Last Sunday London welcomed Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon for Invictus’s European Press Conference. Below is  the second half of what took place, you can check out part 1 here. Invictus is in UK cinemas 5th Febuary.

I read that you try to take as little amount of takes as possible while making your film.

Clint Eastwood: I always try to do one, it doesn’t necessarily work out that way though. If that one take works I’ll take that, if the third take works I’ll print that. Sometimes I do like to have a few different set ups but I’ll try and make a decision right at that time, whether it’s good, bad or otherwise. I think once you start doing, thirty or forty takes, you can get lost somewhere and you don’t know what you are looking for, I like to think I know what I’m looking for, right or wrong.

As actors what’s it like working with Clint?

Morgan Freeman: I take Clint as my favourite director to work with because I respond very well to the one or two take director, he’s the most consistent in that area. Directors who as Clint said that need seventeen takes, I don’t think they know what they want, it certainly doesn’t help the actors sense or security when he has to keep going over and over things and you don’t know why, you think what am I doing, what do you want,.

Matt Damon: Yeah some people just collect a bunch of footage and edit it later. You definitely feel a lot more protected when the director is moving on, you feel like something is happening, so you know they are watching intently. Coppolla told me that Antonioni said to him, this is before the days of video village that as a director you should stand right next to the camera, look with your naked eye and if you see something that is real to you, you look up to your operator and if your operator gives you the look that yeah I saw that too, then you print and move on. Clint basically cuts on camera, I’ve worked with a couple of guys who do that and as Morgan said it gives you a real sense of security because you know you’re in very able hands and the director is watching the movie unfold, your getting what you wanna get and it doesn’t take seventeen hours to get it.

Clint Eastwood: I’ve always felt a lot of times when a person has to do twenty takes on something, it’s usually for one or two reason, either they don’t quite know what they’re looking for or also they don’ know what there next set up is so they’re using up the time and utilising the actors to kill time until some great idea comes to them, that becomes a bit of a problem, there not abusing the actors because they’re there to act but it’s a bit unfair, it will give them a big sense of insecurity as Morgan said, I’ve worked with people like that myself. In the old days a lot of people done it defensively because they felt they didn’t want to leave a load of extra film because they didn’t want the studio executives to come in and recur their film and restructure everything, so they would give them it as little as possible, there’s only one way of putting it together, that was done back in the thirty’s and forty’s when the execs had a tremendous amount of power

Looking over your films as a director which has been the biggest challenge for you and why? And which of your acting performances are you most proud of?

Clint Eastwood: When you’ve done as many films as I’ve done you just keep going, I never look back and think too much about them, I’ve done some work I’ve been proud of over the years but which is my favourite, I don’t know. I’ve had little jumps in my career, like Unforgiven and then when I tried to do something different, Letters To Iwo Jima I liked doing a lot, anything with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon (laughs). I like to get a chance too work with people I respect a lot. A favourite performance I don’t know. Once the films done and once something been performed, it’s up to someone else to make a judgement on it.

When you choose the subject do you trust in your instincts? How do you choose your films?

Clint Eastwood: Yes I do, I always trust my instincts, it was just a story that I liked, I didn’t approach it about a picture about Rugby, we obviously wanted to make the Rugby very good because that was an inspiration for Mr Mandela, to utilize it as a tool to unite his country. Morgan called me and said look I’ve got a really good script, he didn’t even tell me it was about Nelson Mandela, so I read the script and liked it very much, I’ve always been an admirer of Nelson Mandela, I was amazed by reading the script and the book because it seems so creative, such a creative way to unify a country, which was in really deep trouble, almost on the brink of civil war. Mr Mandela had been in prison for quite a few years, nobody knew what was gonna happen when he came out, then he came out with this kind of an imagination, I just thought this is something politicians around the world could learn a lot from, having a certain creativity and bringing people together, instead of just talking about it he was doing it, that was my reason for doing the picture, Rugby was exciting and that was fun, but even if it was Nelson Mandela and Texas Hold Em Poker I still would have done it because I admire the man.

Last Sunday London welcomed Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon for Invictus’s European Press Conference. Below is  half of what took place, I will be getting up the second half in time for Invictus’s UK release on Friday. Check it out!

Clint Eastwood your at an age where most of us would be taking it a bit easier, yet you continue making challenging movies one after an other, you make some of the best movies we will see in any year, what is the driving force behind you? Why do you continue to work so much and so well?

Clint Eastwood: I sort of planned not working at this particular time in life, but nobody can plan on what they’re gonna do at my age of 49 (laughs). I just feel like I’m enjoying my work more now than I ever have, or just as much certainly. I’m at an age that I can take up more challenges than I have in the past because I know more and of course at this age you can forget more, but I’m trying to avoid that. I just enjoy it, I enjoy the process, being behind the camera, I enjoy that equally as much as being in front of the camera. I’ve been lucky enough to work in a profession that I’ve really liked, so I figured I’ll continue until someone hits me over the head and says get out (Laughs).

Matt you’ve always looked pretty handy when your fighting in your other films, how does that compare to Rugby?

