the in the middle of nowhere. We had to helicopter in from a nearby town which was a lot of fun, but let’s just say I had to employ the tagline of the film during the ride: “Danger is real. Fear is a choice.” Hey, it worked!

 

“After Earth” takes place a thousand years in the future. The film explains that by 2072, all of our destructive anti-environmental practices have made the Earth inhospitable to human life. Billions of people died but small groups were able to leave the planet in specially designed ships that traveled to a distant planet they called Nova Prime far outside our solar system. A thousand years after our resettlement, a general named Cypher Raige (Will Smith) is the leader of a peacekeeping organization on Nova Prime known as the Ranger Corps. His teenage son, Kitai (Jaden Smith), longs to be a Ranger. The boy is very skilled but lacks discipline and the relationship between father and son is strained. Cypher’s wife, Faia, urges her husband to try to bond with their son so he agrees to take Kitai on an exploratory mission to another planet. But when their ship gets caught in an asteroid field, something goes terribly wrong and they accidentally crash land on one of the most dangerous places in the universe: the Earth! Cypher is seriously injured in the crash so Kitai must venture out into this inhospitable environment and try to get help.

Bing: More on Will Smith | More on Jaden Smith

 

Though it’s not covered in detail in the film, the back story of Earth’s evacuation (as well as the thousand years between that and the events of this film) is covered in a fascinating and beautifully designed book called “After Earth: United Ranger Corps Survival Manual” by Robert Greenberger. The book describes the politics of Nova Prime and how our descendants managed to set up a completely green eco-friendly existence on their new planet. Will and Jaden Smith clearly had a great time making this film together, their second movie outing as father and son. Jaden was 13 when they shot the film and Will describes working on this coming-of-age tale as Jaden's "Bro Mitzvah!" "After Earth" also stars Sophie Okonedo as Jaden's mother and Zoe Kravitz as his oldest sister. Kravitz is perfectly cast since she looks far more like Okonedo than she does her real-life mother, Lisa Bonet! 

Here (after the break) are Will and Jaden Smith talking about how much they learned during the making of this film:

 

 

While it may be pushing it to call the late reveal in the first trailer for Denis Villeneuve's "Prisoners" a "big twist" - after all, it does show up in the trailer and it's also plainly laid out in the film's official plotline on its IMDb page - it certainly feels like the sort of surprise that wouldn't usually be presented so quickly in early marketing.

Bing: More on 'Prisoners'

The story of "Prisoners" seems simple enough at first - a pair of couple friends (played by Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, and Viola Davis) are horrified when their young daughters go missing during a comfortable dinner at home, a crime that soon involves a wily and slightly grungy local cop (played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who looks to be channeling Mark Ruffalo's own cop character from "Collateral") and a creepy dude (Paul Dano) who owns an RV that the girls' older siblings swear they saw them playing on before they went missing. Dano's character is soon collared for the crime, but as this first trailer tells us, his RV is clean and the cops are forced to let him go. Jackman's Keller Dover doesn't take this so well, and while there's plenty of relatable human drama in his reactions, the whole thing goes whole hog nutty when (surprise?) he captures Dano's character and holds him for his own line of questioning.

See? Prisoners!

Bing: More on Hugh Jackman

Given how much this first trailer manages to pack in plot-wise, it certainly surprises that the Jackman-goes-insane portion is even included here. "Prisoners" looks to have plenty to offer even without Hugh Jackman keeping Paul Dano tied up in a bathroom, which isn't something we say lightly.

After the break, check out the first trailer for "Prisoners."

 

 

In the new adaptation of the 1897 Henry James novel "What Maisie Knew," the original plot gets brought forward to our time, as  separating couple Suzanna and Beale (Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan) don't recognize that their daughter Maisie (Onata Aprile) is the collateral damage in their slow, ugly battle through their divorce. Alexander Skarsgård is Lincoln, a bartender whose marriage of convenience with Moore isn't actually that convenient, with himself and Beale's new wife -- the old nanny, Margo (Joanna Vandeheim) -- as go-betweens in a struggle that marks and re-makes everyone involved in it. We spoke with Sarsgård in Los Angeles about his recent and upcoming films ("The East" "Disconnect"), having responsibility thrust upon you and his sincere praise for both the performance and the enthusiasm of his co-star Ms. Aprile.

 

MSN Movies: Let's start with how exactly the script came to you. I mean (directors) Mr. McGeehee and Mr. Siegel have made some terrific films, but I'm always curious about how stuff winds up on an actor's radar ..

 

Alexander Skarsgård: I had seen "The Deep End" before, a couple years ago, and I thought it was really, really great. So when I got the script, I mean it was the usual way through my agents and my manager. I didn't know Scott and David personally, so they told me about the script. I'd read the book, the novel before. So they told me about the project, and they'd all read it and were excited about it, so I read it and I just thought it was a very interesting take on a classic novel. And I was excited to get a chance to work with David and Scott and they came out to Los Angeles the following week, and we met and just talked a bit about Lincoln and the story and everything. And that's kind of how it started.

 

Also, I mean when somebody says to you, "We're modernizing a Henry James novel," a lot of the time those adaptations of classic material can feel a lot like trying to ram a round peg into the square hole.

 

Yeah.

Bing: More on Alexander Skarsgård

 

When you read the script, were you taken by how free an adaptation it was and therefore...

 

Yeah. I I think "What Maisie Knew" is a fantastic novel, but I just ... I thought it was an interesting take on it. And I thought Lincoln was in a way quite different from Sir Claude in the novel. And also something that I ... it felt like an interesting challenge for me. It felt like a character I hadn't played before. And then Julie was already attached to the film, and that obviously got me very excited and gave me a chance to work with her. But they didn't have Maisie yet, and the whole film is ... I mean just the title "What Maisie Knew," she's in every single scene of the film. We talked a lot about how crucial it was. It doesn't matter if you have Julianne Moore or Steve Coogan or great directors or great script; if you don’t have the right girl for that part the movie won't work, you know, 'cause it's her journey. You've got to care for her from the first scene. And I met with a couple of girls, young actresses out in Hollywood who were very talented, but there was just something. They met with Onata in New York and sent me a tape, and I was just, there was just something about her energy that felt so raw and so real. And because it was like she was so strong but yet vulnerable at the same time, which was a quality we were looking for. So I flew out to New York and met with her, and I was just blown away immediately.

 

The whole thing with kid actors is that often they can seem like these little actor-bots -- perfectly rehearsed and able to cry on cue and what have you.

 

Ever hear of "Pixels?" No? Don't worry, neither had we before this story. Apparently it was a quite famous internet short—who knew such things existed?—released on YouTube back in 2010, from director Patrick Jean, depicting 80's era video game characters like Donkey Kong and Pong attacking New York City, then the world. While it may not have become the hottest thing ever, or garner much more than one million views, it evidently caught Hollywood's attention in a big way. According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" director Chris Columbus is currently in talks to direct a feature-length adaptation of the short, which would presumably stretch the plot to fill more than just two and a half minutes, add some hopefully relevant backstory, not to mention untold millions to its special effects budget, and somehow be just as pointless. If enjoyable.