LONDON-BORN ENGLISH ACTRESS CAREY MULLIGAN CAME TO INTERNATIONAL PROMINENCE ON THE BACK OF HER ACADEMY AWARD-NOMINATED TURN IN LONE SCHERFIG’S AN EDUCATION, A ROLE FOR WHICH SHE ALSO EARNED BEST ACTRESS AWARDS FROM THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW, THE BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS AND BAFTA. SHE RECENTLY STARRED IN MARK ROMANEK’S ADAPTATION OF KAZUO ISHIGURO’S NEVER LET ME GO, WITH KEIRA KNIGHTELY AND ANDREW GARFIELD, AND ALSO IN OLIVER STONE’S WALL STREET 2: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS, PLAYING THE DAUGHTER OF MICHAEL DOUGLAS’S ICONIC CHARACTER. SHE ALSO STARRED AS KITTY IN JANE AUSTEN’S PRICE AND PREJUDICE. ADDITIONAL FILMS INCLUDE PUBLIC ENEMIES, THE GREATEST, BROTHERS, WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER AND DRIVE.

Carey has just won the best supporting actress award at the Hollywood Film Awards as well as the Detroit Film Critics Society Awards for her role in the tense drama Shame, directed by Steve McQueen where she plays Sissy, sibling to Michael Fassbender’s character, Brandon.  AGENT2 brings you this interview before the UK release of Shame.

Your character in Shame, Sissy, is another fantastic and really interesting part…

Yes. My agent gave me the script. She read it and she told me that there is this insane part of Michael Fassbender’s sister and I read it and I thought, ‘No way on earth will Steve McQueen ever let me play this.’ I thought they would cast someone gritty and American. So I met Steve thinking that there was no way this would come off and he kept on trying to leave! Like ten minutes into our meeting, he was like, ‘Right, okay, thanks.’ And I was, ‘Oh, no!’ And I kept making him sit down again.

What did you say to him?

I just said, ‘Look, Steve, the thing is’, and then I wouldn’t have anything to say. But we did end up talking about The Seagull, which is my big obsession. Playing Nina in The Seagull, I have never really recovered from it and I want to play Nina for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t find a film role that was on the same level, or as difficult or as interesting. Then when I read Shame I thought it was as difficult as Nina and that is what I told him, to convince him to let me do it.

Why is Sissy so close to Nina in The Seagull?

They both have an uncompromising nature. Both of them have the ability to jump without a safety net and they both have really, really high standards for love and for success and yet neither of them can meet them. There is a tragedy in that. When we were rehearsing for Shame, Steve and I talked a lot about Francesca Woodman who was an artist. She was a photographer, an American from Connecticut, and she started taking photographs when she was 15 years old. The majority of them were self-portraits and nudes and she killed herself; she jumped out of a building when she was 22 years old in 1981. I don’t know what it was about her but she had this same thing. She wasn’t afraid. She had no boundaries. She wouldn’t accept less than taking over and being seen and being heard. I don’t know why she killed herself but one of her frustrations was that she was not accepted in her time. People didn’t really appreciate her work and now, of course, her work is sold for thousands.

Tell me how Sissy fits into Shame…

I think Shame is about a man who is trying to control his life and won’t allow people to become intimate with him. He is trying to forget and has a regimented life and part of that is an addiction, his relationship with his sister and the people around him. But the sexual addiction has always been a side note to me, because I think it is more about how he connects with people and how any obsession or addiction informs how you behave towards the people around you. The sexual thing is obviously very specific and it is uncomfortable. I think that is Steve’s intention. It is funny because in the cinema if you make light of sex, or you are crude or you make a joke of it, then it’s fine and acceptable. But the minute you start to talk about it seriously it is unattractive and there is nothing in Shame that is very sexy. It makes you go away and never want to have sex again!

It must have been an intimidating role?

Terrifying. If I had been playing any kind of character, playing a tea lady, I would have been scared, because it was Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender. The standards that they set are so high, so that in itself was terrifying. Added to that the particulars about the character, the music and the singing and all that stuff, it was a pretty big leap.

It’s an intense film, but can you also have a laugh when making the movie?

You can. I didn’t know what to expect because my first meeting with Steve was quite intense. He sort of riles you up. I almost cried! I think I did cry at our first meeting because he stirs up a desire to make art and no one else ever has ever done that in the same way. He really challenges you on why you make the choices that you make — what kind of films you make and why you are doing them. And that was really intimidating and alarming but he also reminds you why you want to act. He would come in when we were doing a take and he’d say, ‘Ah, Michael, you two seem like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’, and it was amazing. You’d be so in awe and at the same time he’d be telling you to do it better. He would be like, ‘It is half time and you are 4-0 up and you have got to be 8-0 up. You can do it.’ Stuff like that. Sometimes it would be very quiet but often he was like a real cheerleader. He can mess around, especially with Michael. 

The bathroom scene and the singing scene — was one more frightening than the other?