Matt Damon: Any time your making a movie, it’s all choreography, except for this game, it’s a lot tougher to choreograph, it’s a lot more uncontrolled. A lot of the stuff we shot was what we called free play, just letting these guys go and nail each other and capture that. There was a whole physical challenge to get ready for the roll because I was playing a very famous man who everybody knows. It’s like any job though, it’s like a magic trick, ultimately your only job in a film is for the audience to believe, if they don’t for even a second you’ve failed because your taking them out of the story. You have to troubleshoot a year for the movie and think what will get me in trouble here and what do I have to solve, so Clint helped me out, Francois is a BIG guy and I’m an average sized guy, I thought people know what I look like and people know what he looked like how are we gonna get around this. Clint said maybe we can’t make you look 6′4 but we could make you look taller than 5′10, maybe we can make people not ask the question, so we used little tricks with the camera to make me look larger, shooting me higher, an insole in my shoe to give me an extra inch or so in height. Little things like that, then obviously a lot of work in the gym and working on the accent to make it believable.

From a filmakers point of view what were the challenges of filming a Rugby match compared to a dramatic scene?

Clint Eastwood: I didn’t grow up with Rugby, but I went and saw a lot matches, talked to a lot of people who have played, I talked to the coach at the Univercity Of California, a Rugby player by the name of Jack Clarke who gave a whole run down of the game, then I watched his practises and everything he did there. Then when we got to South Africa we got Chester, Francois and various people who had been in the game to go over it, so after talking to people I started to get a feel of the game and we hired Rugby players to play the parts, with the exception of Matt and one or two others, but they all came up to the game real fast so we just had them play. Chester was our coach, he would just tell the players to go out there and play Rugby, so they would be hitting real hard, our biggest challenge was to stay out of the way (laughs). So we did, our camera crew are used to working on the fly and that’s the way we approached it.

You’ve said Gran Torino will be your last time in front of the camera, do you still feel that way?

Clint Eastwood: I said that when we made Million Dollar Baby as well, the film was a success so I thought this will be a good time to quit on top, unlike most people who sort of drift down to the end, or like a prize fighter who fights one two many fights. But then Gran Torino came along, it was an interesting part, it was a man my age, I figured I wasn’t stretching that much so I decided on giving it another shot, I still say that, I might do ten roles, if ten great roles come up, but I don’t know how many great roles there are for a man of my age, 38 (laughs). You just don’t know, I had always planned when I starting directing in 1970 that after a few years I’d get tired of looking at myself on the screen but I continued on, every so often something pops up, I’m not saying it will never happen again, but the odds get less as you get older, when you set yourself in roles that fit your age group.

Has Nelson Mandela seen the film and what was his reaction? Also did you consult with him while creating the film?

Morgan Freeman: Yeah he’s seen it, he smiled a lot and nodded (laughs). When I first came onn screen he leaned over to me and said I know this fellow (laughs). I got the impression he wasn’t embarrassed. I didn’t consult with him before, I just consulted tapes, films on him, things like that. I didn’t go to him and say what do you feel about this or that because he’s 90 years old.

What was the most challenging thing about playing Mandela?

Morgan Freeman: The most challenging was the voice, the accent if you will. Everything else was easy, I’ve been watching him for years. Once I got the notion that one of these days I’d be playing him on screen it just became a thing of paying attention to him every chance I got. Whenever I was in his company, or when I saw him on screen I just watched him like one of these days I’m gonna have to do that

Invictus is in cinemas Febuary 5th

Last night Leicester Square welcomed Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon to the UK premiere of Invictus. The press conference took place yesterday as well, I’m gonna write that up for Tuesday, just in time for the films UK release  Friday the 5th. I’d strongly advise checking it out, it’s very inspirational – the most obvious thing I’ve typed all day, but yes it really is!

Colin Firth is one of Britain’s most recognisable actors, he’s know to my Mum and pretty much every woman over 40 as Mr Darcy. He hasn’t stopped there though, he’s also starred in The English Patient, Fever Pitch, Shakespeare In Love, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Girl With A Pearl Earring, Love Actually, Nanny McPhee, When Did You Last See Your Father?, St Trinian’s and Mamma Mia! A Single Man for me is his best performance, I expect to see some Oscar love. A Single Man is based on the story by Christopher Isherwood. Set in the US in 1962, Firth plays English college professor George Falconer, a man struggling to come to terms with the death of his long term lover Jim (Matthew Goode). Distracted momentarily by old friend Charley (Julianne Moore) and curious student Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), he cannot ignore the profound sense of less he feels and so resolves to do something about it.

Fear is a big theme in the film.

Colin Firth: Yes, there’s that theme of fear running through it which George talks to his students about. I think it’s very much alive today, it’s a marketing tool and a political tool. I think it’s how governments get things done. That’s what Naomi Klein talks about in The Shock Doctrine. If you frighten people enough to can get any legislation through, you can make them put with the Patriot Act, or Guantanamo or the invasion of a country that should be left alone. Or indeed giving up your civil liberties, or putting up CCTV cameras everywhere. People are prepared to accept all that if they’re frightened.

Could Isherwood’s story have been updated and put in a contemporary setting?

Colin Firth: That’s a very difficult one to answer. I don’t think LA’s changed that much, really. This character happens to be gay, but although George is struggling with a lot he’s certainly not struggling with his sexuality. Isherwood’s characters don’t seem to. So I don’t know what it would have done to the film if you’d have set it in the present. You take the Cuban Missile Crisis out and put something else there, like the fear of terrorism, it’s actually rather an interesting question. I think there’s something about the characters of George and Charley that just feels right in 1962, there’s something about their whole cultural reference points that feel of that generation. But I think you could have updated it quite easily frankly. I just wouldn’t have looked as good.

