Declan Cashin

Writing: the art of applying the ass to the seat

The coverage of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 has started. Two that I’ve liked so far:

The cultural legacy of 9/11 over at Salon

The 9/11 Encyclopedia at ‘New York’ magazine

My interview with Anne Hathaway, star of ‘One Day’. Watch here.

You can also see my interview with Jim Sturgess here.

Director Lone Scherfig interview is here.

Lastly, my interview with author and screenwriter David Nicholls

Loving this poster for upcoming ‘silent’ movie flick The Artist.

My latest feature for movies.ie

In The Inbetweeners Movie, the horny, hapless heroes decamp to a Greek island for a summer holiday in search of – as the sex-obsessed Jay would succinctly put it – “clunge”.

While the four lads might be expressing their desire for a foreign romance more crudely than others, the trials and tribulations of the overseas love affair has long been a favourite of film-makers and, for the most part, movie audiences.

With that in mind, movies.ie has decided to recall ten of our favourite movie ‘foreign affairs’, all whilst daydreaming on a beach chair, thoughtfully twisting a garish cocktail umbrella in our overpriced glass of Sex on the Beach:

Romancing The Stone (1984):

When nerdy romance writer Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) travels to South America to rescue her kidnapped sister, she enlists the help of Jack Colton, a dishy American shyster on the ground (Michael Douglas – hey he was dishy back in the day). She finds him repugnant, so naturally we know they’ll be getting it on in no time. For his part, Jack thinks nothing of getting into Joanie’s cobweb-encrusted pants to get to a priceless gem, literally and metaphorically. It all ends happily ever after on a yacht in the middle of a Manhattan street.

Out of Africa (1985):

Danish aristocrat Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) recalls the days when – and here we’re going to try to phonetically render Meryl’s mad accent – “she haaad ah faaarm in Affffrica”. Well you would too if you managed to bed Robert Redford’s big-game hunter (oh er!) behind the back of your boring Baron – in every homophonic sense of the word – husband. Rob even washes her hair in the bath and reads her poetry. Puts that evening when you fed your lady double Fat Frogs in the pub and bought her a 4-in-1 special on the way home into perspective now doesn’t it?

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)/Notting Hill (1999):

Fit American birds in London, Andie McDowell and Julia Roberts, couldn’t resist the bumbling charms of Hugh ‘Fuck-Fuck-Fuckity-Fuck-Fuck-Bugger’ Grant in these two romantic comedies that always win you over despite your best attempts to be cynical. Of the two, we prefer Julia’s movie star character Anna, though we do have a soft spot for Andie, mainly for her line ‘Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed’, which she delivers with all the emotion of a malfunctioning talking clock.

Continue here.

My interview with Jim Sturgess, star of One Day, in today’s Irish Examiner

Jim Sturgess has been in a perpetual state of jetlag for the past month, flying to and around the US on promotional duties, but also taking in time to attend his brother’s wedding – as well as the numerous parties associated with it – in London.

To the bleary-eyed 30-year-old’s eternal relief, his role in the nuptials was purely as spectator and reveller. “Luckily I don’t think he trusted me with being his best man,” he laughs, settling into the sofa in a hotel suite in London’s Knightsbridge. “I was best man for my best mate before. It’s a lot of responsibility. All of this is easy. Being best man is far more terrifying.”

The ‘this’ Sturgess is referring to is carrying leading man duties in the new romantic drama One Day. Adapted from David Nicholls’ phenomenally popular (and successful, to the tune of 1m copies sold) novel, Sturgess plays Dexter Mayhew, a cocky, wealthy gadabout who meets dorky, sarcastic Emma Morley (Anne Hathaway) on their college graduation night on July 15^th, 1988.

The movie’s plot then re-visits Dexter and Emma, separately and together, on the same date – July 15^th – for the next 20 years as they push on with their lives and loves.

For his part, Sturgess hadn’t read the book until after he’d first gone through the script (which was also penned by Nicholls). “I knew the book was popular, but I’d never had a conversation about it,” he says. “A lot of my mates don’t read, so maybe that’s why.