Singing. The singing was more nerve racking than the nude scene. The nude scene in the end was fine actually. I think I was nervous beforehand. I remember lying down in the bath in that bathroom and I knew that Michael was going to burst into the first take at any point and, strangely, I didn’t feel nervous at all. Whereas with the first take of the singing I was really scared. Steve always wanted it live and he wanted it in one take. So that set of requirements meant you couldn’t muck it up. We were there for about two hours and we did take, cut, take, cut. And the lyrics when you study them are desperate. It was really fun to play. I had singing lessons and a singing coach and she actually played the piano in the scene.

Have you sung much before?

I was in the choir at school. I sang in musicals and stuff but never the big roles and, weirdly, Belle & Sebastian asked me to sing on one of their songs last year. That was very scary. I was terrified. I had no idea. It was so random. They just rang up my agent and asked if I’d be interested and I was like, ‘Yeah!’ It was cool but so nerve-racking. Singing is terrifying. It was the scariest thing. Not the worst thing to do but it scared me to death.

When did you first think you wanted to do this as your career?

The first time I did a play was a musical, The King And I, when I was six in Düsseldorf. My brother was in it and I wasn’t which didn’t go down very well with me. That was the first thing I did. But I don’t think there was a light bulb moment when I thought of it as a career. I just always thought that this was what I was going to do.

And you’re currently shooting Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Is it ever so lavish?

Yes. His style is so unique to him and he is the only person who can do it. It is amazing doing a period film and really walking into sets where the design is so grand. It is perfect. It is accurate. It is so intricate. It helps inform the role. It was the same in Shame. We were in a tiny apartment, literally, much smaller than this whole room and that confinement was so helpful. Michael and I played out scenes in one shot and it was really just the tiniest space and that made you feel claustrophobic. It is the same with Gatsby; the design and the set informs your work and it is so helpful.

SHAME is released in the UK and Ireland on 13 January

Check out AGENT2′s great SHAME t-shirt and DVD bundle giveaway courtesy of Momentum pictures here.

For more information; facebook.com/shameuk or follow @shamefilm

America’s premier modern art gallery, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, is hosting an exhibition of 700 drawings, paintings and sculptures and other paraphernalia – with pieces dating back to early childhood drawings- all by Burton. Following the current of his visual imagination right through to his latest work, the exhibition presents artwork generated during the conception and production of his films, his earliest non-professional films and student art.

In addition Burton’s entire cinematic oeuvre of 14 feature films will screen over the course of the five-month exhibition in the Museum’s Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters: Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Planet of the Apes (2001), Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Sweeney Todd (2007). His early short films Vincent (1982) and Frankenweenie (1984) will also be screened.

The exhibition will be at MoMA, New York from November 22, 2009 – April 26, 2010.

Burton is an acclaimed filmmaker, attending the California Institute of the Art. He was quickly drafted in to join the Disney animation ranks. But Burton was not suited to animation; they made him a conceptual artist. His concept drawings didn’t go down well as they were far too dark and twisted for the standard Disney fare. However, he soon set tow rok on his own projects. His early films were all mildly successful, but it was 1989’s Batman that made industry insiders sit up and take note.

Edward Scissorhands (1990) was the first time Burton had full creative control over a feature film; having written the story and also produced the movie. The film was a hit with filmgoers and critics alike, and, significantly, marked the beginning of Burton being taken seriously as an artist. His darkly surreal vision had returned audiences back to their own childhood vulnerability and in the process, created a modern fairy tale.

He has continued this tradition with stop-motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Corpse Bride (2005), none of which did anything to dispel the image of Burton as a slightly macabre figure. Having once said, “I’ve always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people but they’d still say I’m a dark personality,” he is further than ever from shaking off his ghoulish image, if the title sequence of 2007’s winter blockbuster, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is anything to go by.

Burton has also dabbled in poetry. His first ever film, Vincent, was in fact was based on a poem Burton had written himself. The short film tells the sad tale of Vincent Malloy, a suburban child who wants to be just like his idol, Vincent Price. Burton’s illustrated collection of poetry The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories (1997), gave birth to a wide variety of loveably macabre characters, such as ‘Oyster Boy’, a baby born as an oyster because his parents ate one too many of the salty dish and ‘Stain Boy’ whose superpower is to leave behind a filthy stain.

These intriguing characters are sure to be an indication of what to expect from Burton’s artworks, with curators already hailing him ‘the next Warhol.’ Deserved praise? We think so.

Words Almaz Ohene

The fashion industry has long been the subject of much fascination. The recent spate of films charting the rise of designers and the day-to-day workings of fashion publications are set to be huge this summer, revealing what happens behind the scenes at some of the biggest names in fashion.

Fashion is considered to be one of the most glamorous industries there is and often forms the basis of TV shows and films. The Devil Wears Prada was centred around an assistant at a fashion magazine, The Hills’ Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port filmed many scenes as interns at Teen Vogue and fashion PR company People’s Revolution, Ugly Betty is set at the fictitious Mode magazine offices, Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw famously wrote for Vogue and Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic creation Brüno is a fashion designer. That’s without mentioning the numerous books dedicated to the subject matter. Filmmakers have cottoned on to the demand for all things fashion and the next few months are set to see several releases of related films.