Tom Ford with his fashion experience at Gucci, makes the film look great, but also delivers strong characters within the story, doesn’t he?

Colin Firth: He used all the skills that I think he’d developed as a designer. As he’ll tell you in his other job he has to have a vision and he has to be able to communicate that , he has to be able to marshal people and inspire them to share it and do what you want them to do. Those are very much the skills that are required to direct a film too. He also he has an extraordinary instinct for picking the right people to do the jobs he wants, whether it’s a designer or a make-up person or his cast. If you have a look at him for a moment you realise it would be silly to bet against him on something like this. But I do think there was an emotional cost to him with this, he’s not just proving that he can do it. I feel there’s a lot of him in the story.

How did he relate to his actors on set?

Colin Firth: He didn’t give me any verbal instructions really, ever, it was just very clear what was required once we were up and running. When I read the script there was a lot of space to be filled in, there was a lot of stuff without words, but once we were doing it it seemed terribly clear what each moment should be about really. Tom didn’t really need to fling instructions around. I could tell by the room that we were filming in what the mood was, I could see what was on the page. I could tell something by what I was wearing. People comment on the visual beauty of it, I didn’t really notice it as beautiful particularly , it just seemed to be an inevitable part of this world really.

So things like the production design were quite organically arrived at, were they?

Colin Firth: Yes, like that beautiful house is something that Tom looked very, very hard for. He wanted it to be the place that George had chosen, because he wanted it to be cosy. But if the scene is me sitting there alone, listening to a phone ringing with a cup of coffee in front of me and the camera outside the window looking in at this lonely man – you don’t need a director to say ‘okay, this is about loneliness,’. I just think that’s brilliant directing.

Did Tom tell you of the cinematographic style he was after, with the screen warming up in moments of happiness?

Colin Firth: He might have mentioned it but it certainly wasn’t something he troubled us with. I believe he always intended to do that but some of those decisions he came to afterwards. I like the effect, if you’re talking about the interior life of a human being I think that does help narrate the thing, as does the music.

Given Tom’s reputation as a fashion stylist did you make a special effort for your first meeting with him?

Colin Firth: Do you know, you can’t get close. You can’t match him at his own game, and also I don’t think he wants to see a world of Tom Ford clones running around. I know he likes elegance rather than shabbiness. He doesn’t like things out of place. People are a bit self conscious around him, and he does have a way of making people think they’re scruffy. But you know, you can feel scruffy in your best suit and tie standing next to him, he’s so perfect. I came straight from a film set anyway, I was a bit tired, I was a bit unshaven, and in some really rough looking clothes. And I got the part.

Were you aware of his reputation going in to the film?

Colin Firth: Only very distantly. I’m not connected to that world, so I didn’t know that much about him. I knew the name, I’d met him a couple of times, I think I knew he ran a bit fashion house but I probably would have struggled to have told you which one. I knew he did glasses, but that was it. And I also knew there was supposed to be something rather extraordinary about him, that he had this ability to succeed at everything.

A SINGLE MAN will be released at cinemas across the UK on Friday 12th February 2010.

Gabby Sidibe really hit me with her performance in Precious, it’s definitely one of the hardest hitting films I’ve seen in the last few years, if you want to see explosians, slapstick comedy and spaceships this film is not for you. Gabby plays Claireece “Precious” Jones  a sixteen-year-old girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo’Nique who also gives a sensational performance), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, she’s doing well but she’s living with the secret that she can neither read nor write. Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Paula Patton my crush of the month), Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination, it’s serious business and hands down one of the most powerful films I’ve seen.

You give terrific performance in Precious, but I understand you had no real aspirations to become actor. You thought it was a dream too far…

Gabby Sidibe: Yes. That makes a lot of sense, a dream too far. I had been told for most of my life that I would never be able to do something like this. Also I got a lot of cues from the media: when it comes to actresses and people the media cares about, you can probably count the girls that look like me on one hand. So I certainly didn’t think I could break any barriers and become an actress.

And even when you got the audition you weren’t convinced?

Gabby Sidibe: No. I wasn’t. I was withholding; on the fence. I thought it was a dumb idea to go in and do the audition because there was no way that I could be an actress. It had never been within my scope and I never auditioned for anything. I wasn’t an actress. I had no training. Nothing. I thought it made more sense that I to go to school. I was a receptionist for a company while I was studying psychology. But somehow or other it ended up with my going to the audition.

Who persuaded you?

Gabby Sidibe: It was partly my mother and also I have a friend, Henry, who is the assistant director in my local theatre. He called me when they were coming to cast and he thought of me, because they were looking for a very specific girl that I look like. After the audition I went straight to work and by the time I got out of the subway, which is literally an hour later, I had the call back.