“Then we just lived in a kind of bubble as we were making the film, and it was only afterwards, when I had some downtown in London, that I started seeing the book everywhere. That’s when I thought, ‘Oh sh*t, now I’m in trouble’.”

Sturgess had that fear confirmed last year on a trip to Dubai for the country’s film festival. “I hadn’t been acting for a while, and I hadn’t been looking after myself either, enjoying my beer too much,” he laughs. “So I’d just come out of the water, and I saw this woman on the beach reading the book.

“Her daughter next to her pointed at me and whispered in the woman’s ear, obviously saying, ‘That guy is playing Dexter’. The look that woman gave me! She even put the book down. I looked a mess, a proper Brit abroad. I wanted to just hide underwater.”

That being said, Sturgess has gotten off lightly compared to his very American co-star Hathaway, who has been pilloried by online commentators for her admittedly wobbly attempt at a northern England accent.

Sturgess is quick to leap to his co-star’s defence. “The criticism the press has given Anne on the back of the movie’s trailer seems really unfair. In the book, Emma’s accent disappears over the course of time, and Anne tried to mimic that in the film.

“But when you watch the trailer, with all the scenes chopped up, it sounds like the accent is all over the place. When you see the film you will be proved wrong. The fact is her accent is not terrible by any means. One reviewer thought I was an American doing an English accent, and that critic said my English accent was terrible! People hear what they want to hear.”

Sturgess, handsome in that fashionably unkempt, indie-rocker kind of way, is still making a name for himself, his most high-profile performances to date being in the Beatles-inspired musical Across the Universe, the Vegas counting cards caper 21, and last year’s WWII drama The Way Back alongside Colin Farrell and Saoirse Ronan.

Prior to his screen career, Sturgess was a musician, playing in a succession of bands while working odd jobs as a dish-washer in a restaurant and in the ‘Size’ shoe shop on London’s Carnaby Street.

Sturgess still tinkers around with music today, aided and encouraged in no small part by his long-term musician girlfriend, Mickey O’Brien. The couple have even made a demo album together in their home studio.

With a name like that, it’s no surprise to learn that O’Brien’s extended family all hail from Ireland. “We go over with the family to the middle of nowhere in Carrick-on-Shannon,” Sturgess says. “I love the pubs and the people. Mickey’s family are all farmers with no connection to the world of fame at all. They’re always like [adopting an impressive Irish accent], ‘How’s it goin’ with the fillums’?”

Lastly, though he says he’s not good at romance in reality, when pressed for a date that is significant to him – like July 15^th in the movie – Sturgess replies: “My anniversary with Mickey, May 20^th.

“We chose that as our anniversary because we knew each other a little bit before, but we’d never been on a date. Then on May 20^th, we hung out at this party, and didn’t leave each other’s side.

“We stayed up all night together, and ended going up to Smithfield Market [in north-west London] to keep on drinking in this early house that opens especially for the people working in the market. It’s like a normal pub, but everyone is covered on blood because they all work in the meat market.

“That was just a really special night. And nothing happened. We swapped numbers and kept in touch. It was very much like Dex and Emma. We just connected in that way.”

*One Day is in cinemas from today.

My interviews with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in today’s Irish Independent

It’s not every day that you provoke James Bond into telling you to f**k off. But that’s what happened throughout the course of an interview with Daniel Craig to promote his new sci-fi/western mash-up movie Cowboys and Aliens.

In the ‘does-what-it-says-on-the-tin’ action film, Craig stars as an amnesiac cowboy who stumbles into an Old West town living under the iron-fisted rule of a gruff Civil War colonel (Harrison Ford). The only hint of his history is a high-tech shackle on his wrist.

Once more, the 43-year-old Craig is called upon to be the taciturn action hero, administering and receiving beatings and all-round general ass-whuppings. So, I asked, doesn’t he ever wish that he’d signed up to play a genteel Jane Austen-esque piece of eye-candy in a restrained period drama instead?

He fixed those famous blue peepers on me. “Oh f**k off, mate,” he replied. I froze in response; it was hard to know when Craig was being serious or not. His arms, bulging out of a fitted navy T-shirt, are about the size of my thighs…

Continue reading here.

Loving these ink tattoo covers for modern classics from Penguin.