Coco avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel) is the French-language biographic tale of the world’s most famous designer, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, played by Audrey Tautou and directed by Anne Fontaine. The film, believed to be loosely based on Edmonde Charles-Roux’s book L’Irrégulière, follows the life of the two Chanel sisters as they work their way up the social ladder from young children dumped at an orphanage to Coco’s first forays into the fashion industry, working as a seamstress by day and a burlesque singer by night, and her ascent to the Paris A-list. There’s also a love interest intertwined in the tale, but as could only be expected from a film about legendary fashion designer, the outfits take centre stage.

The task of putting together Coco’s outfits fell to wardrobe designer Catherine Leterrier, who recreated many of Coco’s early looks as an impoverished young woman. Luckily, Chanel’s creative director Karl Lagerfeld cast a critical eye over Leterrier’s designs and approved her wardrobe choices for Coco, as well as allowing access to the label’s archive so that she could use authentic vintage pieces to complement a scene. This has culminated in a film worth seeing not only for its classic depiction of a rags-to-riches fairytale, but also for the fashion.

Coco Chanel is not the only designer to be hitting the big screen. Barbara Hulanicki is another fashion stalwart whose life is under the microscope in Beyond Biba: A Portrait of Barbara Hulanicki. The film focuses on the turbulent life of the owner of Biba, the fashion label synonymous with the Sixties which closed in 1975 after running into financial difficulties. Though the label relaunched in 2006, it was headed by designer Bella Freud instead of Hulanicki, who has quietly been working on various design projects in recent years, including a successful capsule collection for high street retailer Topshop. The documentary features the notoriously camera-shy Hulanicki herself, speaking candidly about her life. And she’s not the only one. Valentino: The Last Emperor is yet another documentary promising to reveal all about a designer. This time it’s the turn of Italy’s greatest couturier Valentino Garavani, a man so legendary he is known only by his forename.

So why are designers such as Hulanicki, who are usually keen to keep a low profile, deciding to allow the public and media such personal insights into their lives? Karl Lagerfeld recently appeared as himself in the documentary Lagerfeld Confidential, permitting French director Rodolphe Marconi to film him over a two year period for the purposes of the film. No areas were off limits; at Lagerfeld’s home, shopping in New York, photoshoots, his summer house in Biarritz. He spoke openly about controversial topics such as his homosexuality and allowed glimpses into both his world and that of Chanel. Normally, designers prefer to keep the media at arm’s length unless they have a collection to promote, especially those of Lagerfeld’s stature and charisma. So why did he choose to break with tradition and allow a film to be made about his world?

For anyone interested in fashion, the chance to discover what lies beneath Lagerfeld’s trademark sunglasses is an unmissable opportunity. But designers can be shrewd, and a documentary only lets the viewer in as far as the designer will allow. For a secretive personality such as Lagerfeld, who rarely gives anything away, even the most meagre titbits of information will be hungrily devoured by the media and dedicated fashion followers. And a film pending release is sure to drum up publicity for the designer and associated labels. Fashion is a secretive yet highly profitable industry, and documentaries are guaranteed cash-cows. Not that viewers will mind of course, as long as they get to see what happens behind closed doors at a prestigious fashion house and a generous helping of gorgeous clothes on the side.

Sound cynical? Take the forthcoming documentary The September Issue, the film based on the goings-on at US Vogue as the team prepare the September edition of the magazine. The focal character is of course the fearsome editor Anna Wintour, dubbed Nuclear Wintour due to her icy demeanour and silent chastisement of subordinates. Widely believed to be the inspiration behind Miranda Priestley, the fictitious editor of Runway magazine in The Devil Wears Prada, Wintour is credited with making or breaking the career of many a fledgling fashion designer. While you could be forgiven for thinking that the film would consist of 90 minutes of staff incurring her wrath, early reports have suggested that Wintour actually comes across as immensely likeable. But maybe that’s the plan. Wintour is a woman whose reputation precedes her, and when that reputation is as an ice queen, it’s understandable that she would want to change public perceptions.

This is not the first time Anna Wintour has allowed cameras to witness the inner workings of Vogue. CBS’ 60 Minutes with Anna Wintour already showed a more human side to her and sought to dispel the myths of working at the world’s biggest fashion bible. Whether The September Issue will endear viewers to her even further remains to be seen, but with a supporting cast including the Welsh ex-model-turned-Vogue creative director Grace Coddington, who has worked with Wintour for 20 years, and flamboyant editor-in-chief André Leon Talley, who also made a memorable guest appearance on The Hills, there should also be some amusing moments too.

It’s unusual to see so many fashion films released in such a short space of time, especially in cinemas, so fashion fans are in for a treat. It can’t be ignored that they will be a chance to see some extraordinary clothes- and characters.

Coco Before Chanel is released in cinemas on 31^st July

Lagerfeld Confidential is available to buy on DVD now

Valentino: The Last Emperor is released on DVD on 8^th September

The September Issue is released in cinemas 11^th September

Check out our great DVD giveaway for the upcoming release of  The September Issue here.

Words Kay Weston