I heard that you had an amusing phone call when trying to ring them for the call back…

Gabby Sidibe: Yeah, I was still in disbelief, I dialled the wrong number and I got some lawyer office and I was talking to this lawyer and who happened to have the same name as the guy I was meant to be calling. I was like, ‘Can I talk to Billy Hopkins?’ So they put me through to Billy, the lawyer! He was like, ‘What are you looking for?’ And I said, ‘I have just done this audition and I am doing the call back.’ He laughed, and said, ‘I hope they actually gave you the right number!’ I was pretty sure they did, because I was just one number off so he wished me luck. ‘I hope you get it.’ he said. So I called the right number and made an appointment to come in the next day. The callback was the next day and I was called within half an hour of leaving, saying Mr. Daniels wants to see you. He wanted to meet me that day but since I had already gone all the way back home — and I think the office at the time was five blocks away from where the call back was — so they said I made the appointment and went back in the next day and was talking to Lee for about forty five minutes to an hour. The whole time I am waiting to do the audition again because I was told I would have to audition for him, but it never happened. He just gave me the part.

Lee Daniels says that you told him things about the character that he had not considered. Do you remember what?

Gabby Sidibe: Being a fan of the book, anytime they wanted to do something a little different I would get up on a soapbox, saying, ‘No, you can’t do that because they didn’t do that in the book and we can’t change the book.’ I am anal and got very serious about the character. I have probably told him a lot of things just because there are so many layers to Precious and he just thought because she was big and dark skinned that she had to be a certain way. But in meeting me, I am big and I have dark skin but I am certainly better than what he thought of me. He thought I would be not so and certainly I changed his idea of who Precious is, based on the way I am.

What were you thinking during the audition?

Gabby Sidibe: It was the scene where Precious meets Ms Weiss for the first time, the social worker, and I was given about three minutes with it. I hadn’t seen the scene beforehand. For the most part if you have a manager and the manager submits you for the role then they will email you the sides to the audition so you can prepare the night before. But since this was an open casting call I just showed up, no appointment, no nothing. And they had sides available so I was given three minutes with it and I went in and I did it. I remember thinking that it was a complete waste of time. Billy Hopkins was in the room with his assistant director Jessica Kelly and I wasn’t nervous at all, because I was feeling pretty stupid for having cut class and I was wondering about what I was missing. That was pretty much all that was on my mind. I wasn’t nervous at all because I didn’t think I had it all; I thought that I had zero chance of actually getting the part.

There are many layers to character and some very harrowing scenes to film…

Gabby Sidibe: I tend to disappear when I am acting as Precious. I am blank, completely, I am just feeling every emotion as Precious would feel it and how she should feel it. I leave my body and I take on this character. It is such a weird thing to describe because at first you do a certain amount of takes for every scene, sometimes more than others and for each time it is all brand new information and it a real revelation. It never grows cold or dead to me.

Precious dreams about the red carpet in the movie. How are you finding it yourself?

Gabby Sidibe: Red carpets are more fun in the film. Photoshoots are more fun in life. That’s the way you split that. Red carpets. They don’t suck but they are actually more fun to film than to actually do. Photoshoots are really awesome because sometimes they give you the clothes you are wearing. They give you free shoes and stuff like that!

PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL “PUSH” BY SAPPHIRE is released in cinemas across the UK on 29th January 2010

Lee Daniels is a critically acclaimed Director and Producer, he has produced the Academy Award Winning Monsters Ball, The Woodsman and Tennessee. Daniels made his directorial debut with 2006’s Shadowboxer, starring Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is his second directorial outing…

Set in 1987, it is the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), a sixteen-year-old girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo’Nique), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write. Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination.

Initially, the author, Sapphire, was against a film adaptation. Yet you won her over.

Lee Daniels: Love her. Love her for that. It took me nine, probably ten, years to stalk her. I have stalked her for ten years. Sapphire is a scholar. She is a genius. She is a poet. She is an intellect beyond belief. She doesn’t give a fuck about Hollywood. She don’t care about it, just doesn’t. It is about literature and I think that Lady Luck must have been on my side because she finally embraced the idea. I think that even if I did a bad movie, it would not affect her brilliant masterpiece and I think that she saw the difference in both. She finally realised it and I was there the right time stalking her.

Do you know why she changed her mind? Did she see one of your other films maybe?

Lee Daniels: I think it was a combination of things, but I think she saw Shadowboxer and she really thought I could bring something to the world that she created and she is very excited that I am doing it.

Did she come to the film set?

Lee Daniels: She came down once or twice. I think she had to watch some of what I was doing because I am dealing with her very profound book. She laughed at something that only Mo’Nique and I thought was funny and she was laughing with us because she got it. She understood that there is humour and that she was still the creator. There was a moment when Mo’Nique was laughing at something and I was laughing at something and Sapphire was laughing at something and we realised that nobody else was laughing but us and that we were on another plane. It was a surreal moment.

What was the moment?

Lee Daniels: It was the scene when the mother tells Precious about the HIV. Precious says, ‘Do you have it?’ And the mother says ‘No.’ And Precious says, ‘How do you know?’ And the mother says, ‘Because we didn’t do it up in the ass!’ No one else thought that was funny. I don’t think it was funny but it was this brilliant delivery of it. I think we were laughing at the execution. It was exactly how Sapphire wrote it in the book so there was this triangle of understanding between Mo’Nique, Sapphire and myself.

It is a tough film but also a very tough book. You have had to soften the delivery a little bit, and add a few more rays of light…

Lee Daniels: A little bit!! A lot of a bit. If I had done the book it would have been X-rated. Not that I have a problem with doing X-rated films. I haven’t yet. But this would have lost an audience. I think that the audience should be entitled to breathe. I think with the book, if it gets too much, emotionally, you can put it down. It affected me so that I had to stop. I had to digest it. I put it down and picked it up again later on and I think that the sequences and the touches of humour that we put in the script really do it justice. Geoffrey Fletcher really did a marvellous job translating this book, this script, and we just took it to another place on the screen. We had to let the audience breathe. If you’ve read that book you will know what I am talking about.

You’ve said that you knew people who were moments away from being characters in this story. From where in your life do you know these people?

Lee Daniels: I knew these people when I was a kid. I knew these people as an adult. I know these people now. As a 50-year-old man, there are Precious, there are Marys. These are real life people to me. Everybody in that movie is someone that I have known. And I find it surprising that people don’t know them. I know that if you live in New York City there is no way you don’t see Precious. And I often see Mary. I am down in the grocery store and I am watching mothers yank on their kids, and just really fuming at them, with a cigarette dangling from their mouth. It doesn’t matter if they’re black, Puerto Rican, white or Chinese. Each woman exists.

Was the character of Mary the hardest to cast? She needs to be very complex, almost macabre, yet able to show that she did have something good inside her once.

Lee Daniels: Mary is a very complex person and she was the first person that I did cast. Mo’Nique is my best friend; a very, very good friend and I speak to her every day. I like working with friends. Mariah Carey is another. Gabby has become a good friend. I like working with friends because I know they have my back and we have such a tight budgetary parameter in dealing with the film that you have to count on friendships to take you through those barriers. It is a difficult journey. With regards to Mo’Nique what we did, only friends can do. It went beyond the director-actor friendship; she really understands me. Mo’Nique understands me in my primal place and we just talked about her. And we talked about me. We talked about my insecurities, paranoia, hopes and dreams and sex life, and what I love poetry-wise and what literature I like. And then she sort of broke down and then we transcended all that shit that she knew that I wanted into her interpretation of Mary. It was volatile, explosive, a magical moment, for me. I expected everything that she gave me. I was not surprised by a syllable.

On that point, you’ve been very brave in talking about the abuse you suffered as a child. That’s reflected specifically in the movie, right, with Precious’ dream sequences?

Lee Daniels: I was never sexually abused, but I was physically abused at home. And when bad things happened to me or I saw bad things happen, I would fantasize. When I was 12, I saw someone killed. I remember very clearly that I went into a bubble and I became a prince in a silver crown, knighting someone with my sceptre. I just dropped into a place right there, so I wouldn’t feel the pain. My imagination was God’s way of protecting me and keeping me sane, and I think we catch that in the movie, yes.

When did you first decide that you wanted to direct films, as well as produce them?

Lee Daniels: I started directing theatre. That’s how it started. I was in theatre early on and I moved. The camera was an animal to me that scared me but I learned about that while I was managing actors, and while I was producing films. Because of that, actors have always been in my comfort zone. My whole thing to begin with in the entertainment industry was media and managing actors throughout the world and being on sets and studying. I was always studying the process of filmmaking through filmmakers and through cinematographers and through production designers etc etc. So that whole experience was learned not through your conventional way

Finally, what was the most important thing that you wanted to convey with this film?

Lee Daniels: That never again should we look at Precious and not look at Precious. When you stumble across this girl you will acknowledge her. Because I have cousins that are her, friends that are her and even having friends and cousins that are her, I still disassociate myself. It is so important for me that I embrace this girl with all my gusto, because she is embracing me. The other important part of this story is about learning to love yourself, and accepting who you are. Those are the two big points I hope people will walk away with from this film. Who knows if they will? But I pray to God that they do.

PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL “PUSH” BY SAPPHIRE is released in cinemas across the UK on 29th January 2010

I recently caught up with Clive Owen, (Closer, Sin City, Inside Man, Children Of Men) who gives an Oscar worthy performance in The Boys Will Are Back, one of the most honest depictions of family life and grief I’ve seen in film. Check out the synopsis and my interview below.

Based on the acclaimed memoir by Simon Carr, The Boys are Back in Town, Academy Award® nominee Scott Hicks (Shine) directs Miramax Films’ THE BOYS ARE BACK, inspired by the poignant, comic and uplifting true story of a man who must suddenly raise his two sons alone. After the untimely passing of his second wife, the ill-prepared Joe (Clive Owen) is confronted with the daily challenges of parenthood, while coping not only with his own loss but also with his young son Artie’s expressions of grief. They soon are joined by Harry, Joe’s teenage son from his first marriage, who brings his own personal “baggage” into the mix.

Your performance in this is great, it seems to me this is the most emotional part you’ve ever played, was that what attracted you to the part?

Clive Owen: It was a very beautiful script, I was taken when I read the script. I thought it was unusual in it’s delicacy and intelligence in exploring these relationships, it wasn’t obvious or overly sentimental, it was very delicate and precise. I found it terribly moving. I’m a father myself and parenting is a huge part of my life, when reading the script and getting to the part when he has to tell his boys their mother might not be around for much longer I found it deeply upsetting, just the whole idea of that conversation, then there was this beautiful exploration of both grief and parenting from a guys perspective, it was never heavy or sentimental it was just beautifully written.

When your a doing a film like this, that does have so much emotion and such a journey, there is a chance it will become sentimental or gloopy, I think to the films credit it never felt like that for me, was it hard to keep away from that?

Clive Owen: Scott Hicks and I, the first time we met we were both adamant that we didn’t want to make that kind of film. Personally from my point of view I’ve seen lot’s of family movies, where the family is in this lovely warm bubble and even when things get tough, it stays lovely and sweet, family’s aren’t like that, it’s much more volatile than that, this was a script and project that dealt with it more realistically.

I was always more interested in the times when it was tougher in the film for instance when Artie has the tantrum in the car, I have been in situations like that with my children, I think kids pre 8 or 9 are kind of crazy and manic obsessive and they go into their funks and you have to try and get them out of it, as a parent I could really relate to that scene, I wanted it to be really hard for my character, because all parents will relate. If this was a big hollywood movie, with lot’s of producers caring what would be done, people would worry about the likeability of the character or why are they being so mean to each other, it’s not bad parenting in those situations and I was confident as a parent people would relate to it, they have been in those experiences, it’s not bad parenting, that’s just the up’s and down’s of bringing up children, it was something that was very well explored in the script and which I thought we should keep to as much as possible.

It’s rare that a film like this is from from a man’s point of view.

Clive Owen: Yeah, added to that it’s a memoir based on somebody’s life, those things happened, it’s not a nice idea for a film, it’s all drawn from real experience.

You have so many different types of roles in the films you pick, is that on purpose?

Clive Owen: I don’t set out, I think at the end of the day my career is made up of all my individual choices I’ve made, it is literally an instinctive response, I respond to the material, I read Shoot Em Up and laughed all the way through and thought I want to do that film, it’s crazy and I read this script and I’m interested in it for other reasons. I trained in the theatre, which is all about playing lots of different parts, I enjoy exploring different aspects of myself in the films and people have said to me this film is quite a departure, I never saw it as that but enough people have told me now, I’ve got to accept it.

I’m a parent and being a parent is a big part of my life so I recognised and felt I had similar experiences to a lot of things in the movie, so it felt reasonably familiar, I didn’t have the tragic loss but in terms of the up’s and down’s of parenting I felt I experienced a few of them, at the end of the day it’s all about responding to the material and wanting to work with the director that’s what dictates my decision.

The Boys Are Back is released in the UK January 22nd

I’ve had a very lazy Christmas break, I was meant to put this up on Boxing in time for the UK release date, but I was too busy chillaxing and lazing about for once! If you missed part 1 of the interview you can check it out here. It’s good to hear the film is doing so well in the states, it made $65 million over the weekend (big chee$e) and is being recieved very well critically.

What was your devotion to martial arts like, according to the production notes you’ve been doing it for 6 years and also how did you prepare for the bare knuckle boxing scene?

Robert Downey Jnr: There was a choreographed version of it, I went in and got all pissed about it, Guy came in and we worked on it, so I think your seeing probably version 6.0 by the time we shot it, Guy is a jiu jitsu fella we managed to get along some how!

It was so fun though, by the time we had finished shooting that scene I felt like we really had a handle on the movie and not because I took my top off and showed my rippling abs and self important garbage but because this was Guys idea and it was really a bold thing and it could have gone really poorly, in which case the rest of the movie is trying to recover from the bad Guy Ritchie scene we went out and shot but it was literally perfect, it set the tone, it was really his take. We had to trust each other and get each others approval. I’m crazy about fighting, I love it (laughs)

Why do you love filming in Britain and Jude what’s it like filming in your hometown?

Robert Downey Jnr: I was here 20 years ago and the food SUCKED, and I wasn’t particularly happy when I was here, I was doing a film called Air America, I renamed it Air Generica and we were at Pinewood Studios, then I came back and did Chaplin but I think there is something about the work ethic here, the people, the culture, as Americans we sometimes have an abrupt attitude, there’s a much more civilized way to operate over here. For me the film was a huge experience, it was the proper way to do things and I’ve taken everything forth.

Jude Law: The production designer done an amazing job, we’d turn up everyday amazed, they had been preparing for days, there was so much detail, it was exquisite, it’s always fun to be out and about and film, rather than in a studio, I like getting my boots dirty, it was fun, it’s always fun working in the UK.

Guy are we gonna lose you to Hollywood or are you gonna still make the smaller Independent films?

Guy Ritchie: I don’t know, I really just make the films I want to make, the interesting thing about this experience was that it wasn’t the cliché experience between film-maker and studio, I argued for the studio, I wanted to make an assessable, broad film and they wanted the Guy Ritchie’isms so I was arguing for the studio and they were arguing for me, it was like two people going to the bar and both insisting the other should pay, so all the arguments between the studio and myself were coming from a positive place. I think studios have changed as well with there approach to film-makers, I had a tremendous experience from beginning to end, there was no us and them.

Why Sherlock Holmes out of all the iconic characters?

Guy Ritchie: Partly because I was invested in him as a child, I had a really strong visual sense about who I thought Sherlock Holmes should be, not only that but I had not seen any other productions, unlike most people I had no visual reference other than what I had knocked up in my mind. Warners came up to me with the idea and as soon as they mentioned it, I was fascinated.

What were the re-shoots about, there was a lot of talk about that earlier this year?

Guy Ritchie: In every film I’ve ever done we always leave a contingency for a week because you never know what’s gonna surface during the editing process, so we always leave a week and we left a week. The films the film we all intended to make. On the DVD there are no deleted scenes, there was no fat.

After much anticipation Avatar was finally revealed to the worlds press yesterday with screenings around the world and the World Premier and Press Conference in London.  It’s been getting rave reviews from critics (apart from The Guardian who I think are a great paper but I generally disagree with their movie reviews, they gave Surrogates 3 out of 5, but Inglorious Basterds 1 out of 5!) Empire gave a great interview that sums everything up nicely. Below is about 70% of the press conference from yesterday, have a butchers!

It’s finally out there, how do you feel?

James Cameron: Sorely empty (laughs) but we can feel we’ve got our head held high that we got the picture done on time by the skin of our teeth. It’s been a four and a half year process, so we’re gonna pull the cover back and show the world, so to speak here in London, it’s really a huge relief to let people see it instead of people keeping on talking about it, it will put the rumors to bed

What was it like when you saw you Avatars after the motion capture?

Zoe Saldana: It blew my mind, Jim would sometimes incorporate us in the process, he would send us the results of all the company’s he was working with, we couldn’t express through words how we felt, they look so new and so beautiful and they looked so much like us, it was kinda unimaginable.

Sigounrey Weaver: We all had renderings of our Avatars while we were doing our performance capturing, for me Grace had such a haunting face, I think because her human life is so guarded, the rendering was a real inspiration to me, so I was very surprised when I actually watched the movie that he hadn’t done it like the rendering, Grace looked just like Sigourney only that I was 10 feet tall and blue which is a much improved version of myself (laughs). It was wonderful having a double life as a character and seeing it realised so magnificently by Jim.

Sam Worthington: My biggest fear was that I try to be a very subtle actor, I was worried that my performance would not translate when it goes through the computer, I was hopeful. Then when I watched it, THAT was my performance, every glimmer in my eye, every smirk, every goofy walk, that has enraptured my spirit, hopefully when you sit and watch the film, after 20 or 30 minutes your not watching big blue people your watching the spirit of us.

How did you connect with your cast when you were directing them in virtual reality?

James Cameron: The interesting thing about performance capture is that its probably the best actor/director relationship I’ve ever been involved in because normally on a photographic set, and we shot for 4 months photographically in Wellington, you’ll see that parts of the film were done that way and parts of the film where done virtually, but with the virtual working process I’m not distracted by the lighting, the time of day, the sun setting if the shot has to be done by 6.15, a 1000 questions come up that pull the director away from working with the actors who are really just there to do the acting, they’re there to act and I’m there to work with them and try and get the best performance I can from them, so we spend our time to find a moment of truth then we’ll go and huddle over the hi-def playback so we can look at their faces, I won’t see them as their Na’vi or their Avatar characters for months or even years after that because the process takes so long, but as long as I know in that moment that we’ve gotten it, then I don’t have to worry about it down stream, it’s a long process but what we get in the end is exactly where we started from, we wisely didn’t make the assumption we can change it or modify it later, we fought hard in the moment to get exactly what we wanted to say, no ones harder on Zoe, Sam or Sigourney than themselves. I’ve had a really stimulating process and I think we all bonded making this film, in attempts for excellence

Visually what were your influences?

James Cameron: I just swept in every design influence I’ve had in my life, I’ve always had a deep respect for nature, a lot of my youth was spent out in the woods, hiking and collecting samples and putting it under microscopes and them types of things, I’ve spent over 2500 hours under water and I’ve seen things that are absolutely astonishing at the bottom of the ocean which really is like an alien planet. I’ve always felt that’s been a gift in my life to live out a science fiction adventure for real on them diving expeditions, the ocean was a big influence, the creatures, the textures, the colourful creatures.

I found it really interesting that the heroes in the film weren’t the ones who had huge mechanised military force on there sides, could you tell us a bit about the message your projecting?

James Cameron: I think obviously there’s a connection to recent events and there’s a conscious attempt to even invoke Vietnam era military with the way the guys are jumping of the helicopters, it’s a way of connecting a thread through history, I’d even take that thread farther because I like to have a historical memory that goes back farther than just now, going back to the 16^th and 17^th century’s how the Europeans pretty much took over the South Central area and North America and displaced and marginalised the indigenous people there, there’s a long wonderful history of the human race written in blood going as far back as we can remember going as far back to the Roman Empire and even farther back that that where we seem to have this tendency to take what we want without asking as the character Jake says in the film. I see that as a broader metaphor not so intensely politicised, broader in a sense of how we treat the natural world as well. It’s a sense of entitlement like we’re here, we’re big, we’ve got the guns, we’ve got the brains, we’ve got the technology so we’re entitled to every damn thing on this planet and that’s not how it works, we’re gonna find the hard way if we don’t wise up. The film espouses a love/relationship with technology, obviously we use technology to tell a story about nature which is an irony in itself, it’s not that technology is bad we just need to be in control of our technological process.

Was is it hard with something this big to keep up with Jim’s vision?

Zoe Saldana: We had so much reference, we went to Hawaii for 4 days before shooting the film, we wore dental floss type costumes, umping around the rain forest for four days, getting our feet wet knowing what it’s like to walk on that ground, seeing how the sun was cast on the leaves and trees, cooking fish on the ground. Because Jim knew he needed people who could make something out of thin air the least he could have done was to take us places and answer every question, there was no such thing as a redundant question, there was always resources, anything we needed.

Sam Worthington: I was only wearing a lace g string (laughs), some ears, a tale and a weird wig, I thought it was gonna be a holiday but we worked hard, then a guy came by and asked what are you doing, we said we’re making a movie, he said a budget movie, who’s directing it, we said that bloke over , so there’s Jim with a handy cam and he goes is that James Cameron, we said yeah, he said FUCK he’s gone downhill since the Titanic (laughs). Now that has become Avatar.

Is there gonna be an Avatar 2?

James Cameron: I always said during making of the film I dreaded it making money because we’d have to do it all over again, but in fact when I pitched it to Fox, I said so much has been put into this one a whole planet, plants, creatures, bugs etc, they were all designed by people over a period of years, they all have value so the pitch was that we spent so much money on that we won’t need as much for the second one, we can just focus on the story, they bought that (laughs) so now I feel like I have to, but that will only happen if this one makes some money, I’ve got a story set out for the 2^nd one, and 3^rd film but my lips are sealed.

I recently caught up with a fellow North West Londoner – Paul Bettany while he was promoting his film Creation to talk on Charles Darwin. Creation is based on the life of Charles Darwin and the book, Annie’s Box, by Randal Keynes about the life of his great, great grandfather. This year marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Look out for Paul Bettany in Legion, Iron Man 2 and Priest in 2010

Did you know much about Darwin before you started on this project?

Paul Bettany: I felt like I knew quite a bit about him actually but then when you are going to play a role like this it gives you the perfect opportunity to be entirely specific about one person in history.

There must be a lot of material out there…

Paul Bettany: Absolutely – there is so much. He himself was so prolific with like a book a year. I now can’t separate to what I knew and what I learnt. I will say that it was an exercise in complete frustration because the amount that he wrote and the amount that has subsequently been written about him, you were always looking at a pillar of unread books.

But what did you take from the research that you could actually use in the performance?

Paul Bettany: You are always looking for the thing that conflicts inside the person and there’s a lot of things that like – the conflict in his marriage, the loss of a child, his wife’s religious beliefs and the fact that he is in the process of killing God.

What conclusions did you draw about him?

Paul Bettany: I think he was a social conservative with a revolutionary idea and that’s painful. He moved at glacial speed anyway and we know that he wasn’t the greatest student but what he could do was look at something fresh and I don’t think he had a snobbery about where the information came from – so whether he was talking to a farmer or whether he was talking to a professor, it didn’t matter it was all about the information. He was rigorous and he moved slowly and I think these ideas came to him. He read a book on economics and he sort of took the formula and saw it in nature everywhere and suddenly couldn’t stop seeing it. And what he discovered, with meticulous research, meant that he couldn’t deny the fact that gradual changes over time happen if you want to survive in your environment.

Survival of the fittest…

Paul Bettany: Survival of the fittest has actually become a bit of a problem whereas it’s more the survival of the most apt and survival of the most keen to adapt, really. And he just couldn’t stop seeing it and I think that made him ill. So that’s even before you get into the whole thing about his wife’s religion and knowing that his discoveries were going to be like a bomb going off. He knew of course that his wife took great solace in her religion after the death of their children. In the film we focus on the loss of one child but in fact they lost three.

You clearly built up quite a picture of the man. Did you like him?

Paul Bettany: Yes. I haven’t found a bad word said about him apart from on the Internet now.  People that knew him say he was a decent man and a great father. I once heard it levelled that he sort of would study his children like experiments, but when you think that science was such a huge love in his life then it becomes an act of the utmost love to do that.

How important is it that the film is based on Randal Keynes’ book?

Paul Bettany: Very important. I got the script and I thought it was beautiful – its one of the best scripts I’ve ever read. It’s John Collee who wrote Master and Commander and he’s the bollocks. And Randal Keynes is all things Darwin – he is his great, great grandson, which was important because you have that seal of approval right from the beginning and that’s crucial because you are dealing with that biographical stuff. But moreover it worked as a script and as a story even if you took out the fact that it’s Darwin. This is a story about a marriage in crisis and the loss of a child. It’s compelling enough even if it wasn’t about Darwin.

The film shows that Darwin took a long time to publish The Origin of the Species. Why do you think that was?

Paul Bettany: There were a lot of contributing factors – his wife, his fear of social disorder, of being ostracised by this world that really embraced him. It embraced him prior to this just because of his writings on the Beagle (his findings from a five year voyage on HMS Beagle established his reputation). He came back and he was a bit of a star in that scientific community immediately. So I think there were a lot of factors that stopped him. He writes about it himself. He quite clinically thought ‘why did I come up with this idea? How did this come to me?’ And he put it down to the fact that he was incredibly observant – he has this over developed muscle for observation without putting any pre-determined ideas on it. He would talk to a guy who was a pigeon fancier in the pub exactly the same way he would talk to a professor at Oxford University and everything he heard had the same weight, whether the syntax was right or not, it was all information for him. Also, he was clearly incredibly thorough and that’s also part of why it took 20 years.